The Myth of Free Health Care

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent
(but caucuses with the Senate Democrats), who was
recently a candidate for the presidency,  met up with a
Swedish reporter who claimed that "(Swedes pay)
like next to nothing" for health care. I suppose the
Swede was trying to one-up socialist Sanders, who
is a big proponent of President Obama's Affordable
Health Care Plan (a/k/a Obamacare). As we know,
Obama's health care scheme is anything but affordable
for so many Americans who have already enrolled in
it; the premiums are astronomical, then there's the
deductibles!

But it was stated by a reader of The Wall Street Journal,
who related this event in a letter to the editor which the WSJ
published on June 17 of last year that the Swedes pay for
the upkeep of their system with a tax, which all Swedes must
pay. Additionally, there is a copay for every doctor's visit.
Therefore, this is not free health care. This, by the way, is
common knowledge to anyone who pays any attention to
this subject.

Your inquisitive Peasant mentions this wee bit of news only
because, as so many conservatives are convinced that Obama's
plan is the gateway to a system which would be similar to
Sweden's, or at least to that of Canada's single-payer program,
this could loom in our future if Obamacare is not
finally repealed. Sharing this view, I can state that we think
that the present system forced on us by Obama and the
Democrats was not meant to operate all that smoothly,
especially concerning the costs to be paid for the policies
along with the associated costs. Thus the Dems could, and
would, replace that system with a completely government-run
system, all in the name of guaranteeing controlled costs and
efficiency. Problem is, the efficiency would be not unlike
that of too many other programs administered by Uncle Sam
and the costs would still be steep --- our tax burdens would
bear that out.

Socialism isn't free; it's not even cheap!


MEM