- “Every market is a rationing system. The question is this: do you want to make the rationing decisions for yourself, or do you want them imposed on you by an unaccountable bureaucracy that has no incentive to improve?”
Ed Morrissey
Mr. Morrissey’s quote is correct – virtually every service or product is rationed by some means because supply seldom matches demand naturally. Rationing is a phenomenon of life, and men develop processes to achieve it. Rationing can be by military might as in the case of lands and natural resources, by government fiat as in quotas or mandates, by deference as in families, or by some other method.
America’s founders recognized the free market as the only method of rationing that is consistent with a free society. It is intuitive that any other method demands the compromise of liberty which compromise was unacceptable to American patriots. Healthcare, like auto repair or art, will always be rationed; that is assured. The question is how it will be rationed. Is government competent and trustworthy to ration your healthcare?
History provides some answers. We can look at Cuba, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or more recently, Canada. Proponents of government-rationed healthcare seldom promote it based on its “strengths.” Instead they depend on the phenomenon that all a bad idea needs to gain support in a naïve world is the right enemy. They focus attention on what people despise most in the current system even if their proposal is unlikely to provide solutions.
Evaluation of any idea means asking the right questions. Ignore the arguments supported only by dislike for the existing healthcare system. Start with the fundamentals, and if they are unacceptable, go no further. I cannot support socialized medicine no matter how it is dressed up. It is bad for families, bad for the poor and bad for the healthcare industry. It turns professional healthcare providers into bureaucrats. Write down what you like about that. Everything changes when we move from the free market to government rationing. In 1993,Dr. Marc Micozzi described the change succinctly:
“Medical concerns which had largely been in the private domain in the nineteenth century increasingly became a concern of the state. The physician began to be transformed into a functionary of state-initiated laws and policies. Doctors slowly began to see themselves as more responsible for the public health of the nation than for the individual health of the patient. It is one thing to see oneself as responsible for the “nation’s health” and quite another to be responsible for an individual patient’s health. It is one thing to be employed by an individual, another to be employed by the government.”
Don’t be fooled and don’t accept the disintegration of American healthcare without a fight. Make sure your Congressman and U.S. Senators know your opinion of a national healthcare system which is exactly where I believe we are heading in Washington, D.C.
You may telephone me toll-free at (866) 410-8822. You may also email me at ed.emery@house.mo.gov . If you would like to receive the weekly Capitol Report by email, please send me your email address. Thank you for your interest in good government and a promising future in Missouri.
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