The best hospitals and the best doctors are not in Russia, England or any country which has socialized medicine. People who need difficult operations don’t go to Europe or Asia; they come to the United States. Private U.S. hospitals and doctors have perfected most recent medical discoveries such as open heart surgery and kidney transplants. The United States has more doctors and hospitals per capita than any major Western country.
President Lyndon Johnson’s Advisory Commission on Health Manpower stated that 98 percent of our population lives within 25 miles of a hospital, and only one percent has to travel more than 50 miles.
Nine out of ten Americans under age 65 have private health insurance. Everyone over 65 is covered by Medicare, and the indigent are covered by Medicaid. For the sake of the tiny fraction of our citizens not already covered by private health insurance. Senator Edward Kennedy and his Health Plan proponents want us to pay $40 billion of additional taxes so the Washington politicians can control everyone’s health care.
The Post Office is a good lesson in what happens when the Federal Government runs a business. Every year, postage costs go up and mail service goes down. Our recent experience with price control gave us another good lesson in Government mismanagement. It didn’t stop inflation, but it did create shortages.
The United States has the best health care in the world, more nearly universally available, and the most reasonably priced. People in other countries who get so-called “free” medical care pay for it in other ways. The Swedish tax rate is nearly 50 percent. In England, not one new hospital was built between 1949 when socialized medicine started there and 1965. The UN figures on the causes of death show that both Sweden and England rank poorly compared with the United States.
There is no evidence that the public is demanding enactment of a national health insurance program. This is why Senator Kennedy has retreated from his original bill to try to work out some sort of a compromise with the Nixon measure. Even the Nixon proposal, however, will cost at least #5.9 billion in new Federal funds, and Caspar Weinberger admitted that his estimates “could significantly underestimate the ultimate costs.”
A recent Lou Harris poll showed that concern for medical care rated 15th on the priority list, while inflation ranked first. This poses the question asked by Russell Roth, president of the American Medical Association: “Does the public really, genuinely, want Congress to aggravate its principal concern — inflation — in order to treat the 15th ranking problem — health?”
If you want to pay higher taxes for poor medical care, and let some Washington bureaucrat select your doctor, inspect your medical and psychiatric records, and decide whether or not you can go to the hospital, then support national health insurance. If you don’t, then be sure to tell your Congressman to vote NO.
