July 02, 2009
Bottled Health Care
(Columbus, Ohio) One might liken government-run health care to bottled health care where lower-level bureaucrats, I'll call Smiths, control the cork. Smiths will decide when to cork the health care bottle, when to remove the cork and when to use the cork to throttle the flow of health care.
As an example, the city government Smiths decided to cork the health care bottle in Columbus for a full work-week. Everything is shut down. Go home.
Of course, there will be times when the Smiths throttle health care services due to limited resources. Typically, this is done by suspending certain medical functions and procedures for a defined period. Meanwhile, the public waits -- and waits.
Sadly, though, restricting health services and causing the public to wait has a significant downside. In Canada, while telling the patients to wait, the health care system also apologizes for their deaths - in the same computer-generated letter. At least the Canadian health care bureaucrats are efficient -- covering two equally-likely sets of circumstances with one piece of paper.
Fortunately, the Canadians have an alternative other than wait or die. They can travel to the United States for treatment. For now, that is.
By Mike Pechar at July 2, 2009 12:32 PM | | l digg this
