Washington Post: Nationalized Health Care Isn’t Going To Save Us Money
Because no matter how you cook the numbers, nationalized health care is a big, fat entitlement program that’s going to cost Americans far more than what they’re paying for health care now at a time when our government is essentially bankrupt.
Expanding insurance to cover the 46 million Americans who are uninsured would probably cost more than $100 billion a year — more than the federal government spends on education, training, employment and social services combined. It is an immense undertaking at a time when the budget is under terrible strain. So it’s no surprise that Democrats and the Obama administration do not want to portray it simply as another big entitlement program.
Some argue that universal coverage would decrease costs by expanding the risk pool (bringing healthy young people into the system) and by decreasing emergency room costs, because more people would get care before their illnesses become acute. There’s truth to both, but the savings are vastly outweighed by the costs of treating so many people who today get little or no care. Expanding insurance coverage would increase health-care spending by those who acquire insurance and add to overall health cost inflation.
Put simply, you cannot provide an unlimited amount of health care on a finite budget. Some people are going to use more than they need, and other people are going to need more than the government is willing to give them.
Think about an all-you-can-eat buffet. Normally you maybe wouldn’t eat three plates of food, but because you paid for it. And because it’s unlimited, you do. The same would happen with nationalized health care. People will go even when they maybe don’t need to because they paid for it, and it’s unlimited. Except, it can’t be unlimited. We could never afford for it to be unlimited. We’ll have to ration health care, and that means some bureaucrat deciding what treatment you can and can’t get. Not to mention how much your health is ultimately worth.
Nationalized health care is a mistake. We can’t afford it, and it’ll drag the overall quality of our care down to the lowest common denominator.
