Today, if you, your doctor and your insurer agree on a procedure, you
make
an appointment and "get 'er done." And if you can't agree, you are free
to
pursue other procedures that you can pay for yourself. (After all, what
good is an extra $50,000 in your retirement account if you're dead?)
But if no one practices those alternative procedures because omnipotent
health care bureaucrats won't pay for them, you are out of luck.
The larger point is this: Why is it government's business how much you
pay,
what doctor you see, or what treatment you receive, so long as you are
paying the bill?
Health care, like any commodity or service, will always be limited by
economic reality. Government health care programs are responsible for
more
cost-shifting than all of the "uninsured." Yet despite paying
below-market
prices, Medicare will be insolvent in just seven years and has amassed
all
by itself a deficit of $37.8 trillion.
If the government is empowered to supervise everyone's health care, then
only two outcomes are possible: either everyone's health care is
rationed
to control costs or no one's health care is rationed and the cost of
government health care finally breaks the camel's back, ushering in a
worthless dollar, runaway inflation and skyrocketing interest rates.
In either case, our impoverished children and grandchildren will forever
curse our self-centered, shortsighted generation.
There can be no health care utopia any more than everyone can enjoy all
they
want to eat or live in the home of their dreams. Sooner or later,
someone
must choose between what we want and what we can afford.
Who do you want to make those tough choices < yourself or someone in
government?