Putting millions of Americans on a waiting list to get into the hospital
Shortages of life-saving equipment like CAT scanners
Fewer life-saving medical procedures like heart bypasses and dialysis
The fact death rates from cancer are higher under government-directed medicine
Less time to see over-assigned doctors
Waiting lists for life-saving surgeries
Reposted to IPR by Paulie
Michael @10:
Well, for starters, Libertarians on the 18-year plan can boycott OB/GYNs for midwives across the board. That’s how we found ours. That also creates an outreach opportunity into their area, and it moves having children out of the health-insurance debate.
We can also advocate on their behalf, both for medical choice and *better* medical care, when it comes to legislation and regulation. I would (and do) tell our story to anyone who is interested. I paid out of pocket for ours, and I’d do it again happily, because it was worth it.
The fundamental problem with the whole idea of government-directed health insurance is that one size doesn’t fit all, and their idea of health care is decidedly and negatively allopathic in nature, and that by its very nature excludes the most effective preventative and proactive care in favor of corporate solutions put forth by Big Agriculture and Big Pharma, fronted by the FTC and FDA. Yet NOBODY wants to address that fundamental flaw.
Newest LP.org poll:
Will you be attending a Tea Party on April 15th?:
-Yes! High taxes hurt the economy, and my family.
-No! I support Obama’s plans to raise taxes, expand wasteful spending and ring up record deficits.
OOps! a goof on # 2. it should read something like they were regulated out of business or just outlawed in many places. Meaning that in some places the regulations became so difficult midwives were discouraged and left for greener pastures.
MW
Midwifery is something we should be talking about. For one midwives generally have better outcomes and lower costs than MDs.
Second they were regualted or just outlawed in many places.
Third we know that occupational licensing is wrong and used to discriminate against others.
Four it might be an opportunity for us to expand out base with a positive approach.
Five this is really a pro choice issue.
Now how do we convince others of this ?
MW
Nothing at all wrong with midwives. In fact, having lost a kid because of an OB and having a healthy one by a midwife, I swear by mine.
But the worst harm caused by government-directed health care was the thrusting of Octo-Mom on us all.
BTW, she plans on having 10 more kids to shore up her defensive line and add a punter and kicker.
Steven,
you are right, and I apologize for the way I worded my post. I construed your post incorrectly as an attack on midwifery, and I believe they get enough flak in the US as is.
In USSR they were too, I believe.
OK Nate, you don’t have to go overboard with the ridicule. I will readily admit I may have misspoke when I mentioned that “few people are allowed to use doctors for childbirth”.
My own experience with my two children was with midwifes at home. I am well aware that midwifes are sufficient. And still not legal in much of the US. But it was our CHOICE.
That of course was not my point. I was under the perhaps mistaken impression that most European families did not have a choice.
PEACE
“In Europe, midwives are used almost exclusively and few people are allowed to use doctors for childbirth.”
I find that statement so funny. I don’t even know where to begin. Michael made a good start.
Midwives are specialized in a certain field, having them perform their specialized function is not only the most cost efficient, safest and smartest thing to do, it’s also the “libertarian free market specialization rulez” thing to do:
“It seems neither Californians nor the Court understood a fundamental principle of economics: the division of labor. Too bad they hadn’t read Adam Smith’s “Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” Published in 1776, it explains how prosperity results from more workers and better specialization.”
Quoted from the hissy fits going on in a different thread on this site.
Not only that, but I simply love the use of the word “allow.” These poor Europeans, not allowed to use doctors. Not allowed by whom? Common sense, perhaps? The doctors themselves might look at them funny and refer them to a midwife, yes. Isn’t that their right? Should they have to “treat” someone who is not in need of immediate medical care and is not “suffering” from an “ailment” related to their specialty? Would you claim that I am not allowed to go to a brain surgeon to let him have a look at my heart? There are no big bag government agents preventing Europeans from having a doctor do a midwife’s job. There is common sense, the fact that the doctor has a different important job to do, the fact that a midwife is available to perform this important job and the fact that midwives are the most trained, skilled and specialized to perform said job that prevents Europeans from having doctors help with child birth.
While some women even choose to give birth at home, *gasp*, most births are probably performed in maternity wards of hospitals, with doctors able to be there within minutes if not seconds, were they required. During pregnancy women will often see an obstetrician in addition to their midwife, but for a healthy woman to give birth to a healthy baby no doctor is really required. And the health of both has been checked, at multiple intervals, often with such newfangled devices as ultrasounds, equipment that apparently most US citizens feel does not exist anywhere but in the US, thanks to that darn government health care.
In closing let me just add that the poor Europeans also can’t get their doctors to cut down trees, sadly forced (probably by the evil hands of the state) to rely on lumberjacks. It’s true, I swear. These poor backwards hillbillys. Now the doctors might claim that they just don’t want to cut down the trees, or perhaps feel that they are not skilled in the matter, but I tell you it’s a government conspiracy, it’s just gotta be.
Steven Linnabary writes: “In Europe, midwives are used almost exclusively and few people are allowed to use doctors for childbirth.”
As I understand the issue midwives are not required, but are used out of custom and they deliver children with better results and at lower costs than do MDs. World wide midwives are primary providers of maternity care. Only in the U.S. and Canada are MDs primary.
And a few studies have looked at what happens when doctors go on strike. Seems the death rate goes down.
Also there was a study out last week about the inaccurate info from MRI & CAT scanners. Seems about 50% of the results are of poor quality.
Then there is the issue of physician induced errors. That’s a big problem and the annual deaths from the problem runs between 44,000 and 100,000 in hospitals alone.
Sunshine, that was my first thought when I saw the poll. Where is “lack of choice”?
It is already too hard to get insurance to cover Homeopathic, Naturopathic or Chiropractic medical care. And if many MD’s had their way, Osteopathic care would also be forbidden.
OTOH, while it is currently nearly impossible to get insurance to cover midwifery, it MAY become mandatory under a government plan. In Europe, midwives are used almost exclusively and few people are allowed to use doctors for childbirth.
PEACE
They need to put something in there about the state continuing on its glidepath to baning vitamins, minearls, and nutrition; and driving more people in to the corprate-pharma “drug, irradiae and cut” paradigm…
This seems to be another symptom of the national LP office being far too conventional and “right-wing.”
Early results:
Putting millions of Americans on a waiting list to get into the hospital
45% (26 votes)
Shortages of life-saving equipment like CAT scanners
3% (2 votes)
Fewer life-saving medical procedures like heart bypasses and dialysis
3% (2 votes)
The fact death rates from cancer are higher under government-directed medicine
7% (4 votes)
Less time to see over-assigned doctors
9% (5 votes)
Waiting lists for life-saving surgeries
33% (19 votes)
Total votes: 58