WASHINGTON -- Contrary to many predictions from the political
pundits, the war in Iraq is not going to be the preeminent issue of
Campaign '08. The Angry Left might want the war to be foremost in
the presidential debates, but whoever becomes the Democratic
nominee that nominee knows that placating the Left -- which is to
say promising an immediate pullout -- opens a Democratic
Administration to ongoing ridicule from the Republicans and to
badly damaged credibility. This is because immediate pullout is
impossible. All the leading candidates of both parties have
acknowledged as much, albeit the Democrats sotto voce.
So what will be the preeminent issue of Campaign '08? I think
the answer is health care. The Republicans are already propounding
market solutions that promise lower costs to a national health-care
expenditure that is already growing by as much as 6% annually,
continued personal care from a patient's chosen physician, and
portability -- the ability of a patient to take his insurance
policy with him from job to job.
The Democrats all promise more government involvement and
increased costs paid for with higher taxes. So let us stop there.
From Hillarycare to Edwardscare, the Democratic candidates want to
make your health-care delivery as inexpensive, personal, and
efficient as the United States Postal Service. That might sound
very attractive to anyone who has not used FedEx or UPS. Perhaps
there are still Americans who expect to stand in long lines for
inferior service or who remain enraptured by that jingle about
delivering the mail through rain, sleet, and snow. But as the Post
Office's monopoly has been broken down, private delivery services
have demonstrated the superior service resulting from market
solutions.
The health-care solutions offered by the Democrats are the
fossilized government programs one would expect from the Old Order,
and the Democratic solutions to public policy matters are very much
the product of reactionaries. The free-market economist Brian
Wesbury notes that we live in an era when former socialist regimes
such as India and China are prospering by encouraging markets, less
government regulation, and lower taxes. In our own country with the
Supply-Side presidency of Ronald Reagan, innovation and prosperity
have been the norm since 1983. Under the Old Order's economics (the
economics of the "mixed economy"), recession and inflation stalked
the land. From 1969 to 1982 the United States was in recession 30
percent of the time. Since 1983 the country has been in recession
only five percent of the time and those recessions were
shallow.
Now along come the Democrats promising for health care what they
brought down on our economy prior to the Reagan Revolution -- more
government regulation and enforcement. The vast stew of a
health-care package just presented by Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton sounds good in parts. There is her promise of tax credits
to assist lower-income Americans in the purchase of health
insurance. There is the allowance for an insurance-buying pool.
There are caps on employers' tax-deductible employer insurance. But
there is much more government control, namely a federal mandate
that all Americans obtain health insurance.
Who doubts that this means government bureaucracies deciding the
constituent ingredients of insurance packages and their costs? Who
doubts that as with the IRS government would patrol health care and
punish alleged violators. In Medicare and Medicaid government
already imposes ceilings on what doctors might charge for various
procedures. Surely with Hillarycare doctors' costs, hospital costs,
and pharmaceutical costs would be monitored and enforced by
government. But that is only part of the problem. The enforcement
is bound to fail while snaring countless numbers of citizens in
government violations. Mandated health insurance means inflationary
costs and price controls. From the 1970s we should have learned
that price controls are doomed to failure. The only question is how
long it would take under the Democrats' government-monitored health
care for the citizenry to recognize this.
topics:
Taxes, Health Care, Economics, Medicaid, Iraq, NATO, Medicare
