For many years I have suffered from headaches.  And by headaches, I don’t mean liberals, although they do cause their own unique cranial pain.  Stretching back to college, I have had migraines every four to seven days for periods of up to four or five months at a time.  My primary care doctor had primarily treated symptoms so that I had some minor relief.  But after a particular bad bout of these headaches last fall, I went to see the same Ear, Nose and Throat doctor that my wife sees.  For some time, I felt that it was probably related to a sinus infection.  The ENT doctor put me on a course of antibiotics to take the infection out.  From December through early April, I was on three successively stronger antibiotics.  At a visit in March, he took a CT scan of my sinuses in his office and put me on the final antibiotic.  On April 22^th, I still had some infection left.  Because the CT scan showed some other nasal and sinus issues and because three courses of antibiotics hadn’t cleared up the infection, he recommended outpatient surgery.  We scheduled it for five days later on April 27^th.

Yesterday, I had my third follow-up after the surgery.  I’ve had a couple of headaches since the surgery, but so far, no skull cracking migraines, so it has, at least so far, been a success.  I asked the doctor one follow-up question – “If this were 2014 and all of the healthcare legislation were in effect, how likely would I have been to get this surgery?”  His response was very telling. “Probably never.  You would never have got the X-ray [CT scan].  If you were lucky maybe in one or two years.”  He went on to say, “The problem with national healthcare is that if you give everyone the same level of care, you HAVE to ration it” and he implied that therefore the quality of care would be lower.  This is no quack physician, but a board certified doctor with multiple degrees who has been practicing medicine for over 20 years.  Probably the scariest thing he said was that older patients are going to be out of luck with Medicare, that the government was basically going to write them off with a simple, “thank you for your service,” but you don’t qualify for care anymore.  He also advised, “If you need something done [medically speaking], get it done now”.  He went on to say that the problem with this new legislation is that we still don’t know what’s in it.  He was definitely not a fan.

Now, one doctor’s opinion is just one doctor’s opinion – take it for what it’s worth.  But many doctors have been expressing these same sentiments.  We need to look at the root cause of the problem, which I think my doctor nailed – if everyone gets the same level of care, then the level of care must decrease.  This is not the logic put forth by the administration, but it is of course, more logical than anything they have spouted in their inane talking points.  There are two obstacles to providing everyone the same level of care.  First, there are not enough doctors and of the available doctors, those don’t have the same level of expertise or training. Second, care costs money.  If you equalize treatment, it is logical that the quantity and quality of treatment goes down on limited funds.

The Obama regime, as one of the reasons they pushed healthcare reform, said that healthcare is a right.  Even if it is, we have to ask if it is an equal right.  Should those who are too lazy to work hard and are not contributing anything to society, but are rather leeches on the rest of us, be given the same care as someone who works hard and provides for their family and others?  Should our quality of healthcare go down simply so theirs can be raised?  In the last week, it came to light that several large companies are considering dropping their healthcare plans because of this legislation so that their employees go on the federal plan.  As companies do this and more people become reliant on the rest of us for their healthcare, as my doctor said, national healthcare will be of the same quality as the post office.  Ask yourself this question in November before you vote - do I want to lose my access to the best healthcare in the world and depend on the government to take care of me?