Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I must report the shocking facts: Medical care is medical care. Nothing more and nothing less.
This may not seem like a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge. But it completely contradicts what is being said by many of those who are urging “universal health care” because so many Americans lack health insurance.
Insurance is not medical care. Indeed, health care is not the same as medical care. Countries with universal health care do not have more or better medical care.
The bottom line is medical care. But the rhetoric and the talking points are about insurance. Many people who could afford health insurance do not choose to have it because they know that medical care will be available at the nearest emergency room, whether they have insurance or not.
This is especially true for young people, who do not anticipate long-term medical problems and who can always get a broken leg or an allergy attack taken care of at an emergency room — and spend their money on a more upscale lifestyle.
This may not be a wise decision but it is their decision, and there is no reason why other people should lose the right to make decisions for themselves because some people make questionable decisions.
If you don’t think government bureaucrats can make questionable decisions, then you haven’t dealt with many government bureaucrats.
It is one thing to deal with bureaucrats when you are at the Department of Motor Vehicles and in good health. It is something else when you have to deal with bureaucrats when you are lying on a gurney and bleeding or are doubled over in pain on a hospital bed.
People who believe in “universal health care” show remarkably little interest — usually none — in finding out what that phrase turns out to mean in practice, in those countries where it already exists, such as Britain, Sweden or Canada.
Sadly, I’m hearing nothing of substance from big media (which is only interested in “universal coverage” of a bunch of people who don’t want to pay for coverage. The only sane analysis I’ve seen is such as Joseph Santos work at the AEI etc.
And almost nothing, except for AEI and friends, touches on the essential issues of incentives, and informed consumption. The demand for free services is roughly infinite. Why are they free? Legacies of WWII…
Universal health care is an important campaign promise by President Obama, that needs to be kept.