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Government care is an oxymoron
by Kevin O'BrienThe team is assembled and scrubbed and the patient is on the table. If all goes well, we will witness a triumph of modern politics over modern medicine. We really should hope that it goes very poorly, indeed. Only then will we retain both a very good health care system and the chance to make it better. The surgery that Drs. Kennedy, Waxman, Miller, Rangel and Chief of Government-Run Medicine Barack Obama propose has been done in socialist countries all over the world. Here, though, it's considered experimental. And the experiment will "work" here only if the desired results are fairness, in the sense of a broad equality of misery, and a colossal increase in the power of government over the individual. If the desired results are freedom of choice, timely access to care, high quality of care, flexibility, innovation -- the things the vast majority of Americans enjoy today -- plus any chance at reducing cost and bureaucracy, the proposals the Democratic surgical team is pushing are exactly the wrong things to do. And all of them -- President Barack Obama, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Reps. Henry Waxman, George Miller and Charles Rangel -- know it. Four congressional committees are mobilizing to yank health care out of the private sector and finish the job of making medicine a government enterprise. You know, like a bank or a car company. The "single-payer" people, who have clamored for years in favor of a straight government takeover of the entire health insurance system, are upset because Obama no longer publicly agrees with them. They needn't worry -- and the savvy ones aren't worried, because they recognize a useful smoke screen when they see one. Obama and the framers of the House's legislation propose a "public health insurance option" to compete with (Democratic subliminal message alert) EVIL, FILTHY, NASTY, AWFUL, MEAN, GREEDY, HORRIBLE private health insurers. Kennedy favors the "government option," too, but apparently hasn't included it, yet, in the bill he is writing. The government option is the end of the health care system we know today. It's single-payer in two easy steps, rather than one politically difficult one. When government competes directly with the private sector, government wins -- as all auto companies that are not General Motors are about to find out -- because government is not only playing the game but making the rules. In a letter intended to push Kennedy and a reluctant Sen. Max Baucus, head of the Senate Finance Committee, toward the government option, Obama expressed a "core belief that Americans should have better choices for health insurance, building on the principle that if they like the coverage they have now, they can keep it." Even the most ardent single-payer advocate can afford such a core belief, knowing that the key words are "if they like the coverage they have now," and that once government is in the game, it can easily make it impossible for private companies to offer coverage that Americans and their employers like. Read Obama's letter, which lays out the health care program he expects Congress to place on his desk for signature this fall. The numbers don't come close to adding up and elements of the program contradict one another. For example, how would covering more people and doing more preventive care -- that's treating more people more often -- cut costs? We're a lot more likely to see costs cut by denial of Jane's hip replacement or Joe's prostate cancer surgery. It will be cheaper for Jane to limp, and Joe to die. The most tragic thing about the enormous changes the Democrats propose -- and the reason why Obama and his congressional allies are bent on rushing them through as fast as they can -- is that once private-sector health care is gone, there will be no bringing it back. The question on the table is not whether Americans have legitimate gripes about their medical system -- we do. The question is whether we think it's in such terrible shape that even the government could do a better job with it. That's what any plan that includes a government "option" is really asking. The right answer, clearly, is a resounding "no." Let Congress hear it, over and over. Posted by: 2009-06-12 |
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