Jamie Court of Santa Monica, California's "Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights" has a frustrating editorial in today's L.A. Times.
He asks "Is it the right of the government to impose an obligation to buy a private product that costs $12,000 a year for a family of four?" and concludes:
mandatory private insurance on this scale will not work. Mandatory auto insurance, which has been in force in California for more than two decades, has failed miserably. That's why a portion of our auto insurance premiums today go to pay for "uninsured motorist" coverage.
One in seven drivers has no auto insurance, compared to one in five without health insurance under a nonmandatory system.
I think Mr. Court is right about this. Forcing people to buy what they do not want or cannot afford is nothing but a confiscatory tax that limits people's freedom to spend their own money and control their own lives. And, there will be massive non-compliance.
Mr. Court's "solution" to the problem, however, is totally off-base. He says:
Californians are ready for market reforms to make health insurance more available and affordable, including forcing insurers to price policies fairly and preventing them from denying coverage to less healthy patients. Sacramento legislators should make the system fairer, regulate healthcare costs, then expand subsidies for low-income families. They should fix the broken market, not foist it on the public.
What a mistake! How is government regulation of insurance pricing, "forced issue" mandates and regulation of healthcare costs a "market reform"? More government control is a prescription for socialized medicine, which will work just as well as the grand Socialist "experiments" in the USSR, North Korea, East Germany and communist China.
Why, oh why, don't more people realize that government already mucks around in the not very "free market" for healthcare too much? Why don't people realize that every time government mandates or regulates something, it prevents the market from offering value and options?
When government mandates force sober homosexual men to buy health insurance policies that cover pregnancy expenses, infertility treatments and drug and alcohol in-patient care, premiums for these patients cost much more than necessary. When government regulation prohibits health insurers from offering plans across state-lines, there is less competition in each state and prices are higher than they would be in a true open market.
It's simple economics, folks! Won't someone PLEASE take a refresher course in Economics 101 . . . and pay attention during class?
25 Sep 2007 @ 5:21pm