Keep Government Out of Health Insurance
Why do Republicans really oppose government-run health care? There are three main reasons. First is enormous cost, and inefficiency and waste that accompanies such a system. Republicans understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that any increase in spending must be paid for by huge tax increases.
Secondly, if the U.S. adopts a single payer system, the medical advancements that the entire world depends upon will come to a screeching halt. The United States develops more new drugs and procedures than all other countries combined, and it's all because of the evil-sounding profit motive, which allows companies the freedom to research novel ideas in pursuit of monetary gain. Why should a company bother to spend millions upon millions of dollars researching an AIDS vaccine if it won't be allowed to profit?
The third reason is more abstract, but all the more important. Once one accepts that it is the government's job to provide healthcare, almost any usurpation of liberty becomes justified. If the government foots the bill for bad decisions, why should it allow you to make any? Why should you be allowed to smoke, overeat or participate in any risky activities? If we allow the government to become our caretaker, we become little more than large children in a government nursery, condescendingly freed from the difficult decisions of adulthood. Adopting state-run healthcare is a giant, irreversible step down the slippery road of collectivism that America, and the rest of the world, can ill afford.
Conor Hennessey
via email
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I expect that reasonable, nonpolitical observers can find various ways to truly improve our healthcare system, short of government takeover.
Encourage competition between insurance companies. As it is now, each state insurance commission maintains control over every company operating in-state. This violation of the Interstate Commerce clause forces every insurance company to operate solely according to strictures imposed by each state commissioner. There can be no real competition between national insurance companies within a state. And some state officials can be bought.
Pharmaceutical prices can be easily contained. As it is now, U.S. citizens subsidize all other countries. There are no government price controls in the U.S. But other governments impose limits on what drug companies can charge. That is why so many Americans attempt to buy medicine from Canada. Solution: Congress should not control prices, but should pass a law that pharmaceutical companies must sell in the U.S. at the lowest prices charged anywhere else in the world.
Joseph Pasulka
via email
