When I hear partisans in Washington talk about Obamacare, I hear things like, "too expensive", "problems with death panels", "need to roll back some of the provisions", and so forth. I hate debating the finer points of Obamacare, because to do so is to concede the validity of it.
Obamacare. Excuse me, but what article of the constitution covers this one? Seems to me we could have already dispensed with this insanity on simple constitutionality grounds. Like a B-class horror movie, where the weapon surely already exists to kill the beast, the monster won't die. Instead, we're trying to figure out how to save it. As with many other monstrous provisions of the administration, this one needs to be defeated dramatically and completely.
Aside from the non-constitutionality, which is reason enough, there are plenty of common sense reasons to dump this approach.
1) The cost to the US for all uncompensated care is estimated at 35-50 billion /year. Why do we need a 1.44 trillion dollar program to cover that? If it were simply about covering the medical providers for the shortfalls, we could pay for it out of petty cash. I could run that program with 25 people.
2) Obamacare is a disproportional tax on the healthy. Why subsidize the unhealthy by forcing the healthy to pay for their care? If I don't have to pay for it, maybe I will take up smoking, carousing, and eating at McDonalds. This one really frosts me because on so many other issues, the government wants to engineer a result, like more ethanol, less food; or higher stock prices, lower wealth. Here, they want everyone to have average health, at the expense of the truly healthy.
3) Obamacare is a disproportional tax on the young. Young persons simply do not need a full measure of health insurance. We already tax the young to fund the social security and medicare administrations. They will be paying the 14.3mm debt until the end of time. Please, let my children go.
4) Obamacare eliminates choice. That is unAmerican on the face of it, isn't it? Senator John Sherman is surely rolling in his grave.
5) Obamacare eliminates incentives to stay healthy. When a health care recipient finds out what it really costs to keep him safe and healthy, he might try a little harder to stay that way. Instead, he probably won't see the bill.
Off the top of my head, there must be at least a couple dozen other reasons not to do this. If we would start every bill with the constitutional authority well defined as to why it has a right to exist as a bill, we could avoid lengthy debates (let alone lengthy blog posts). Again, it seems that we are trying to tame this beast, when by all points of reason, we should be killing it.
But let's talk about one of the reasons given for why Obamacare would make sense in any society. The high cost of health care. How did we get here? Andrew Foy sums it up really well here. At one time, people did their own relationships (personal and transactional) with their doctors. Service was provided like many others, and paid for in the same way.
Then, government muscled in on the business, and the rest was gobbled up by private insurance companies. Now (as can be quickly seen from the chart), we pay less of our own medical care than ever. That would seem to be a strong case for leaving it alone, but in that trend are the seeds of the system's destruction. By paying 10% of our health care costs, we have lost track of what it really costs to bandage up a foot, or diagnose a boil.
With big insurance, medicare, medicaid, and union negotiated co-pays, none of us has the slightest clue what health care really costs and why. Why anyone would think that that would change for the better by paying a bureacrat to stand in the way of the transaction is ludicrous.
But let's talk about one of the reasons given for why Obamacare would make sense in any society. The high cost of health care. How did we get here? Andrew Foy sums it up really well here. At one time, people did their own relationships (personal and transactional) with their doctors. Service was provided like many others, and paid for in the same way.
Then, government muscled in on the business, and the rest was gobbled up by private insurance companies. Now (as can be quickly seen from the chart), we pay less of our own medical care than ever. That would seem to be a strong case for leaving it alone, but in that trend are the seeds of the system's destruction. By paying 10% of our health care costs, we have lost track of what it really costs to bandage up a foot, or diagnose a boil.
With big insurance, medicare, medicaid, and union negotiated co-pays, none of us has the slightest clue what health care really costs and why. Why anyone would think that that would change for the better by paying a bureacrat to stand in the way of the transaction is ludicrous.
1) Health care costs skyrocket as a new layer of bureacracy settles in. 36 million people and the other 300 million who had insurance are now finding more reasons to seek free medical care. If its free, demand surely goes up, doesn't it? Doctor's offices are flling quickly, and 20% of the doctors are checking out of the system, because the pay no longer justifies the long hours.
2) Real health care drops to subsistence levels with people opting to get healthcare outside the system. to avoid the long lines and poor service. Overall health falls dramatically, and people are discouraged from getting the help they need.
Probably both.
In a few short years, people will be finding ways to opt out of government medical care. But they won't be able to opt out of the higher taxes that feed it. In that way it is the same exact problem as social security. An ineffective and expensive insurance program, that people will cease to rely on.
End it, don't mend it.
