Free health care for all!

The battle rages on over Obamacare and what to do with it.  Donald Trump, who vowed "I'm going to totally repeal Obamacare entirely on my first day in office!" has not exactly done as promised, although he has whittled it down - a little.  Recently, a federal judge made a momentous ruling on the constitutionality of the whole system.  It's gotten difficult to keep track of what is still "legal" and what is not.

And so, many Democratic contenders for President and other high offices in the 2020 elections are lining up, declaring that health care is a "right" and that government should provide for all with a "single payer" system.  

Let us examine that concept.  

First of all, understand that the so-called Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare, is not really about health CARE, but rather, about health care INSURANCE, which is related but not quite synonymous.  

Health care insurance is expensive, assuming you can even get it (more on that later).  The U.S. has the most expensive health care in the world.  Yes, American health care is very, very good - but that's irrelevant if you can't afford it, or if it depletes your life's savings.  Let's be clear:  the reason that health INSURANCE is expensive is because health CARE is expensive.  Therefore the best way to bring down the cost of insurance is to first bring down the cost of whatever it is that it's insuring. And the so-called "Affordable" Health Care Act does not really address that.

Why the heck is US health care so darn expensive?  The answer is actually quite simple:  too much governmental bureaucracy.  A shortage of government interference in medicine has never been the problem.  On top of that is the huge cost of lawsuits, thanks to a judicial system that considers any profit-making business as the enemy - with infinitely deep pockets.  No other industry has the level of governmental meddling as does health care.  The closest industry would be banking and financial services (which, incidentally, would include insurance).

In contrast, consider the electronics industry.  Here we have an industry with very, very little governmental interference - at least compared to other industries.  In the past generation or so, we have experienced a virtual EXPLOSION of innovation and technological advancement in electronics.  That smart phone in your pocket is, like, zillions of times more powerful than the super-mainframe computers of yesteryear.  And all of this amazing technology is cheap enough for the masses.  And yet, the government does not attempt to be some kind of "single payer" for electronics, or guarantee "a smart phone in every pocket" at taxpayer expense.  Now just imagine if the medical industry had advanced that much in that little time, and in the prices had dropped similarly!  It's very easy, if you just get the damned government out of the way and let the free market work.

The common rebuttal is that health care is "different", and that health care, unlike electronic gadgets, is "important".  Nobody dies from lack of a smart phone, so the argument goes.  That is pure backwards nonsense!  The cold hard fact is that free enterprise works.  It is, far and away, the best system ever devised for providing consumers with the goods and services they want and need, at the lowest possible cost.  If it works for "unimportant" stuff like electronic gadgets, why would it not work for the far more "important" things in life like medicine?  From whence comes this crazy idea that government knows best, government is the answer, government can solve any problem, etc, etc?  Fact check: government is NOT some super-human deity.  

When the government runs something, be it a healthcare system or whatever, it takes from those according to their ability and gives to those according to their need.  But that means you punish the achievers and reward the losers.  In the end, it transforms your once-prosperous country into a society of gimme-gimme crybabies.  

I know what you're thinking:  what about helping the truly sick and the needy?  Well, if you feel a moral obligation to help the least of our brethren, as the Bible commands, then help them, any time you want!  You do not need the government to play middle-man, and extract its rather considerable handling fees and bureaucracy.

What about those who have a pre-existing medical condition, but no health insurance?  Advocates for universal health care point out that, in a purely market-based medical system, those people would not be able to purchase insurance.  They add that, in recent polls, something like 75% of respondents say that the government should guarantee it.

These poll results are not surprising, given that so many Americans have been persuaded that the government is the ultimate combination of Santa Claus, Superman, and God.  When a pollster asks: "If you have a pre-existing medical condition, should you be able to get health insurance?", many will, undoubtedly, reply Yes.  But if it was worded thusly:  "Should you be forced to pay the medical bills for someone else's pre-existing condition?", then the results would most likely be quite different.

There is no way that an insurance company could make any money if everybody waited until they were sick or hurt before they bought insurance.  Let's be clear here:  subsidized care for a pre-existing medical condition is not "insurance".  Rather, it's nothing but a socialized service, paid for by those with the ability, for the benefit of those with the need, as mandated by government.

Humans have been dying of "pre-existing medical conditions" for as long as we have lived on this planet.  Our best alternative is NOT to trust politicians and bureaucrats to solve the problem.  Rather, get the government out of the way, and let the market find better and less expensive methods - just like it did for electronics.

In a future article, I will address the subject of:  Free education for all (including college).