Bad Medicine
[Column for June 24, 2009]
President Obama has unveiled his newest project: the revamping of the American health care industry. Among other things, he suggests government-provided health insurance, equalizing of insurance premiums for all Americans, a universal patient database, and federal efforts to control prescription drug costs. Additionally, the President has solemnly promised that his plan will shrink expenditures across the industry, making it the first government program in the history of the universe to reduce costs of any kind.
While I would love to put all 700 pages of Obama’s bill under a microscope, my editor has wisely limited my space. Instead, let’s zoom out and take a wider view.
There are currently 50 million Americans without health insurance. Best estimates place the cost of Obama’s plan at roughly $1 Trillion, and it purports to cover 16 million of these 50 million people. The entire health care industry presently spends about $2.2 Trillion annually, and covers 250 million people. Hence, Obama’s plan will increase spending by 50% to insure an additional 6% of the population. Math was never my best subject, but this equation seems strange to me.
Here’s another equation: $1 trillion divided by 16 million is $62,500. How much do you pay for health insurance, more or less than $62,500 per year?
Lopsided as it is, even this projection is untrustworthy. Government programs invariably run into cost overruns – have you ever heard of a cost underrun? After the dust settles, we will likely be looking at $70,000 to $80,000 per insuree. Naturally, you and I will shoulder the burden as we enjoy tax hikes on everything from health insurance to Diet Pepsi.
Conservative reactions to Obama’s plan have been disappointingly pedestrian. Right-leaning pundits warn against the perils of socialized medicine, and paint bleak pictures of waiting lists and rationed care (as if such things don’t already exist). Then, with puffed chests and billowing lungs, they expound on the importance of free enterprise.
This is puerile fantasy. Conservative proposals are not on the table, nor could they be anywhere near the table for three and a half years. The decision before Congress is not what form a proposed health care overhaul should take, but whether it should happen at all. Discussing alternate health care plans is a waste of time and attention.
Obama and his congress are not interested in deregulation or increased competition. If health care is to be fixed, it will be fixed his way. If we choose not to fix it his way, there will be no change. Prattling on about market-driven solutions merely adds noise to an already unbearable din.
By stretching out his palm and offering change, Obama is employing the same tactic that won him the election. Judging from the results of that election, Americans are in the mood for immediate, dramatic change – not the more deliberate, thoughtful variety. Since there is widespread agreement that our health care system is broken, the safe prediction is that most people will support change without taking time to weigh the consequences.
Obama knows this, and has a suitcase full of political capital to spend. He vows a congressional vote by early August, a scant two months from now. This is a bold timetable, and a majority of Democrats in both houses of congress give him traction. A massive government reform of the entire American medical apparatus is upon us, and seems all but unstoppable.
Only one question remains: Once we socialize our medical industry, where will all the Canadians go to receive quality health care?