Non-Trad discusses why so many fear government-run health care
Trina Morgan
Issue date: 2/1/10 Section: Opinion
Nicholas J. Gonzalez, a physician from New York, wrote an article opposing the health care legislation currently under debate. Though I found his opinions quite extreme, he made some very interesting points.
Dr. Gonzales berates President Obama for expecting the American people to believe that the government knows what is best for us. He takes apart both political parties for jumping on the bandwagon of "healthcare reform," and cites the collapse of healthcare in the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nazi Germany as examples that we should have learned from by now.
"It is tragic, at least to me," says Gonzalez on his website, Dr-gonzalez.com, "to witness our President and the Democratic leadership in Congress foist a government controlled health care program on us without nary a second thought, as if history didn't exist, as if the failed government-run health care programs around the world never happened. These failures did happen, they did and still do exist, and we need to learn from them."
He says that if passed, the healthcare reform now proposed will open the door for "draconian" measures to be taken by panels of experts who will decide every therapy for every patient in every situation, regardless of what the patient's doctor-or the patient for that matter- believes. He states that this healthcare plan will be based on what is best for the "collective" and not what is best for the individual. He says that under the proposed plan physicians would no longer work for their own business, but for the state. Those individuals who take responsibility for their own health by choosing a healthy lifestyle will, in a "single payer" system, be paying for the healthcare of those who do not.
He tells us in his article that treatment for lung cancer, though mostly ineffective, can cost upwards of a million dollars.
"If we all had to pay for our own health care directly, and not indirectly through third parties of whatever ilk, government or private, we would inevitably think twice about our life decisions, and we would be the healthier for it. After witnessing a few families going bankrupt paying for pretty much useless lung cancer treatment, many of us might think twice about lighting up . . .The fallacy persists," says Dr. Gonzales, "in the liberal-socialist- Marxist mind that sick people are helpless 'victims,' in need of the all powerful State, which parent-like, will be there to take care of you, whatever the problem and regardless of previous self-destructive behavior."
Dr. Gonzales berates President Obama for expecting the American people to believe that the government knows what is best for us. He takes apart both political parties for jumping on the bandwagon of "healthcare reform," and cites the collapse of healthcare in the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nazi Germany as examples that we should have learned from by now.
"It is tragic, at least to me," says Gonzalez on his website, Dr-gonzalez.com, "to witness our President and the Democratic leadership in Congress foist a government controlled health care program on us without nary a second thought, as if history didn't exist, as if the failed government-run health care programs around the world never happened. These failures did happen, they did and still do exist, and we need to learn from them."
He says that if passed, the healthcare reform now proposed will open the door for "draconian" measures to be taken by panels of experts who will decide every therapy for every patient in every situation, regardless of what the patient's doctor-or the patient for that matter- believes. He states that this healthcare plan will be based on what is best for the "collective" and not what is best for the individual. He says that under the proposed plan physicians would no longer work for their own business, but for the state. Those individuals who take responsibility for their own health by choosing a healthy lifestyle will, in a "single payer" system, be paying for the healthcare of those who do not.
He tells us in his article that treatment for lung cancer, though mostly ineffective, can cost upwards of a million dollars.
"If we all had to pay for our own health care directly, and not indirectly through third parties of whatever ilk, government or private, we would inevitably think twice about our life decisions, and we would be the healthier for it. After witnessing a few families going bankrupt paying for pretty much useless lung cancer treatment, many of us might think twice about lighting up . . .The fallacy persists," says Dr. Gonzales, "in the liberal-socialist- Marxist mind that sick people are helpless 'victims,' in need of the all powerful State, which parent-like, will be there to take care of you, whatever the problem and regardless of previous self-destructive behavior."
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