By Michael Tanner on 6.11.07 @ 12:08AM
Beware of big-government features in supposedly market-based health care reforms.
A group of big businesses is pushing increased government
control of health care as a means of beating its market
competitors. The Coalition to Advance Health Care Reform, a new
corporate lobby founded by Safeway CEO Steve Burd, includes a
number of companies, like Safeway, that provide health benefits to
unionized employees and have long wanted to force non-union
companies like Wal-Mart to do the same.
The Coalition has hired Virginia GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie to
aid in its cause. If it succeeds, it will undoubtedly help its
members' bottom lines -- but at the cost of fewer choices for
patients, higher taxes, and lower-quality care for everyone.
Of course the Coalition doesn't come right out and say it wants
to follow Hillary Clinton down the road to national health care. In
fact, its first principle, as stated in its mission statement, is
that health care reform should be "market-based." But it then goes
on to outline a series of steps that would take market forces out
of health care.
For example, the Coalition at least tacitly supports California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to require all businesses in
his state to provide their workers with health insurance or pay a
four percent payroll tax. This comes as no surprise, since
Coalition members include not only Safeway and Kroger but also
large insurers like Aetna and Cigna HealthCare, who would be all
too happy to have customers forced to buy their products. But
employer-provided health insurance is not free. Employers faced
with added costs will have to raise prices, hire fewer workers, or
cut back on wages and other benefits. The Coalition is a little
vague about its exact position on an employer mandate, but Burd has
been actively campaigning for Schwarzenegger's plan.
The Coalition explicitly endorses an individual mandate, like
the one Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney imposed as part of his
vaunted health care reform, requiring everyone in Massachusetts to
purchase a government-designated insurance product or face
thousands of dollars in tax penalties. This mandate is an
unprecedented intrusion on individual liberty, and it is almost
certainly unenforceable. Consider that, according to the Insurance
Research Council, in the 47 states that mandate auto insurance,
14.5 percent of drivers are uninsured. In every state there are
more uninsured motorists than people without health insurance.
Burd's group also neglects to inform us that if the government
is going to force people to purchase insurance, it will also have
to define what coverage qualifies. Massachusetts has already
mandated that every health care policy sold in the state must cover
prescription drugs, and it has outlawed policies with deductibles
of more than $2,000, despite the fact that some people might want
less comprehensive but less costly coverage.
The Coalition also endorses a host of new health care
regulations, such as prohibiting insurers from considering a
person's age, health, or other factors in deciding whether or not
to sell that person insurance or what to charge. Such "guaranteed
issue" and "community rating" requirements drive up the cost of
health insurance for young, healthy people, the group most likely
to go without insurance today. Making insurance more expensive is
hardly the way to get more young people insured.
Finally, these business-backed health reformers call for massive
new government subsidies, not just for the poor but also the middle
class. Some of the plans supported by the Coalition include
taxpayer-funded subsidies for families of four earning as much as
$62,000 year. This represents an enormous expansion of the welfare
state.
Where's the "market" in all this?
For all its problems, the American health care system is still
the best in the world. If you are seriously ill, this is where you
want to be. That is why tens of thousands of people from countries
with national health care systems come to this country every year
for treatment.
It looks as though big business and big-government Republicans
now want to run down the road to socialized medicine. We should be
very wary of following them.
topics:
Taxes, Health Care, Hillary Clinton, Business, Law
