Shurts on Polis' Dangerous Plan

The Friday March 7, 2008 Rocky Mountain News printed the following LTE by Russell Shurts critical of the Polis single-payer proposal:

Polis' health-care plan a dangerous one
Russell W. Shurts, Centennial

Recently, congressional candidate Jared Polis wrote, "A free market would allow the uninsured to die on the hospital doorstep rather than provide them treatment they cannot pay for" ("Health-care plan stresses prevention," Speakout, Feb. 13).

Before you buy Polis' prescription, consider the following:

An unfree market ruled by a liberal like Polis would allow everyone and anyone to die...

* Because they were on a waiting list and lacked sufficient political pull to move themselves up the list.

* Because the government would make the decision about which possibly life-saving drug would or would not be available.

* Because there would be too few doctors left after the exodus of those unwilling to have their lives and careers programmed by bureaucrats unqualified to hand out aspirin tablets.

* Because new life-saving drugs would begin to evaporate after government denies pharmaceutical companies the profit needed to recoup the millions invested in creating the drugs.

Reality will win in the end and, Polis' assertions to the contrary, medicine will have to be paid for one way or the other. If you truly want Polis' "free" health care, be prepared to pay for it - in spades.

We've seen exactly those things happening in countries like Canada and the UK that have adopted "free" health care. Why would we ever want that for the United States?