Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Swine Flu etc.

Most doctors can recognize the symptoms of Swine Flu without subjecting you to extensive lab tests. I check the mirror daily for the most common symptoms myself. In todays paper, economist Thomas Sowell addresses the health care issue in his editorial entitled, "Fables for adults reducing us to children." He relates the old fable of the dog with the bone in his mouth crossing the creek on a log. The dog sees his reflection in the water below and thinks it is another dog with a bigger bone. He lets go of the bone he has in his mouth and it falls into the water and is lost. Sowell says, "Today we are living in a time when the president of the United States is telling us that he is going to help us take that other dog's bone away ---and the result is likely to be very much like what it was in the children's fable."

He goes on to say most of us lived in a time when not everyone had health insurance and it wasn't the end of the world as most progressives would have us believe. You may be asking yourself, "How did that work?" Well, we were on a pay as you go plan. When we got sick, we took care of the medical expenses by paying them out just as you would other large debts, a little every month. Sowell further states, "Is this ideal? No. But if every deviation from the ideal is a reason to be panicked and stampeded into putting dangerous arbitrary powers into the hands of government, then go directly to totalitarianism, do not pass 'Go,' do not collect $200.00."

The point is we already have a good bone. Don't let it go hoping to get a bigger imaginary bone from someone else - it's not going to happen.

"Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their
attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by
enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public
affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors,
shall all become wolves." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward
Carrington, 1787