Mario Herger

It took me long and I strongly resisted, but finally I succumbed to my conservative friends' arguments. A government regulated healthcare system will lead to a doomed America. And this all from me, a foreigner, born in the little European country of Austria that has suffered under socialist party rulership for quite many years. And a socialist government has nothing to do with Vienna being ranked number one in the "Qualitiy of Living global city ranking" from the consulting company Mercer. Here are the reasons why I changed my mind about public healthcare.

I have been living in California, and whenever I drive a public highway, I can feel it. The streets are bad. Highway 101 in the Silicon Valley? A patchwork of potholes connected by traces of street. And why is this? Because the highways are maintained by the the state government, and they have no money. They wasted it for salaries. Thank god they cut the ranks here. Fewer state employees. Who needs them anyways, like police officers?

Fewer police officers mean: lower chances of getting caught when speeding! Though that is purely hypothetical, because with those road conditions you can't really reach the speed limits. And too many cars are crowding the streets so that you are permanently stuck in traffic. They should provide more public transport.

And that's where the government screws up again. Not able to provide a decent public transport system. Not that I would use it. Way too dangerous with the high crime rate these days. Instead of chasing hard working Americans speeding on their way to work to pay taxes, police officers should go after those criminals and drug addicted school dropouts and keep us American tax payers safe. But they say, there are not enough police forces out there. No money. Spend it wisely. On teachers, for example.

Which reminds me: soon I have to find a school for my son, and the American public school system is surely one of the best? Not so, say the results for the US students from the OECD PISA rankings in 2003. The US student reading ability is ranking #12, the student science ability only 19, the student mathematics ability rank 24 and student problem solving ability 26. And then I understood: public schools! The government screws our school system.

Not so fast I thought and looked at all other government run programs. What about the postal service? Slow and unreliable. It often takes days to have mail arrive. And sometimes they never arrive. They get lost in the nirwana of government suck. Not to mention the huge deficit that the postal service runs into. The USPS projects to loose $6 billion in 2009. What is this? The automotive industry?

Speaking of which: US government owned! Ok, they had troubles before and didn't offer the right cars for US customers but that does not mean that the government knows better how to run a private business. We can see that with the banks. Let the market do what is necessary - and give them trillions of dollars. And see? The market proves right: most of the banks profits skyrocket again!

Rocket! Yes, the NASA. It takes only $10 Mio for some privateers to launch Spaceship X into suborbit? And we spent how much In tax-dollars to send men to the moon and have them play golf there? And honestly: can't we build a fancier spaceship with more bangs for the bucks instead of the totally boring space shuttle?

And hey: the same OECD PISA ranking lists the US healthcare quality index on a whooping 37th position. Life expectancy is only rank 29. Must be due to medicare and medicaid, because the private healthcare providers are the best in the world. And cost twice as much as in other western countries.

Luckily, there is one thing that we can be proud of: the US military. The pride of America, the strongest army in the world. Ok, it's also government run. It wastes a lot of money by buying armored vehicles that cannot sustain blasts in Iraq and had to be rearmored for a huge amount of money. They also paid billions for a bunch of F15 and stealth fighter planes that have been idling in the hangars, because 99% of the action in Iraq and Afghanistan is dealt with by unmanned drones. All drones actually cost less than the fuel that the airforce blows out in a single month for their manned planes. And with the trillions we spend on those both wars for the army, we will for sure soon have won. Can't take any longer than another 6 years.

And so you really think public health care is going to work? My Republican friends were right. Nearly all - what am I talking? - ALL government services suck. Schools, police, army. Why should a public healthcare option serve 50 millions of uninsured Americans better than the private healthcare providers, who are also not able - ok, rephrase: willing - to do that? And especially, when they don't deserve it. No job, no taxes paid, no insurance. It's as easy as ABC.

Which leads me to another hot topic: why should we provide school, police and fire department services to people who don't pay taxes? Whenever there is a fire in the neighborhood, I propose the fire fighters first check the IRS-statements of the residents. And why should police protect these no-good unemployed fatties over there? Out of some wrongly understood christian wellfare voodoo?

God bless America and the Lord save us from non-working and sick parasites in our great country.