Doing the wrong thing to find out it is wrong

© 2008 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” – P.J. O’Rourke, 1993.

Regardless of the winner in the presidential election, it is likely Americans will soon be forced into nationalized health care. It is all that is left for the left to give Americans for their votes. Many candidates talk about “free” cradle-to-grave health care as an American right.

If we get in the business of providing free health care, what will it cost? A better question is: Can our government sustain these programs? For a while, perhaps, but that is not the problem.

Getting everyone in a government-controlled health care system has a nice ring to many. Unfortunately, I suspect it will be like when in 1859 Thomas Austin, a wealthy Australian landowner, wanted something from the old country to hunt so he imported twenty-four English wild rabbits and released them. The devastating effect on Australia within 30 years is history. The devastating effect of government-controlled health care will dwarf the result of those rabbits since government is the only entity that reproduces faster than rabbits.

It appears we Americans will have to do the wrong thing so we will realize it is wrong and finally get back to doing the right things. If we collectively were smarter, we could learn from the suffering of people in other countries, but this hot stove is irresistible to us so we have to burn ourselves to know the truth. Worse, we will have to spend a lot of money to have a problem.

Most medical research in the world is done in capitalistic America. Change that and who will discover our next miracle drug? When anyone anywhere is ill they come to our shores for a cure. Literally, the politicians are playing with our heartbeat.

Concerns about socialized health care

My concern with socialized health care is two-fold. First, the enterprise of health care is made up of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and researchers who voluntarily go into those fields. It is not easy for them in their chosen fields even now. What will happen when all of those newly hired government bureaucrats start telling these health professionals what to do? Quite possibly these professionals may quit and the potential next generation may not enter those fields.

In other socialized-medicine countries, health professionals are going into other fields and leaving a medical gap. Health care is an enterprise made up of volunteers who can quit.

Second, Americans already use insurance improperly. Insurance is designed so that you do not lose that which will be devastating to lose. It is not something to save 10 bucks here and there. You have insurance so that if you have to spend a week in intensive care you don’t have to sell your dog. Socialized medicine exacerbates this economic trend to stifle the effect of competition on the cost of goods and services.

What increases prices is the co-pay, because customers attend to the cost of the co-pay and do not comparison-shop the cost of treatment. If you have the same co-pay for a general practitioner as a specialist, what the heck, go to the specialist, eh?

Further, insurance companies use cost-containment, a fancy word for reducing what you expend in health care dollars. The existing cost-containment measures are already obnoxious. When the government does it on a grand scale, there will be widespread discontent.

It is easy to assume that people will only use health care when it is absolutely necessary, but that is not the observed practice of those who do not pay for their doctor visits. When health care is “free” there is nothing to constrain use. The government cannot pay for everyone to use it as people do when there is no cost. So the government will decide if you should be treated.

In Great Britain this causes waits as long as a year for some treatments. Further, in Great Britain obese people and smokers are now denied certain surgical procedures until they stop smoking and lose weight. They are even questioning expensive treatments for those over 80.

How to lower health care costs

Want to lower health care costs? The solution is the same for those who want to lower gasoline prices. Increase supply. Using incentives to get people to go into those fields, double the current number so that doctors are looking for patients rather than patients trying to get doctors to see them. And, tort reform is necessary so that health treatment costs are not about lawsuits.

How do we deal with those who cannot afford or choose not to have insurance? That is as troublesome as the issue of obesity and smoking. People who are economically challenged are equal to those who cannot lose weight and those who cannot quit smoking. Each has options, which others think will set them right, but they, themselves, must do the heavy lifting.

People can be helped to pay for health care without forcing government-controlled health care on us all. We will learn the folly of this action, eventually. Let’s get this political solution over with as quickly as possible so we can get back to what works best, the free market.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.