Our ongoing debate about government's role in health care is proving
worthwhile because it forces people to focus on the real tradeoffs in a
system mandated - if not directly operated - by government, rather than
one
selected by individuals or their employers. Today, our system is a
dysfunctional hybrid.
To the extent that we cannot choose the health care coverage we want
today,
those restrictions are almost always the result of previous government
interventions - tax incentives that make it easier for employers to buy
insurance than for employees to purchase their own or laws requiring us
to
purchase coverage we may not need or cannot afford.
President Obama says all insurance policies will be required to cover
preventive care and early screening for various maladies, as if he can
force
insurance companies - or doctors - to give us something for nothing.
He can't do that anymore than he can require restaurants to serve
a
free lunch every Thursday. Even under Barack Obama, Americans cannot be
compelled to do business at a loss; they always have the right to lock
the
doors and close up shop.
That's why there's no free lunch - or free health care. Politicians
aren't
"giving" us these services; they are forcing us to buy them - and to pay
more than the actual cost.
It never ceases to amaze when politicians who demagogue against "greedy"
insurance companies will, in their next breath, require us to buy things
through an insurance company that we could purchase less expensively if
we
simply paid out of pocket.
If both you and your doctor know that you need a colonoscopy, how can it
possibly be cheaper for you to send your payment to an insurance
company,
while the doctor files a claim with that insurance company, and the
insurance company processes the claim and issues payment - rather than
for
you to simply pay the doctor?
Yet ObamaCare would establish a mandatory list of insurable procedures
as
well as maximum deductibles. For those with money-saving
high-deductible
plans and health savings accounts - like the one I've had for 12 years -
the
President's promise that we can keep the plan we have just doesn't wash.
Americans who are understandably frustrated by health care costs are
recognizing that the more control you give to government the
more
control you give to government.
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?