An Appointment with Reform

Campus Report ^ | July 2, 2009 | Brittany Fortier

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An Appointment With Reform

by: Brittany Fortier, July 02, 2009

Is there a doctor in the house? There were plenty in attendance for the CATO Institute Conference on Health Care Reform held on June 17, 2009, and they were all prepared to discuss the Obama administration’s plan to set up a government-run health care “option” that would “compete” with the private sector.

Cato Institute President Edward H. Crane expressed his disagreement with a New York Times article saying that a doctor shortage is “an obstacle to Obama goals.” “When I see the word ‘shortage,’ I know it is a nonmarket phenomenon,” Crane argued. “Everything is scarce. Scarcity exists. Shortages exist because the government gets involved. Right now there is a shortage of primary care doctors because their salaries are controlled to a large degree by the edicts of the Federal Government through Medicare.”

Crane also noted his “disappointment” with the Obama administration because they were “invited to send representatives to this conference and they declined.”

Keynote speaker Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that “the President and the Democrats are giving people a false choice” with their heath care plan. While acknowledging that the present system needs reform, Rep. Ryan challenged the assertion that the only option is “a public plan … or the status quo.” Rep. Ryan said that is “simply not the case.”

“There are … other ways to fix this problem,” Rep. Ryan said....