There Already Is A Government Health Care System In America And It Is The Medical Version Of Hell

by Michael Snyder

What would happen if the entire health care system in the United States was run by the federal government?? Would such a system be better or worse than what we have today?? To get an answer to these questions, all we have to do is take a look at what is already happening.? The truth is that there already is a government health care system in America and it is the medical version of hell.? You are about to read about the horrifying state of health care being provided by the federal government at VA hospitals and on Indian reservations around the country.? Injured military veterans and those that live on Indian reservations are some of the most vulnerable members of our society, and the government is doing an absolutely nightmarish job of taking care of them.

Theoretically, the government should be able to provide at least a basic level of care for these people, but as you will see this is simply not happening.

Why?

The bottom line is that the federal government is completely and utterly incompetent.? This has been demonstrated once again in recent months by the launch of Obamacare.? What a train wreck that has been.

But we shouldn?t be surprised.? When it comes to health care, the U.S. government can?t seem to get anything right.

Most Americans don?t realize this, but government-run health care for our military veterans is a complete and total joke.? In some instances, it can take critically injured military veterans?more than a year to see a doctor?

CJ Jackson, a Purple Heart recipient and 101st Airborne medic, was severely wounded during a battle in Afghanistan when an enemy rocket-propelled grenade hit a wall a couple of feet from him, sending debris into his arm and leg. He said he waited over a year to see a doctor at the Jackson VA despite being considered critically injured.

And once a vet is finally able to see a doctor and have surgery scheduled, those surgeries are often conducted in facilities that are beyond disgusting.? The following is what one orthopedic surgeon recently told CNBC?

?Occasionally we?d find pieces of bone? on equipment, he told CNBC. ?What it really shows is that no one is really taking the time or care to clean the instruments.?

His story was backed up by Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck, who still works at the hospital. She testified on Sept. 9 about problems at the Jackson center. ?Essentially everything that happens in primary care at the Jackson VA can be included under the umbrella of being unethical, illegal, heartbreaking, and life threatening for the veterans, and everything in the care of the veterans starts in primary care.?

Of course this is not the first investigation that discovered these kinds of conditions at VA hospitals.? A few years ago, ABC News also conducted an investigation of conditions at VA facilities across the United States.? What ABC News discovered was absolutely staggering.? The following are just a few of the things that they found during the course of their investigation...

*Bathrooms filthy with what appeared to be human excrement

*Dirty linens from some patients mixed in with clean supplies

*Examining tables that had dried blood and medications still on them

*Equipment used to sterilize surgical instruments that had broken down

*Some patients that were begging for food and water

*Vets neglected so badly that they had developed horrific bedsores and dangerous infections

Is this how the federal government should be treating the men and women that have shed blood fighting for our country?

Unfortunately, it appears that the mistreatment of our military veterans has gotten even worse since Barack Obama took power.? For much more on all of this, please see my previous article entitled ?25 Signs That Military Veterans Are Being Treated Like Absolute Trash Under The Obama Administration?.

The funny thing is that many of the people that run these VA facilities are greatly rewarded for their ?hard work?.? For example,?CNBC discovered that those running the VA facility in Jackson, Mississippi described above are receiving huge bonuses?

The director of the Jackson VA, Joe Battle, received a $6,500 bonus last year on top of his $165,000 salary, and Rica Lewis-Payton, the network director of the South Central Health Care Network, which includes Jackson, got almost $36,000 in bonuses last year, on top of her $180,000 salary.

Are you disgusted yet?

You should be.

And we see the exact same thing happening in government-run health care facilities on Indian reservations.

By treaty, the U.S. government is required to provide health care on Indian reservations.? But the level of health care being provided is of extremely low quality and the programs are very underfunded.

In fact, things are so bad that the following expression is very commonly heard on Indian reservations across America?

?Don't get sick after June?.

Why would they say that?

Well, because in the fall and winter the waits to see a doctor and the rationing of care get particularly bad.? If you get seriously ill, you might end up dying before you ever get the care that you need.

Posted below is a?video news report featuring Judge Andrew Napolitano about the horrific state of government-run health care on Indian reservations?

In light of all of this, should we have more government interference in the health care system or less?

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There Is An Evil 1%, But Everyone Is Getting Its Identity Wrong

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

The "occupy" protest movement is thriving off the claim that the 99% are being exploited by the 1%, and there is truth in what they say. But they have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine that it is the 1% of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact, that 1% includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the country ? the people who invent, market, and distribute material blessings to the whole population. They also own the capital that sustains productivity and growth.

But there is another 1% out there, those who do live parasitically off the population and exploit the 99%. Moreover, there is a long intellectual tradition, dating back to the late middle ages that draws attention to the strange reality that a tiny minority lives off the productive labor of the overwhelming majority.

I?m speaking of the State, which even today is made up of a tiny sliver of the population, but is the direct cause of all the impoverishing wars, inflation, taxes, regimentation, and social conflict. This 1% is the direct cause of the violence, the censorship, the unemployment, and vast amounts of poverty, too.

Look at the numbers, rounding from latest data. The U.S. population is 307 million. There are about 20 million government employees at all levels, which makes 6.5%. But 6.2 million of these people are public school teachers, whom I think we can say are not really the ruling elite. That takes us down to 4.4%.

We can knock of another half million who work for the post office, and probably the same who work for various service department bureaus. Probably another million do not work in any enforcement arm of the State, and there?s also the amazing labor-pool fluff that comes with any government work. Local governments do not cause nation-wide problems (usually), and the same might be said of the 50 states. The real problem is at the federal level (8.5 million), from which we can subtract fluff, drones, and service workers.

In the end, we end up with about 3 million people who constitute what is commonly called the State. For short, we can just call these people the 1%.

The 1% do not generate any wealth of their own. Everything they have they get by taking from others under the cover of law. They live at our expense. Without us, the State as an institution would die.

Here we come to the core of the issue. What is the State and what does it do? There is vast confusion about this issue, insofar as it is talked about at all. For hundreds of years, people have imagined that the State might be an organic institution that develops naturally out of some social contract. Or perhaps the State is our benefactor because it provides services we could not otherwise provide for ourselves.

In classrooms and in political discussions, there is very little if any honest talk about what the State is and what it does. But in the libertarian tradition, matters are much clearer. From Bastiat to Rothbard, the answer has been before our eyes. The State is the only institution in society that is permitted by law to use aggressive force against person and property.

Let?s understand through a simple example. Let?s say you go into a restaurant and hate the wallpaper. You can complain and try to persuade the owner to change it. If he doesn?t change it, you can decide not to go back. But if you break in, take money out of the cash register, buy paint, and cover the wallpaper yourself, you will be charged with criminal wrongdoing and perhaps go to jail. Everyone in society agrees that you did the wrong thing.

But the State is different. If it doesn?t like the wallpaper, it can pass a law (or maybe even not that) and send a memo. It can mandate a change. It doesn?t have to do the repainting. The State can make you repaint the place. If you refuse, you are guilty of criminal wrongdoing.

Same goals, different means, two very different sets of criminals. The State is the institution that essentially redefines criminal wrongdoing to make itself exempt from the law that governs everyone else.

It is the same with every tax, every regulation, every mandate, and every single word of the federal code. It all represents coercion. Even in the area of money and banking, it is the State that created and sustains the Fed and the dollar because it forcibly limits competition in money and banking, preventing people from making gold or silver money, or innovating in other ways. And in some ways, this is the most dreadful intervention of all, because it allows the State to destroy our money on a whim.

The State is everybody?s enemy. Why don?t the protesters get this? Because they are victims of propaganda by the State, doled out in public school, that attempts to blame all human suffering on private parties and free enterprise. They do not comprehend that the real enemy is the institution that brainwashes them to think they way they do.

They are right that society is rife with conflicts, and that the contest is wildly lopsided. It is indeed the 99% vs. the 1%. They?re just wrong about the identity of the enemy.
__
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. See his books.

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rapest,robbers,murderers,and thieves come from all walks of life and they will never change.most crime is made up by the powers that be,the rest the lack of personal responsibility. i started reading but it was the template sort of thing an accountant would say, wealth creator argument and all that.

there is technology, there could be employment for a minority. to model life on a monetary system or based on employment would be denying reality of the time. in reality and the reality of such systems is that pretty much all jobs are destructive.

You got it wrong Mr. Rockwell. A six grader has a better understanding of the world surrounding him than the one reflected in your article. FAIL! This posits that the "1%" named by Rockwell are independent: yet the richest 1% spends hundreds of millions annually on lobbying that ensures Rockwell's 1% do their bidding. The OWS have the right target. It is obvious if Rockwell's 1% ever stopped complying with the richest 1%'s wishes, they'd be shown the door via the elimination of their campaign backing and replaced by more biddable (n.p.i.) servants.

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Elizabeth Warren: "There Is Nobody In This Country Who Got Rich On His Own"

"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own -- nobody," Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) said. Warren is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Warren hopes to face off with Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in the general election.

(via Weasel Zippers)

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