Universal, single-payer health care

Have you noticed some of the subtle ways government justifies its encroachment on our liberty? Perhaps the best example is in our health care system. I predict that once the government pays for and therefore controls our health care, they will also control the decisions affecting our health which is nearly everything we do.

At one time in our country, before my time, each person or family was responsible for his or her or their own health care. They could eat McDonald's every day of the week, smoke as many cigarettes as they wanted, work 12 hour days, get sun burned, etc. and live with the consequences of those actions, or inactions, whatever they may be. While I don't necessarily agree that doing these things will lead to heart attacks, lung cancer, stroke, skin cancer, etc., we have all heard of research and reports that have contended so. At one time, eating eggs resulted in high cholesterol, but my wife's grandmother has done so for years and has below-normal cholesterol. A smoker in my office building is one of many in his family who has smoked for decades, and they have all lived longer than the average person. I frequently hear that overwork causes stress which can lead to heart problems. On the other hand, I also know middle-agers and up with skin cancer who baked in the sun in their younger years before there was sunscreen and warnings of the sun's harmful rays. While mostly anecdotal, these stories illustrate that there are exceptions to the rule because no two people are alike. They also tell me that unless you are financially paying the consequences for your actions, the party who is paying will tell you what, or what not, to do based on the latest scientific research or the consensus thereof.

For some reason, in 1965, we the people decided to let our government enact what I believe are the progenitors of universal, single-payer health care, namely Medicare and Medicaid. These are centerpieces of of President Johnson's "Great Society". Some call it the New Deal Part II, but it should be called the Raw Deal Part II. Why did the Greatest Generation and some of the Baby Boomers allow this to happen? Did they not want to see the elderly, the poor or the single-parent family suffer? Did they not have the foresight to see that one day these programs, while originally intended for only a select few citizens, would morph into a system that would crowd out the free market, even be extended to non-citizens and eventually tell us how to live our lives?

With very few exceptions, what do politicians want? Even more following the Constitution and serving the people, they want to be re-elected. How does that happen? Well, it takes alot of money to run ads and pay people to get out your name and message, but it certainly doesn't hurt to keep saying yes to new entitlement programs, such as the Prescription Drug bill or Medicare Part D pushed by Bush 43, as well as expanding existing programs to more voters, I mean people. The long arm of Medicare's coverage has slowly encroached on more seniors of course as the Greatest Generation lives longer and Baby Boomers retire, disabled people and wealthier seniors who either could afford their own health care or had private coverage with their former employer. Eventually, this will catch up to the politicians and we the working-class, taxpaying people.

The latest Medicare trustees report indicates that the present value of the program's excess costs is $85.6 trillion! This is the cost if the existing program remains unchanged. What happens if we get universal, single-payer health care when everyone is in the system? All of the politicians are aware of this projected debt and have to know that there are only two solutions to the problem: increase taxes on the working class to pay the benefits promised to the retired and disabled class or cut the benefits to the retired and disabled class. Either option will anger one of these constituents, but I contend that only one will work in the long run for the "common good".

Option 1 - Increase taxes: Whereas the government has confiscated an average of about 19% of United States Gross Domestic Product since Medicare's birth, they would have to confiscate the entire annual US GDP, currently at $14 trillion, every year for the next six years. This assumes that we would keep working hard for free for the next six years. Any volunteers? There simply is not enough wealth in this country for everyone to have Cadillac health care under the current structure.

Option 2 - Cut benefits: While not publicly announced, this is what they know they will have to do once everyone is on the dole. When all private health care is crowded out, they will have no choice because the choices will have been crowded out. Everyone currently on private health care is accustomed to getting what they want immediately and for a varied price. This is one of the benefits of our free market; competition forces lower costs and higher quality. When all of those people demand that same quality service and treatment from the single-payer (i.e. government), there will be a price to pay in terms of dollars and quality. While premiums may start at little or none, they will rise once the sytem gets strained even further than it already is. Benefits will be cut. What do these cuts look like? Consider the following from a recent committee report posted on the Congressional Budget Office website:

"By themselves, premium subsidies or mandates are insufficient to achieve universal coverage, but near-universal coverage is possible using a combination of approaches, such as enacting enforceable individual mandates along with subsidies for low-income people, creating a voluntary system that combines subsidies that cover a very large share of the costs of insurance with a process that facilitates enrollment, encouraging the purchase of less extensive coverage could reduce treatments of minimal benefit, enrollees would face higher cost sharing or tighter management of their care, health IT, preventive care"

Note the terms "enforceable", "individual mandates", "encouraging the purchase of less...", "higher cost sharing", "tighter management". What is meant by individual mandates? Would that have anything to do with the lifestyle choices such as those listed earlier? Is higher cost sharing code for higher premiums? Who will be more tightly managing my care? These are not terms that I associate with liberty, freedom, the United States of America and her founding documents. Between premiums, doctor's visits and drugs, I may be paying over $1,000 per month for my family's health care, but at least we can decide when and where to spend those dollars and how to live our lives. After the competition is gone though, what stops the remaining provider from doing, or not doing, whatever they want?

There's a saying, "If you think health care is expensive now, what until it's free." Politicians like to tell us that as Americans, we are entitled to free, unlimited health care. That's good for the politician but not for the "common good" which is what they are charged with protecting. Universal, single-payer health care is just like any Ponzi scheme...the early investors benefit the most, not from some legitimate return but from the investments of others, and just like the Madoff Ponzi scheme, the later investors will be the last ones without a chair when the music stops. True leaders would tell all Americans that as such you are entitled to freedom from government encroachment especially in decisions regarding your health and everything that affects it.

Say NO to universal, single-payer health care.