Common Folk Using Common Sense

Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, and Jo’s Cafe, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Different phrases, all with the same meaning. Something the Left has been threatening to unleash on the US for decades, and a very real possibility if the Democrats continue to hold Congress - and a bet-your-paycheck surety if Comrade Hillary takes the White House.

One example the Left consistently points to is the wonderful, “almost-perfect” Canadian health care system. If only the US were to adopt a health care system akin to Canada our lives would be so much better they say. “Think of the children” they say.

Europeans are now learning some hard facts of life about socialized medicine: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The question is whether Congress, and the US voter, will learn from Europe’s mistakes. The Europeans have run into a very simple economic rule. If something is perceived as free, people will consume more of it than they would if they had to pay for it. Think of it this way: if food were free, would you eat hamburger or steak? At the same time, health care is a finite good. There are only so many doctors, so many hospital beds and so much technology. If people overconsume those resources, it drives up the cost of health care.

In 1965 the government passed Medicare legislation, providing basic medical services to the nation’s retirees. Physicians and hospital administrators were delighted. They built new hospitals and enlarged old ones. They began providing the medical equivalent of the best Parisian hats to all comers. Why not? The government encouraged physicians by asking them simply to send the bill to the American taxpayer. Patients, as well as physicians, no longer had to consider costs. Everyone demanded “the best” - price no object. Medical expenditures in the United States were 4.3% of GNP in 1952; by 1982 they exceeded 10%, and were still rising. In the same period the government’s share of these expenses nearly doubled, from 22% to over 40%. Here is Lesson One in action: with the government footing the bill for a substantial number of those receiving medical care, there was suddenly an enormous demand for medical services.

At the same time, prices for medical care soared. The legislation deliberately removed any incentive to keep prices low: in fact, removing concern about costs was the point of the program. Many of us can remember that prior to 1965 a few days in the hospital did not threaten to bankrupt the average middle class family, who could afford the state of the art in medical care as in everything else. Today, many find the cost of a hospital stay prohibitive, because the rise in medical costs has far outpaced the general inflation rate. Why? Because of Lesson Two. Prices skyrocketed precisely because the government was providing unlimited funds for medical care. Consumers demanded the most expensive treatment, and medical facilities did not have to keep prices low in order to maintain a competitive edge.

By 1983, Medicare threatened to bankrupt the entire Social Security system. It was clear that something drastic had to be done to control runaway costs. Taxes were raised, of course, but this was not enough. Like the manufacturers in the hat illustration, health-care professionals were (and continue to be) denounced as the greedy culprits who had to be controlled; price controls were slapped on hospitals and doctors. Under this system, called Diagnosis Related Groups, all hospital admissions of Medicare patients are classed in one of 486 categories, and the hospital receives a set fee for the patient, regardless of his length of stay or the amount of care provided. When it was pointed out that this might lead to inadequate treatment and early discharges (”quicker and sicker” releases), the government responded by imposing further complicated regulations.

The federal government has also set a limit on what doctors can charge patients over the age of 65, and some states now refuse to license doctors who do not accept the Medicare fee as full payment. Just to receive the government-approved payment, doctors must comply with a bewildering, and sometimes contradictory, array of regulations from several different agencies. The process a doctor is required to go through to obtain payment from Medicare makes filing your tax return look like simple arithmetic, and your doctor does it many times per day, not once a year. Also, a simple error in filing that would result in no monetary gain for him, such as using an incorrect code for a diagnosis, can mean no payment at all on the claim, plus a fine of thousands of dollars. Not surprisingly, doctors are leaving the profession and the number and quality of medical school applicants are falling. In 1974 there were nearly three applicants for every opening in medical school; by 1986 there were fewer than two. What bright young college graduate would want to get involved with such a mess? Lesson Three comes into play: you can’t get top-notch, dedicated individuals to enter and remain in the medical profession while controlling their activities and their earnings, and calling them greedy exploiters to boot.

And guess what? Costs are still rising uncontrollably, despite stringent controls on medical expenditures. Given the fact that it was government funding that made prices skyrocket, and that the government is still funding medical care, the continually rising prices should come as no surprise. The government is now considering more drastic measures, such as rationing and “universal insurance.” Massachusetts has already adopted such a plan, which led to the exodus of doctors from that state and contributed to its recent financial collapse and tax increase. Here is Lesson Four: what the government pays for, the government must control. In the very near future, if a physician tells you that your life could be improved with bypass surgery or a hip replacement, you will have to petition the government and take a number. Perhaps your petition will be approved, once all the appropriate government bureaucrats have debated its merits; perhaps it won’t. Likewise, every aspect of a physician’s practice will have to be dictated and controlled: most of them are already. He’ll be told whom he can treat, and how, and what payment he’ll receive. His livelihood and his freedom will be in the hands of the same bureaucrats who hold your life and health.

Government control of medicine means, in short, that the bureaucrats will be telling you what services you are allowed to have, and when. If what you want is the best care for the most people, any government-funded medical program is impractical as well as immoral. At every step the government has become more involved in private health care the worse the situation has become. And yet we’ve got dozens of politicians, and millions of “intelligent” voters, screaming for more and more government intrusion into private health care. For years we’ve been told to look to Europe and Canada for lessons about health care. Maybe we should. So let’s take a look at some facts and figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Universal Health Care, Socialized Medicine, Democrat, Congress

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