United Liberty

Interestingly, government intervention in the 1960s introduced a third party (insurance co/HMO/PPO, etc) into the one-on-one relationship between doctor and patient. Prior to that, people paid premiums for medical insurance policies designed to cover catastrophic medical events like cancer, serious accidents and the like, NOT for physicals, check ups or routine visits. Instead, the DOCTOR and the PATIENT negotiated a rate for services based on the patient’s ability to pay on an individual case by case basis. The introduction of a third party shorts the doctor AND raises the costs for the the patient, as the third party must also be paid. Yes, health costs have soared, but further government intervention - especially a government takeover of a free market healthcare system - is NOT the answer.

Would you hand over your car keys to a stranger with a drinking problem who had a history of smashing his own cars into telephone poles?

Neither would I. Which is why I am puzzled as to why there is so much excitement over handing health care over to the federal government, thereby giving them responsibility over roughly 1/6th of the nation’s economy.

Before we hand over the keys, let’s go back to the scene of the accident. That accident, of course, is Medicare, a monopoly program that drove private insurers out of the market for the elderly population and is facing huge deficits. If a government takeover of the entire health care system would be so successful, why is Medicare so bent out of shape? Looks a lot like a broken telephone pole with red white and blue paint scraped all over it to me.

The editors of the Washington Examiner ask the same question: