Universal health care

[David S]

Hell no.

Health care is a right

No, it isn't.

Maybe not in self centred-Libertarian land, but here in the land where people care about one another, it is.  Health care is my right, and I'll be damned if a greedy Libertarian will say otherwise.

I'll be sure to bill all my health bills to Canada.  If it s a right, you will surely pay for mine with a smile.

Get your own free health care. You don't pay into our system, so you don't get to reap the benefits.

People in Canada who don't make any money also don't pay into the system, but you seem to have no problem with paying for them.

Ahh, going down that route are we? Let me choose a different path then, health care is a right in Canada. Clearly, it is not a right in the U.S. It's a right, it's my right as a Canadian citizen. And it should be a right for Americans. However, since it isn't, and since the U.S. is a different jurisdiction altogether, don't expect me to pay your health care costs.

Are food, clothing and housing rights too? How about cars? All of them are probably as important as healthcare.

[David S]

Before we adopt a 100% government run healthcare system we should look at some facts about the two healthcare programs currently run by government, Medicare and Medicaid.

In 1967, the first full year for Medicare the combined cost of Medicare and Medicaid together was $4.4 billion. By 2004 the cost had risen to $473 billion, a 100 fold increase. That’s far in excess of inflation. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0#table9

In terms of cost as a percentage of GDP, in 1967 the two programs took 0.5% of GDP. But in 2004 they took 4.1%. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0#table10
 That’s eight times as much, in only 37 years. If the costs were to continue growing at that rate for the next 37 years Medicare and Medicaid would be consuming nearly 1/3 of our GDP.

The governments past performance on estimating future costs is poor at best as illustrated in this article by  Michael F. Cannon:

“Despite official projections in 1965 that hospital insurance under Medicare would cost only $9 billion in 1990, actual spending in 1990 was $66 billion. Medicare payroll taxes are now nearly double what supporters promised would be necessary, having been raised most recently in 1994, and the program consumes a growing share of general revenue.”
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/cannon-040326.html

As I have said many times before, a competitive free market is the best system for providing quality goods and services at the lowest prices. The rest of our economy operates that way successfully. Why can’t healthcare? Cars, food, clothing, housing, televisions, and PCs are all provided by an essentially competitive free market and we don’t have a crisis in those things.

Medical care, on the other hand, does not operate as a competitive free market and we do have a crisis there. Maybe there’s a connection.  Do we really want to abandon the free market and have the government running 100% of our healthcare system?

[David S]

If we start with Universal health care, what's next? Does the government then determine what we can eat and what we can't, etc based on government savings?

That's a good point States. My own brother who happens to be a Liberal Democrat seems to believe that government should have some control over what people eat since government pays healthcare costs for the poor.
(To avoid fatalities my brother and I don't discuss politics much anymore.)

Anyways, in a broader sense, when we turn over our responsibilities to government we also turn over some of our freedom.

[David S]

A national, universal, health care voucher would allow us to keep the management of health care in the private sector without burdening businesses with the role of nanny state and it would provide universal insurance which is the only effective kind of insurance.  It preserves the free market while still ensuring a basic safety net for everyone.

How would the voucher work? Would it be the same amount for young people as for geezers? Would it be different for people with pre-existing conditions? How much would the voucher be?

What will you do when the Democrats bring into congress a parade of geezers who all claim that the voucher amount is not enough, their deductables are too high, the copay is too high, and they have to eat dogfood in order to pay their medical bills? The Democrats will accuse the Republicans of being mean-spirited ogres. The Republicans will cave in and say; "no no we aren't mean spirited. We're nice ogres. We're going to give you twice as much as those cheap-skate Democrats".  Then you will end up with the same skyrocketing costs that have plagued the medicare/medicaid system.

BTW I agree business should not be providing healthcare to their employees. That practice started during the FDR era. FDR's wage and price controls prevented compaines from enticing employees with higher wages so they offered healthcare insurance instead.

[David S]

Like the Libertarian Party, I oppose the Iraq war, so that point isn't exactly valid.

So you feel that taxation for military funding is also stealing?

Defense is a constitutional function of our government. Foreign aid, welfare, medicare, medicaid, social security are not. But I agree with Emsworth; defense should be defense and not world's policeman.