“I’m in favor of covering everyone, but the way to do that is expand the number of doctors and the number of nurses. Expand the supply before you expand the demand.” — Dick Morris, former advisor to President Bill Clinton
Now there’s a novel idea. While I don’t agree that government should assume responsibility for covering everyone, it raises a valid point. Politicians do Americans no favors by slashing reimbursement to doctors and nurses, restraining and restricting them more than ever, and in the process shrinking the number of doctors and nurses available to patients by making their professional conditions next to impossible. It’s magical thinking to assume that a legislator’s pen can simply wish into existence the best health care imaginable for everyone — with no negative consequences to doctors, nurses and patients themselves, generated by the coercion and restraint involved. It’s disturbing, to say the least, to see our elected leaders, including the top man, say over and over again that to even imply otherwise is to be spreading a myth. Under this presidency, dissension and disagreement have become tantamount to lying. This means that anyone who dares ask a reasonable question about the efficacy and practicality — to say nothing of the morality — of “universal health care” is, by definition, a spreader of myths and lies. I suppose the next step, when this is all over, will be to press legal charges against those who disagree. Fraud and lies are against the law, right? Note that these are the assumptions of psychological abusers. “My way or the highway” — and if you disagree, there’s a fist in your face.