Ever go to the DMV? Tried to renew your passport at the Federal Building? Had the chance to wait in long lines only to be shuffled from one bureaucrat to the next? If advocates for universal health care like Clinton or Obama had it their way, your next visit to the doctor could be a similar experience.
Government control over health-care spending under universal health care would be devastating for the quality of care. Pharmaceutical companies would cut the research and development spending that fuels our medical advances, no longer spending billions of dollars chasing profits that would be eliminated by the government.
The current system isn’t necessarily broken. The rise in health-care costs was due to inflation, an increased consumption of expensive new treatments and tests by an aging population, according to a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. What some politicians view as waste and high costs is really an increase in the quality and utilization of cutting-edge medical care.
It may be possible to reduce these costs, but not at the expense of innovation. Despite the widespread rhetoric by politicians blaming obscene insurance-company profits for rising health-care costs, profit to insurance companies makes up only three cents for every dollar paid in premiums. Yet Democratic politicians would rather scapegoat insurance companies for rising costs than address the real issues plaguing the health-care industry.
In contrast, a legal climate in which doctors face an increasing number of costlier malpractice lawsuits is estimated to have increased health-care costs by 10 percent. The Democratic candidates are parading their plans to make health care more affordable. But what policies do they specifically advocate?
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all support a universal health-care system that would require employers and taxpayers to provide health care for all Americans. Each plan would amount to the government-forced subsidization of health care for some citizens by others, and all consumers would pay in the form of higher costs. The contrast between the two parties could not be more clear. John McCain opposes universal health care and supports tax credits for health insurance and tax-free medical savings accounts. Mitt Romney supports free-market solutions to cover the uninsured.
Democratic reform fails to address the fundamental problems with the health-care system. If that weren’t enough, all of the Democratic candidates advocate preventing insurance companies from charging insurance premiums to people based on their current state of health.
As a general rule, insurance premiums are determined by the amount insurance companies expect to spend on a patient. Since current health is a good predictor of future medical spending, it makes sense for people in worse health to pay higher premiums.
The Democrats’ plan to outlaw this practice would eliminate any semblance of personal responsibility from the health-care system, particularly since people often have a great deal of control over their own health. For example, non-smokers would be forced to subsidize the health insurance premiums for smokers who could not be charged higher rates, an outcome that is fundamentally unfair.
The argument that health care is a right stands on similarly shaky grounds. What fundamentally distinguishes health care from any number of other goods and services needed for survival that citizens must purchase for themselves? Students should vote against any candidates that support such a wasteful and potentially deadly experiment in government-administered health care.
Lazar is the chairman of the Bruin Republicans and a former Daily Bruin viewpoint columnist. He is a graduate economics student.