Sept. 15, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
08:15
3413 A Message From Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Molyneux discusses a recent health concern and the upcoming fork in the road between socialized medicine and free market health care. The Surgery Center of Oklahoma: http://surgerycenterok.comDonald Trump's Health Care Policyhttps://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reformHillary Clinton's Health Care Policyhttps://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
I've been covering some of Hillary's health issues, and I had a very exciting weekend with regards to my own health just this last weekend.
What happened was, I don't know, a month or two ago, I started getting a little bit of pressure and some sort of buzzing in my ear, a little bit of tinnitus.
But, you know, I'd been swimming a lot, and I just assumed it was some water in there, and it kind of went on.
I tried some sort of eardrops to clear out wax, and then I ended up going to a clinic, and they Pulled a little piece of wax off the eardrum and it didn't really get better so I went back and they pulled another piece of wax off the eardrum and then they said, you know, try this nasal spray and so I was supposed to,
I think, open up the eustachian tubes or something like that and so I... Did that and it didn't really help that much either and so I decided so for those who don't know this history back in the day a couple of years ago I had a lump on my neck and it took forever to get it dealt with up here in Canada and like months and months and months and months even when I finally got to a specialist he said it was going to take months to have an operation to remove it
So what happened was I ended up going through a broker and meeting some amazing, wonderful, kind, incredibly competent doctors at a place called the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which is a surgerycenterok.com.
I'll put a link below.
And in particular, Dr.
Smith, who's been on the show a couple of times, was just a fantastic physician and a very, very skilled surgeon.
It gave me a little scar down here and then pulled out the lump.
And then it was sent for a biopsy.
It turned out to be lymphoma, which is a form of cancer, of course.
And so I went through the treatment up here in Canada, which was done well and fine and all of that.
And so I wanted to go and have my ear checked out.
My sort of feeling, and I've got good, nice doctors up here in Canada.
The individuals are all very keen on helping, but there is a problem just with the generally socialist system as a whole.
And so I flew down last week to the surgery center of Oklahoma and met with a wonderful ear specialist.
I had a hearing test and there was a little bit of diminished hearing in the left ear and so it was an exam and It was most likely something called idiopathic hearing loss, which is...
Idiopathic just apparently, I think, means we don't know what's caused it.
It could be loud music, although I've never been a big one for cranking up the Led Zeppelin.
It could be...
As a child, it could have something to do.
That could just be genetic.
It could just be any number of things.
And 50% of people recover to some degree from that.
And I'm sure I'll be in that.
I'm pretty healthy and all that.
I'm sure I'll be in that number.
But there was the need for an MRI. And pretty much every day you don't have to have an MRI. It's a pretty good day because basically you're fed into this big giant womb of intense metallic clanging and crashing for about 45 minutes.
Worst nap place ever.
It's like being in a really bad electro techno punk club.
The reason they did that was in rare situations you can have something called an acoustic neuroma which is a tumor that's benign that grows somewhere deep in your ear And often needs to be removed surgically, which will often cost you your hearing in the ear completely.
So they wanted to rule that out.
So I needed an MRI and I checked in Ontario when I was down there.
What's the weight in Ontario for an MRI up here in Canada?
And it was, on average, 101 days.
Well, that's, what, three and a half months?
I mean, that's a long time to wait.
Especially if you've had cancer before, the idea that there's a tumor close to your brain, well, let's just say it gets your attention.
And so I stayed down in Oklahoma over the weekend.
It was sort of late Friday afternoon when I had my hearing test and got the feedback from the wonderful doctor.
So I needed an MRI. Now again, average weight in Canada, in Ontario, 101 days.
I got one the next business day in America.
And it was wonderful.
Not the cheapest thing in the world, but essential and important for, you know, peace of mind and ruling out the low probability of an acoustic neuroma.
And so I had the scan done on Monday, a little after lunch, and the scan came back perfectly clear, healthy brain and all that kind of stuff.
So it's just this idiopathic thing, which I'm sure will bounce back over time, sort of six months or so.
And the reason I was thinking about all of this is this is a strange situation that I'm in, which is if I want to get something done sort of quickly with all of the best possible skills that I can conceive of, I actually have to take a plane to go to America or feel that way rather than wait for months up here for something to happen.
And, of course, in America, you're facing that kind of fork in the road, right?
You have Donald Trump, and you can look at Donald Trump's health care plan.
It's very much around free market principles.
It's about giving people savings accounts that are transferable and inheritable.
It's about increasing competition by allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines.
It's a lot of free market reforms repealing Obamacare, not forcing people to buy health care insurance if they don't want it, or it's not economically practical for them.
Versus, you know, Hillary Clinton, who has the standard democratic approach, I would assume, of just wanting at some point in the future, maybe sooner rather than later, a single-payer healthcare system, which is basically socialized medicine, and thus a massive takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy.
Now, the U.S., The market for medicine and surgery and healthcare in general is pretty messed up by the government as a whole.
Half of every dollar spent on healthcare is spent by the government.
And the mess of Obamacare I've done some presentations on.
You can search for them on this channel.
There are some theories which I think have some credibility that the purpose of Obamacare is to mess up the free market.
The remnants of the free market messed them up so much that the government says, well, the free market failed, so we've got to just take it over.
And so there is this sort of fork in the road.
And I was thinking about that, you know, with regards to my own health and what I needed to do, or at least what I felt I needed to do to go and get, you know, quick, efficient healthcare was fly down to the States.
It's a completely ridiculous thing to have to do when you're paying a lot of taxes for healthcare system up here in Canada.
But that was sort of the reality of what needed to happen for me.
And so this fork in the road where you have, you know, people on the Democrat side pushing for more and more government control of healthcare.
And then you have people on the Trump side pushing for more and more free market reforms in healthcare.
Another thing that Donald Trump wants to do, of course, is have open pricing, right?
Because it's really kind of murky a lot of times what you're paying for and how the bills are calculated.
It's one of the things that's great about, one of the many things that's great about the Surgery Center of Oklahoma is that they put their prices right there on the website.
You can see what it's going to cost you right up front, which is a very, I think, very powerful thing.
And it's hard to get that from other places, but these guys are not just great at what they do, but they are really committed to the free market, to small government, to choice, consumer choice, and business.
All of those wonderful free market principles in healthcare.
So my suggestion is if you ever need anything, just go and check them out first.
They are well worth it.
So yeah, it's just something to think about, you know, when you are going down the road and trundling, staring down that November timeframe.
I think everyone knows where I would stand.
With regards to socialized medicine versus more free market medicine.
But that is a very real issue.
And you don't really want to end up in a situation where you need health care, but you're unable to get it.
Because socialism has removed market incentives, which always results in shortages.
And, you know, shortages for some things, not the end of the world.
Shortages for health care can...
For you, for me, for anyone, literally be the end of the world.
Thank you so much for listening and for watching.
This is Stefan Molyneux for Free Domain Radio.
If you would like to help out the show, I'd really, really appreciate it.
