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Universal Health Insurance: Just Don’t Get Sick
If you’re a homeowner, you have a mortgage, property taxes, and a stack of other bills. You’ve got to decide between paying the mandated premium or being able to drive to work, buy food, holding onto your home, or keeping the bill collector from your door. All of a sudden, mandatory health insurance doesn’t seem like such a great idea. In fact, your big worry is that Social Security will be able to send you a monthly check and that Medicare and Medicaid won’t go flat broke before you die. Trustees for these massive entitlement programs just announced Social Security will be depleted by 2041, while Medicare goes bust eight years from now in 2019. This has to be weighed against the fact that health care in America is expensive, but then so is medical malpractice insurance. In a litigious society, suing or being sued involves a lot of money. On the other hand, the Institute of Medicine estimates that some 44,000-90,000 annual deaths are due to medical errors. According to a March 18 Policy Analysis published by the Cato Institute, health care consumers are annually spending "more than $1.8 trillion dollars for overall health costs, more than what Americans spend on housing, food, national defense, or automobiles." Moreover, "because of the way health care costs are distributed, they have become an increasing burden on consumers and businesses alike. On average, health insurance now costs $4,479 for an individual and $12,106 for a family per year. Health insurance premiums rose by little more than 6 percent in 2007, faster on average than wages." The news gets worse. "Moreover, government health care programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, are piling up enormous burdens of debt for future generations. Medicare’s unfunded liabilities now top $50 trillion." Getting ill can be a very expensive proposition in America. That’s why universal health insurance is the major political promise being made by the Democrat candidates. In mid-March, New Jersey lawmakers unveiled their plans to impose universal health insurance within three years, requiring its 1.3 million uninsured residents to buy coverage. In addition, state funding will be used to provide reduced-cost policies. That essentially puts the state in the insurance business, albeit administered by private insurers, and, given its appalling inability to do much else in a rational fashion, the idea should only serve to drive still more people to move somewhere, anywhere else. As the columnist, Paul Mulshine, pointed out in a recent look at the New Jersey health insurance bill, the politician’s logic is irrefutable. "If only the government could force everyone to buy health insurance, then everyone would have health insurance." The way it will work is that "every New Jersey resident will be required to provide proof of health insurance at tax time. If you don’t have health insurance, the state will sign you up and start charging you for it." Dr. David Gratzer, a physician and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently point out that, "the New Jersey proposal feels very Bay State: subsidies for low-income applicants, an expansion of children’s health insurance, a requirement that eventually all citizens get heath insurance." The problem is that the Massachusetts program "has exploded in costs, (and is) now 85 percent over budget. Health insurance premiums rose 12 percent last year…" Other nations have universal health systems in place, I hear you say. Yes, they do and the Cato Institute analysis by Michael Tanner points out that, "Health insurance does not mean universal access to health care. In practice, many countries promise universal coverage but ration care or have long waiting lines for treatment." Moreover, "Rising health care costs are not a uniquely American phenomenon…costs are rising almost everywhere, leading to budget deficits, tax increases, and benefit reductions." "In countries weighted heavily toward government control, people are most likely to face waiting lists, rationing, restrictions on physician choice, and other obstacles to care." My English friends routinely regale me with horror stories about their health care system. If none of this sounds as rosy at the health insurance programs proposed by Obama or Hillary, the current American system of personal choice of physicians, hospitals, types of care, begins to look pretty good, even if some folks cannot afford these things. In reality, no one gets turned away from the emergency room. Not surprisingly, Tanner points out that, "Countries with more effective national health care systems are successful to the degree that they incorporate market mechanisms such as competition, cost sharing, marker prices, and consumer choice, and eschew centralized government control." For those unfamiliar with "centralized government control", that’s what Communist and Socialist nations do. I have saved, as they say, the best for last. In the view of Karl Manheim, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, the proposed health plans are not constitutional. As he correctly points out, "The federal government does not ordinarily require Americans to purchase particular goods or services from private parties." Neither federal nor state governments can require you to purchase health insurance as a "condition" of residency. It is that element of coercion that neither candidate wants to address. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. If the Democrat proposals become law, an entire generation of young Americans and their descendents will have to pick up the tab for us old folks. Of course, they are doing that now with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I am glad I am not young anymore. Now perhaps more than ever the Center needs your support. Please consider a donation no matter how small. Thank you. Cold North Pole, Cold South Pole I was suspicious when the Department of the Interior announced it was considering the listing of polar bears as an "endangered species", particularly since the designation has nothing to do with the current, thriving population, but a computer model projection that in fifty years they might be endangered. Since polar bears have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, the notion they might suddenly go missing in fifty years is questionable.
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©
2008 Alan Caruba. |
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Okay, let’s say that President Obama or Hillary is in office and Congress has passed a bill that requires everyone to have health insurance. Gas is up over $4.00 a gallon, food prices are sky high, and, if you’ve recently graduated from college, you are paying off loans at $1,000 per month. 
The fact is polar bears operate in waters around Alaska where geologists believe there are major reserves of undiscovered oil and natural gas. As you may recall, Alaska is also a place where there are vast known reserves of oil in the ANWR area. The refuge is huge. Only the 1.5 million acre or 8% on the northern coast of Alaska is being considered for development. The remaining 17.5 million acres or 92% of ANWR will remain permanently closed to any kind of development. If oil is discovered, less than 2000 acres of the over 1.5 million acres of the Coastal Plain would be affected. That's less than half of one percent of ANWR that would be affected by production activity.