Michael Moore's "Sicko"

[scaeagles]

Firemen respond in the case of an emergency. The biggest issue with health care is that it goes far beyond that emergency. I don't call and schedule an appointment with the local fire department to come check the status of my smoke alarm batteries, plan a fire escape plan for my family, inspect the pool fence, They aren't making sure that I have a fire extinguisher which we are all trained to use.

The police aren't liable for your own personal security. If they don't get there, they don't get there. There was a case I have cited before where a woman had a restraining order on her ex. He kept stalking her, the police would not sit outside her door to make sure it was abided by, and they guy eventually killed her. The family tried to sue the police, but the supreme court ruled that the police are not a private security force. They maintain the peace. They cannot, nor are they required, to stop all crime before it is committed. They can't.

I hope we never view health care as the fire department or the police department.

Because I do care, I realize that profit motive is just as much the mother of invention as is necessity. It would surely be nice if that were not the case, but it is. Until there is a general change in human nature, I'm not thinking taking the profit motive out is a good idea.

The logical course, should there be socialized medicine, is that the market no longer controls how many doctors and of what type there are. There will be shortages because of the exorbitant cost of medical school, meaning that there will be cries for free education for those who would be government doctors. Those doctors will be told what they have to practice. The huge amount of medicare fraud that there already is will expand with the expanding government system, requiring an even larger bureacracy to manage.

The government does not even do well that which it is specifically mandated to do (control the borders among them). I do not care to trust them with the management of my health care.