I'm Not Buying It

A Washington Post article this week starts with the grand headline that Economic Advisers Extol Benefits of Cutting Health Care Spending. The opening paragraphs indicate that the President's council of economic advisers have reported that cutting health care spending across the US by 1.5% would create 500,000 new jobs and "improve the nations overall well being by 'roughly' $100 billion a year."

Here is the part that the article tries very hard not to say: the whole premise behind this "savings" is that the President's nationalized health care plan is already approved and in place. These "savings" (and yes, I think that word needs to be in quotations every time it is used in this context) are what we could reduce the proposed budget by if we reduced health care cost.

First of all, they don't even have a health care program in place yet and they are looking for ways to reduce costs - read, "benefits".

Second, there is no clear plan in place that actually improves the status of our health care system:

This report is nothing more than smoke and mirrors," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. "Everyone agrees that reducing the cost of health care would benefit our economy, but the administration hasn't offered a credible plan to do so without raising taxes or rationing care. WP

Third, they don't even really think that the 1.5% savings are achievable!

The report contains few details about how those ambitious goals would be achieved, however, and does not address any increased federal spending needed to implement health reform. And the White House economists acknowledge that shaving 1.5 percentage points off the rate of growth in health spending would be extraordinarily difficult -- "probably near the upper bound of what is feasible." WP

The bottom line is there is no possible way to create a nationalized health care program without the economy suffering, the quality of care suffering, taxes increasing and the size of government increasing. Can you even imagine the size of the organization that would be required to run such a program. It could easily exceed the size of the IRS and in my mind could rival the US military.

These are the people you want responding to your claims questions and managing your care? And don't be misled; the government will be running the program. They will insist on it. When have they ever proven that can do anything better or cheaper than the private sector?
Here is my preview of how it will work out:

• After running the numbers the administration will figure out that there is no possible way that they can foot the bill for their health care dreams
• However, this is one of the key issues that got them elected so they have to figure out a way to make it work
• So, they pass the bill to start the nationalized health care movement and start signing people up.
• In order to pay for this they include in this law that all employers will have to contribute $x per employee to cover their health care (they have already made the first step in this direction by requiring that employers cover the cost of the 1st 90 days of cobra)
• Well, contrary to popular opinion, companies are in business to make money: Without the profit motive I have discussed before, there is no point in having a business. So in order to maintain their profit margins (which are generally pretty slim by the way - average after tax profits for most businesses are under 5%) they are going to start laying people off. They will figure out how to get by with less people in order the bear the additional burden placed on them by the government.
• Think unemployment is rising now? Wait until every company in the nation starts laying people off because of mandatory health care premiums. Try double digits nationally.

From there it just starts to snowball. Unemployment goes up, but those people are still going to need health care. So, we have to raise the rate per employee that the employers are paying as well as raising taxes and asking employees to pay a larger share of their own coverage. Some employers will lay off more people; some will move their business out of the country; some will just close the doors. No profit, no business.

In the meantime: with tax revenues dropping (more unemployment = fewer taxpayers, less business profits = less tax revenue) the national health care system is going to have to figure out a way to cut costs. Now comes the rationing of services and medications. It takes longer to see a doctor; the government decides if you need a test, or treatment for an illness; the government decides if you really need the medicine that will make you more comfortable while you are going through cancer treatment (which you will not get if they decide it was discovered too late and your chances of recovery are slim). This is not exaggeration; it is happening this way right now in countries with socialized medicine. Look it up. Read the stories about the health care systems in the UK and Canada.

While all of this is going on, enrollment in medical schools declines to almost nothing (at least among US citizens), quality doctors are closing their practices and no new ones are being opened. Why? Because there is no longer any incentive to become a doctor. The bottom line is that while many people going into medicine may claim that they are doing it to "help people", their real motivation is that doctors generally make pretty good money. Not under nationalized health care they don't! It will begin with the government mandating what they can charge for services (guaranteed to be less than what they are currently charging) and will end with them either being government employees or finding a new line of work.

There is no possible way that the government can effectively and efficiently implement and manage nationalized health care. Period. Not that will stop them, but is going to be a disaster for our economy and our quality of care.