by Joseph Veca

Created on: June 27, 2008

When It comes to the dangers of trusting our medical care to government bureaucracy, I know what is going to happen with a 99.9% probability, we are going to have the same mess as the VA (Veteran's Administration) medical system is in now, only with something like Universal Health Care (UHC) it will effect all of us.

The VA medical system can be considered a micro version of socialized medicine, and if the government was getting that right, UHC advocates might have an argument for socialized medicine. But to date, the government has screwed the VA system up to the point of no return. If you want an idea about how the VA system is run check out a movie titled "Article 99" staring Kiefer Sutherland, which is about doctors in the VA system and it shows the problems they have to face and how badly the bureaucrats run things in the VA medical system.

The real question any one who supports socialized medicine should be asking themselves is; if the government can't handle medical care a small scale like the VA medical system, just what in the nine billion names of god makes you think they can handle medical care for everybody?

If a program doesn't work, congress critters make it larger, give it more money and raise taxes, and when that fix doesn't works congress critters make it larger, give it more money and raise taxes and when that fix doesn't works congress critters make it larger, give it more and raise taxeshopefully you get the point. Now when you have a long history of this behavioral pattern, it should tell you making any program larger, giving it more money and raising taxes is not the answer.

Medicare also provides a good example. Created in 1965 to make it easier for the elderly to get health care. But by reducing the patient's out-of-pocket costs, it increased the demand for doctor's and hospitals and it reduced the supply of those services by requiring doctors and other medical personnel to use their time and attention to doing paper work and complying with regulationsand looking for way to circumvent these things. So the price of medical care rose sharply as the demand soared and the supply was reduced.

When Medicare was set up in 1965, the projected cost in 1990 to be $3 billion dollars ($12 million when adjusted for 1990 dollars). The actual cost in 1990 for Medicare was $98 billion, eight times as much.

As a result, older Americans now pay from their own pockets over twice as much for health care (after adjusting for inflation), and much harder to get

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