I got a call from Barb today.  She was pretty upset.  The nursing home where her mother, Joy, lives was audited by the state of Idaho and was told they have too high a percentage of patients that have railing on their bed.  Barb’s mom was one of the residents that would have their railings removed.  Joy has fallen out of bed three times and in one of those falls broke her hip.  A railing seems to be more than just a good idea, but the state has some sort of quota system and Joy was going to pay the price.  Barb called the state inspector and was told, “You are very hostile.  Calm down.”  Barb managed to get some of the anger out of her voice but she still expressed her view of what the inspector should do in regards to the stupid regulations.  The inspector told her that maybe her mother could have her bed on the floor instead of having a railing.  For some reason this helpful suggestion was not received with as much enthusiasm as might have been expected.  Another suggestion was that we take her out of the state licensed nursing home.  This is actually a rather good suggestion if it wasn’t for the fact that the state takes so much of our money in taxes that we cannot afford private care for her.  We could have provided far better care for her if our tax rate was 1/2 of what it currently is.

I explained this is the sort of thing that happens with government “provided” anything.  They take our money from us because they know how to spend it better than we do.  They then spend it according to the whims of the “central committee” and the central committee in their infinite wisdom will come up with rules such as what we are experiencing in this case.  It happens all the time.  It’s not just health care, it’s nearly everything the central committee does.

Vote Liberatarian, the party of principle.