A Nonpartisan Focus on United States Politics: 11/01/2007

I watched "Sicko" the other night from Michael Moore.

Let me start off with this - I think I am very open minded, but conservative at the same time. I am registered (R)etard? Hell what does conservative or liberal mean anymore? I completely against the current administration and their tactics.

Having said that, let me get down to it; Michael Moore makes some fascinating points about the state of healthcare in the United States, however one sided it may be. There is no question in my mind, that money would be better spent on healthcare than for this war.

However, that does not mean I agree at all with this concept of socialized medicine.

There are some fascinating points that support both sides, let me quickly summarize them in one sentence: The goverment can take your money and redistribute it to pay for "Healthcare for everyone" or they can let you keep your money to pay for it yourself.

Sure it looks all fine and dandy when Mr. Moore boats on over to Cuba and the sickly American hero's from 9/11 get the care they couldn't afford here. The premise of the movie is that all of these other "less fortunate, less rich" countries can pay for universal healthcare, so why can't we? It is a good question, and tugs at your heart to spare poor people the opportunity they wouldn't have otherwise. To me, it doesn't matter if the government manages it or we do, the system is messed up- and we will pay for it one way or another.

The real problem with America's healthcare system (or lack there of)is not with weather or not the government should get involved in our personal lives and pocketbooks once again to manage something for us we could on our own, rather with HMO's.

That is not to say that poor people don't need help, but to say you can take someone's money and give it to someone else is stealing. I am not rich by any means, and I have a few kids to care for myself. But I will never be a proponent of redistributing wealth, it is stealing. The fact is, if the governemnt quit it's nanny state tactics, people may learn to take care of themselves and their fellow neighbors. The majority of help for poor already comes from Private organizations and charities, I believe this would better help those poor folks and innocent children.

Let me re-focus, get back to the root of the American heathcare debacle. Allow me to give you an analogy on HMO's, the real problem with our healthcare system; In the past few years there has been a boom of "recruiters" in the job market. Instead of people going out and doing their own research and finding jobs, they have began to rely on recruiters. The information, for the most part, that recruiters use is already free and accessible to the general public. However, the general public is too damn lazy to look for themselves, and so they pay a fee to the recruiter, in the form of a referral fee paid by the hiring company. Yep, people are so damn lazy they have other peopl now "manage" their job search. Well, this is exactly what an HMO is, a flippin middleman, that adds little value but takes a bunch of money. They are profit driven companies that are doing some sort of service that we don't need. It used to be, when our grandparents we're growing up, there was no such things as an HMO, and yep - you guessed it - healthcare was much less costly. Why is it so much more costly? Well there are few things besides the "administartion costs" that cause this. Namely, requirements on doctors to perform unnecessary test to prevent lawsuit. Not to mention, there is no shopping for service at all. Patients go to any doctor, not knowing what they charge and the HMO simply absorbs this cost and passes it on to us. We, the general public, have become entirely too complacent with allowing other people to manage our lives.

When will "We the people" decide to step up and take care of oursleves, our families, and the poor. I surely don't need the government to take my money to give to charity, I can damn well do that on mine own. Not to mention, I can give to whom I think is the best organization, and decide - not the Federal governemnt - that works and lives hundreds and miles away what is the best way to spend my charitable monies for my community.When people start taking responsiblity for themselves, and stop the government from running everything, we will be much better off.

/End rant