Friday, January 13, 2017

A Congratulations on Grilling Ezekiel Emmanuel

A Silicon Valley physician emails as a follow up to my post, VIDEO Robert Wenzel vs. Ezekiel Emanuel on Obamacare:
I would like to congratulate Bob on grilling Ezekiel Emmanuel yesterday.

I heard EE once when he was giving a "lecture" at Stanford and I was dismayed by the depravity of this guys beliefs and his certainty in them. Very few people truly scare me and this guy is probably at the top of the list. I view him as a quiet assassin trying to kill us all albeit slowly and painfully, by tinkering with our most essential needs, health and medicine.

One point I would have liked someone to challenge this guy with, is that a totally free market, out of pocket healthcare system works in places like India, and it works quite well. Even illiterate peasant farmers from remote villages in India are able to chose the best PRIVATE medical care they need and make intelligent decisions about who to get it from, based on their affordability and how essential it is. They ask other doctors, verify other patient's experiences with a given doctor or hospital, and make decisions all the time. Sure some people make mistakes sometimes, but where is this guys data that millions of people will die on the streets without his bureaucratic abomination called Obamacare?

1 comment:

  1. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a piece by their Editor this week. Naturally they advocated that health care is a right. I tried to submit a reply but they make it so complicated for someone not in their academic circle jerk, that I finally gave up.

         Dr. Bauchner advocates making health care a "right".  There are several problems with this idea.
         In order to explore this, one must first define what is a "right".  Just as Medicare and Medicaid are commonly mislabeled "Health Insurance", the definition of a "right" is often misrepresented or ignored completely for the purpose of obfuscation.  A "right", properly defined, is a freedom of action.  It does not require an action to achieve it, it is the action itself.  For example:  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Those rights do not guarantee that you will receive happiness, be given it, or that it can be taken from someone else and distributed to those that others deem deserve it.  Only that you can pursue it.  If your "right" requires that something of value must be taken from one and given to another, by force rather than persuasion, than that is no right, simply a window dressing of theft and plunder.
         Hence there is no valid discussion of whether or not health care can be a "right" ,  as the provision of such can only be achieved by the division of limited resources by a collectivist authority.  An authority which must have the power to compel cooperation in the form of coercive means.  Witness the "mandate" in the ACA.  And as the failures of the ACA are exposed, what are some of the proposed solutions?  A bigger penalty for non-compliance is promoted frequently.  Will there be a point where you go to jail for not participating?  It is always interesting that those promoting health care as a right, need to use force to bring it about.  If the concept was so good, one has to wonder why every citizen would not simply participate voluntarily.
         Thus the concept of health care as a "right" cannot exist on legitimate moral or ethical grounds.  If such a policy is instituted it will only lead to a further degeneration of our already chaotic system, further bureaucratic control, and more corruption and crony capitalism.
         The proper way to institute health care reform is to promote voluntary, non-coercive solutions to the problem.  As long as the Central Government does not control health care in the form of taxation, regulation, compliance, and coercion, health care will never be a privilege as Dr. Bauchner implies that it is currently.  It will be a commodity available for all to pursue as they wish.
         I, for one, am a physician who will not speak within a single voice to say that health care is a "right" for everyone.   I will advocate for freedom, liberty and the right for everyone to pursue the health care that they desire, facilitated by voluntary interactions between patients and their Drs..

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