Obama

After attending the Barak Obama event put on by the Portsmouth Herald on April 3rd, I came away thinking how refreshing it is to hear a candidate who admits he does not have all the answers. It would be a mistake to underestimate this man, and although it is early days, soon the Senator will have to commit to the issues and have a platform.

The discussion on the cost of medical care went straight to the cost of insurance and co-pays. The crux of the problem is employer based health insurance where the consumer has been removed from the actual cost of medicine. The Senator even correctly identified the root of the problem. During WWII that great stalwart of the Democrats, FDR, instituted price controls, but left employers the option of providing health care to entice employees. After the war, the government gave tax incentives to businesses for providing health care. Senator Obama stopped his analysis there, but when you consider that the government has included Medicare, Medicaid, and now a drug program, the pattern is clear. The more the government interferes, the worse it gets.

Most people in attendance were in favor of some version of a single payer, i.e. government, health provider system. But history has proved from the Roman times to the present that there are three irreducible variables in bringing any product to market: cost, speed, and quality. You can control only two of these; the third will have to vary. There is no silver bullet that can alter this reality. We have only to look at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center to see how thoroughly government bureaucrats can screw up medical care. The price is controlled, but God help you if you need speed and quality. The bureaucracy of the private insurers can be brutal, but it is still somewhat answerable to the market place. Imagine putting all the eggs of our health care coverage into one basket - a federal bureaucracy answerable to no one.

We aging Baby Boomers are engaged in magical thinking when in the face of all available evidence we still believe the government can and will supply the answer to everything. This is not an intellectual exercise for me. Last year my wife and I spent one-third of our income on medical costs. We have to make tough choices every day, but they are our choices. It scares the hell out of me to think of putting those choices in the cold hands of a federal bureaucrat – or worse, a federal oversight committee.

Posted by Mark Brighton at 09:22 PM | Comments (4)