THIS NOTE WAS POSTED BY MY GOOD FRIEND CANDACE SALIMA. I STARTED LEAVING A COMMENT AT THE END OF THE NOTE AND IT GOT TOO LONG FOR A COMMENT AND SO I AM POSTING MY RESPONSE HERE IN MY BLOG... PLEASE READ THE STORY/COMMENT BELOW AND THEN MY RESPONSE....
The note just before this one was written by mother and her experience with Universal Healthcare in the military. I also posted it on my personal blog (http://candacesalima.blogspot.com). A comment was posted there that is astounding and I wanted to share it with my friends:
Keeley has left a new comment on your post "America's Viewpoint: Universal Healthcare, Huh?":
Yep, that about sums it up.
My family live in England under their national health care and thus:
My Nana has cancer and is not being treated - because she's elderly and this is her second bout. She will die. The end. She is not worth the resources.
My Aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer...and had to wait about six weeks for the operation to remove the lump. So she waited. And stressed. And cried. And worried.
My father had rotator cuff surgery. He was sent home that day and was in out-of-his-mind couldn't-sleep- sheer agony for a week. He sat upright in a chair for a week because to do anything else was too painful.
My Mother had pneumonia several years ago. Not the walking pneumonia, but the hospitalized-she-might-die kind of pneumonia. Took her about five years to fully recover. While she was in the hospital there was a nurse who was absolutely brutal. She would throw the patients (elderly women) around. Threw one woman around so badly she was terribly bruised up the side of her leg from her ankle to her hip. Nothing was done to discipline this nurse, and no doubt her reign of terror continues.
My sister has epilepsy. Her doctor prescribed the wrong dosage, causing my sister to have fit after fit after fit until she could be hospitalized and her medication sorted out.
When I went into hospital, the ring I bought with my own money when I was six was stolen off my finger while I was unconscious. I know it's silly, but I loved that ring! I saved and saved and saved for it. And now it's gone. I had my initials engraved on it - how much worth could that tiny little thing be to someone else?
MY COMMENT:
Wow! A testimony that I hope will wake people up to what Universal healthcare REALLY is and not what it professes to be...you know one day I was watching Oprah (since I watched this show, I no longer watch) and she did a special on universal healthcare and tried to portray it as this benevolent and charitable system of healthcare...I remember one question she posed that was particularly disturbing. The question was asked, "Universal heathcare comes down to this question, do you believe a janitor's son has the same right to healthcare that a CEO's son does?"
I was sickened because these are the kinds of questions that get socialistic policies popular because it sounds like you are an evil, selfish person if you do not answer yes to the question! When really, the question should be asked this way, 'Do you believe it is morally right and acceptable to hold a gun to the CEO's head and steal his money that he rightfully earned and then give it to the janitor?'
You see the first question in evaluating any social system cannot be: What happens to those who are helpless and incapable of supporting themselves? Such people, by definition, are dependent for their survival on others—on those who are capable of working and who can produce wealth.
Thus, the first question must be: What happens to the thinkers and producers? What conditions make it possible for them to think and produce? The fundamental answer to that question is: FREEDOM—the freedom to direct their own actions and to keep the property they have produced.
Thus, to advocate for a system that puts taxes and regulations on the producers in the name of helping the disabled is a hopeless contradiction—it means helping the non-producers by throttling the producers on whom they depend.
So why is it that people advocating socialistic government make it look like we owe something to the janitor who clearly (in the socialist's mind) was born without the wealth and opportunities of the CEO?
Without a socialistic society the rich just get richer and the poor get poorer, right?
Quite the opposite.
Capitalism is the only system that leaves everyone free to rise by his/her own efforts. The history of capitalism provides countless instances of people who improved their lives through work and ability. There are the millions of immigrants who came to America and worked their way up to the middle class—or higher. One of the great historical examples was Andrew Carnegie, who rose from a penniless sweeper at a steel mill to revolutionize the steel industry and make one of the largest fortunes of his day. It is no coincidence that 19th century America—the most purely capitalist era in the nation's history—brought us the phrase "from rags to riches."
The reason why capitalism allows people to rise by their own efforts is that capitalism is driven by only one fundamental consideration: profit. But profit can only be earned through an increase in the production of wealth: profit comes from inventing a new product, producing a good more efficiently, promoting it to a wider market, etc. It comes from doing things better, faster, and smarter than before. This means that capitalism offers an open field to anyone who works hard to improve his skills—and it offers riches to anyone who thinks hard and comes up with new and better ideas. It is under capitalism, for example, that a company like Microsoft creates scores of millionaires out of individuals whose qualification is not inherited wealth or social connections, but only the ability to create and sell computer programs.
The rule under government regulation, by contrast, is very different. It is a common error today to talk about "crony capitalism." Cronyism is in fact a hallmark of state-run economies. When politicians and bureaucrats hold power over the economy, the only hope for success comes from currying their favor. Thus the competition for wealth becomes a competition, not over who can produce the most, but over who can make the most bribes or call in the most favors. It is under these systems that established wealth, family connections, and the "Old Boy's Network" become the determinants of success, rather than individual ability. But that is a problem created and perpetuated by statism, not capitalism.
But the advocates of socialism and universal healthcare cry out, how can you justify the huge disproportionate salary and rewards given to CEO's over what a lowly janitor makes?
A recent study claimed that corporate CEOs make, on average, 400 times as much as the company's lowest-paid employee. Let us assume that this figure is correct. Is that really "disproportionate"?
Let us concretize the question. What kind of work is performed by the lowest paid worker in a company? This worker might be, for example, a janitor. His work consists of performing routine, pre-established tasks, requiring little thought and only moderate physical effort. If he performs his work well, there is a moderate benefit: a clean workplace is more productive than a dirty one. But if he performs his work poorly, the consequences are minor—and the worker can easily be replaced by a better janitor; since the skills required are not complex, almost anyone can perform the job properly.
In the case of a CEO, by contrast, his work consists primarily in making decisions—decisions about what products the company should produce, how much it should invest in improvement of its equipment, whether it should raise money through stocks, bonds, venture capital, etc.
Bear in mind that wealth is not produced by blind, uncoordinated action. The best employees in the world working the longest hours are useless unless they are making a useful product backed by adequate funding and good marketing.
But ensuring that a company's resources and personnel are being used productively is the job of the CEO.
In justice—if justice means rewarding merit—an employee ought to be paid in proportion to the value he brings to the company. By that criterion, is there anything "disproportionate" about paying the CEO an enormous salary? If there is, the disparity is in the other direction. A good CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company is not worth so little as 400 employees, much less 400 janitors; he is worth as much as thousands of employees. Their work is profitable only as long as he makes the right decisions.
Of course, a bad CEO—one who makes poor decisions and wastes a company's resources—can wipe out the work of thousands of employees. But that is precisely why companies offer their CEOs such enormous financial rewards, rewards that are often dependent on the company's performance. For such a crucial position, nothing less will attract and motivate the best minds.
I am so sick and tired of the collectivist thinking that has and continues to poison our minds!
Who will speak up for the rights of the CEO?
Today, even the lowest specimen of humanity—especially the lowest specimen of humanity—can count on support from numerous sources. A homeless drug addict has a dozen different organizations, agencies, shelters, rehab programs, and the like devoted to his aid. A Nazi who burns a cross on his front lawn knows he can call the ACLU to protect his rights. But what if a peaceful, responsible, productive CEO or businessman—even a hero of American business—finds himself under attack?
Who can he call?
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