Dear Editor:
This paper runs the Cal Thomas column. He has been on a jihad against Obamacare. His certainty is the enemy of truth. The article that first caught my attention was called "Final Warnings ..." It was a combination of death panel stories and endless waiting lines.
The basic problem is Thomas is just clowning around with his comparison of the British National Health Service and Obamacare. There is no comparison because Obamacare is a market-based health approach. You want American socialized medicine you go to a Veterans Hospital as I do sometimes. The government owns those hospitals, hires the doctors and pays for the services out of government funds.
Thomas can cite all the horror stories he wants from mostly British news services owned by Rupert Murdoch and others, but Britain ranks far ahead of the U.S. on international scales of quality. The World Health Organization lists Britain as 18 in quality of health services and the United States places number 38.
hat's a far cry from first which our politicians proclaim. The only first we can claim is cost of health care. We pay far more.
The U.S. is listed as a member by the Organization of Economic and Cooperative Development. They do studies on many things but in health care they also clearly show we are number one in cost.
In Britain, the cost to citizens is less than half of what U.S. costs are to us. In the U.S. we pay insurance companies for healthcare and in Britain they pay taxes.
After telling horror stories about Britain, Thomas goes on to imagine what will happen in the future if Obamacare morphs into European-style socialized medicine. You must understand that subtle point. It's not socialized medicine now but what if.
Obamacare implemented could help the U.S. rise on that scale of international quality. One of the reasons we rank low is for non-delivery of services. Under our capitalistic model, if you cannot pay you are denied services.
Sure, you and I pay through our insurance for the poor to receive emergency care. Obamacare allows millions of citizens to receive routine medical care who otherwise are left out. That strengthens our health care system.
Doctors continue working as before, you and I use our current insurance policies and millions may be assisted by government subsidized private insurance policies. Thomas and Chicken Little conservatives mistakenly call this socialism.
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