Dear Friend,
It is now clear that Congress and the
president’s top priority for 2009 is health care
reform. Since the collapse of Hillary-Care
in 1994, Democrats have been working to re-plan
and re-package a government takeover of your
health insurance.
This year, they’re hoping to get their
chance. Last month, Senator Ted Kennedy
offered a glimpse of what they have in mind when
called for the creation an optional, “public
health insurance plan, where coverage is
provided in the public
interest.”
That may sound nice, but in one sentence, it
describes everything that is wrong with a
government take-over of American health
care.
Health care, by definition, can’t be
provided in the public
interest because no doctor has ever seen “the
public.” Doctors see patients:
one at a time, providing personal
care in the patient’s interest
only.
Now, if you listen to the ongoing debate about
health care reform, you hear a common theme,
especially from those who favor a government
take-over.
They talk a
lot more about costs than they do about
care. Only here’s the thing: the
government is the
reason that costs are spiraling out
of control now. Government now covers 100
million Americans, and costs are
exploding. Under the proposed takeover,
130 million more will
be added to government health programs.
How can they expect to get costs under control
by doubling the government’s role in health
care?
The answer
is by rationing care. If government wants
to cover 230 million Americans and bring
down costs, the only way it can possibly do it
is denying care to people whose health care is
deemed – you guessed it – not in the public
interest.
Under
similar schemes in Canada and Great Britain,
people wait weeks to see their doctors, months
to see specialists, and years to get routine
procedures and treatments. High-tech tests
and breakthrough medicines are off-limits
because the government decides – in the public
interest – that they are too
expensive.
When the late actress Natasha Richardson
suffered her skiing accident in Canada this
spring, the hospital didn’t have an MRI
machine. The doctors never knew her
injuries were life-threatening… until it was too
late.
That’s how
a government take-over of your health care will
try to get costs under control: cheap, outdated
treatments, long waiting lists, and low-tech
hospitals. It won’t take long before
families realize the true
costs of
such a plan aren’t counted in dollars and
sense.
Instead of
the government-controlled “public option,” we
should move toward a “personal option,” where we
help individuals and families buy and
own their own health insurance
plan that no government can ever take-over or
take away.
Health care
is personal and private. It should be
administered by doctors and nurses
in
their
patient’s
interest, not the interests
of politicians and bureaucrats in
Washington.
Because
never forget: any law that empowers government
to provide
health care in the public
interest implicitly empowers government to
deny it
for the same reason.
I plan to
play a big part in the health care debate this
summer, and my website will be a clearinghouse
for information about the issue as it
develops. Feel free to check in often, as
new content will be added every week. And
to help you stay informed, I’ll be in touch
frequently as the health care and other debates
move forward.
Thanks very
much, and God bless.
Jim DeMint
U.S. Senator,
South
Carolina
