The Back Door Man
Our specially selected congressman is the primary sponsor for H.R. 6439 which would extend V. A. mental health benefits to family members of veterans receiving non-service connected treatment.
So if Examiner Jr. joins the military and thankfully returns from war without injury, but breaks his leg in a motorcycle accident, he can go to the VA for treatment—that’s the law as it stands now.
But in this hypothetical, even though I have and can afford private health insurance, I could go to the VA and get taxpayer financed counseling/mental health treatment by virtue of being a family member of a former serviceman who was being treated by the VA for a non-combat injury.
I don’t want to hear about how some counseling might do me good. 
The good news is that this bill is in the early stages and has a long way to go until/if it becomes the law of the land. But my larger point is about how politicians back-door “change” the public doesn’t want, but politicians do.
For example, we all know how both Social Security and welfare were expanded way beyond their original mandates—so it will be with government run healthcare, which the public overwhelmingly rejects.
There is a reason why only extreme leftwingers like Dennis Kucinich advocate single-payer government run healthcare—-the public doesn’t want it.
But bills like H.R. 6439 will chip away at the status quo until one day we will wake up and realize the majority of our nation relies on the government for healthcare services, while the rest of us foot the massive bill—and politicians rejoice.
Try to defend the current health care system instead of criticizing a system that does not even exist. If we could get past this all or nothing argument and focus on our current situation we might start making progress. There are serious, serious problems with the current health care system. When McCain says that health care is too expensive he is exactly right, and when Obama calls the system a disease care system he is absolutely right. I guess we can continue with this argument over a system that we do not have, but that will not change the fact that people are denied care based on economics and not medical opinion. We can also talk about the fact that even though most Americans have health care it is incredibly expensive to maintain and guess what – if you do get sick you still pay huge bills, even if you have insurance, and how about a decision to forgo food so medication can be purchased. How do we fix these problems? Until we change the dynamic nothing is going to get better – the bottom line is people are making significant amounts of money when people get sick – that is a real systemic problem. We have this huge bureaucratic middle man that stands right between the doctor and the patient, and he has one goal – make money like any other corporation. Americans are already paying huge, huge amounts of their incomes for health care and medicines – those that are not paying now will lose much of their hard earned retirement funds in the future. If we had any system or government service that cost what we as Americans currently pay for health care the right wing would be foaming at the mouth. You can call government bureaucracies inefficient and many cases you are right, but don’t think for a second that government is the only type of bureaucracy or that they have a market on inefficiency. The current system is flat out broken and works flawlessly for too few people, but any, I mean any, even the smallest idea of reform brings out this fresh round of government run health care or “socialist” rants. Who is leading the charge for this? That guy in the middle making all that money on sick people – me personally, I don’t trust that guy.
Comment by Rob Mellon | July 28, 2008
I’m sorry Rob, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. You seem to be doing what Robbie accuses tiger of doing—forcing positions and opinions on me that I don’t have.
My post was about expanding the current VA system to include more people. I don’t think this back-door style of government health care is the way to go.
You may not trust “the middle man”, but I, and the majority in this country, don’t trust the government to manage healthcare.
Have you noticed the one thing politicians are not talking about is cost control of our current system? Why do you suppose that is? $$$$$ is my guess.
From my own experience during a recent routine procedure, I discovered that the way healthcare is currently structured resembles a giant ponzi scheme—you get passed along the system with the maximum health care workers skimming off their share of the healthcare dollars.
Medical care in this country is almost as inefficient and bloated as the federal government some want to take over.
Lord help us all!
Comment by qcexaminer | July 28, 2008
I think my comments are very clear – while the post does deal with a VA proposal you used that as an opportunity to attack the single payer system that does not exist in the U.S. Since you brought it up I merely thought it would be beneficial to discuss the failures of the current system before we discuss the type of system in Canada. I have real problems with the current system. My uncle just died of cancer this week at age 50 – my aunt now will spend the next ten years or more of her life trying to deal with the financial issues she will face with medical bills for procedures that did not work. Guess what he had insurance – the system is flat out not working for the majority of Americans.
Comment by Rob Mellon | July 28, 2008
Sorry to hear about your uncle, and considering the information you gave, it’s certainly understandable why you would not be feeling positive about our current system.
Comment by qcexaminer | July 28, 2008