On ABC's "20/20" last week, reporter John Stossel devoted one hour to health
care. Anyone who didn't see it should go to ABC.com and read the summation.
Stossel showed what happens when prices for goods and services are forced
lower or offered for free. Demand increases, adding to wait times and lower
quality in order to control costs. When government pays for health care (as
it will under the Clinton plan for the estimated 47 million Americans who
don't have it) people wait. "In the United Kingdom, one in eight patients
waits more than a year for hospital treatment," noted Stossel, " and the
British government recently set its goal to keep wait times to less than 18
weeks. Š In Canada, almost a million citizens are waiting for necessary
surgery and more than a million Canadians can't find a regular doctor."
That's the future in America once government establishes a firm foothold in
health care.
Karl Rove, the former top adviser to President Bush and a bette noir to
liberals, penned an essay in The Wall Street Journal on how Republicans can
"win" on health care. Among other things, Rove proposes using the principles
of free enterprise, personal accountability, tax incentives (not tax
increases), portability of health plans and more competition. It is
ridiculous, he says, for medical procedures to cost one amount in one town
and a much higher amount in another. Pooling risks will lower costs, he
argues, along with greater cost transparency and stopping junk lawsuits that
drive some doctors out of business.
Do we want the federal government having more control over our health? When
the costs get too large and the taxes too high (even for liberals) the only
"choice" then will be who gets care and who doesn't. One of the proposals
accompanying Sen. Clinton's ill-fated 1994 plan was the creation of a board
that would determine who gets a life-saving operation and who does not. Do
we want to go down that road toward practical eugenics?
Some of this might make people feel good for the moment, but in the end,
they or their children and grandchildren, will feel very, very bad. By then
it will be too late, because once a government program is established, even
failure is not a reason for its elimination.