Good News: Health Care Express Slows
Health care “reformers” (meaning those who want to effectively nationalize America’s medical system) have long understood that their best hope in the new political environment is to ram through legislation with the claim that it is an emergency and won’t wait. The longer the American people think about the increased cost, decreased choice, and other negative impacts of a a government takeover, the less likely they are to support it.
Thankfully, the government health express has slowed noticeably in recent weeks. Even supporters are coming to doubt that legislation can be approved before Congress goes home in August. Reports Politico:
Health care reform proponents are growing pessimistic that they can meet President Barack Obama’s August target for passing a bill — saying the next four weeks must fall together perfectly, without a hitch or a hiccup.
The number of weeks that’s happened recently? Zero.
A series of setbacks has made the task of completing floor votes in both chambers virtually insurmountable, given the plodding pace of the Senate. The official line from the White House and the congressional leadership is it’s possible, but privately, there are a dwindling number of aides who would put money on it.
And without a deal by August, the ripple effects could start to endanger the prospect of health care reform this year altogether — chief among them, the closer it gets to the 2010 midterm elections, the harder it will be to get members to make the toughpolitical decisions needed to vote on a bill.
This is good news. The U.S. health system needs fixing. But the more rushed they are, the less likely policymakers are to do the right thing. We need a medical system that is more responsive to consumers and market forces rather than to political forces and government dictates.
In Defense of Gouging
There are lots of things to hate about our current medical system, and all of us have our own favorite things to hate. This is mine: the fact that the system massively overcharges you if you’re uninsured, and they do it just because they can. If you’re uninsured, you’ve got no leverage, no alternatives, no nothing. So you get screwed. It’s like the shopkeepers who charge twenty bucks for a pair of flashlight batteries after hurricanes. Maybe it’s the free market at work, but if so, that’s all the worse for the free market. In the healthcare biz, it just doesn’t work.
I see it’s time to roll up the sleeves.
First, let’s look at price gouging after a hurricane. I admit it — in a free market, that’s precisely what happens. People get charged much higher prices. And I actually don’t mind calling it gouging.
But do you know what happens when a disaster strikes in an unfree market? Forced appropriation by the politically well-connected. Instead of higher prices for everyone, you get free stuff for a privileged few — and nothing, or very little, for everyone else.
Let’s use the proper term here as well: theft. In a free market, you see gouging. In an unfree one, you see theft.
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