Health Care Hammer

It is turning out that national health care may not be the bargain many are hoping for. Despite the common view that a national health plan would be a low cost option available to those who need health care insurance but cannot afford it, it is in danger of becoming a mandatory obligation that would cost many Americans thousands of dollars a year. A plan has been proposed in Congress that would fine people up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance. Plans have already been proposed that would coerce money from employers, drug and medical manufacturers, and labs to pay for the government's proposals to help those without insurance, as well as those struggling to keep their insurance. But every tax on business is ultimately a tax on consumers.

Fearing that squeezing the health industry might not be enough to provide the funds needed for national health care, some in Washington are exploring the need to squeeze the public. While there is the veneer of legitimacy in the idea of making the public pay for a public benefit (I have always understood health as a private benefit, despite the casuistry of health care advocates), it is unclear what that benefit will be, and whether the public will be willing to pay for it after they know what it is. Naturally, there is talk of offsetting some of the cost to taxpayers through manipulating the tax code, but giving some people back some of their money at the end of the year is unlikely to ease the burden of regular payments to their insurers. The real cost of a national health plan to the American taxpayer will be staggering. Merely trying to obscure those costs within the massive federal budget by legislative slights of hand will do nothing to reduce those costs.

There are many factors that make up the cost of health care. The addition of a new federal bureaucracy to handle health care will do nothing to diminish those costs. Perhaps even worse, to the economic considerations that must be made by private insurers, will be added the social and political considerations demanded by activists and and imposed by government underwriters. Procedures and treatments will inevitably acquire a political component as different groups and interests jockey for attention and coverage.

National health insurance will be another hammer to beat the market, and society, into compliance with the vision held by liberal idealists. At least the hope is that the market can be beat into compliance, rather than beat to death. If the public can be led to believe that they are getting an essential good at a bargain, they will take it. No doubt, once the public comes to rely upon the government for health care, the program will become a juggernaut; unstoppable and invulnerable. My fear it that if liberals achieve their vision of a public dependent upon the charity, beneficence, and supervision of government, it will be impossible to wean them.