"Crunch Time for Health Care: Now It’s Up to Us" by Roger Kimball (w/links):
"But as the battle over who is to control another one-sixth of the U.S. economy — you or the bureaucrats in Washington — as this battle approaches its denouement, I’d like to offer a couple points for reflection.
"For an overview of the entire debate, let me recommend Dr. David Gratzer’s “Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster,” the first of a new series of Broadsides from Encounter Books.
"Also, please read John Hinderaker’s piece at Powerline.com on the report issued by Price-WaterhouseCoopers on what the health care bill currently being debated by the Senate would mean for you and your wallet. Bottom line: it would mean a lot of money.
"As Hinderaker dryly observes, “PWC concluded that the cost of health insurance for the average family will rise by $4,000 by 2019, as compared with doing nothing.” He supplies this handy graphic to illustrate the point:
"One of the most often repeated assertions from TeamObama about their proposed “reform” of health care has been that individuals would be able to keep their current health insurance if they so desired. But this, to employ Joe Wilson’s colorful characterization, is a lie. As Hinderaker shows, the Baucus plan before the Senate, combining a “weak mandate” to buy insurance with “a strong requirement on the insurance industry that it insure everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions or state of health,” would “devastate” the private insurance industry.
"What is meant by a “weak mandate” is that, in the current version of the Baucus bill, there is no requirement to buy health insurance at all until after 2013, and by 2017 the penalty for failing to buy health insurance still amounts to only about 15% of the cost of the insurance. Now, think about it: if you know that you don’t have to buy health insurance when you are young and healthy, but if you should get sick, or just get older, you can apply for health insurance at any time and it will be illegal for the insurance company to turn you down, what would you do? Obviously, you would defer buying insurance unless and until you get sick. This means that the pool of those who are insured will be lower quality, and the cost therefore higher for everyone who buys insurance. It is as though you could wait until you die, and then your heirs can buy life insurance on you.
"As Hinderaker observes, “This isn’t reform, it is stupidity.”
"What, then, should the government do? In brief, it should get out of the way. Improving the delivery of health care, if that is what we care about, really isn’t that difficult. (I say “if” because the real goal is only incidentally concerned with health care: the real goal is extending government control over your life.) First, go after the trial lawyers: cap malpractice judgments and severely limit what lawyers can take away in fees. Second, let the market, i.e., let competition, work in the insurance industry. “It actually would be very easy to make health insurance cheaper,” Hinderaker points out.
"All we have to do is allow insurance companies to compete nationally instead of state-by-state and eliminate all mandates that limit consumer choice. It has been estimated that these simple reforms — which are not part of any of the Democrats’ “reform” bills, for obvious reasons — would reduce health care costs by one-quarter to one-third...."
Read the whole article: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/10/13/crunch-time-for-health-care-now-its-up-to-us/
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