A commenter over at Coyote Blog brings up what is probably the biggest fear anyone should have about so-called “universal” health-care. I know, health-care is a tired debate, which is why I stay out of it. So allow me to preface my reaction:

Don’t worry about the people who currently opt-out of insurance because they’re young and healthy and maybe a little brash – they’ll be forced to subsidize care for the old, the infirm, and the idiots. Stop worrying about whether you will be able to opt-out of coverage (you won’t). Forget about trying to determine whether such a concept is metaphysically possible (it’s not). Set aside the debate about how the quality of service will suffer tremendously (it will). Stop worrying about whether it will be cheaper than private insurance (it won’t). Stop arguing about how everyone will get the care that they need (everyone won’t). Put all that shit aside – it’s scary. But it gets worse.

Stop worrying about how the level and quantity of individual care will foreverafter be subject to congressional budgetary constraints – your bypass, your kidney transplant, your arthroscopic knee surgery, they’re now budgetary line items – and no matter how much you feel you need them, someone else will be making the decisions: “You don’t need ACL surgery, just get a brace. And in a few years, a wheelchair.” And so on. If you don’t think this will happen – remember that your health will now be in the hands of the same people who determined that our soldiers’ vehicles didn’t need to be heavily armored. That their bodies didn’t need to be heavily armored. The stewards of your health will now be the same people who build bridges to nowhere, or who last year, spent a day in-session honoring the Superbowl Champions.

Now, that thought – courtesy of my Public Finance professor, is pretty effing scary. But I think commenter Doug Murray at Coyoteblog really makes a good point:

When it comes to healthcare, I too am nervous that it’s quality may (sic) decline for me. But I’m scared to death that it will provide the excuse for government to micromanage my life even more than the income tax code does. You can already see it in the debates about motorcycle helmets. The idiocy question aside, the big argument says “since society is paying your medical bills, it gets to dictate what risks you can take.

When I first read Doug’s comment, I thought it was hands-down, scarier than my professor’s fears. But really, they’re a package deal. They get to control both your body, and the amount and quality of care that you receive. They will use treatment, or the threat of witholding treatment, the same way they use entitlements, subsidies and regulations today. Every aspect of your life will be politicized, and the last vestiges of human liberty, snuffed out.

What kind of man strives not to become wealthy, but instead to prevent others from becoming wealthy? Eurocrats.

Via the Brussels Journal (all the news unfit to print), Johnny Munkhammar sees the spirit of Karl Marx influencing the European Union (what’s new?) through a potential attack on capital ownership. Then Johnny proceeds to get all Ghostbusters on his ass:

As the EU Finance Ministers met on the 27th of February, they expressed worries about profits rising faster than wages in Europe. The conclusion was that the current global economic boom mostly benefits owners rather than workers. ……This resurrects an old ghost. Will Karl Marx, the man who has so far been wrong about most everything, finally have a point about usurpation, in today’s global economy? And will politicians attempt to meet this alleged development with the same measures as they have done in the past? Will they increase taxes – on profits, for example – to make government grow and redistribute money to wage earners? Or might there be another way?

…We all benefit from this development as consumers, since prices of many goods fall. Lower prices are just as important as higher wages, especially for people with low incomes.

You’re right, Johnny. Wages are also a price: the price for labor. So if you say you really, really want high wages, what you’re really striving for is high prices. And nobody wants high prices. No, what most people actually desire, is to be able to afford the finer things in life. As long as the things they want cost generally less than they earn, people are happy. Johnny goes on to echo a point that I’ve made before – that we’re really all “owners,” when you consider pension funds and other institutional ownership, and concludes with a list of recommendations for European bureaucrats, that are sure to drive up employment rates even in the Parisian banlieues.

A little review is in order: profit is what’s left after all the bills are paid. High profits, economic profits indicate that a company is successfully satisfying the needs of consumers, and perhaps more importantly, that there is money yet to be made. Economic profits are a signal to entrepreneurs – it’s as if they’re saying “Come get yours while the getting is still good!” In an even moderately free economy, abnormal profits are a catalyst for competition: other entrepreneurs want a slice of those profits, too. Capitalists invest more money into that particular field, they employ more people, and to the extent that that is not possible, they pay higher wages as a result of competition. Eventually profits return to a normal level though, as the competition between firms erodes them away through the combination higher wages and lower prices.

But it’s necessary for profits to rise, first. Henry Ford could never have offered his famous $5 a day wages if the company hadn’t earned substantial profits through the lean production methods he developed in the years prior. The EU finance ministers would do well to recognize the important role that the profit motive plays in the creation of general prosperity, and that high profits are generally a harbinger of higher wages and productivity to follow.

I think Kip, Esquire has a saying that goes something like: “No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity.” That little gem should be patently clear to everyone. Accordingly, the appropriate response is not to penalize profits – but rather to make it easier to own property or capital goods, to start a business – in short – to make it easier for the common man to realize profits.