In responding to various blogs, I found myself defining for some people, more progressive or left leaning than myself, why I am against a government option.
The following article lays out some of those very basic arguments in short form.
1. Is healthcare a right?
Before I talk about the actual implementation of a government option, let me address a philosophical problem where I think the respective sides start to split.
We lean more to the concept that healthcare is not a right – it is a good or service. It is produced by others and sellable as a commodity therefore, not a right.
We believe rights are things which can’t be bought or sold. We are born with rights. A government can’t control rights, no matter what a law says because a law didn’t create the right in the first place, therefore it can’t take it away.
2. Is this “government option” Socialism?
It is not pure Socialism, but it is re-distribution of wealth. In fact, fundamentally, taxation is re-distribution of wealth, which we acknowledge as acceptable in some circumstances. The founding fathers designed the original Constitution with a power to tax for some very specific things. And, any sane person is going to acknowledge the necessity of taxes for very specific resources, shared infrastructure, common defense, etc. I will submit that I don’t consider these things “rights” either, but acknowledge as acceptable because a functioning society can’t exist without them.
The founders originally tried to avoid some of that centralization of power and taxation under the articles of confederation, and it didn’t work. So the Constitution was drafted with a basic principle in mind – government designed, if I could quote Thomas Paine for a moment, government with the least expense and greatest benefit. Because…the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.
Government is basically a necessary evil and the Constitution was designed to be a balance preserving liberty while providing for a functional society. We accept a sacrifice of Liberty, so we don’t live in anarchy. So, government’s primary function is to preserve freedom for citizens. Freedom to do…whatever…fill in the blank…the Pursuit of Happiness – not to provide for goods and services.
3. The Slippery Slope
A big fear of the government option is cost, and the slippery slope that leads to single payer. Just look at every other government program in history which never shrunk – only expanded. This is the track record. Not a question of if – just, when.
Under many of the current proposals, the federal government would penalize businesses for not offering insurance or it could possibly mandate coverage. While this language isn’t certain yet, let’s just use common sense to walk through this scenario.
Coverage is mandated. The government will first levy high penalties forcing all employers to provide health insurance. This, of course, will harm small businesses that currently may not provide coverage or not the type of coverage mandated. Once forced, businesses will then in turn see the incentive of less cost through the government option and choose it instead. In this scenario, millions of already insured people are moved into the government option making the expected cost for current legislation far more than the CBO or any think tank is currently reporting. As usual, that good old law of unintended consequences is in full effect.
Given that reality, redistribution of wealth is absolutely necessary in order for this model to continue. And, with an expanding population – you are building the biggest Ponzi scheme in the world. Europe has learned this lesson, so they are paring down their healthcare system or, out of necessity, making really tough choices in what care can be covered. All at taxpayer’s expense…once again, losing the freedom to choose.
It’s just the nature of such a system. It’s not self-supporting. It wants to kill itself. And, once started – it can never be stopped until it does actually kill itself. See the history of Communism.
I’m not suggesting Communism is being proposed here. I’m just saying it’s the logical conclusion of such a model. If this, why not that and if that, why not this? And so on, and so forth. No end in sight once you take the plunge.
4. Do we have reason to fear this slippery slope?
“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.
The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
That’s a really strong quote made almost 200 years ago by Alexis de Tocqueville, so we aren’t talking about a new radical here. Maybe one of the most well respected historians and travelers of all time, he completed a series of writings compiled as “Democracy in America.”
Without getting in too deep and trying to play amateur scholar, the foundations of our nation in a big way revolved around writings by his mentor Montesquieu (friend of Voltaire) in many series of books (credited with the many ideas behind natural law, balance of power, post Roman democratic Republics, etc), one of which was the “Spirit of Laws”. Montesquieu points out that virtue is almost unnatural in man, so when given power, the temptation is often too great to remain virtuous. It’s one of the reasons he argues against empires and monarchies as a form of government.
Much of the later analysis on his work focuses on the idea that a free nation naturally becomes at war with itself (in the same way we are right now) because prosperity brings a sense of comfort, and comfort brings entitlement (imagine rich people thinking they are entitled to special privileges after living a certain way for so long), and entitlement invites despotism because it can preserve, most easily and without effort, that status quo.
5. The Compromise
I feel we lie in this area right now. We are at a crossroads in this country where the sense of what is deserved has crossed the point where some are willing to give up liberty to maintain comfort, and that only leads to one conclusion – the very soft despotism of Europe (not by a man, but a system). It is a society, much of which is no longer capable of sucking the marrow out of life and is content to let government play nanny to all life’s problems.
So it’s not actually Communism or Socialism that we fear. Those are political constructs. It’s that very soft despotism that results with rule of a few or rule by an entity so large that it commands dependency, even through rule of law.
Rather than summarizing another author, let me suggest an article – Charles Murray wrote, The European Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism.
By “American Exceptionalism,” he means the unique American spirit that drives people to over-achievement.
The author looks at things from a completely cultural perspective removing the debate over costs or rights. Just simply compares the cultures.
And, he does address the idea of what government’s central role should be.
In this way, it’s not just my fear, its history. It’s happened. I don’t want to repeat it.
6. The Myth: Healthcare was always a right before big business and its supporters made it a means to profit.
This “big business” was in large part created by an act of…you guessed it – the federal government. They decided that during World War 2, a demand for workers would cause a substantial increase in wages, so they placed artificial measures in place by the “National War Labor Board” to freeze wages. It turned into a mess. As a compromise with the employers, they allowed for the non-taxable benefits systems, hence – employer based health insurance is born.
Boom – they had inadvertently created a new industry and future problems. So, health insurance was available before, but not really employer based. And, the basic model was closer to what we think of as catastrophic coverage – closer to modern car or homeowners insurance.
The idea that health insurance should cover every single visit, check up and procedure was not even around until the government encouraged the market (through increased access) to provide for it.
Prior to this, health insurance was not viewed as a necessary part of daily life, and definitely not a right. This is a very modern construct. Before, cost controls took care of themselves, and only big procedures and hospitalizations were considered necessary for insurance coverage.
The government created a perpetual problem by doing something very well intended….yes, the pesky law of unintended consequences.
I’m also skirting Roosevelt’s contributions to larger entitlements and Johnson’s contributions through the Great Society. Both of which fundamentally changed government influence in these fields as well.
7. Options
This is perhaps the easiest part. A government option is proposed because we have a problem with competition in the market place driving costs higher. The government option is supposed to provide a viable alternative, therefore competition in the market.
Why not let the free market do this?
Open up insurance between states and create a nationwide marketplace. Competition problem solved.
Seems like a whole lot easier way to go than involving the government.
Tort reform: Curb the lawsuits and you drop the costs of the provider’s liability insurance, operating costs and the CYA factor (Cover You’re A_ _) – over testing, over treatment, etc.
In short, why not try some common sense approaches before we re-structure the entire economy and model for healthcare delivery?
1. November 2009 at 4:31 pm
I contact my Senator’s daily regarding healthcare and the only one to answer is Mr. Brown. I know he is going to support govt controlled healthcare, no matter what the people want. His responses indicate that. Mr. Voinivich, well he is useless, he never responds, especially if you are critical. I’ve made it plain that I am against any govt controlled healthcare and that I feel it is a violation of the Constitution and that they are in violation of their oath, and that they will be held accountable if they vote for this issue.
2. November 2009 at 2:03 am
“One could argue such a right exists because of some general moral obligation to help people in need. But while you may feel morally obligated to give money to someone who is truly in need, does that person have a right to your money? ”
No. There is no moral obligation to steal for someone to give. Its not giving when its stolen. Taxation is taking money by force, these programs violate the Constitution, the Principals of sound politics and economics, because they are in conflict with human nature, there for are illegal and theft. In the Constitution, Artice I, Section 9, Clause 4: Congress was prohibited from assessing a head tax or other direct tax (such as an income tax) on the states unless it was uniformly assessed according to the population of each state. Someone feeling moral obligation to help others does not give them the right to steal from others themselves or abusing government to steal for them. We have a right when we are blessed to be living in a country with Morals, Liberty and Freedom that enable people to have prosperity, to be able to give to those in need as individuals or private groups, if we chose. As Jesus said give a man a fish and you have given him a meal, teach him to fish and you have given him a living. When people are given things, money that they did not work for, they do not appreciate it, it takes away from their motivation to work, achieve and benefit themselves and the country. When people are given things, like welfare, without regard to behavior, it breeds dependency, resentment, corrupt thinking, trying to get more of something for nothing, gambling, gaming the system, in effect stealing, lies, fraud, theft, etc. That instead of constructive endeavors.
The best that we or government can give is opportunity to achieve. Opportunity is destroyed by out of control Socialist Communist programs, because it destroys economies. Government intervention as opposed to free markets causes misallocations of funds and is misallocation of funds, distorting markets and perpetuating failed businesses and programs. These are fraudulent programs because they are based on lies, deceit, have proven to have failed when used and will not achieve there stated purposes.
Jim Fitch
2. November 2009 at 8:05 pm
Unfortunately, the only two gimmicks being put forth (perhaps with good intentions) are not real solutions. Opening up insurance sales between states won’t do anything, #1 because it would be governed by the states laws the insurance companies are based in, and just because you have a national policy set up in state X, it doesn’t mean that everybody throughout the rest of the country would be eligible to buy from that state. #2 We have laws on the books that allow insurance companies to conspire to fix prices. That pretty much drops a bomb on the whole idea. Not a solution, just a gimmick, and I doubt even you guys who are promoting it believe in it.
Secondly, less than 2% of costs could be dealt with by tort reform. Costs have been going up by double digits and all you want to address is this 2%!! Ridiculous. I’m about to have my own Tea Party against this kind of bull!
We need actual solutions not gimmicks to skirt our responsibility on this critical issue. As a Libertarian on most issues, I’m listening, but clearly, every solution put forward so far has been pure lazy hogwash.
2. November 2009 at 8:16 pm
Finally, I don’t believe that we need to be providing charity care, whether it’s to people who get $100,000 hospital bills and die within less than a year just because they couldn’t afford their insulin. That’s called charity care.
Perhaps the biggest form of charity care that is being debated here is CHARITY CARE FOR CORPORATE AMERICA. If a public option can lower health care costs, by CUTTING OUT THE FAT paid for CEOS to deny care rather than provide it, let’s keep it on the table! We don’t need to preserve an industry that has ridiculous overhead costs, is not cost competitive, and makes money primarily by effectively denying care. Let the dinosaur go extinct. Why are consumers paying for profits when they don’t have to pay this ENORMOUS 30% or more over head whereas existing government provided health care is only 3% or less (ten times less). If that’s not an indictment about what should be an extinct industry, I don’t know what is.
If it doesn’t work, the Democrats will pay for it by being permanently kicked the h*** out of office.
Free markets can’t work when there is no choice. No choice can occur when the companies involved can conspire to fix prices. The only thing that I can see that can promote choice is a real public option that competes with private insurance. If you really want to preserve dinosaurs, and show charitable compassion to CEOs who haven’t been doing right by the American people, you can compromise by saying that there’s a minimum amount that can be charged. But this kind of obstructionism toward promoting more consumer choice and obstructing the only kind of means to competition available is just plain idiotic.