Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Let’s Admit It: Enacting Medicare
Was a Mistake
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The ongoing fiasco in healthcare shows why it was so wrong to have
enacted Medicare in the first place.
For one thing, Medicare reflects perfectly the mindset of dependency that
the welfare state has inculcated in the American people, who have been
born and raised under a culture of welfare-statism. All too many
Americans are absolutely convinced that they could not survive without
Medicare. The thought of repealing, not reforming, Medicare is so
terrifying to them that they cannot even rationally discuss the subject.
In their minds, if Medicare were repealed, elderly parents and
grandparents would soon be dying in the streets of untreated infections
and illnesses.
As they grow up in a culture of Medicare and welfare-statism, Americans
are trained to look upon the federal government as a great benefactor, as
a parent, as a friend, even as a god to some people. In the statist mind,
Medicare is people’s lifeline to longevity and health. Given that the
government can terminate this lifeline at any time, it is not surprising
then that all too many seniors are reluctant to challenge the government
at a fundamental level, such as its warfare-state functions. The
underlying subconscious fear is that since their lives purportedly depend
on the continuation of the government’s Medicare program, people cannot
afford to risk sudden termination of the program by challenging what the
government’s military empire is doing overseas.
Secondly, Medicare reflects the extent to which Americans have lost faith
in freedom and the free market. This is precisely why virtually all
attempts to resolve the healthcare crisis, even by many free-market
advocates, involve some sort of reform proposal that will keep the basic
Medicare program intact. The reformers, whether free-market or statist,
simply cannot bring themselves to believe that healthcare can be
entrusted to the free market.
What would a truly free market in healthcare mean? It would mean a total
separation of healthcare and the state. What does that mean? It means a
total repeal, not a reform, of Medicare and Medicaid. It also means a
repeal of occupational licensure laws -- that is laws that require
official government permission to provide healthcare. (See
“Medical Licensure” by
Milton Friedman.) It also means a repeal of all healthcare regulations,
especially those that prevent or inhibit interstate providing of
healthcare insurance. It would also entail the abolition of all taxes
that are needed to pay for the ever-burgeoning Medicare and Medicaid
expenses.
The free market provides the best of everything. Deep down, everyone
knows that, but call for a total separation of healthcare and the state
(as our ancestors did with religion and the state) and all too many
Americans start quaking. That’s what the welfare state has done to the
American people. It has severely damaged their self-confidence,
self-reliance, and faith in freedom, free markets, themselves, others,
and God.
How would the truly poor get their healthcare in a totally free market?
The same way they got it from 1787 to 1964, when this immoral and
destructive socialistic program was imported to our land -- by purchasing
it themselves individually or through voluntary membership in
associations or through voluntary charity, especially from healthcare
providers themselves.
I grew up in what the federal government termed the poorest city in the
United States, Laredo, Texas. Before Medicare, doctors’ offices in Laredo
would be filled every day with patients, most of whom were desperately
poor. I never heard of one doctor turning away even one single patient
for inability to pay. Yet, doctors in Laredo were among the wealthiest
people in town. The money they received from people who could pay
subsidized those who couldn’t. And it was all voluntary.
My dentist here in Virginia belongs to a private group of dentists who
provide free dental care for poor people. They take turns each week
providing free dental care to the poor. There is no Medicare or Medicaid
for dental care. No one forces my dentist and his friends to help the
poor and needy. They do it because they want to do it and because they
think it’s right.
That’s what genuine charity is all about. It’s not about coercion and
compulsion, which is what Medicare and Medicaid are based on. It’s about
purely voluntary actions, which is what freedom is based on.
Thirdly, consider the silent war that accompanies Medicare and every
other welfare-state program. It is a war between those who want free
healthcare and those who are being forced to pay for it. With Medicare,
elderly people are demanding that their healthcare needs be provided for
free.
But everyone knows that free isn’t really free. Hospitals,
pharmaceuticals, and doctors, along with all the medical personnel, have
to be paid. The money to pay for all this has to come from somewhere.
With Medicare, the money is coming from people who are working for
living, especially young people.
Thus, Medicare involves an intergenerational war, one in which seniors
are demanding the right to take money out of the bank accounts of other
people, namely the working class, including young people who are have a
very difficult time starting out in life.
Perhaps the most revealing part of the healthcare debate is the extent to
which Americans are wedded to this socialistic program. Even though
everyone acknowledges that Medicare is playing a large role in leading
our nation into the abyss of bankruptcy, all too many people are still
unwilling to let it go. Combine that mindset of fear and dependency with
the willingness to wage a financial war against people’s children,
grandchildren, and their friends, and you start to get a sense of what a
horrible mistake it was for Americans to have embraced this insidious
program almost 50 years ago.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-06-08.asp
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