Those of you that have been around long enough are no strangers to government attempts to force national health care down your throats. Recall that no sooner was that fine upstanding American Bill Clinton put into office, January 20, 1993, he named our now Secretary of State, then First “Lady” Hillary Clinton to head a task force on national health care reform. Attempts to institute these reforms were abandoned in September 1994. I wrote the following about the then government grab for power;
The combination of the presidential election and legitimate calls for less expensive health care for all has thrown Congress into another feeding frenzy. This time it’s over national health insurance, so hang on to your wallet. Most of Congress supports some form of “pay-or-play: scheme.
Under the “pay-or-play”, employers either provide government determined minimum health insurance or pay a payroll tax to enroll employees in a federal health insurance plan. This would do nothing more than soak employers, taxpayers, and cut the quality of health care. Their proposal would result in throwing money at costly “cures” that are worse than the ailment. The last thing taxpayers need is a new government program twice the size of Medicare.
As an employer, my vote goes to health care for all without government intervention. That would benefit 31 to 36 million Americans currently uninsured. To solve the health care problem, let’s start with a positive logical approach that clearly defines the bigger problems and provides reforms which are not politically motivated.
- Monopolies in the provision of care must be broken to lower costs. Something is wrong with a system that has been pushing up health care costs at an average of nearly 9% a year for the last decade. That’s nearly twice the rate of inflation.
- Participants should share in more of the costs. As a group, we have become health care junkies. We don’t have a truly free market system as long as medical insurance drives demand, and patients are unwilling or unable to learn the true price of services they’re buying.
- The escalating burden of malpractice suits must be stopped. Witness plaintiffs in hot pursuit of Eli Lilley, maker of the anti-depressant drug Prozac: or Upjohn, maker of the popular sleeping pill Halcion and most recently Dow Corning as maker silicone gel breast implants. Forbes magazine labels this litigation cost a “tort tax”. According to a recent article, tort claims cost the country $117 billion dollars in 1987. Medical doctors, faced with the threat of malpractice, have resorted to defensive medicine, particularly in the form of redundant testing.
- The medical profession has to be held accountable and to a higher standard. Although most business people compete on price, doctors rarely do. The absence of effective economic controls, as would naturally occur in a free market, creates anomalies. For example, Detroit’s rate of caesarean birth, which is five times more expensive that vaginal birth, is double that of Minneapolis. For this country as a whole, C-sections have increased 500% in the last two decades. To my knowledge, there’s no medical evidence that can explain this interesting phenomenon. Are Detroit C-section rates higher than Minneapolis’ because C-sections pay better on Medicaid fee schedules when compared to normal deliveries? I have to wonder.
- Since the inception of the Canadian system in 1971, the real cost of per capita health care has gone up and now exceeds that of the largest HMO’s in the U.S.
- The average hospital stay in Canada is 42% longer than in the U.S. Therefore, the system is no more efficient.
- Canadians are flocking to the U.S. to get health care they cannot get at home. In many cases, medial appointments must be scheduled one year in advance. Plan your illnesses carefully!
Other countries that have had a brush with national health insurance are now moving in the opposite direction. The father of Quebec’s health care system now advocates privatization and competition; Sweden is introducing “managed competition” and New Zealand is ending a forty year experiment with socialized medicine by giving people tax incentives to purchase private insurance.
Clearly, national health insurance is an attempt to make the federal government responsible for our well-being. Although there is a mindset that buys into that, I believe they are the minority. Lawmakers encourage our irresponsibility because the platform sells. However, allowing the government to assume responsibility for health care can only end in frustration. The government will simply take increasing levels of control while leaving us with 100% responsibility and accountability for our lives. That is one more reason why as government grows larger, their populations grow more frustrated and unhappy. In fact, government control has culminated in endless taxation, endless regulation, enormous bureaucracy and the lowest level of public service ever experienced.
Congress must learn that solutions to social problems can be found in the tried and proven mechanisms of free market, not by clogging the system with further governmental controls or by bleeding taxpayers through a government-administered national health care plan. I believe my proposal could help us achieve all of our objectives at a much lower cost.
In my opinion, the arguments against national health care haven’t changed much. What has changed since I wrote this piece 15+ years ago is that the American people have lost their way and greed and impatience have become an even bigger part of our lives. Specifically the American people have become more inclined to let government take more and more control of our individual freedoms and allowed scoundrels, like the “leaders” on Wall Street and the Obama administration pillage the United States Treasury.
While there is no doubt that the health care system needs help, it is still, bar none, the best system in the world. It is equally clear that the current administration with its attitude of “From each according to his ability to each according to his need” is hell bent on forcing national health care down our throats whether we like it or not.
God help America.
This article was written by Gary Field, CPA at Numerico, PC. Click here to view Numerico’s website.
