Teddy and Me

Posted By on August 26, 2009 at 3:07 pm

As I noted last year, when Ted Kennedy had brain surgery, I knew he had the best neurosurgeon in the world; that same surgeon was the one who had operated on me six months earlier.*
At the time, I sent the senator my best wishes, and I meant it. I’m not going to say that no one deserves to be killed by brain problems of whatever sort,† but even with all his well-documented failings Kennedy didn’t fall into that class.
And now with his death, it’s a certainty that the Left will use his legacy as a lever to try to inflict a government takeover of the medical industry on the nation. It was, after all, his “signature” issue over the years.
Here’s the problem: under the scheme of government control of healthcare Kennedy advocated, a person in my shoes would not have had the same choices as Kennedy made for his own care, nor would care have been delivered as promptly as it was.
Let me be perfectly clear here. My condition, hydrocephalus, if left untreated, kills. Without timely diagnosis and treatment, permanent damage can result — a fact I have to live with every day now, and for the rest of my life. As regular and long-time readers may recall, in my case, diagnosis was difficult; there has been permanent damage, and now I cannot walk without a cane or crutches
I cannot tell you how glad I am not to have to wear adult diapers.
Kennedy spent his career fighting for a program under which, as in Canada, waiting times to see a specialist (like my neurologist) or to have a test (multiple MRIs and spinal taps) or to have surgery are vastly increased — time during which even more permanent damage than I have suffered would have happened to me.
In my case, a longer wait for treatment could have meant much much worse, and had Kennedy been forced to seek medical care under his own program,‡ he would not have lived as long as he did.
Clear?
So call it “socialized medicine” or “single payer” or “public option” or whatever you want. By any name, the system Kennedy spent his career pushing for would result in fewer doctors and nurses, rationed care, with longer waits for that care. And if you think it would be free, just wait until you see the tax bill.
I have a cousin in Nova Scotia who comes to the US annually to pay, out of her own pocket, for treatment for a chronic condition; she can’t get that treatment under Canada’s system. Under what conceivable circumstances would a sane nation want to inflict such a system, with evidence of its unworkability for all to see, upon itself?
If you really want to improve the medical system, let people have the same options that the Kennedys want for themselves: the right to choose their own doctor and seek medical care with whatever alacrity they desire, without government interference and without packs of ambulance chasers filing spurious malpractice lawsuits.
Which pretty much sounds like the system we already have, except for the tort reform.



* Not that my case required the best. My surgery, for the doctor in question, would have been like a miniature golf par 3 would be for Jack Nicklaus.
† I can think of a few people that really need to die in as horrible a manner as possible — bin Laden tops the list.
‡ Not that the political class in Washington will make themselves live by the rules they inflict on the rest of us, of course. If you think there won’t be a “congressional exemption” from the rules, you haven’t been paying attention.

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