Health care: Cheap at any price (hint... $900 billion)
Last week, we had the cheery news from Madame Speaker Pelosi that the cost of the House's health-care reform bill was going to come in under $900 billion.
Phew, I'm glad to know we can afford it after all. The Treasury should be able to print that new money within a couple of weeks. Kind of reminds me of the good old days in the last Bush administration when there was no war or bailout we could not afford.
Ahem.
Now for the serious business.
There seem to be two driving assumptions behind health-care reform:
1) That people have a right to health-care.
2) That somebody else should pay for it.
I get the reason why people assume they have a right to health care: It is frankly better than the alternative - you know, dropping dead from swine flu in the parking lot outside the local hospital while nurses mix martinis and greedy docs play golf with insurance execs. But my question for any and all is just where did this right to health care come from?
Was it granted by God, like the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we cherish in America? If so, why are we not born with a personal-care provider attached? It's darned inconvenient having to drive my car to the doctor's office when I want health care. At the very least, you would think that an inalienable right would come with curbside service. How about providing an ambulance for me so that I can exercise my right whenever I want to? For that matter, why do doctors' offices shut down at night? If I have a right to health care, shouldn't that come with a 24/7 access guarantee?
But that is mere flippant philosophy. Much more important is the nagging question of who is going to pay for my health care. Since I have a right to it, my ability to pay is irrelevant. No matter what the cost (and believe me, health care can be expensive indeed) someone is going to pay for it.
And since we've already established that I have a right to health care, it doesn't matter much to me who pays for it at all - whether it's the government, the health-insurance companies, or just you my neighbor. If I develop a runny nose, the first thing I will do is send for my ambulance, take a trip up to the hospital, ask for a tissue, and then send you the bill. Even if I develop an incurable disease that costs millions of dollars to treat, I think it is only fair for you to pay for my treatment. After all, I have a right.
OK, NOW for the serious business:
Just where is this money coming from to pay for the $900 billion health-care reform bill? (Let's just go ahead and use a low number since it seems to make the folks in Congress happier to think they have pulled the wool over our eyes.)
Remember, this bill is supposed to be revenue-neutral. Otherwise President Obama will veto it. He's promised us that health-care reform won't cost us anything. (Where have we heard that before? Oh yeah, the free lunch thing.)
So we have to ask ourselves two questions:
1) What is the government buying with its $900 billion? (What actual expenditures are planned?)
2) Who is paying the government $900 billion to cover the cost to make sure it is revenue neutral?
This is where our quest to understand health-care reform bogs down. Can you really explain to me what the government is spending its money on? Another layer of bureaucracy surely, but presumably they are also paying my medical bills somewhere along the line, and like I say, I am all in favor of free stuff for me and mine (the American way, right?) But what bothers me is that I keep thinking about some basic economic principles and the fact that there is only so much money to go around, and if you spend money you don't have, you have two choices: 1) Take a loan. 2) Rob a bank.
So far as I know, the only people still loaning us money are the Chinese, and they may just want to see us go deeper in debt, so we are easier to take over later. And as for robbing the bank, I think that might be another description for mugging the taxpayers, who seem to have the deepest pockets and the quietest voice (resistance is futile!).
But remember this is all speculative.
After all, no one really knows what we are being subjected to (yes, I use that phrase intentionally) by our rulers in Washington (yep, again intentional). Sen. Max Baucus and the Senate leadership won't even promise that there will be a bill on the Internet for 72 hours before a vote is taken on it. Madame Speaker Pelosi has four bills roaming the halls of Congress, and she isn't even sure which one says what.
But never fear! Congress is doing our bidding (we hope) as they cobble together a $1 trillion (oops! we're not supposed to use that word!) program to provide Americans with the newfound "right" to health care.
Among the solutions I have found for raising money to pay for health-care reform, the most intriguing include raising the age of eligibility for Medicare, increasing Part B premiums for Medicare, increasing medical cost-sharing for military retirees, eliminating the employer-sponsored insurance tax exclusion, and raising cigarette and alcohol taxes. There is also the neat trick of charging a penalty against people who don't know that government mandated health-care is not just a right but a responsibility. In other words, if you don't cough up your premiums for health-insurance, the government will confiscate them (but that is another story, far too scary to be told in the days preceding Halloween).
Of course, all or none of those options could be in the finished bill. We don't need to know that. After all, we are not senators or representatives. So we are just supposed to reassure our elected representatives that we want to continue to eat slop out of the federal trough and go along with whatever they decide.
It does still worry me a bit that I can't quite figure out how the bill can be revenue-neutral without hurting me as a taxpayer, but gosh, I've never been let down by Congress before, so I don't see why that should be a problem now.
n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com