See, this is one of the major problems with government-run health care. Whenver government runs anything, private businesses are going have to spend lots of money trying to influence government to favor their interests. That money would normally be spent pleasing customers, in the free market. But as soon as government gets involved in regulating anything, then lobbyists are hired.

Consider this video posted at Stop the ACLU about Oregon’s health care system. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

As it happens, each year politicians get together to decide what illnesses will get priority funding. Naturally, once the politicians (not doctors, but politicians) decide what “deserves” to be funded by Oregon’s government run healthcare system, the lobbyists flood in and begin to agitate for their own priorities.

The result is that often times serious illnesses end up pushed down this list as the political needs of lobbyists get pushed up to be funded first.

Ever wonder why socialized systems cover breast implants, sex changes, elective abortions, and in vitro fertilization?

Lobbying for illegal immigrants to be covered

Here’s some more lobbying going on right now about Obama’s plan.

ECM also send me this story from the Chicago Tribune, via Secondhand Smoke.

Immigration activists say it is “immoral” for hospitals and doctors, as well as a nation, to deny health care to the seriously ill, no matter their legal status. “Those of us with good health insurance just don’t have to live with because we can go get the medication,” said Jennifer Tolbert, a policy analyst at the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation.

[…]”Concerns over the financial burden have led other hospitals to make…decisions denying treatment”, said Julie Contreras, an organizer in Chicago for the League of United Latin American Citizens.”These people, some of them are going to die,” Contreras said. “When a hospital denies treatment to any human being … this is flat-out immoral.”

Who is going to pay for this compassion? It isn’t free.

Anti-male discrimination

And don’t forget about anti-male discrimination in socialized systems, which I documented in a previous post.

Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.

More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).

Why males vote Democrat is beyond me.