The Wall Street Journal-20080116-Curing Health Care Without Killing Patient
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Curing Health Care Without Killing Patient
While I appreciate Robert Reich's op-ed, "The Road to Universal Coverage" (Jan. 9), I noticed something missing. He just assumes that it is a given that universal coverage is the way things should be. Since government is not involved in the purchase of my auto insurance, homeowners insurance, renters insurance, life insurance, long-term- care insurance or dental insurance, why should government be involved in the purchase of my health insurance?
To go a step further, why is government involved in the insurance business to begin with? The programs already implemented or mandated by government -- Medicare and Medicaid -- have done nothing but drive the cost of health care up to the point that now the average person has a problem affording decent coverage. Prior to government involvement, people could afford excellent health care. But all the unfunded mandates now imposed have to be funded from someone's pocket, and it turns out to be the same people who now can no longer afford coverage for themselves and their families.
Isn't it ironic that the same people who caused the problem are now proposing to solve it with more of the same solutions? Am I naive in thinking that this will not work? I think the solution may be to uninvolve government, uninvolve companies and let everyone purchase the health-care insurance they wish for themselves. That is the only solution that will drive down the costs. How can someone I do not know, have never spoken with, will never speak with and who will never know anything about my health possibly decide on what health insurance coverage I need?
In 2006, the nation's health-care bill was more than $2 trillion. That's an average of $7,026 for every person; a 6.7% increase in costs, which is well over the rate of inflation. Most of these costs come from just 10% of the population. These people account for over 60% of the health-care costs.
Health economist Jack Rodgers says that we are on a path to the government being a larger and larger payer for health care . . . and in the long term, that means being the majority payer. Currently, federal, state and local governments already pay 47% of the nation's health-care costs. And if we keep this up, the government's share will be more than half by 2017.
Scary huh? Is this really the purpose of government?
John Ruff
Summerfield, Fla.
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Mr. Reich's op-ed disappointed me, not only for its blatant disregard of economic logic, but for its presupposition of controversial facts about what universal health-care coverage would entail.
Mr. Reich correctly recognizes that mandates (and their big government connotations) are the most sensitive part of the health- care debate, so he dismisses them as a smoke screen. But, as many presidential candidates have recognized, mandates are the most important part of any potential national health-care plan. Older Americans are among the most expensive to insure, yet Mr. Reich asks readers to believe that they could be covered without a mandated influx of healthy Americans to contribute to the plan without utilizing its benefits.
Mr. Reich argues instead that high-cost participants would be subsidized by the general revenue that would be realized if the Bush tax cuts were to expire. Yet even if we assume that higher taxes would increase revenues without pushing the country into recession, such an increase in tax revenue could not offset the enormous cost of health care for millions of high-risk Americans indefinitely -- particularly when fixed premiums encourage health-care abuses.
In order to appease Americans who want to believe that universal health care can be achieved without significant cost or government intrusiveness, Mr. Reich has ignored the real health-care debate and dismissed the bureaucratic mess of government-mandated coverage as the "least important aspect of what (the Democrats) are offering." But it's not "The Road to Universal Coverage" that Mr. Reich offers us; it's "The Road to Serfdom."
Justin P. Hauke
The Show-Me Institute
St. Louis
