Tumble DC 25: Keynescare
So the talking point for the past several weeks, and probably for the next several months is Paul Ryan’s budget proposal and his evil, vicious, grandma-killing plan to end medicare, send the poor to concentration camps, spike the punch, and tie little Billy’s shoestring’s…
The author goes on to suggest eliminating “medicare, medicaid, [sic] S-Chip and every other government run program,” as a means to fix our health care system and states that they “do not help the poor in any way”. They cite the lack of general practitioners as evidence, then go on to state that if Medicaid didn’t exist, the recipients wouldn’t be “priced out of the private insurance market”- oh, and if not for payroll taxes, of course they’d be able to afford private insurance!
I cite those as evidence that the poor pay for “free” government programmes in many other ways that are essentially hidden. There is no such thing as a free lunch and nothing will ever change that.
The claim that ”medicare, medicaid, S-Chip and every other government run program… do not help the poor in any way” is false on it’s face- particularly SCHIP (for those who don’t know, SCHIP matches funding by parents to provide insurance to children who would otherwise have no insurance). Without these services, what would happen? Would Americans with no source of income suddenly be making enough money to afford health coverage in the private market? Would these mythical price reductions also include free money?
Ah, but what if S-Chip and Medicare never existed in the first place? What if those laws were never passed and those programmes were never created? Do you suppose it would mean that millions of American children would simply perish from preventable illness? That’s apparently the alternative. Heavens what ever did families do before 1997, the year of S-Chip’s creation. What a time of misery the early 90s must have been for families with children. How sad the parade of tiny coffins must have been. My point is that while the benefits of government programmes are obvious the costs of these programmes are not so obvious and may only become apparent long afterwards. Wealthy people generally have the means to avoid these costs. The poor don’t.
Ask yourself this: if these government run programs are driving up demand to the point where we have a lack of general practitioners, how would privatizing the health coverage industry increase the supply of GPs? There is no doubt that our healthcare infrastructure is not robust enough to provide all Americans with the ideal level of care, the question is whether we should solve that by disallowing the poor from receiving preventative care of any kind, or if we should subsidize the poorest members of our society and accept the increased demand as a byproduct.
How does government insurance programmes increase the supply of anything? Indeed, by separating the consumer from paying the cost of the medical resources he or she consumes it destroys market discipline based on the law of supply and demand. Basic economics: when you subsidize something you get more of it. When you pay all a person’s medical bills you get more medical bills. All the government spending and all the expert panels and blue ribbon commissions simply will not change this fact. If the government could simply will lower costs and a “more robust healthcare infrastructure” whatever that means, then why doesn’t it?
Incidentally I never complained about a lack of GPs. I complain about a lack of GP’s who accept Medicare or Medicaid as a form of payment. And in any case I explicitly state that I am perfectly willing to support a certain level of subsidization provided it does not distort the market for medical services.
The cognitive dissonance required to actually believe what was written here is staggering- not only because it runs counter to every available piece of evidence, but also because it actively contradicts itself.
Well look, food is just as vital to humans as medical care, actually, even more so. Yet in this country virtually every farm, green grocer, restaurant, butcher shop, fish market, and cafe is a private establishment. Food production has increased year in and year out and prices have generally fallen. Mass starvation isn’t really a pressing problem.
And yes, the government provides a certain level of subsidy to the poor in the form of food stamps. But generally food stamps are limited and there is strong incentive for recipients to get off food stamps by earning a higher income.
If these government health insurance programmes continue as they are unchanged the result is either a steady decline in quality of care, a bankrupting of the nation, or both.
I’m in favour of a free nation and a free market. It is the responsibility of every individual in a society to look after not just himself, but his family, friends and neighbors as well. Are Americans so greedy and selfish that we would see our neighbors die in the streets with untreated illnesses if not for the might of the government to compel us with force to pay for their treatment? Somehow, I think not.
