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AmSpecBlog
True Health Care Reform
The American health care system is broken and needs reform. On that point most people across the spectrum agree. But what kind of reform? The president and the usual gaggle of left-wing interest groups want to nationalize the system. The alternative is to return control over health care to patients.
Indeed, that's what most of the rest of the world is doing, including the socialist models so beloved on the left. Writes my Cato Institute colleague Michael Tanner:
Finally, the broad and growing trend in countries with national health care systems is to move away from centralized government control and to introduce more market-oriented features. As Richard Saltman and Josep Figueras of the World Health Organization explain, "The presumption of public primacy is being reassessed." The growth of the government share of health care spending in European countries, which had increased steadily from the end of World War II until the mid-1980s, has stopped, and in many countries, the private share has begun to increase, in some cases substantially.
Other countries are loosening government controls and injecting market mechanisms, particularly cost-sharing by patients, market pricing of goods and services, and increased competition among insurers and providers. Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament, said in a report to the European Commission, "[W]e should start to explore the power of the market as a way of achieving much better value for money."
There is even evidence of a growing shift from public to private provision of health care. If many of the proposals in Congress would push us toward more of a European-style system, the trend in Europe is toward a system that looks more like the U.S.
If there is a lesson that U.S. policymakers can take from national health care systems around the world, it is not to follow the road to government-run national health care, but to increase consumer incentives and control. The U.S. can increase coverage and access to care, improve quality and control costs without importing the problems of national health care.
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Bob| 6.13.09 @ 8:48AM
"The U.S. can increase coverage and access to care, improve quality and control costs without importing the problems of national health care."
I don't like nationalized health care either, but how can this be done? I still have not seen any plans that can work. We need to reduce the overall cost of health care from the current 18% of GDP to about 10% of GDP to be competitive in manufacturing. Since I worked in group health insurance, I can tell you that providing for pre-existing conditions and no exclusions will double the cost of insurance for everyone. You cannot increase coverage and access without also increasing costs unless you do something radically different. So, Bandow, what is your solution? I'm tired of all of these negative rants without concrete solutions. Either put up or.....
glgphd| 6.13.09 @ 10:24AM
I am a psychologist in private practice who has never been very politically active. But I am taking every opportunity I can to fight against the march down the road to socialized health care, which is being paved with altruistic intentions (e.g., self-sacrifice is noble, we are our brothers' keeper), collectivistic ideals (e.g., everyone has a right to health care, spread the wealth around), and a media-manufactured sense of crisis. Unless the philosophical premises of altruism and collectivism are exposed to the light of reason and then challenged persuasively by opinion leaders like yourself, I believe we will be on the losing side of the statist war on free market health care--even though we might win some battles using the economic arguments that think tanks such as CEI put forward.
A government-run health care program should be opposed because it is unconstitutional, immoral, economically disastrous, and unnecessary. It is unconstitutional because there is no right to health care. Search long and hard, but you will not find it in the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, or the U.S. Constitution. Nor will you find any constitutionally delineated power granted to the government by the people to provide health care to citizens (or illegal aliens) in this country. The USA is the uniquely the "land of opportunity"-- not the "land of entitlement."
Government health care is immoral precisely because we all have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Stealing--when once person or group of people forcibly takes another person’s property against their will--is unjust and immoral. Involuntary servitude--when one person or group of people forcibly makes another person provide services against their will--is also unjust and immoral. It is no less wrong when people don't want to get their hands dirty and instead get the government to do these things: Might does not make right even in a democracy. Forcibly making one group (taxpayers) pay for the health care of another group (patients) is a form of stealing and is unjust and immoral. Shifting the burden of health ca
glgphd| 6.13.09 @ 10:27AM
(cut-off from last post)
care expenses from one group (present generation of patients) onto another group (subsequent generations of taxpayers) is another form of stealing and is also unfair and immoral. Forcibly making one group (doctors and other health care professionals) provide health care services to another group (patients) on terms and at fees dictated by the government is involuntary servitude and is immoral. For the same reason, it is immoral for the government to dictate the pricing, availability, and delivery of other health care goods and services provided by one group (hospitals, drug companies, pharmacies, medical equipment suppliers, etc.) to another group (patients).
Government health care would be economically disastrous. The estimated cost of the proposed government health care program threatens to crush our economic recovery with mountains of debt, higher taxes on businesses and individuals, rising inflation, higher interest rates, slower job growth, and continued stagnation. The inevitable web of government regulations--including price controls and rationing--would distort market forces and cripple the health care sector. Innovation and creativity would be inhibited. Doctors would retire and fewer people would be willing to invest their time and money to become doctors only to be enslaved by the state to serve disgruntled patients. The Atlases of medicine will shrug.
glgphd| 6.13.09 @ 10:30AM
(continued from last post)
Finally, government health care is an unnecessary solution to the media-manufactured "health care crisis" Other market-based solutions are available, but the problem is that these proposals are not seeing the light of day in the mainstream media or in congressional hearings. Deregulating the health insurance sector to provide a wider array of policies without all the bells and whistles and allowing people to buy policies across state boundaries would be a step in the right direction. Reform also has to recognize that many insurance companies are in bed with elected officials at the state and federal levels of government. These crony capitalists need to be called out for their anticompetitive lobbying practices.
One moral and practical thing to do is to write to our elected officials to oppose any government run health care option. Passively sitting by and letting this country march down the path toward socialized medicine is, to paraphrase Obama, not an option.
wbc9000| 6.13.09 @ 11:08PM
Government controlled health care will not improve competition among health insurance companies. In fact, it will do the opposite. Who would want to continue to pay for their own private health insurance plan when they are already being forced to pay for Obamas plan? Soon enough we will find that private companies won't be able to compete with the governments plan. People who were once happy with their private insurer will have to switch to the government's socailized medicine because they are forced to pay for it whether they use it or not. Socialism has failed in every country that has tried it. Now is not the time to introduce socialism to America.
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