Rossputin.com: Rational Thinking About Our World

re "Health-care costs are sickening" (Opinion, Chicago Sun-Times, 7/4/07)
http://www.suntimes.com/news/richards/455272,CST-EDT-cindy04.article

To the Editor:

Cindy Richards’ grousing about health care costs demonstrates a deplorable lack of understanding of both health care and our nation’s founding principles.

We should also keep in mind that the “nearly 50 million” without health insurance is an intentionally misleading number: Most of the uninsured are either uninsured by choice (mostly young and healthy people, 40% of the uninsured), eligible for public health programs but haven’t signed up (30% of the “uninsured”), or simply between jobs and likely to have insurance again within months. And, believe it or not, 20% of people the Census Bureau counts as uninsured are not American citizens. The number of truly, involuntarily, and permanently uninsured is a small fraction of what socialized medicine proponents claim.

The primary reason that medical costs are rising so rapidly is the disconnect between the consumer (patient) and the supplier, namely that the consumer does not feel enough of the cost and therefore has little incentive to be careful how much he uses. (Imagine auto insurance that covered minor scratches and oil changes.) Creating a “single payer” system will only make that problem worse.

Our founders were smart enough not to list “health care” or being “without worry” as fundamental rights. They are not, and government can not provide them without trampling the liberty that makes America great. Michael Moore’s vision of the world is the same one which glinted in the eye of Lenin and Mao, and would have the same results if we are stupid enough to forget the disastrous outcomes of past socialist experimentation. As they say, if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until you see how much it costs when it’s “free”.