A Stitch in Haste

Crooks and Liars cites to this Ezra Klein op-ed and concludes:

I do think we've reached a point at which a critical mass of the American middle class understands the system is seriously bleeped and is willing to listen to options. Unfortunately the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy still has a tight enough grip on news media that it damn near impossible to have the dispassionate national discussion on health care we need to be having. As soon as the phrase "universal health care" leaves anyone's lips, you can count on a right-wing goon to be standing nearby to shout it down.

Right-wing goon? Me? Whatever.

First off, Klein does not actually argue for universal health care (Goon shout! Goon shout!) -- at least not overtly. He argues for reform, which does not inevitably mean "universal health care." (Goon shout! Goon shout!) Reform means, um, reform. One alternative might be universal health care (Goon shout! Goon shout!), and Klein cites to some examples, but merely as examples and not necessarily as recommendations. Indeed, he dismisses one proposal as "a bad plan."

But universal health care (Goon shout! Goon shout!) would be a disastrous type of reform, for the simple economics-metaphysics reason that all scarce goods must be rationed. Under universal health care (Goon shout! Goon shout!), the rationing will done by politicians and bureaucrats, not by patients, doctors or even "greedy" insurance companies. That scares me more than any disease.

In any case, the far more useful takeaway from the Klein piece (and of course totally ignored by the C&L poster is how the present system came about in the first place:

It blossomed out of a World War II tax reform meant to guard against corporate war profiteering. Liberals, with their usual combination of good intentions and inadequate foresight, imposed massive marginal tax rates on corporations, effectively freezing their profits at prewar levels. But the law had a loophole: Corporations could funnel their wartime riches into employee benefits, such as healthcare, thus putting the cash to use within their company. And so they did, creating the employer-based healthcare system.

In other words, the mess of a system was directly created by the federal government in the first place. Go figure.

And now, is a stunning leap of logic (faith?), proponents of universal health care (Goon shout! Goon shout!) go from:

"The current government-created system of health-care finance doesn't work..."

to

"...We must therefore replace it with a government-created system of health-care finance."

It boggles the mind.

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The better way to reform health care finance is simply to get employers out of the health care benefits business altogether (i.e., by eliminating their government-crafted tax advantage). Return to tax-neutral, cash-based compensation (and competition) and let employees buy (competitive) health coverage directly, no different than homeowner or automobile insurance. The poor can be accommodated via Medicaid or similar programs.

The only reason employees can be "exploited" by "greedy" insurance companies is because employees are, thanks to the federal government, a captive market -- they are not the consumer; the employer is. Change that, and most of the rest will follow. In other words -- undo the damage done by government in the first place.

Universal health care (Goon shout! Goon shout!) is simply not the predestined, or even the optimal, solution.