Yesterday, a responder (bless her heart) to my commentary on one of the many reasons I think universal health care is a terrible idea told me that she has "faith" (in people).
In case you didn't read it, I was making the point that Medicare is already so rife with corruption that adding this so-called "public option" (I think we should call it what it is--the government option) would only be inviting even more. Imagine cashing your paycheck (or withdrawing cash from the bank for you direct-depositors) and proceeding to the nearest big hospital where you would find a balcony or some other high place, and then just jettisoning 80% of your earnings for the esurient doctors below to quickly snatch up.
[Fine if you roll your eyes, liberals...but please refrain from taking the Lord's name in vain]
--But what about the facts? It seems that proponents of the government option don't want to actually face those. ...Which facts?
How about the Senate report released last year which revealed that in the previous seven years, our current government-run health care program, Medicare, had paid $92.8 million for about half-a-million claims submitted in the names of doctors who had already shuffled off this mortal coil? Let me get down to brass tacks: that's HALF-A-MILLION THIEVES STEALING FROM GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE. That's a pretty large number of people who proved themselves to be unworthy of my 'faith.' Faith in total strangers in this day and age is blind, I'm very sorry to say.
How many of you leave your houses or cars unlocked? How many of you with children leave your youngest outside by themselves in an area where you can't see them? How many of you don't first look over your shoulder at the ATM to ensure yourself that nobody is watching as you type in your pin #? How many of you wouldn't feel a twinge of fear if you found yourself on the side of the highway with a broken-down car and a dead cell-phone battery?
I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but to trust people you don't even know in this day & age is just plain foolish. It would be wonderful if things were more like the way the were in the 1950's--but they ain't.
Heck, I remember just 30-35 years ago ("just 30-35 years ago?" Did I 'just' say that-?) when I was just a little boy, I roamed my neighborhood in and out of people's houses with utmost insouciance. In fact, one time I walked right into a stranger's house and just sat down next to a guy who was watching cartoons. He just kind-of looked at me, nonplussed, like "who the heck is this kid?" My parents couldn't find me, but the level of their worry was nowhere near what it would have been if the year was 2009. They eventually found me and everybody had a good laugh. There was no real 'panic.'
But this is a very different time. As we've yielded our morals at the behest of Hollywood; MTV, 'Girls Gone Wild,' pornography on the web, and a cavalier attitude towards standards of morality, we've done quite a number on the way things once were. We worry that our kids might be the next Jaycee Dugard, and yet that's far from the worst fear. Jaycee Dugard is alive and wears a smile on her pretty little face...how many times are kidnapped children found alive?
I think it's quite clear that we're jaded. It's as if it's a plan; to get us to a point where we're so inundated with examples of untrustworthy behavior that we cannot properly assess the gravity of the modern-day situation we're in. Who among us can recall every news-story we've seen in recent months or years telling of our elected officials involved in some scandal or another? But how do we respond-? Usually by voting the bums back in.
We want to trust people...of course we do. But we can't always get what we want. Reality compels us to respond to the ubiquity of untrustworthy behavior correctly; by using proper discernment and implementing the proper cautions to safeguard ourselves and our children.
I contend that a large chunk of what has caused the modern-day environment of mistrust is the inflation and intrusion of government in our lives. But I'll have to get into that in a future entry...
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