I thought there might be something worthwhile in this Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s denouncement of Pelosi’s (and the Democrats’) “Health Care Sell-Out”. Sadly, every cogent argument he makes is countered by a proportionally retarded proposition.
Cogent argument: Massive bureaucracies avoid paing bills effectively, hospitals are forced to hire their own bureaucracies to “fight insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills“
Retarded proposition: “Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem… They are driving up the cost of health care.”
For every State in the union which an insurer writes paper, there is a State bureaucracy to deal with. Some of these companies have to deal with fifty State-level bureaucracies, each with their own set of rules and regulations and requirements, from the mundane to the absurd. For example [1]:
- 49 states require insurance companies treat alcoholism
- 27 states require insuance companies cover drug addiction
- Minnesota requires insurance companies to cover the cost of hairpieces (i.e., a wig or a toupée)
- 12 states bar insurers from asking AIDS-related questions
Additionally, the pharmaceutical companies are largely at fault for the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs, aided and abetted by the Food and Drug Administration’s lengthy and onerous approval process. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what’s wrong with the “system” in the U.S., but I can’t leave out the AMA.
The AMA, the board which certifies doctors and practitioners, sets requirements for medical schools, and determines quota alottments, etc., is a tremendously effective labor cartel, perhaps rivaling the Bar Association for the title of “most powerful labor cartel in the country”. The AMA effecitvely quashes the supply of practitioners, ensuring monopoly rents to those privileged enough to practice medicine, and forcing consumers to pay higher prices for limited access to care.
Cogent argument: America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system.
America does continue to stand out, but not in the manner Kucinich suggests.
Why do thousands of sick and injured people flock to the U.S. each and every year? The “socialized health care” programs in their respective countries have failed them. After their government defaults on its promises to them, they are willing to pay out of their own pockets to get the care they need.
Cancer survival rates in the U.S. are higher than anywhere else in the world. When normalized for differences in sample population the U.S. also boasts the highest life expectancy. And instead of falsifying statistics about infant mortality, callously labeling ultra-low-birthweight babies “unsalvageable” or declaring them miscarried or stillborn, (I’m pointing fingers: Canada, Germany, Austria, Norway…) the evil profit-seekers in America try to save them all despite a mortality rate of 869 per 1,000 live births in the first month of life [2].
Retarded proposition: America is “less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care”.
Idiot. Subsidization does not make an industry competitive. Subsidization is a negative-sum game by which dollars are removed from one industry and channeled into anothery, with rent-seeking and lobbying skimming off the top. If other countries want to tax the bejeesus out of their citizens in order to make their exports more affordable to the rest of the world (including the U.S.) then we should be happy for the windfall in our favor.
Cogent argument: “In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.”
Indeed, HR 3962 is essentially a bailout to big insurance. Any measure which requires (without exception) individuals to purchase a product or service which they don’t want, or can’t afford, or are philosophically or religiously or morally opposed to, is an abomination. It’s not freedom when you don’t have a choice.
But just when I think Kucinich is starting to see the light, he blows me away with cognitive dissonance:
Retarded proposition: America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals
There are no social and economic benefits to any monopoly, whether private or public. It is, as Bastiat said over 160 years ago, “to heap absurdity upon absurdity” [3].
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1. Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. Uncertainty and Its Exigencies: The Critical Role of Insurance in the Free Market
2. Meyer, Warren. Why Does The US Appear to Have Higher Infant Mortality?
3. Bastiat, Frédéric A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.
