Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 11:33:17 AM
I wrote yesterday about how bad laws always necessitate more bad laws, but at the time I forgot what is probably the best example. They may not seem dangerous, but the laws allowing for public funding of health care for the indigent, including those mandating hospitals provide care for those unable to pay, have resulted in the loss of more freedoms than most laws I can name.
How so?
The answer is simple. Because those who cannot pay for health care became wards of the state, the state suddenly has an interest in maintaining everyone's health. And this does not just apply to the indigent. Because the costs of catastrophic health problems tend to exceed the means of most individuals, the government can argue that it is likely almost everyone will need government care at some time. And so they can say the government has an interest in the health of each and every citizen.
And how does it express that interest?
Through intrusive laws. Based on the idea that "I don't want to pay for someone's head injury", the government can mandate seat belt and helmet laws. Arguing that "drugs cost society a fortune", they can ban all manner of narcotics. Based on the argument that "bad health puts a strain on our health resources" they can regulate various food stuffs. And so on. Anything that can be linked to health care costs is suddenly a valid concern for the federal government. Everything from penicillin to transfats to hand guns to seat belts can be called a "health care concern" and subjected to federal scrutiny and regulation.
And all because of the bad idea of government funded health care.
Nor doe sit stop at explicit regulation. The government's involvement in health care makes other matters more difficult as well. For example, immigration is made much more contentious by government funding of health care. As illegal immigrants do not contribute to the system, but benefit from the government funded health system, the issue of "free rider" costs become entangled with the whole immigration question. Not only that, but because hospitals are mandated to provide care for those who cannot pay, many border hospitals are being bankrupted by illegals crossing the border either simply to seek health care or, quite often, to ensure their child is born a citizen of the US.
Of course health care is not alone in causing problems and bad laws far beyond the scope of the original bad law, it just seems to touch on more and more diverse areas than most such laws. Most bad laws seem to spawn new laws in the same general area of interest. For example, our defective tort system seems to spawn ever more bizarre liability laws, and some peculiar contract law, but rarely does it reach outside of the civil courts. Health care, on the other hand, seems to create bad reasoning in almost every area of human endeavor.
The only similarly broad reach for a bad law seems to be the interstate highway system. Whether or not federal funding of the interstate highway system was a good idea (I tend to think it was not), the laws themselves were badly crafted. For example, the concept of "spend all your money or get less next year", a system which does nothing but encourage waste and reckless spending. However, the true harm of the interstate highway laws is the rather arbitrary way in which maintenance and construction funds are assigned. Without any sort of strict rules, these funds are essentially disbursed at the pleasure of congress, meaning the highway funds themselves have become the tool of choice for forcing states to comply with federal wishes. Everything from seat belt law to speed limits, minimum drinking ages to energy conservation measures have been tied to highway funds. And while the laws usually manages to make some superficial connection between the matter and highway use, that is not always the case.
Then again, highway funds are not truly spawning those bad regulation, they are simply being used as a tool to enforce federal wishes. Federal health care laws, on the other hand, truly do create the laws I attributed. Seat belt laws, dietary controls, anti-smoking rules, and so on were all inspired because of the belief that they would cost the federal and state systems more money, making the health care laws the perfect example of my thesis that bad laws inevitably spawn still more bad laws, laws with ever broader scope.