Hospital Woes Part of a Larger Problem in the United States
To the Editor:
Russ Friemel (in his guest column the past two weeks in the Record about the closure of the hospital) gave Record readers a great review of how bad government can screw up the efficiency of open markets and in turn make our lives miserable. While Mr. Friemel didn’t mention free markets in his extensively detailed letter, he made clear how excruciatingly dumb government attempts to replace markets can be, and why government should focus its regulatory muscle on keeping markets really free and honest. Had this been the case, instead of Medicare, Medicaid and any other Medi-insane attempts to buy votes with hand-outs, Fayette County would still have a hospital and best possible health care services abundantly available at real costs.
By taking over the pricing of health care services, government destroyed health care service providers’ ability to adapt to real market conditions and created fertile opportunities for many to get rich by scamming the system while leaving us with no voice at all, and no choice at all, in our health care — other than taking this garbaged overpriced bag of services or leave it all together. And many are choosing to do the latter, believing it’s better than risking becoming ground up in one size fits all health care.
If government is concerned with wealth redistribution to give the less wealthy free services or goods, they should do so only in ways that allow them to be available through free markets able to adapt to changing economies and technologies.
Health care is only one of many parts of our lives that has been screwed up by ham handed government trying to buy votes. If voters don’t stay alert and vote for those who at minimum voice their support for adaptable free market solutions and better government of the things government ought to do, like protecting the nation from assaults on our economy and our culture, and from invasion by way of boundless unfettered immigration, we may lose the ability to vote for anything other than what government puts in front of us.
A good first step would be for us to stop voting for personalities and start picking people to represent our real interests who by way of prior decisions in their pre-government lives show they know how to solve real problems and get great results. Elections are not beauty contests. Beautiful people, yes even beautiful con-artists, can be corrupt and quite stupid in solving problems.
Making mistakes is part of it too, because we all do. It’s those who show they can learn from them and excel that we ought to vote for. If our parents had done a better job of it nationally, Fayette County would still have a hospital.