HIGHLAND, UT | 7 July 2008| Health care continues to be a big item in this year’s election campaigns and politics as the push toward a nationalized health care systems receives more and more pressure. Today, New York Times reporter, Robert Pear, tells the story of how the recent cuts in medicare allowances have prompted many doctors throughout the nation to shut their doors to older patients; so the American Medical Association (AMA) has reportedly created a campaign aimed at U.S. Senators to sway them to undo the cuts that went into effect last week.

Most people view entitlement benefits from the patient’s perspective. Very few, perhaps, view the angle of the doctors. With those benefits coming down, the doctors receive less profits which makes treating older Americans less attractive. Several Prosperity Principles come into play as one considers this situation throughout the country.

Key Points

• With the current cuts, doctors no longer see the profit center they once saw, but this is fallacy. What they thought of as profit was actually government subsidies that gave doctors a false sense of validation. The unintended result was two-fold. First, doctors became addicted to a fiat source of revenue. Whether they knew it or not this source would ultimately dry up. Second, this drove prices higher as the medical field recognized the government would pay any amount to guarantee health care to the older generations of our country (a right that does not exist). These two unintended consequences tend to feed off each other until the revenue source becomes overburdened and ceases to supply the profits. This results in lazy doctors who have no idea how to work for true profits.
• This is the economic side. The moral side, the side carrying the most important equations reveal that even if the government just continues to print more currency it results in stealing property from Americans and cankers the souls of all those involved. This behavior gives false prosperity to doctors who don’t use their minds to create value for their customers. It creates a sense of entitlement in their customers who falsely believe it is a God-given right to live healthy lives. Those in government usurp more and more power over the citizens. And the common citizen’s resentment grows as his prosperity mysteriously slips through his fingers in ways he cannot account for.

Conclusion

Medicare alone will not cause the moral and economic demise of this nation, but it is a piece of the puzzle that robs each individual of that moral and economic prosperity. As Jay Perry so aptly expressed:

A careful analysis of U.S. history reveals that virtually every serious problem now confronting American society can be traced to a departure from the sound principles taught by these great statesmen.

The unstated solution is only a return to those ideas will solve those problems. Though difficult and painful, scaling back and eventually completely discontinuing such entitlement programs as medicare is the only solution to bringing this country back to a principled lifestyle of prosperity.

Action Items

1. Study the Founders—what did they believe about government dole?
2. Seek to regulate your own actions according to the Founders’ ideas, whether you are a consumer of products (i.e. a patient) or a producer (such as a doctor).
3. Take responsibility for your own life by living according to self-reliant principles.

MRFC Principles: (3, 4, 6, 9)

Sources

Robert Pear, Doctors Press Senate to Undo Medicare Cuts, New York Times, July 7, 2008.

Jay Perry, The Real George Washington, NCCS, p. xv.