[COLUMN] No more government 'solutions' for health care

Invariably, whenever I argue with some weak-minded liberal (I know, redundant) about health care and why it is a profoundly ignorant and potentially dangerous idea to let the government take over, i.e., socialized medicine, I am given some bleeding-heart sob story about the number of uninsured in the country.

Turns out, however, that argument is a straw man and it is time to put it to rest, thanks to Dr. Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan. On his Carpe Diem blog (http://mjperry.blogspot.com/), Perry quickly dispatched this liberal argument.

In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 45.6 million people were without health insurance. One argument against the figure is that many of those people are only temporarily without health insurance. While the figure remains fairly steady, the actual people without insurance changes often.

However, another argument, the one put forth by Perry, is that a large number of those people are voluntarily without health insurance.

For example, of that 45.6 million people, the Census Bureau said that 9.1 million, or 20 percent, were living in a household earning more than $75,000 per year. Certainly, the vast majority of those 9.1 million people could afford health insurance if they wanted it.

An additional 8.5 million, or 18.6 percent, were living in a household earning between $50,000 and $74,999 a year. Many of those people could also afford health insurance.

That means nearly 40 percent of those 45.6 million people are living in households that could afford health insurance.

In fact, only 13.5 million, or 29.7 percent, are living in households earning less than $25,000 per year.

The problem seems quite a bit less pervasive when you break those numbers down.

The truth is that many people choose to self-insure. They have discovered there are better ways to insure themselves than buy into the government-mandated health care plans provided by their employers.

As Perry writes, "Given the widespread availability of more than a thousand convenient and affordable retail health clinics around the country at Wal-Marts, Meijers, CVSs and Walgreens, these households could easily be on the 'pay-as-you-go' model of self-insurance for health care."

In the end, it is simply a bad idea to let the government take more control over our health care system.

The system has its problems and needs reform. However, most of the problems are rooted in previous government "solutions."

For example, the HMO Act of 1973 (thank you, Sen. Edward Kennedy) requires all but the smallest employers to offer coverage. Additionally, the tax code allows businesses - but not individuals - to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums.

This has created a system where health insurance is tied to employment, which means the unemployed often end up without insurance.

The HMO Act of 1973 was the "solution" to fix a problem created by an earlier government "solution": the 1965 enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, which resulted in millions of Americans no longer having to be responsible for the financial ramifications of their health care decisions.

Of course, this "free" care led to increased health care use, which pushed up medical costs. Between 1965 and 1971, physician fees increased 7 percent and hospital charges jumped 13 percent. During that same period, the Consumer Price Index rose only 5.3 percent. The nation's health care bill, which was only $39 billion in 1965, jumped to $75 billion in 1971, according to congressional testimony.

The last thing our fragile health care system can afford is another government "solution." Estimates predict the reform plan emerging in Congress will cost more than $1 trillion during the next decade.

We don't need to take another step down the Marxist path of doom. Even Pravda, the mouthpiece of the old Soviet Union, thinks we have gone too far:

"The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. ... If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

"... The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker."