Posted by
Andrews on Friday, March 12, 2010 11:49:34 PM
Let us imagine that Obama were to propose "lifetime income security". Say he wanted to ensure that people would always make a "living wage" and would always have a job. So he proposes a bill that would ensure everyone, except the disabled who would be supported for life at state expense, but would ensure everyone else a fair job with a living wage.
Let us then suppose that Republicans were to argue against it, but they argued by saying "We can ensure income equality and guaranteed employment without this massive plan. We can provide lifetime support for the disabled other ways, and there is no need for this bill to ensure jobs for everyone..." If they said that, would you think they were conservatives? Or that the Republicans had lost their minds?
So, why do we argue the same way over insurance?
Many times now I have heard that "we can fix the problems of health care without this bill.. We can solve pre-existing conditions or lifetime maximum payments... We can provide insurance for everyone..." And so on. Since when has any of that been the job of government? And since when has that been the conservative platform?
The problem is not insurance. Nor is it health care. The problem is that the government got involved in health care. First, through tax incentives, they convinced us using pseudo-insurance to pay for regular expected costs is a good idea, thus reducing any competitive pressures or cost-based incentives. Then they began to regulate, regulating in ways that drove costs up while reducing supply. They began to subsidize and provide care through government pseudo-insurance such as medicare and medicaid. And then they allowed tort laws to drive up costs.
And worst of all, we came to think it was the way health care should work. We don't even talk of providing care nay more, we talk about providing insurance, as if this insane pseudo-insurance were the right way to pay for health care. We no longer look at health care as a service bought and sold on the free market. Even the right has begun to see it as "special" as a "right", forgetting that someone has to provide this "right", and either must be paid or made a slave. As with other areas, such as education, farming, trade, and others, the right has accepted the way the left views the world, and cannot see the trouble it causes.
What we need to do is stop trying to come up with "our own solution" and instead point out the simple truth that health care is a service, like any service, and will be provided best by a free and competiitve market. That the problems we have now are the result of too much government, and adding more will not make it better. And finally, that our present model is the problem, and we should not patch it, but start over.
Until we begin to argue properly, we will end up giving away the argument to the left.
POSTSCRIPT
My earlier writing on health care can be found at "
The Absurdity of Mandatory Insurance", "
Preexisting Conditions", "
Public Funding is Government Control
", "
Private and Public Coexisting", "
Who Will Decide", "
Shameless Self-Promotion", "
The Devil is in the Definitions (And Assumptions)", "
Redefining Insurance... To Actually BE Insurance", "
The Insurance Sham", "
Government Efficiency", "
High Cost of Medical Care", "
Medical Reform, An Overview", "
My Health Care Plan", "
True Insurance Reform", "
A Different Look at "Health Care Reform"", "
Of Wheat and Doctors", "
Bad Economics Part 10" and "
You Gotta Have Faith. I also wrote several posts on how we argue the wrong points, or expect the wrong things from government, in the posts "
Don't Buy Into The Wrong Argument", "
Beware Alternate Explanations" , "
Cigarettes, Sudan and Abortion", "
The Danger of "Policy Wonk" Solutions", "
How Not To Argue About Social Security", "
The Difficulty of Principle", "
Don't Blame the Politicians", "
What We Deserve", "
Who Is To Blame?", "
What is Wrong with Us", "
The Single Greatest Weakness" and "
The Presumption of Dishonesty". I would recommend "
Deadly Cynicism", as it also deals with these same topics, and "
Greed Versus Evil", "
The Inevitability of Bureaucratic Management in Government Enterprises", "
The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism", "
The Limits of "Scientific" Management", "
Bad Economics Part 15", "
Planning For Imperfection", "
The Triumph of Good" and "
Fairness and the Free Market", which show how the free market will resolve these and other problems. Finally, for an analogous situation, I recommend my posts on education reform, including "
You Don't Drown in a Glass of Water - Vouchers Revisited", "
Why Vouchers are not the Answer" and "
Never Ascribe To Evil, A Discussion of Education"