iirc, PJO'R once said "You think health care is expensive now??? Wait till it's free!!!"
Posted on 07/29/2007 4:49:21 AM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta
Socialized medicine doesn't work, and state experiments toward that end are proving it.
One beauty of America's federalist system of government is that individual states can famously serve as "laboratories of democracy." Thus, state governments can experiment with different approaches to address the needs of their respective citizens, allowing us to determine which approaches work, and which ones don't.
Indeed, such state experimentation has proven invaluable in maintaining this vital federalist system. Perhaps the best example in recent memory is the state of Wisconsin's successful implementation of welfare reform in the 1990s. Based upon Wisconsin's wildly successful model, the former President Bill Clinton was finally forced to succumb to the Newt Gingrich-led effort to enact similar welfare reform nationwide. The results speak for themselves, as welfare rolls have plummeted while employment and productive behavior among former welfare recipients have skyrocketed.
This was our federalist system at its best. And we at the Center for Individual Freedom, as a group dedicated to preserving and advancing the principles enshrined in our Constitution, applaud this flexibility of experimentation, and stand as a vanguard against centralized bureaucratic encroachment upon such freedom.
Unfortunately, the right of states to engage in policy experimentation sometimes teaches lessons on what not to do.
Efforts toward socialized medicine are a case in point. Certain states have recently begun to implement socialized health care initiatives, with already disastrous results.
Ironically, one vivid example comes from Wisconsin, which provided such positive instruction regarding welfare reform. The Wisconsin Senate has passed a "single-payer" plan to provide coverage for every resident over age 65, but the price tag and necessary tax increases render it a cancerous proposal for Wisconsin citizens and taxpayers. It turns out that the scheme will cost each Wisconsin worker an average of $510 every month, and businesses would suffer a new 14.5% tax on wages paid, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In addition to the stifling costs and tax increases, which will merely drive businesses, employees and productive citizens to relocate in other states, this plan will provide a perverse incentive for illegal immigrants, the uninsured and less-healthy people to relocate to Wisconsin. This is because the program is open to anyone who has lived in Wisconsin for 12 months, regardless of employment status.
In other words, an already poisonous government program will only get worse through a vicious cycle as businesses and healthy citizens leave, while freeloaders and unhealthy citizens replace them. Additionally, big labor unions salivate at the prospect of unloading their health care responsibilities upon hapless Wisconsin taxpayers.
Massachusetts, which famously introduced its own effort toward mandatory universal coverage, provides another unfortunate example of the failure of government-paid health care.
Last year, Massachusetts passed a prematurely-celebrated health care initiative entitled "Commonwealth Care" that provided state-subsidized coverage and required all residents to purchase insurance. State residents who fail to obtain insurance are penalized with additional state taxes. The law also required employers to either pay for health insurance or cough up a hefty tax penalty for each employee that they cannot cover.
Anyone who has passed Econ 101 could have predicted what would happen next, but it nevertheless caught government bureaucrats by surprise.
Across the state, primary care providers are now turning away patients, and waiting times have lengthened because physicians receive below-market payments along with an influx of new patients. Thus, Massachusetts bureaucrats are learning a lesson that even Communist bloc countries learned decades ago: when government social planners artificially increase demand and reduce supply via price controls and rationing, shortages and inferior quality quickly follow.
And this is an idea that so many wish to emulate in other states and on a national scale?
After all, there is a reason that Canadians come to America for health care coverage, rather than vice-versa, regardless of Michael Moore's "Sicko" propaganda. Namely, the free market works, and socialized medicine does not.
Defenders of socialized medicine often respond that the nation's V.A. system proves that government-provided health insurance can work. What these activists fail to acknowledge, however, is that the V.A. system is not a form of health "insurance." Rather, it is a social safety net provided by taxpayers to veterans in recognition of the great contribution that veterans have made to our nation. It is a benefit that they have earned, not a society-wide system of health insurance. Accordingly, this well-deserved reward to our nation's veterans does not provide a parallel to socialized medicine.
Across the country, state politicians and presidential candidates seek to spread these failed schemes in pursuit of cheap political points. It is incumbent upon more sober Americans to stop them.
Excellent article!
Short on hard statistics.
The first ones to advocate socialized medicine are also the first ones to decry the shabby treatment vets get at veteran's hospitals (i.e. Walter Reed, which is now closed or is closing soon). What makes socialized medicine proponents think that the government would handle health care for the average citizen any differently or better than veteran's hospitals do.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/catosletter/catosletterv3n1.pdf
http://www.cato.org/dailys/9-23-96.html
http://www.theadvocates.org/freeman/8903lemi.html
Good article in parts showing the disaster of health care schemes in states. And he highlighted a fact liberals and conservatives alike pretend doesn’t exist.. The laws of supply and demand affect healthcare like any other part of the economy. Conservatives have argued to me that adding more supply in terms of doctors, pa’s, nurse physicians etc would not help the situation.
But on the other hand it shows the federalist model of state action won’t work for states at least not like normal programs. Old people, unhealthy and poor would move to the states with government healthcare.. While productive, healthy young people would leave because of confiscatory taxation levels.
Anyone who has passed Econ 101 could have predicted what would happen next, but it nevertheless caught government bureaucrats by surprise.
Across the state, primary care providers are now turning away patients, and waiting times have lengthened because physicians receive below-market payments along with an influx of new patients. Thus, Massachusetts bureaucrats are learning a lesson that even Communist bloc countries learned decades ago: when government social planners artificially increase demand and reduce supply via price controls and rationing, shortages and inferior quality quickly follow.
I'm still agnostic over Mitt Romney, but this part of the article is not good news for him, because he was partly responsible for Commonwealth Care. I'm sure his people will blame it on the Democrat state congress who partnered with him on this program.
On another note, I've got one little quibble with the author's logic in the following sentence: ". . . waiting times have lengthened because physicians receive below-market payments along with an influx of new patients." Below-market payments do not result in longer waiting times. Instead, I'd say that the influx of new patients is the only cause for the new delays.
“And this is an idea that so many wish to emulate in other states and on a national scale?”
But the proponents of universal health care will make two claims:
- This only shows that it must be universal. If all states have it, then individual states like WI won’t be penalized for doing the ‘right thing’.
- If it is universal, then every one will have a stake in ensuring it is properly funded and support increased taxes to provide the highest quality of care.
All socialists believe that the only reason socialism has failed in the past is that it has not been tried on a large enough scale and that this time it will be different if only they are in charge.
iirc, PJO'R once said "You think health care is expensive now??? Wait till it's free!!!"
Really? I wonder if the patriot FReepers that have shown up every week at WRAMC for the last 118 weeks in a row know about this.
The Rats have used the MSM to brainwash the masses thatUHC is needed and desirable and US corporation's are starting to buy into the idea due to international competition pressures from the one world economy. Rino's will join the Rats to save their electoral hides.
Is it too late for UHC to be stopped or is it time to start framing the debate to get a plan that does the least damage ?
Hillary Exposing herself as a Catastrophe
Walter Reed is NOT a Veterans hospital, but is a US Army hospital for injured Active Duty troops! One of the problems at Walter Reed recently was the inability of getting their patients, who required it, discharged from active duty and transferred into the VA system. The two medical systems are NOT at all linked administratively. A person, who is legitimately discharged / retired from the military with a documented disability, can usually recieve medical care immediately, BUT it can take up to a YEAR of review and administrative busy-work before the disability level is recognized by the VA. The same thing applies to Social Security disability compensation. This means receipt of often-needed disability compensation is delayed, especially for those with serious injuries and little prospects of holding a job anytime soon (spinal injuries, loss of limbs, etc). These are the people who obviousy need it the most and soonest.
“....and that this time it will be different if only they are in charge.”
Proving that narcissism is the overriding philosophical imperative to a liberal...
If done at the federal level, however, this couldn't happen.
I'm against socialized medicine (I support MSA's). But to point to a state failure as justification is dishonest (for the reasons you gave).
Wiscon's welfare reform worked because it reduced benefits, driving recipients to other states.
The first ones to advocate socialized medicine are also the first ones to decry the shabby treatment vets get at veteran's hospitals (i.e. Walter Reed, which is now closed or is closing soon). What makes socialized medicine proponents think that the government would handle health care for the average citizen any differently or better than veteran's hospitals do.
They must be freaking nuts! They point out shabby treatment at government run veteran hospitals and then advocate more government controlled health care. Do they hypnotize the people whom they "sell" their garbage health care plan to? Because that's the only way I can see an average joe believing it.
Consider this angle. If a doctor in a socialized healthcare system knows that he is not going to be properly compensated for the work that he does, then that doctor has no real incentive to offer his services. This doctor might move to another state which would allow for him to make more money, or he might decide that being a doctor where he is now isn't the best of jobs and might consider another career choice instead. Either way, that is one less doctor providing medical service. Even if the number of patients stayed the same, with fewer doctors, delays would have to go up because there are fewer doctors to treat patients.
Never misunderestimate the stupidity of some of the US electorate.
Part of the reason the push towards socialized medicine has been so successful is because since the failure of Hillarycare in the early 1990s, all the people have been hearing is how "bad" our system is and how much "better" a commie system would be. There has been no rebuttal from doctors, insurance companies or anyone else touting the complete superiority of the free market. As the old saying goes, if a lie gets repeated often enough, it becomes the truth.
We can pretend that “strong laws” will “protect” these records, but the news is full of constant dribbles of stories about this or that data breach, this or that clerk who sold information for a bribe, this or that stolen notebook contain the data and this or that backup tape that was stolen from the parked car of an intern who was told to take the tape home at night for “offsite storage” and bring it back in the morning.
The only way to prevent this outrageous violation of liberty is to prevent and preclude government from having this data and this power in the first place.
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