Congress has again passed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), only to have it vetoed again. That has given its backers yet another chance to proclaim how much they care for children and rehash attacks against President Bush, as when Lois Capps (D-CA) called it “denying vital healthcare to some of the most vulnerable in our society,” and promise to try again next year. Unfortunately, however, their assertions are less than convincing.
Proponents begin by criticizing Bush’s veto because of his previous fiscal profligacy. So critics attack him for spending too much (for policies they usually would spend even more on), then use that to criticize him for spending too little. Unfortunately, while his administration certainly can be criticized for its rapid growth in spending, that is not an argument for him to continue that pattern. FULL ARTICLE
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Ah yes, Tiny Tim. The favourite of every socialist out there.
Great site
I must say, I worry less about this one than about some of the other proposals. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s idea of compelling every adult to purchase health insurance, it would not force me to spend more money than I can afford to purchase a bare minimum of coverage (I gave up health insurance when I realized that my monthly premiums were so high that I wasn’t visiting my doctor, dentist, or optometrist). And unlike single payer insurance for everyone, it wouldn’t completely socialize the American medical system, or subject my choice of medical services to a bureaucratic system. I don’t like it, but if subsidizing medical care for children bleeds off some of the drive for socializing medicine for everybody, I’m prepared to see it as a lesser evil.
Sadly, everyone wants something for nothing and if a grocery opened with a sign ‘free groceries’ next to the store down the block, customers would abandon the merchant and the store would go broke. After the alternatives were gone (and your tax money was used to buy groceries at the ‘free’ store), quality would start to degrade. Whole foods and other high end stores would be available but only the wealthy could afford the taxes and the grocery bill.
This is the same reason why Food Stamps are not only valid at a government store. Picture the lines in the USSR and the meek offerings once inside.
‘Let my people go’. Give them fee for service again in health care with insurance only for the catastrophic unexpected losses.
Mr. Stoddard,
Go to a website that offers HSA’s for a quote on a $5-6,000 deductible. Then if one of your children gets cancer or you need open heart surgery, you are covered. In all other cases, by asking what procedures cost and with enough bargain hunters in the market, prices will decline.
When i had a co-pay, i never asked the cost of a mammogram. After I had a high deductible, I asked my MD to give 3 places. I called and at first, not surprisingly some office workers had no idea what it cost. Eventually, I found they ranged from $88-$126 and I selected the $88 location. It turned out to be an older OB/GYN running it with a young competent technician in a low rent area of town. It was on the second floor and parking was in the rear — no glass and mirrors medical facility. The $88 was pre-tax in my MSA (now HSA) savings account so it actually cost less much than $88. And my MSA earned interest.
Hospitals were mostly not-for-profit before Medicare guaranteed payment at a certain level. Once payment was guaranteed, they became profit centers and we now have few if any non-profit hospitals left. When I grew up, we had Lutheran, Methodist, St. Joe, Immanuel, University and County hospitals. There was another hospital and I think it was private.
Giving ground to the collectivists in one area, as Mr Stoddard suggests, does not weaken them in other areas – on the contrary, it makes them stronger.
Making concessions is, correctly, seen as a sign of weakness – and every expansion of a government intervention leads to stronger demands for more interventions.
American medical care is expensive because of exisiting government interventions.
Subsidies like Medicare and Medicaid (and SCHIP) that push up private costs – just the as the subsidies for higher education lead to higher tuition fees.
And the vast web of regulations that started with Doctor licensing (a fraud that spread from State to State) and now covers virtually everything. Regulations as E.R.s having to treat everyone who turns up, to the insurance market being made absurd by “discrimination” not being allowed in many States (in various things), and a thousand and one other things.
And, of course, the distortion of tort law so that no fault has to be really proved today.
If you want to reduce costs then get rid of the subsidies and regualtions.
“Polticially impossible”.
If that is so then costs of health care will continue to be very high and will get higher still – and a lot of people will have to do with out.
As always the “compassion” of government leads to uncompassionate results.
I think we all wish we lived in a world where Mr. Stoddard was right. Unfortunately, just looking at SCHIP by itself, we can see that the vulchers want to to expand SCHIP to cover “poor” “children” until the “children” are 65 years old (then they will get Medicare) and earn six figures a year (then we tax them for everything they’re worth).
*vultures*
“but if subsidizing medical care for children bleeds off some of the drive for socializing medicine for everybody, I’m prepared to see it as a lesser evil”
Mr. Stoddard, as the article explains, the SCHIP program doesn’t just subsidize medical care for children, it does so for adults as well. So, like most government programs, it doesn’t properly do what it’s supposed to do.
We should fight every attempt at socialized medicine, not give up and allow a horrible program like this through just because there are more serious problems out there.
Cheers,
David
We should fight every attempt at socialized medicine, not give up and allow a horrible program like this through just because there are more serious problems out there.
This is of course my preference as well. I would like to have a straight fee for service system, with no government funding, no medical licensure, and major reforms of medical malpractice law so that doctors would not be spending incredible amounts to pay for malpractice insurance. In my “if I were dictator” moments I occasionally fantasize about making third party payments for medical care (other than for family members) illegal, or imposing an embargo on sales of newly developed drugs to any country that has a “single purchaser” setup (if they won’t share in the cost of developing new drugs by paying American prices, why should they benefit from those new drugs?). Or, if we must have socialistic measures, I would prefer to just give poor people money and let them buy their own health care with it.
But in the first place, I don’t expect to win this one. Democrats are calling for coercive measures; Republicans are responding by calling for different coercive measures that would force everyone into the same bad system we have now. A libertarian reform of the health care system is not even on the political horizon, and I expect that there will not be time for it to be made visible before a bad policy is imposed, with public support—because there is public demand that something be done and public ignorance of the consequences of “doing something.”
And in the second place, I don’t have much sense of effective political agency. Statements such as “we should fight X” don’t strike me as easy to translate into meaningful action. My statement was not made in the context of discussing what’s a good goal to aim for; but of discussing which of the likely bad outcomes would do less harm if it came about. I certainly do not suppose that it would do NO harm.
“I expect that there will not be time for it to be made visible before a bad policy is imposed, with public support—because there is public demand that something be done and public ignorance of the consequences of “doing something.”"
I disagree with the whole notion of “public demand” for political measures. If you ask most people a question about government in their lives, they’ll give you an example of how much they had to pay in income or property taxes, how the government raised their property taxes for putting siding on their house or finishing their basement, how the government put them on a no-gun list, how the government fingered them in the airport, how the government gives them a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, etc. Politians create their own supposed demand for these stupid programs. The only groups acting on their own is a select few pediatricians who want to get in on the racket.
Politians create their own supposed demand for these stupid programs. The only groups acting on their own is a select few pediatricians who want to get in on the racket.
You are welcome to suppose that if you like. I have talked with various people who are neither doctors nor politicians who (a) think the government ought to do something about health care costs and (b) think the proper thing for it to do is institute socialized medicine, following the pattern of Canada and the UK. I think the virtuous ordinary voter who fundamentally does not want government interventions or outright takeovers is a myth. In the majority of people’s eyes, the government is an economic perpetual motion machine that can grant us benefits at no cost. Of course they don’t want the costs that government funded health care will actually end up inflicting on us—higher taxes, bureaucratic delays in service and other decreases of user satisfaction, and an end to medical innovation. But those costs are invisible to most people—the classic Bastiat syndrome of “what is seen and what is not seen.” And so political candidates are virtually all rushing in to offer different government-based “solutions” to the high cost of health care. Putting a stop to this would require educating the electorate generally in the realities of health care economics, over the next ten months and a bit. Do you have a proposal for how to do this?
I think that there’s nothing wrong with having health care for children, but if there are people with malicious intentions, then it is a bad thing.
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