Free and open markets over time always produce the lowest prices for the best goods. From Computers to TVs; from Cars to Car Insurance, competition drives prices down and quality up. The undeniable truth is that he who pays determines what is purchased. Once individuals are no longer responsible and don’t pay for something, they lose the choice in that purchase; the choice of quantity, quality, style, etc. are all determined by the payer. A child may ask for, beg, cry, and demand a certain toy, or pair of shoes but it is ultimately the parent who makes the choice determines the purchase. This applies to our health care too.
Prove it to yourself, look at the cost of auto insurance in New Hampshire, and the wide variety of auto insurance available there. It is cheaper, and you have far more choices in the type and levels of insurance you can purchase than almost any other state in the country. Why??? Because it is not required, you do not have to have auto insurance in New Hampshire, to own and operate a car on the highways and byways of New Hampshire. Auto insurance in New Hampshire has true competition; it is a product that the people are free to purchase or not from a variety of sources. This is a model that can and does work for all insurance sales. Same goes for Homeowners insurance, and any other product and service. When a product or service is required by government regulation it always costs more for inferior quality.
Our current policy of having third parties pay for insurance and health care has caused out of control growth and decrease in choices for health care consumers. The big companies who form “groups” pay for and determine coverage, not the health care consumer. Most people are left with either what their employer offers or nothing. Corporatism, is not free enterprise and open markets. Our current system of employer paying had reduced not expanded health care choices, and once reduced to government not employer paying (single payer) it will get worse, because the person who pays determines the quality, quantity, and value of any product or service.
When you look at car insurance, you see lots and lots of choices, lots of companies selling a huge variety of services. This is because they have to deal with and take care of each individual, not a single HR rep who determines the service for thousands of employees. Because individuals can and do shop around and compare prices, service, quality, and then determine the level of service they can afford or are willing to pay for, they get the best product for the least. Once we accept the idea that government pays for health care, individual choice in what’s covered is gone. If you’re a single male why should you have to pay for coverage of pregnancy, etc. If you want your insurance to be real insurance and only cover true catastrophic health care events, and pay for your own check-ups, and routine care with a high $3000 deductable that should be your choice. But when you don’t pay for your insurance directly, that choice is determined by the guy who pays.
If we really wanted to address health care costs we’d do two things. 1) End third party paying of insurance and/or health care. This means that company’s don’t purchase your insurance, you purchase your insurance. Companies could then increase your pay by what they pay in insurance, and you could shop and compare and buy the insurance that you want not what your employer wants. 2) End the AMA and government monopoly on licensing health care providers. This licensing artificially keeps the supply of healthcare services low thus results in artificially high prices.
We know this model works in health care, Laser eye surgery to eliminate the need of glasses, has advanced dramatically and the cost has plummeted. This is because it is not covered by most insurance and is sold directly to individuals by the service provider who must compete with others in quality, comfort, and price. The results is clear, more people have more access to this health care service for lower cost and have a better service. The same can be said of plastic surgery etc. This should be the model for all health care not just “elective” health care.
Our current system big corporations and/or government decide what we get. As it has everywhere else in the world that it has been implemented, this will result in rationing, corruption, higher costs for poorer services. Once the government pays for health care, bureaucrats will decide who get’s paid how much, which will result in the smartest and brightest exiting the business and put their drive and talent to something that they not the government controls. Once the government pays for health care, bureaucrats will decide how long we wait for specific procedures, or even if some live saving procedures are available at all, or to whom. We will find that if your over a certain age, the decision isn’t between you, your family, and your doctor over exactly what efforts, and how much if any efforts are made to keep you alive, it will be the decision of unelected bureaucrats, who will weigh the value of your life to the cost of maintaining it. After a certain age you will be allowed die. It may be as subtle as simply “delaying” treatment or as overt as saying after age 65 the government’s health care your are not eligible for kidney dialysis.
We haven’t had a free market for medical services for a long time, we have a system with limited competition because of FDA and other government regulations. This non-free market system also has artificially stimulated demand because of tax laws that promote third party paying of both health care and health insurance.
Even with our limited free market for medical services, when completion is allowed pricing goes down. Look at the health insurance for schools in Wisconsin, where once school systems were allowed to shop for insurance instead of purchasing from a “sole provider” they were able to eliminate huge deficits and save millions. When allowed, free markets produce better service, lower costs, and more innovation than government controlled industries. This simple fact is not something those on the left, so-called progressives, hate to recognize, and they attack using emotional straw man arguments, because the facts support free markets not government control.
The entire theory behind the Obamacare mandate, and the entire Obamacare law is that “We The People” cannot take care of ourselves, and that they leftists as superior beings know better than the masses, and that “We the People” should be thankful for their benevolent control of our actions, and accept that they not “the People” can and should determine how we live our lives. The attitude of the left towards health care reflects their belief that “We the People” would be better off and happier if we’d just give them control. The left act and sound more like Loki in the Avengers movie and the actions are clearly against the ideas which founded this country as expressed in The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the accompanying Federalist Papers.
“It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled.” ~ Loki
This reflects the expressed beliefs of the left, specifically Obama. Like Loki, Obama and the left really don’t care about “We the People” they just want power. Obama doesn’t want individuals to achieve as much as they can, he wants to determine at what point “you’ve made enough money.” Obama hates self reliant individuals, but isn’t surprised that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion”, but wants all the people to just accept what he and others on the left have decided is in our best interest. He would treat those who stand up to him the way Loki treated the elder who stood against him in the Avengers. Obama actually believes that “We the People” want the government to take care of us and rule us. He doesn’t believe “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
He believes that he, the ruling elite, can and should determine what makes each individual happy, that he and the ruling elite, can and should determine what services and products you must purchase or are allowed to purchase. That he and the ruling elite, can and should determine what we eat, what we drive, where we live, how we use our private property, and even if we should be allowed to accumulate property. Obamacare is a reflection of Loki (Obama) not a reflection of the will of “We the People.” I’ll bet when Obama looks in the mirror he sees this:
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