The Big White Lie

My reactions to the Senate and House health care bills currently being considered leave me feeling queasy.

Interesting that on CNN’s website the other day, Christmas Eve I think, the Health Care Bill story was listed under “Business” and not “Health.” I find this rather telling. We are not really talking about “nationwide care of health as healing” as much as “nationwide health care as business.”

The problem is not how to keep people well. That would be more easily solved. The problem is how to keep the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, all their lobbyists and other assorted agents, and of course doctors & related companies from having to reduce their incomes. This is the business side of it.

The bottom line is not “How can I supply you with good service,” but “How can I supply you with good service and make you pay for it?”

There is no use in pretending it isn’t so. This is the basic premise of any business. Providing a product / service for a price. A restaurant strives to give full, friendly service along with good food. Naturally.

The opening line of any store employee, “May I help you?” intrinsically means “May I sell you something,” and unconsciously everyone knows this, but in our modern culture white lies are completely acceptable. Everyone lies sometimes. Even TV commercials.

But this health care bill will prove to be a Big White Lie, and I’m not so sure about the color.

This may well be a good plan for those who need remedial surgery or long term hospital care, but the line gets blurry after that point. The biggest losers are women who might need an abortion, and those who are not interested in allopathic medicine.

The whole medical-industrial complex relies on one philosophy: that if you are sick you will pay any amount of money to get well. As long as you live by that rule, you are susceptible to believe what you are told by various authority figures and supportive press and statistics.

If you are a person of independent mind who does your own research and has found your own source of health care outside the established norm, then that is well and good for you. Congratulations. However, if this bill passes, you will still be required to pay for it. Whether you want it or not. Whether you need it or not. If you do not pay up, you will be taxed for it by the IRS. In time, if you attempt to evade yearly, you may well be imprisoned for it eventually. At the very least you will be taxed all the more. Just like the seat belt fines for infringement.

The government is saying that doctors and drugs are the only authorities and you have to pay for them. No choice. Do you believe this? Think I’m telling a big white lie?

This is not freedom, and we need to understand this. I understand that seat belts save lives. It is a good idea to wear one, but I still don’t like being told by government that I have to wear a seat belt when I see motorcycle drivers on the road, completely exempted. It is a good, practical idea, but an unjust law.

So it is with health care. The Senate bill is a 2000 page white lie, a disclaimer designed to keep the public from suing anyone in the medical industry. It is also designed to ensure that you get all the prescription drugs and expensive medical procedures the industry can provide. That is where they make their money now, and where they will continue to make money.

Before we can have a national health care law, we need to be clearer on what constitutes real health care.

The medical-industrial complex is real clear on that.