Some of the pitfalls of John Edwards mandated universal health care have been discussed in DJ’s post yesterday. DJ does point out this plan has been tried in England, and it’s a disaster…

I suggest the overall discussions on this topic of forced probing by doctors, or it’s off to the Gulag with you! hasn’t hit on one of the most critical points…following the money. My “angle?” John Edwards is a lawyer, Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. So are about every other person in the top level of elected government. A “healthy” (pun intended, why, yes!) sum of money is made by the legal profession in suing people. They also do not collect a portion of the money awarded in judgments, either. Bill Bennett’s brother, when hosting Morning in America one day, when asked how much he charged an hour commented that it was a lot, but you should see the ratio of collected to uncollected fees.

Puzzle piece #2: Lawyers, when given a case, do what? They chase the “deep pockets.”

Puzzle piece #3: The Federal Government self-insures. We don’t pay Lloyd’s of London to protect against risk…we hope we’ll find the money “somewhere” when we need to pay off a successful award against faulty/negligent/criminal behavior by those employed by the Government.

See where I’m going? I hope so.

If all doctors and medical professionals become civil servants, you won’t be able to sue them, just as you cannot sue a Government official, who was acting in the capacity of a Government employee now. If the wrong mangled limb is amputated in the operating room after an accident, sue the Government. If you are given a prescription that causes you to have an allergic reaction, one noted in your medical history, sue the Government. If your baby is delivered wrong, sue the Government.

Unlike doctors, who can give all their assets, exhaust all their medical malpractice insurance, and still come up wanting in the money they owe you, the Government has the deepest pockets of all of us, and…it’s not like they will take off to Hong Kong if they don’t feel like paying. There will always be a physical address, and a civil servant you can harass until you get your claim paid, with the added benefit of being able to call your Congress critter to ask them to sick their staffers on the unlucky civil servant, overworked and underpaid, to make sure you get front of the line privileged treatment…

Oh, just forget that not only will we pay for each other’s health care, we will pay for every and all claims against the “universal Health Care” system, regardless of how unfounded and/or frivolous they may be. Sort of a bigger version of when you take your car into the shop with a mangled fender “Are you paying for it, or is this an insurance claim?” philosophy, except it will be the millions of smaller wallets that will suffer…after all, who could deny a compassionate response from the Government, when one of it’s citizens has been wronged?

Think about it. Lawyers will love it…sue crazy America will love it. Judges will be even more overworked, along with the entire court system…and all of that will be a very, very big boost to the legal profession. WhatI ask you not to think about is how the cost, astronomical as it will become, will be buried deep within the Federal Budget’s pages…a mere “drop in the bucket” we will be told, of the over all trillions we need to run the country…so open your checkbook, IRS will be coming to you soon.

Better take up the local diploma mill’s offer to get your degree in paralegal services now!

Next idea: Universal Legal Service. Yeah, like we’d have a snowball’s chance of getting that passed into law by a bunch of lawyers…