LW wrote a recent article on a woman who is suing a doctor because he refused to impregnate her because she was not married. Or, that's his story. The woman's story is because she's a lesbian, and many liberals across the country have taken up the cause, comparing the "right" of this woman to get pregnant BY THIS SPECIFIC DOCTOR to a century's worth of Jim Crow and three centuries worth of slavery before that! The problem is, this is in the awake of their defense of the movie "Sicko" and demand for universal health care.
See, their justification for universal health care is that health care costs have risen beyond the reach of the average American wage earner. Gone are the days when you can pay your doctor bill with a couple chickens and a bucket of Daisy's finest milk. Now health care is expensive, and everyone's clamoring to find out why.
Insurance companies are part of the reason. But there's more.
In our continued discussion, one individual points to the lack of funding for stem cell research and claims it to be an embarrassment. The idea is that not only does funding need to be provided for medical research, it must be GOVERNMENT funding or it is no good.
If the research agencies were working to cure cancer, I would come closer to buying that. But our research companies have spent TRILLIONS on "vanity drugs". Drugs to increase sexual potency, drugs for male pattern baldness, drugs for acne, an aesthetically embarrassing but non life threatening affliction. Basically, drugs not only to prevent death and prolong life, but to enhance a perceived "quality of life" that operates on the assumption that life can only be quality if one is virile, has a head full of hair, and looks 20 years younger. I'll bet Senator Kerry's BOTOX bill alone could pay the research for a couple months. Bob Dole doesn't need a boner, and probably could have hired a French Whore for less than he would have had to pay for viagra (although his viagra's probably "on the house").
The other issue that liberals refuse to acknowledge is frivolous lawsuits. They tend to discard them thinking as long as people don't win there's no real cost. But even when litigants LOSE, there is still a cost increase. Because the lawyers still have to be paid. But the continued lawsuits affect health care costs in many ways. First, through the real cost of the suit. Second through the cost of attrition: doctors who surrender their practice to an early retirement in Cabo sipping cocktails on the beach with a cabana boy named Lupe to fetch their every need; or who go to third world countries where the relief of being left alive after surgery will leave the family grateful enough not to sue over stupid stuff. Third through the decreased supply to meet the demand. Doctors up their prices, refuse to take certain insurance and as a result many people get left without care. I think a REAL issue is the fact that many poor families in rural areas need to travel 45-60 miles because no doctor in their community will take on new patients. But we'd rather be concerned about some lesbian's childbearing rights.
Yes, the cost of health care is rising significantly faster than inflation. Yes there are concerns with the industry in this nation that need to be addressed. But the source of the problem is NOT the "big bad corporations". It is the liberals who sue good doctors out of practice and who defend the rights of an extremely tiny minority at the expense of those who really need help.