© 2009 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
“The trouble with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money.” – attributed to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
The trouble is not running out of other people’s money; rather, it is the behavior governments embrace because they do not have unlimited resources. All they have is what they can take from one citizen to give to another. That is limited, while promises are unlimited. Our socialist learning government promises to be all things to all people at all times and in all ways, forever and ever, amen.
No matter the government program there is financial rationing. Like most dilemmas it is much easier to get into problems than get out of them. We are moving closer to the promise of universal health care. On the surface it is very enticing to citizens, since it is framed as a dream come true, where everyone’s health care in America is guaranteed.
It is not surprising we would consider universal health care, since we have had universal retirement and universal medical care when retired for several generations. For even longer we have had universal education.
The population has embraced the concept of governmental social entities. The devil is in the details. Before adopting government-run health care: What is the government’s plan to contain costs? At what point will my cost exceed some arbitrary government-set point, and the plug be pulled on me? Private insurance tries to limit costs, but without the unilateral ability to pull the plug.
Second, what redress of grievance will people have over government prescriptions of health care? Will that grievance process really have oversight and control?
I understand how this is being sold. Underneath the argument is the assumption by people that somehow they will get something for nothing. Merle Haggard wrote in the song “Rainbow Stew” that he is looking forward to the time when, “We’ll all be drinkin’ free bubble-ubb/Eatin’ that rainbow stew.”
I love the song, but recognize there will never ever be a time we can drink the free bubble-ubb since it will never truly be free. It can be free to some, at the cost to others.
A loss of leverage
There is the rub. Universal health care will cost some of us more than we now pay and some will pay less, while the government will take a big slice out of the middle for operational costs. The loss concerning me the most is that we will lose control of our health care to some nameless, faceless, pencil-necked bureaucrat somewhere to whom we are just numbers on a chart.
Yes, this person replaces a nameless, faceless, pencil-necked insurance person to whom we are just numbers on a chart, but, currently I can get a new company and person if I am dissatisfied. That provides me a small bit of leverage. Not so with the government, where a plan to benefit the population as a whole is more important than what benefits individuals.
Exactly 13 years ago this week I suddenly was found to have cancer and was trying to get surgery as quickly as possible because it was very close to a lymph node and if it spread there I might not make it. I called my NMSU insurance company and got someone who told me about vegetable therapies for cancer and how I might want to do that first and then some months from now then consider surgery. I replied, “Crap!”
My doctor had a very pointed conversation with the insurance company of less than a minute and my surgery was approved. It was very expensive for the surgery and follow-up radiation treatment. I had to pay a portion of it, which took many years, but I am still alive.
I wonder: If there had been universal health care, would I have been able to have the surgery in time to save my life, or would some cost-containment official make me try the vegetable therapy?
Let’s not embrace universal health care without the details being explicit.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.