OPINION:
The World Health Organization just marked its 75th anniversary with a nod at the need to push, press, all-out push and press for “renewed action on health equity,” a phrase the bureaucrats like to sling to divide people by classes — the haves versus have nots — and then to exploit by fostering the anger of the have nots to grow government’s power as provider.
The application of a term like “equity” in healthcare is particularly perilous for America. It means, in short, the destruction of the nation’s entire health care system.
How so?
Equity is not equality.
Equality means that all are afforded the same opportunity, the same basic resources — as much as these guarantees can be granted, that is. The Constitution grants all the same opportunity for basic human rights; the free market gives all the same opportunity for success; God bestows all the same opportunity for individual liberty and everlasting life.
Equality levels the playing field by creating base standards of operations for all to compete, all to achieve, based on the spirit, soul and God-given talents of the individual.
Equality recognizes the differences among the individuals, but celebrates these differences by clearing paths and obstacles and interferences that will obstruct these individuals from accomplishing and realizing greatness.
Equality buoys. Equality allows for the individual to thrive.
Equity, on the other hand, is more concerned with the collective — with making sure all have exactly the same resources and tools to live and succeed, regardless of such variables as individual responsibility, individual effort, individual choice.
Equity concerns itself with a reallocation of resources to those deemed — by a board, by a committee, by a government agent, by somebody in power — to be in more need of the resource than the individual or group of individuals who actually worked and earned the resource in the first place.
Equity is top-down, for the good of the people, for the betterment of the collective — as determined and defined by a bureaucrat.
Equity steals ingenuity. Equity drives out ambition. Equity kills the soul.
And this is what WHO wants to bring to the field of health care.
America’s already lost much of its free market in regards to health care. Republicans long ago ceded battle ground by allowing Democrats to make the case that health care is a human right and must therefore be a taxpayer funded human right — which opened the door for Obamacare — which opened the door for a more socialized medical system — which opened the door for higher costs for the haves in order to pay for the have nots. America’s already well on its way to total government control of health care.
But we’re not there yet. Not completely.
America still has a medical system that concerns itself with profits and losses; that leads the world in inventiveness; that pulls in talent and that recognizes and rewards the most skilled.
Force the field to favor equity as a priority, though, and it’s lights out for the last semblances of liberty in America. Control the health of the people — control the people.
A government in charge of dictating who gets this health treatment versus who doesn’t, and at what cost, and from what pocket or pocketbook, is a recipe for socialist-slash-communist disaster.
From The Who’s website: “Looking forward 75 years to the turn of the next century, a renewed commitment to health equity will be key to meeting future health challenges. WHO’s roadmap for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic calls for an urgent paradigm shift to promote health and well-being and prevent disease by addressing its root causes and creating the conditions necessary for good health. WHO urges countries to protect health by prioritizing primary health care as the foundation for universal health coverage.”
Who will dream of becoming a doctor under that scenario?
It’s the ultimate playbook for elitist government control. Equity is not equality. Moreover, equity is not American. It’s a communist ideal — a communist word carrying a communist vision.
Equality recognizes the individual and rewards individual achievement.
Equity embraces collectivism and steals the achievements of others.
America must never accept any health care model that adopts equity as its guiding mission.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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