Just three weeks or so ago, I removed my mother from the “public option” in Canada and rented a motor-home to bring her to the US for proper care… (read that as “care directed toward and presuming survival instead of rapid demise!”)Let me share our story as briefly as I can.
Late last year my mother, who lives in Canada, was diagnosed with a heart problem… atrial fibrillation. As best I can understand it, that’s a valve problem that causes turbulence near the heart and causes the blood to pool and clot. Instead of prescribing a blood thinner, which I understand is common practice here… the doctor suggested she “take a baby aspirin” everyday… and that was supposed to take care of the issue. In February my mom had a TIA. With the TIA it’s common for the stroke symptoms to subside within 24 hours… which hers did. Because they subsided her doctor did… NOTHING!
Now anybody who knows these patterns knows that the TIA is a precursor to a full blown stroke.
At minimum she should have been given a blood thinner at that time… but she is 76… and after all meds are expensive and she was just “sucking pension funds out of the public coffers.” Bottom line… it isn’t the policy of the Canadian Single-Payer Healthcare system to do much at all for citizens over 65, let alone 70.
So she continued on her baby aspirin knowing that the big stroke was coming… it was just a matter of time. She drafted a document, and asked myself and my siblings to sign it, stating that if either parent were incapacitated, to the point where their care would be hard for the other parent, we agreed to do all in our power to encourage the well parent to institutionalize the incapacitated parent.
She knew that she was facing a certain stroke… or worse…. and that she would get little or no remedial care from her Government-run Healthcare. they would, however, provide nursing-home care until she died.
On Sunday, June 28 she was feeling particularly ill. her heart was racing and her blood pressure was very low… classic atrial fibrillation symptoms… I talked to my folks and they said they were concerned but that they were monitoring the situation. They’d been to Urgent Care and they’d been told that her heart rate was high and her BP low… they knew that already! I told my dad to get her to the ER immediately, that either a stroke or heart attack were imminent. He said they’d been to the ER and they’d finally given her a blood thinner (8 months too late!) but she was too nauseated to keep it down.
The stroke had already started… the nausea was a symptom. I suggested strongly that she go to the ER… STAT! My dad agreed and left immediately to get her there. As they pulled up to the ER door my father said “I’ll drop you off and park the car.” No sooner had he said that than she slumped over toward him in the car.
He asked if she was alright and she said she was, but she couldn’t move to open the door or get out. The stroke had hit! They did a round of TPA to break up the clots, but otherwise no medication, no therapy, and no pain meds, even though her back pain was severe. She’d always managed her back pain, as many of us who are older do, with exercise. Since she couldn’t walk, she just had to lay there and take it.
One of the nurses asked my sister who was caring for mom before she came into the ER. My sister said that she’d lived at home with my dad. The nurse seemed credulous… “at her age?” Julie replied that if she’d gotten to ER 20 minutes earlier she would have walked in on her own. The nurse asked my sister where mom’s false teeth were… Julie said she didn’t have any… “Oh, she left them at home?” “No” Julie replied, “She has her own teeth.” “I don’t think so,” said the nurse… “Not at her age!”
The sense we got from everyone on those first few days was that they expected her to pass on quickly and “of course we don’t want any heroic measures…”
I know that’s a long tale but I told it all to give you a flavor of what health-care will be like with a single-payer government system.
I think we’re at a real crossroads in American history… a “tipping point” if you will…
We have to decide if the citizens are going to live FOR THE GOVERNMENT or if the government will exist to promote the well-being and interests of the citizens.
I’ve seen some of the more socialized systems… they’re survivable… but they have stripped the people of any real hope or incentive to be the best at what they do… or even to do what they do to the best of their current ability.
Socialism inserts a strange “third party” into the consciousness. It’s not just the individual functioning as best they can in the world… There’s a kind of Santa Claus entity that “knows what’s best for you,” rules your life, and uses your money to provide for yourself and others at whatever level it deems best. It assumes the role of both God-like wisdom as to what your needs are. and complete feudal lordship over all that you own and produce.
That’s the kind of tyranny that this countries founders fought a revolution and risked their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor” to defeat. We would do well to realize that the strange entity is not our friend if it’s not our servant.
On a recent trip to Ireland my friend sat in a small local pub and talked to the townsfolk gathered there. they asked him why America hadn’t help the psunami victims. He replied that we had sent millions to help… we’d done bike-a-thons and fund drives… done all kinds of things to get money to send over.
They said “But your government didn’t help…”
“And then,” he said “it dawned on me… Their government isn’t the people… it’s another entity that in some sense owns as well as represents them.”
As I watch what is happening here daily… the struggle for more federal control of all aspects of our lives… I wonder what it will take to rid ourselves of the mounting tyranny if it’s allowed to run its course.
I was a political liberal in my 20s… Until I worked a summer and fall in the projects of Benton Harbor, Michigan. I saw first-hand how degrading and dangerous the lack of incentive can be. I saw how wasteful of tremendous human potential it is to make the dignity of work unnecessary. I saw that people don’t care for, or take pride in, what they don’t earn… and how they devalue themselves for giving up that dignity and self-determination.
It changed me and my political philosophy forever.
We do need to provide lavish short-term life saving intervention in situations of dire need. But we must never provide it so lavishly, or for so long that the incentive to strive, to live out ones own life adventure and serve others is replaced by indolence, entitlement, self-pity and apathy.
“Short term life-saving care… long-term dignity producing work and trade… I think most smart people can hold those two thoughts in their brain at one time!” – Bill Hybels
We do need to protect our environment from needless abuse and waste… we don’t need to worship it as though it created us.
We need our government to provide extravagantly for the national defense… and equitably for her national defenders.
We need to hold our elected officials to account for their use of any funds on our behalf… especially funds we haven’t even earned yet.
We need to say loudly and clearly to and through our representatives that we don’t want the government owning banks, manufacturing facilities, hospitals, insurance companies or any other businesses that compete with unfair advantage and on uneven ground with the businesses we own.
We need to be in charge of our own lives… and deaths… within the confines of morality and the laws of the land. Not to have rationed heath-care and have it delivered in an “economy” where the government is incentivized TOWARD our death! THAT IS AN UNEXCUSABLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST!
We need to look for and rally around articulate, intelligent and thoughtful leaders who understand what hand-outs and special interest policies do to a nation and it’s people over time… and who abhor that path. The current political junta knows the outcome… they just embrace it toward their own ends!
This is not an easy road I’m proposing… the path will be strewn with boulders of legislation and social programs gone awry… but it is a road toward renewed prosperity, dignity and productivity.
Our founding fathers had seen first hand how increasing taxation was tyrannical… How it spins out of control starting on the first day of its enaction… and empowers and accelerates corruption until the only thing that can reign it in is revolution.
Let’s stand up and use our voices and our votes to attempt the required changes… let’s renew and re-envigorate the political process and force it to serve the people… all the people… again! And most of all let’s pray for God’s wisdom… protection and mercy as we attempt to bring freedom… once again… into favor in this still great country!
