Government is still hazardous to our health care
May 3rd, 2007 | by Brian |Indeed, I am on a roll. Two more letters just today:
1. Denver Rocky Mountain News
Kudos to the Rocky Mountain News editorial board for explaining how “community rating” regulations on health insurance plans drive up premiums and discourage small companies from offering insurance (“Too quick off the mark,” April 10).
Kudos to the Rocky Mountain News editorial board for explaining how “community rating” regulations on health insurance plans drive up premiums and discourage small companies from offering insurance (“Too quick off the mark,” April 10).
I found similar effects when researching my proposal to the Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform entitled FAIR: Free-markets, Affordability and Individual Rights. Online at the commission’s Web site, it also shows that other state-level mandates such as guaranteed- issue and benefits mandates also increase premium costs and leave many unable to purchase medical insurance.
As does all legislation that violates our rights to freely associate, such as voluntarily contracting with insurance companies, these prohibitive rules are hazardous to our health.
The government would worsen it
Clay Evans (Insight, April 29) argues that a monopolistic government-run “single-payer” health care system “would almost certainly lower costs.” Government lowers costs? That’s an oxymoron. Like any monopoly, a government-run program lacks incentive to lower costs and provide quality products because its customers cannot leave. Government-run health care lowers costs by rationing, where bureaucrats decide whether you’re important enough to legally receive treatment.
Consider Medicaid. My proposal to Colorado’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform, Free markets, Affordability and Individual Rights (at the commission’s Web site), documents that Medicaid fails to meet the commission’s criteria for accessible, affordable, and quality health care. And Medicare? The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reports that Medicare is “largely neutral or negative toward quality …. At times providers are paid even more when quality is worse.” If government can’t provide quality low-cost health care to Medicare and Medicaid enrollees, how can it provide it to the rest of us?
Government meddling in the free market has distorted real health insurance into prepaid health care. This encourages thoughtless over-consumption, increases costs and limits access. It also erodes the doctor-patient relationship by wedging either a government or insurance bureaucracy between them. My proposal outlines how effective health-care reform requires repealing unjust policies that prevent a free market from delivering quality, low-cost health care — just as free markets provide other essential goods and services.
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