The standard bearers of the Democratic Party are preparing for another run at that holy of holies of the welfare state, known as “universal health care.”
The myth being propagated by the left is that the free market traffic in health care has made for a society where the rich are the only beneficiaries and the poor are left to themselves in a cruel battle for survival that they usually lose. The provision of free, universal care is therefore deemed to be a moral imperative that people should embrace or else have to forfeit their humanity.
Being that this philosophy is so pervasive in Washington among those in power, it is rare to hear people talk about the negatives of a national health system. Instead, people like Michael Moore speak enviously about France and Britain and Canada ““ pioneers of the state-run health system ““ where people of all stripes bask in the sun-drenched garden path of health care that is always free and easy to obtain, while Americans shuffle along the sidewalks or mortgage their futures trying to pay the excessive costs of doctor’s visits.
But those who have lived in any of these countries know the adverse effects of having one’s health in the hands of government bureaucrats.
Stories about Britain’s National Health Service are particularly disarming. Instead of quick-and-easy queues and state-of-the-art care, we hear about lines out the door and dilapidated facilities that are as much eyesores as they are poor places to receive treatment ““ which also helps explain Britain’s very high rate of hospital-acquired infection
In America, where companies compete for patients, people have reaped the benefits of the best technology the world can offer. But in Britain, where the National Health Service cannot even cover the costs of supplying basic care, socialized medicine has halted technological innovation and caused hospitals to fall into decay from lack of funds.
Another standard liberal trope about universal health care is that it would have few side effects for the people who do not wish to partake in the new system. People who support a combination of public and private insurance opine that those who already have health insurance would be largely unaffected by the creation of a public plan.
Their equivocation confounds the intelligent listener. How can this be, when the provision of care to the uninsured will require doctors, drugs and all the other implements of the medical profession, which cost money? How indeed, when the U.S. already spends between four to six times per capita on health care what Western European countries do?
The datum in this argument, which government officials conveniently leave out when they discuss nationalized health care, is that the resultant costs are passed on in the form of higher taxes falling disproportionately on the rich.
This is certainly a clever way to disguise the exorbitant costs of extending coverage to roughly 46 million people (as many as 10 million of whom are illegal immigrants). After all, people do seem to respond better to having money taken directly out of their paychecks than they do to writing checks.
The “tax” for health care specifically, they hope, will gradually be thought of like just another tax and soon go unnoticed. In the end, however, this amounts to nothing more than simple redistribution, with the rich subsidizing the health of people they will never meet.
Then there is the issue of demand. The most persistent fallacy about “universal” health care is that it is actually universal. In Britain, where the National Health Service once ran essentially free of government intervention (when the infrastructure it inherited after it went private enabled it to pay for itself), unexpected costs have forced it to ration health care according to government targets. Bureaucrats who have no expertise at all in what they are doing are empowered to make crucial decisions about who will be treated, often leaving out the elderly in the process. This is not to mention the effects of a shortage of doctors, many of who will undoubtedly leave the profession because of lower wages in a state system.
Contrary to what some people say, private insurance will disappear if a public plan is adopted. Although President Obama has said he wants to work through the existing insurance industry, meaning that private insurers will be able to compete with the public plan, private insurance would never have a fair chance to compete. This is because public plans like Medicare, which have the backing of the government, can force out the competition by charging lower premiums. Any public plan would eventually develop a monopoly.
It is easy to see, then, why people who live under universal health care grumble about it, even though liberal propagandists often make it seem like a symbol of nationalism. As the Medicare trustees said in their 2008 annual report, “the financial outlook of the Medicare program continues to raise serious concerns.” Predicting even bigger costs in the future than the present, they wrote, “growth of this magnitude, if realized, would substantially increase the strain on the nation’s workers, Medicare beneficiaries, and the Federal Budget.”
If Medicare can’t even sustain itself, why would an all-Medicare type system do better?
If you’re worried about a federal takeover of the health care industry, then e-mail Pherson at apherson@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.