HORIST: Single Payer, healthcare for idiots

Larry Horist

8 years ago

As if Obamacare was not bad enough &ndash&semi; never living up to any of its bogus promises &ndash&semi; the far left-leaning Democrats are proposing to fix the situation with an even worse idea&period;&nbsp&semi; It goes by many names &ndash&semi; &num;UniversalHealthcare, &num;SinglePayerHealthcare, &num;MedicareForAll or the simplified &num;M4A&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;Affixing nice names to bad products is as old as Clark Stanley selling his snake oil liniment as an earlier version of false medical promises &ndash&semi; for which he was prosecuted and fined &dollar;20&period;&nbsp&semi; Unfortunately, we do not prosecute politicians for making false claims and promises&period;&nbsp&semi; Now, that would be something worth considering&period;&NewLine;As they say, the devil is in the details, and in this case, they arise from the lowest depths of Hell&period;&nbsp&semi; First, we need to look at the bait&period; Imagine a world in which you would have outstanding medical services&period;&nbsp&semi; There would be no limit to the medical services you could require&period;&nbsp&semi; It would include the often exempted dental, hearing and optometry &ndash&semi; not to mention no more paying for those erectile dysfunction pills and procedures and even a bit of plastic surgery to make you look as young as you are not&period;&nbsp&semi; Okay, so I did mention them&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;You would have coverage from cradle to grave &ndash&semi; which would be a very long time these days and longer in the future&period;&nbsp&semi; Of course, that assumes you really had that superb medical care promised in the advertisement&period;&NewLine;There would be no co-pay&period;&nbsp&semi; No deductibles&period;&nbsp&semi; Everything would be paid by our rich and generous Uncle Sam&period;&nbsp&semi; In their scheme, he is that single payer they talk about&period;&nbsp&semi; They fail to point out, however, that Uncle Sam is not rich at all&period;&nbsp&semi; He gets his money from us&period;&nbsp&semi; One way or the other, we the people &ndash&semi; you and me individually &ndash&semi; are paying for whatever Uncle Sam spends&period;&NewLine;And what, pray tell, will we have to fork over to our Uncle to pay for all those &ldquo&semi;free&rdquo&semi; medical benefits&quest;&nbsp&semi; The most recent Harvard study on the proposal emanating from the socialist left says it would cost us &dollar;32&period;6 trillion over the next ten years&period;&nbsp&semi; Not even the most radical left-wingers &ndash&semi; like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez, New York&rsquo&semi;s Democrat gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon and Florida&rsquo&semi;s gubernatorial Democrat candidate Andrew Gillum &ndash&semi; believe that such a program could be accomplished without massive tax increases&period;&NewLine;The general concept goes something like this&period;&nbsp&semi; You put a 7&period;5 percent tax increase on employers&period;&nbsp&semi; That gets you &dollar;3&period;9 trillion&period;&nbsp&semi; Then there is a four percent tax increase on you and me&period;&nbsp&semi; That nets another &dollar;3&period;5 trillion&period;&nbsp&semi; Finally, you impose a major tax on the &ldquo&semi;high earners&rdquo&semi; &ndash&semi; those one-percenters that Sanders hates so much&period;&nbsp&semi; That adds another &dollar;1&period;8 trillion dollars&period;&nbsp&semi; That comes to &dollar;10&period;2 trillion over the next ten years&period;&NewLine;In case you had trouble with arithmetic, you can see that the anticipated revenue falls &dollar;22&period;4 trillion dollars short&period;&nbsp&semi; That is a very conservative estimate since it assumes that all the income and cost projections are accurate&period;&nbsp&semi; Unfortunately, that is as certain as a morning sunrise to be wrong&period;&nbsp&semi; In virtually every case of government economic projections, the income falls below estimates and the costs exceed them &ndash&semi; and not by small errors&period;&NewLine;To cover even the lowball &dollar;32&period;6 trillion dollars would require doubling the taxes currently collected in all the aforementioned categories&period;&nbsp&semi; Yep&excl;&nbsp&semi; Your tax bill doubles&period;&NewLine;(If you want to pause here and get out last year&rsquo&semi;s W-2 form to see how much your tax will go up, I can wait&period;)&NewLine;Shocking, eh&quest;&NewLine;What becomes clear is that it is impossible &ndash&semi; not unlikely or improbable &ndash&semi; but impossible to pay for the fancy-dancy healthcare they promise&period;&nbsp&semi; If you are hearing echoes of the Obamacare lead-up, you&rsquo&semi;re catching on&period;&NewLine;It is not just the matter of raising the money&period;&nbsp&semi; What is the impact on the economy by such Draconian taxes&quest;&nbsp&semi; First, there is the tax on employers &ndash&semi; every business from the trillion-dollar Apple Corporation to that homeworker with a part-time assistant&period;&nbsp&semi; You do not need to be an economics major to know that means the loss of jobs and fewer new employment opportunities&period;&nbsp&semi; It would shrivel our roaring economy like dumping water on the Wicked Witch of the West&period;&NewLine;It also plays into a favorite fraud of the left &ndash&semi; taxing businesses&period;&nbsp&semi; As I have often written, businesses DO NOT pay taxes&period;&nbsp&semi; They pass them on to the consumer in the form of price increases&period;&nbsp&semi; Though hidden, it is essentially a regressive tax that hits hardest on the poor&period;&nbsp&semi; Under the progressives&rsquo&semi; plan, you and I will be paying for the healthcare every time we buy a shirt or hire a lawyer&period;&nbsp&semi; And yet, we fall for that malarkey more often than Charlie Brown believes Lucy will let him kick the football&period;&NewLine;In increasing our individual tax liability, we will again be paying for the healthcare at the loss of other purchases &ndash&semi; which again shrinks the economy&period;&NewLine;Then there is the tax on the rich&period;&nbsp&semi; That is an easy one to propose because the left assumes that, like them, we are either envious of rich people or we just hate them&period;&nbsp&semi; They see us as the peasants with the pitchforks attacking the castle&period;&NewLine;The first point to be made is that those in higher tax brackets already pay a higher percentage of the income than we less affluent folks&period;&nbsp&semi; Like you and me, their income would be taxed at a high rate&period;&NewLine;More importantly, the left wants to increase taxes on investment income &ndash&semi; most notably on capital gains&period;&nbsp&semi; They would prefer that such income be taxed at the normal and higher personal rate&period;&nbsp&semi; That may bring in more money at the front end, but what happens on the backside&quest;&NewLine;There would be a much lower incentive to invest in new business, which means economic growth and more jobs&period;&nbsp&semi; More jobs mean more taxable income at the existing rates&period;&nbsp&semi; If you kill off jobs, however, government revenues (tax dollars) go lower, you and I have less money to spend and the economy goes into recession&period;&NewLine;But, what about the quality of the healthcare&quest;&NewLine;History tells us that when government pays for and manages ANYTHING, two things will occur&period;&nbsp&semi; Expenses will go through the proverbial roof&period;&nbsp&semi; Any time you have a third-party payer, the control of costs goes out the window&period;&nbsp&semi; We see it in Medicare and Medicaid&period;&nbsp&semi; We see it in student loans&period;&nbsp&semi; We see it in military contracting&period;&nbsp&semi; Once our rich Uncle Sam is perceived to be the payer &ndash&semi; and he does control that enormous pile of money he takes from us&period;&NewLine;Consequently, everything gets a LOT more expensive as hospitals and doctors increase prices, college tuitions soar and we all know about those &dollar;90 hammers purchased by the Pentagon&period;&nbsp&semi; Amazingly, as the costs skyrocket, the quality of services subsidized by Uncle Sam goes down&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;Then there is waste and fraud&period;&nbsp&semi; Government does an abysmal job at eliminating waste and fraud compared to the private sector&period;&nbsp&semi; That is because there is no incentive to do so&period;&nbsp&semi; After all, it is Uncle Sam&rsquo&semi;s money &ndash&semi; not the money of those spending it for political benefit&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;We do not have to look at that theoretically&period;&nbsp&semi; As we consider universal healthcare, we should remember those promises made by President Obama to secure the passage of his namesake legislation&period;&nbsp&semi; Did everyone in America get coverage&quest;&nbsp&semi; No&period;&nbsp&semi; More than 20 million Americans did not make the cut&period;&nbsp&semi; Did premiums go down&quest;&nbsp&semi; Nope&period;&nbsp&semi; They rose faster than before&period;&nbsp&semi; Did you get to keep your doctor&quest;&nbsp&semi; Again, no&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;We should keep in mind how the details of Obamacare were held back from we the people &&num;8212&semi; and even those members of Congress who had to vote for it &&num;8212&semi; when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously said that &ldquo&semi;we have to pass the bill to see what is in it&period;&rdquo&semi;&NewLine;We should not forget the admission made by Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor and one of the chief architects of the so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA)&period;&nbsp&semi; He later admitted that the White House had to strategically lie to get enough public and congressional support to get the bill passed&period;&nbsp&semi; You heard that right&period;&nbsp&semi; They outright lied about the benefits and costs of Obamacare in order to get it passed &ndash&semi; and they are doing it again but this time with real whoppers (and I do not mean hamburgers)&period;&NewLine;While the proponents heap much praise on universal or single-payer health care in other nations, the real record is not all that encouraging&period;&nbsp&semi; First, those other nations do not provide the extensive coverage that is being promised (lied about) by the proponents on the left to get support&period;&NewLine;Then there is the issue of the quality of healthcare&period;&nbsp&semi; The foreign systems seem to work okay &ndash&semi; but at enormous expense &ndash&semi; and only for routine or nominal health matters&period;&nbsp&semi; But when it comes to major issues, not so good&period;&nbsp&semi; Both the quality of the services and the timeliness are serious problems&period;&nbsp&semi; In Canada, for example, there is an entire industry of consultants who work to get Canadians into the United States for treatment because of the long waits and inferior service&period;&nbsp&semi; The same problem exists in England&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;If you go deeper into government provided single-payer healthcare, you must look at nations like Russia and China&period;&nbsp&semi; They provide some of the worst universal healthcare in the world for the average citizen&period;&nbsp&semi; And, none of these nations provide the sort of universal coverage proposed by the Bernie Sanders&rsquo&semi; socialist wing of the Democratic Party&period;&NewLine;If you want to see what a single-payer system might look like in America, check out the Veterans&rsquo&semi; hospitals&period;&nbsp&semi; It is enormously expensive, and people die waiting for service&period;&nbsp&semi; If we treat our honored veterans in this manner, how much worse will the rest of the folks be treated by government-run healthcare&quest;&nbsp&semi; And if you think Medicare provides great coverage, ask yourself why people need supplemental private sector insurance plans to compensate for the inadequacies of Medicare&period;&NewLine;While no system is perfect, the American private sector healthcare system has created the best in the world&period;&nbsp&semi; It has not only provided the best services but leads the world in the new life-saving technologies&period;&nbsp&semi; It was arguably even better and less costly before the federal government started to seek control over one-sixth of the economy&period;&NewLine;In many ways, universal healthcare is not about medical services, but about a philosophy that believes that an elite few should control the lives and decision-making of the less capable masses for their own power and profit&period;&nbsp&semi; Have you ever seen a socialist or communist nation where the elite were not rich and privileged, and the masses were not poor and disadvantaged&quest;&nbsp&semi; Me neither&period;&NewLine;Larry Horist is a conservative activist with an extensive background in economics, public policy and politics&period; Clients of his consulting firm have included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman, as well as the White House&period; He has testified as an expert witness before legislative bodies, including the U&period; S&period; Congress, and lectured at major colleges and universities&period; An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries appear frequently on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation&period; He can be reached at <a href="mailto&colon;lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com">lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com</a>&period;&NewLine;