08.05.2009

When you read the health bills in Congress and the analysis of them, you have to ask, what the heck are we trying to accomplish?

That raises 2 issues:  1. Do we cover people who freely choose not to have coverage?   2. Can we afford it?

Forcing people to play:  We don’t need to force everyone into care, unless we assume that government will be the nanny for everyone, that people cannot make free decisions in a free society.  Many people decide, for good and various reasons that are no concern of the state, that they do not want to pay for health care insurance.  They pay for services as they use them.  Personally, I would rather have a real “insurance” program that protects me against disaster (like my auto insurance), but leaves me to shop for regular services like a checkup (or an oil change).

Can we afford it? If we agree that the number of people that we will have to pay for is 15 million, then the annual cost to give them an $8,000 “insurance” plan would be $120 Billion per year, or $1.2 Trillion in 10 years.  Given the financial state of the federal (and state and local) governments today, can we afford $1.2 Trillion OR MORE?  Remember, the first estimates of the cost of Medicare have been exceeded by over 10 times.  We can surely rest assured that any estimate of a government run program will be much higher than any conservative estimate.

Hmm? What example (just give me one!!!) can we point to where government action has actually lowered the costs of anything?  If the US Government ran Intel, we would still be using 286 chips that cost $500, instead of chips that run millions of times faster for $100.

Will the government be reforming tort law and reducing the costs of malpractice insurance (which by the way, costs more than the costs of covering those 15 million people we mentioned)?  Nope!  Aren’t trial lawyers the top contributor to Democratic PACs?

In a free market, the competitive forces of supply and demand will eventually drive prices down.  Many argue that we do not have a free market in healthcare.  As mentioned before, we don’t have insurance per se.  We get a “unlimited pass”  once we have paid our out-of-pocket, and we don’t have an incentive to shop.  (Perhaps that is where we should focus reforms.)

Nope: the only way a government plan can control costs is to limit the supply of services, aka “rationing”.  In the UK and Canada, that is exactly the way they control costs.

If you remember your basic economics courses, a market will clear when supply and demand are cleared by a market price for those services.  When a government eliminates price, demand will be high … which requires a government to take control of all supply of services and limit them to the “affordable” budget.

When I was studying for my MBA (and was living in Canada at the time), I took a course in Political Economy under Professor John Crispo, an outspoken political commentator in Canada.  A presentation from one of my fellow students was a sign of the coming future of healthcare in Canada.

Telling us in 1983 that she reflected Government healthcare ministry policy, she said that we had 3 cost problems: “Doctors, Doctors, Doctors”.  That policy had its consequences.   In the 1990′s, Canada was losing up to 771 doctors per year to the United States.  Today, Canada has about 188 doctors / 100,000 population.  The United States has 256, or 36% more.  How long will it be before a government bureaucrat decides the problem with healthcare costs is doctors?

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.  The bills presented in Congress do not accomplish even these objectives, but certainly will reduce our liberties.  The examples of government success in this area are nil.  The examples of government waste, corruption and bad outcomes are plentiful.

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by liberal | Tags: , Filed Under healthcare | 1 Comment 

  1. Arsento on 08.06.2009

    I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.

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