Fairness

President Obama has been using the words fair or fairness in pursuit of his tax increase on those making more than $200,000 per year. I believe that in a free market capitalist system the concept of fairness seems woefully out of place. For example if Bill Gates needs brain surgery he will go to the finest facility in the world, and his bed will be surrounded by a half dozen of the world’s finest brain surgeons. Any and all equipment needed, will be made available and no expense will be spared. If the operation cost 50 million it will be paid for up front in cash. If I on the other hand I need brain surgery I will likely go to the local hospital and use the services of the local surgeon. Does this appear to be the kind of fairness that Obama is talking about? I think not!
This is not limited to the health industry. If OJ Simpson had a court appointed public defender, do you think he would have been found not guilty? Can the local inner city kid who robs a gas station and kills the attendant receive the defense of the, “Dream Team”, of lawyers that Simpson got. I think not!
The point is that we live in a world where we do not have unlimited resources which means by definition that we must limit what we do. When it comes to Medicare and Medicaid we cannot spend unlimited resources on each person. We must use the dirty word “ration” when it comes to what we can do. Yes we must have death panels.
You start with something obvious like should a 97 year old man with a bad liver get a heart transplant and then work your way down from that.
The only possible way to put fairness into the systems is to limit what Bill Gates can pay out of his own pocket for his own health care and I don’t believe that Americans want to go down that road.
I say it is time for Americans to wake up to the fact that all of this talk about fairness just takes us away from looking at the problem in a serious way.