Always August, pt 1

At the end of an eventful week of America's vigorous health care debate, it is clear that the progressive left's vision of a universal health care bill with the federal government acting as the guarantor and dispensor of American medical care is in serious jeopardy, if not already dead. For all of the talk of astroturfing and crowds being organized by right-wing extremists in the insurance industry (or something, it can be hard to follow trains of logic set in motion by Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer), the You Tube videoes of furious constituents yelling at their congressmen capture a sense that - while the health care system may need reform - the current 1000+ page bill is no one's idea of a solution.

Democrats have been demogauging health care for years, and they are quite adept at generating arguments in favor of "reform." In its modern iteration (since 1992 when the Clintons took office convinced they had a mandate to reform health care), the Dems' arguments go something like this:

1. there are 47 million uninsured people in the US who have a right to insurance. These uninsured either go without health care or obtain health care at the ER, with the cost passed on to the rest of us

2. Health care spending is taking up an ever-increasing percentage of GDP at the macro level, and family budgets at the micro level, and we need to "bend the cost curve" so that medical spending does not become a drag on the economy

3. A significant percentage of health care spending is dedicated to fruitless "end of life" treatment that we should try to move away from in favor of preventive care

4. One's health insurance can be too easily taken away either through job-loss or, worse, through rescission at the worst possible moment (i.e. the day afer you learn you have a rare blood disease)

5. it is unconscionable that there are industries (insurance, pharmaceutical, MD's, HMO's, etc) making money, and lots of it, off of health care spending; and that the quality of care is often correlated with the amount of ready money the patient has available.

6. "Something Needs To Be Done"

With the exception of #6, all of the above - while no doubt appealing, well focus-grouped, and based on a germ of truth - are based on fundamental falicies that ultimately undermine the entire rationale for health care reform, at least at the level aspired to by progressives. As I will develop in succeeding posts, each are readily addressed by market reforms, rather than through the wholesale restructuring envisioned by the Left,