So I have been thinking about this whole healthcare reform that Congress is hell-bent on pushing through in spite of obvious public sentiment against them. Congress claims that there will not be death panels, that our medical coverage will be the same as it is now. Unfortunately, they could not be bigger liars in this matter. Either that or they are all just plain stupid.
The reason there will be death panels is quite simple. You have to look at the economic side of things and you can easily correlate that result:
- Premise #1: government always creates inefficiency in the marketplace. There is no getting around this simple fact as you need only look at any number of industries run by government and compare them with the private sector. Take the IRS. While they are pretty strict, they sure do take a long time to approve your tax returns. And they would not have to do tax returns if they withdrew exactly what you owed in the first place. Now, that is not the entire fault of the IRS, but you would think that a bunch of stereotypical nerds would be able to find a solution to.
- Premise #2: the private sector always does a better job than government. A great example of this is the post office. The United States Postal Service said for a long time that overnight delivery was impossible. With all the packages and letters going through that government agency, there was no way that they could deliver any of it overnight to anyone, even your next door neighbor. But then USP and FedEx arrived on the scene once the Federal government deregulated interstate transportation (which were largely in place to maintain the monopoly of freight trains). Suddenly, overnight delivery appeared in America and now you can order stupid crap you do not need on E-Bay and get it on your front door the next day. Looks like all that government agency needed was some competition.
- Premise #3: government does not produce anything. In terms of comparisons between the private sector and the public sector, government does not produce any kind of wealth nor do they build wealth. Their source of income are the profits of the private sector. That is what taxes are: confiscation of the wealth created in the private sector. They never do anything and turn around and charge people, at least not in the usual course of business.
- Premise #4: government monopolizes any industry it regulates or runs. And usually those monopolies are not necessarily in the same industry (see my postal service example in #2). The only way that a monopoly can be created is through the force of government. In the marketplace, there is always an alternative to a product or service and therefore any monopoly not backed by the force of government will still have to bow to market forces and the potential of competition.
So, given these basic premises, here are the conclusions I draw from them:
- Whenever government runs an industry, it creates more scarcity than would exist in the free market. When you monopolize an industry, as the government intends to do with healthcare, you remove the reason for people to excel in business: competition. Without it, there is no motivation for the administrators to light the fire under their employees butts. Also, government employees are almost never fired and thus, they have no motivation to excel either.
- With scarcity, there will be rationing. This is because the government needs to obey the basic laws of economics. With supplies lacking, they must make the best use of scarce resources they have on hand.
That last conclusion is where I finalize my point: that with few resources due to rationing of supplies (either medical supplies or staff), they will ensure that the younger and more likely to bring money to the system will get top priority. After all, the young are the ones who pay the taxes, even if they tend not to vote as much. As such, they are a vital source of tax dollars to the government.
The elderly, on the other hand, are a drain on a welfare state. Their livelihood is tied to the government, both in the form of Social Security and Medicare. Already Senators had proposed that Medicare not cover end of life treatments. Now, this did not get very far, but with the elites on Capitol Hill floating crazy ideas like that around, it makes me nervous.
So if we go to a single-payer system, it will mean that the government will tell you when it is time to die. But do not worry, they will live on as heads in jars ensuring that your descendents will have full quality lives and eventually they will dwindle down to nothing. Because a smaller population is easier to control and regulate.