Editorial - 02 Jan 10
Government Run Health Care Rejected for Good Reasons
T he Baltimore Sun letter "What's the problem with government-run health care?" is correct that few people would
reject a health care system that ensures 100% of the population and costs less, but only if the
quality of care remained at a very high level, which is the current public perception. However, many
folks would also reject the assumption that a U.S. government run system would accomplish any of these,
and certainly not all of these.
Many American's don't have the sense that a government run system would provide quality care, encourage
students to enter the field of medicine, and remain financially grounded for more than a year or two. We won't have
German and French politicians, we will have American politicians running our system. And American politicians
never reform, or change any government entitlement program, which is why Social Security is going bankrupt,
elementary and secondary education has increased nearly 40 percent since 2001, and virtually every government run program
has outspent it's initial cost estimate by hundreds or thousands of percentage points.
And who's numbers suggest that the actual cost of a government run plan would be less? Congress? The U.S. Congress
has a track record of substantially underestimating the cost of health care programs. Some examples:
In 1965, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance program of Medicare would cost $9 billion by 1990.
The actual cost that year was $67 billion.
In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee said the entire Medicare program would cost $12 billion in 1990.
The actual cost in 1990 was $98 billion.
In 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid - the joint federal-state health care program for the poor - would make
special relief payments to hospitals of less than $1 billion in 1992. Actual cost: $17 billion.
The 1993 cost of Medicare's home care benefit was projected in 1988 to be $4 billion, but ended up at $10 billion.
Also, let's not forget the obvious. If the Democrat's were serious about providing low cost, high quality health care to
the American people (and I don't believe they are), they would immediately secure our borders and institute tort reform.
Both France and Germany have reigned in their personal injury lawyers. I believe that only the most perversely doctrinaire among us
would continue to support a system that affords baseball teams to parasitic lawyers like Peter Angelos while doctors
are dropping their practices and the Medicare system is going bankrupt.
Polls suggest that most Americans would prefer a more incremental approach to health care that reigns in costs and
ensures that folks with pre-conditions can't be denied coverage, but that doesn't overhaul the basic framework of the system.
Americans who reject a government run health plan do so because they have no confidence in the ability of Congress to
manage the program, and for good reason.
Editor - bethesite.com
