Shh... Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster
It's apparently "reality vs. liberal Big Government utopianism" week. Yesterday it was the left's weird animus toward measuring teacher performance. Today it's state-managed medicine:
In 2006, [Massachusetts] lawmakers seeking to broaden health coverage made it illegal to be uninsured. It works like this: Employers have to offer you a health plan. If you are jobless or don't like your employer's plan, you must buy your own. If you don't get one, you pay a stiff fine. This strategy--known as an employer and individual "mandate"--forms the backbone of the national health reform bills now making their way through Congress... Something strange happened. Despite having health insurance, roughly one in 10 state residents still failed to fill prescriptions, ended up with unpaid medical bills, or skipped needed medical care for financial reasons. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to insure more Massachusetts citizens, but many people still weren't getting necessary care.
Turns out "really good health care is also really expensive." And setting it up without acknowledging the costs eventually leads to mismanagement and poorer health care. Who knew, right?
But that's not what's really devastating about national health care.
When a country embraces a national health policy, two things happen. The first is that any real decrease on government spending becomes impossible, because now the special interest threat goes from "cutbacks in the programs that educate your kids" to "cutbacks in the things that keep you alive." If there's no private industry to fill in immediately - and their won't be, because devastated institutions take time to recover - no one wants to take the risk. It's a recipe for guaranteed Big Government populism.
The second thing that happens is what always happens when a government embarks on grandiose utopian schemes like ones that promise "lower costs... an annual cap on out-of-pocket expenses and 'an end to rate increases based on preexisting conditions, age or gender'; 'greater choice' and 'peace of mind.'" When those schemes begin to collapse - and they will, because they're financially unsustainable - the government needs to continuously manufacture new scapegoats to explain away the failures.
Are costs too high? It's because of smokers, which is the group that the State of Tennessee choose to demonize and fine if they were on the state's insurance policy. If it's not smokers it'll be drinkers. If not drinkers then the obese. Or red meat eaters. Or people who refuse to exercise. Any group that regularly comes in for nanny state tsk tsk'ing is fair game.
There's no to end neo-prohibitionist groups like MADD or the American Cancer Society, and they're more than willing to channel public panic about health care costs to promote their agendas. Now that insurance companies in Australia have crossed the Rubicon and discriminated against people with "poor genes," public outrage can be brought to bear very, very precisely.
If all else fails, there are always the "doctors, hospitals and the health insurers" that a recent lefty screed attacked for having the gall to "continue to reap profits." Doctors are actually an excellent target for scapegoating, since they've had the poor taste to push back against The One's designs. Plus they make lots of money, setting up a little bit of populist class warfare.
All of which is why doctors are exactly the group that the White House and its media sycophants are attacking:
We haven't lived in President Obama's America for long, but already we are witnessing a strange new phenomenon: Previously apolitical figures and organizations find themselves demonized, and then forgotten, with the speed, fury, and transience of a summer thunderstorm... The latest entity to be subjected to this Two-Minute Hate is the American Medical Association (AMA)... Last Wednesday, the AMA offered its most detailed response to President Obama's health reform plans...Suddenly, Media Matters felt the need to refute the notion that the AMA's position might be that of America's doctors... At the Daily Kos site, contributors argue that "the AMA is just as much a relic of a by-gone era as the little black bag." One declared that the time has come "to ask our own doctors to stand firm against the AMA or revoke their membership with AMA due to their opposition to a strong, robust Medicare-like public option." Another post carried the none-too-subtle headline "All Together Now: 'Screw You, AMA!"... No less than the New York Times editorial page has warned that perhaps you shouldn't trust your doctor.
Periodic society-wide Two Minute Hates, though, are probably a small price to pay for a trillion dollar program that will still leave 30 million Americans uninsured.
References:
* Shh... New Study Debunks Liberal Education Myths, Verifies That No Child Left Behind Works [MR]
* Bringing Down the House [Slate]
* How Obama could lose health fight [Politico]
* Tell us what you think: Smoker fee for health insurance [WBIR]
* Australians refused insurance because of poor genes [SMH]
* Obama's Health Reform Waterloo [Common Dreams]
* Obamacare: Docs vs. Dems [Hot Air]
* The Jim Cramer Treatment [Geraghty / NRO]
* CBO: ObamaCare will cost $1T, still leaves 30 million uninsured [Hot Air]
Previously:
* Paul Krugman, Economic Guru, 2002: "Greenspan Needs To Create A Housing Bubble"
* CA Dems: Instead Of Cutting Costs, We're Going To Increase Taxes And Destroy CA's Oil Industry
* Annals Of Earmarked Pork - Rangel Steered $10 Million In Pentagon Funds To NYC's Natural History Museum
