A recent poll claimed that a majority of Americans want “universal health care”.  I can imagine the question being something like this:

Q. Do you want health care coverage for all Americans, regardless of their income?

A: 1.Yes.
     2.No, I want people to die in the streets of treatable diseases.

How many of these same people would like to have four day weekends every week, brand new cars, big houses, and lots of money in the bank?  Probably all of them.

What if they question had been phrased this way:

Are you in favor of:
Creating more bureaucracy?
Increasing regulation and paperwork for hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists?
Paying someone else to pass along some of your money to someone else?
Reducing the number of choices overall for medical treatment?
Longer waits for treatments and consultations?

Mandating universal heath care insurance will not:
Open a single new hospital.
Make one more person a nurse.
Make one more person a doctor.
Get one new medical treatment to the public.

If you think health care is expensive now, ask yourself this – who is going to make less money in order to lower the costs of health care to offset the cost of increased regulation and controls of universal health care?

Doctors?
Nurses?
Other medical staffers?
Hospital owners?
Insurance professionals?
Medical equipment makers?
Pharmacists?
Pharmaceutical companies?
Ambulance companies?
Paramedics/EMTs?
Shareholders/Investors?

Someone is going to have to pay more for the overhead, and someone is going to have to get paid less in order to keep costs lower than the free market would.  The problem is, most people are counting on someone richer than them to pay it all in higher taxes.

In most professions, if you’re not satisfied with what your employer is paying you, you can either persuade the employer to pay you more, you can go work for another employer, or you can start your own business.  The medical profession is already highly regulated, and this would be the final step in creating a monopolistic situation denying medical professionals the ability to get paid what they can command.

What happens if there is a shortage of doctors because people just don’t want to deal with all of the hassle for their capped salary?  Are we going to force people to become doctors?  Are we going to raise taxes to pay all doctors more?

Mandating someone have health insurance does not necessarily mean that person is going to maintain a healthier lifestyle, unless you want to force people to live a certain way.  In fact, it could mean they will become more lax about taking care of themselves, figuring that "the insurance" will pay for major surgery anyway.

A hospital stay may cost less up front, but you will be paying higher taxes to pay for it, or paying for it some other way.

The ideal, of course, is that people who could not otherwise afford preventative or early-remedy medical treatment will get cured or treated early, thereby saving the costs associated with emergency rooms and treatment of advanced diseases.  And, of course, feeling good because even the poorest of the poor can get the best medical care.

But would things really work out that way?  Is it worth the risks of increased intrusion, loss of quality, rising costs, longer waits?  What if someone doesn’t want health insurance?  They should be forced to pay taxes for it anyway?

Why should a teetotaling, health-nut observant Jehovah’s Witness pay for the medical costs of incurred by people who get blood transfusions, injure themselves through risky sex and drinking, or overeating?

Face it - the wealthier you are, the more access you have to better goods and services.  That’s just the way life naturally works - because you have more resources in your ownership, you have more to trade with others to get  more of what you want.  However, people can - and do - donate their wealth, their medical skills, etc. to helping those in need who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford effective treatment.

The more we force - by power of government - the wealthy to give some of their wealth to others they don’t even know and prevent the wealthy from being able to get better goods or services by paying more if they so choose, the more we take away the motivation for people to create wealth.  If I can get all the medical care I need, housing on the beach, transportation, education, food, so on and so forth without even working, and if I am restricted from being able to get something superior or more of something by paying more, where’s my incentive to earn, to strive, to create, to produce, and therefore be more useful to my fellow human being?

If you really, truly want to bring medical costs down and not simply stick it to those who have more wealth than you, you will:

Maintain a healthy lifestyle and persuade others to do so as well.

Allow those who want to build and operate medical facilities to do so with as little hassle as reasonable, and with access to as much reward (profit) as the market will give them.

Allow those who want to practice medicine to do so with as little hassle as reasonable, and with access to as much reward (profit) as the market will give them.

Allow those who offer health insurance to do so with as little hassle as reasonable, and with access to as much reward (profit) as the market will give them.

Allow those who want to develop and provide medicine, treatments, and devices to do so with as little hassle as reasonable, and with access to as much reward (profit) as the market will give them.

Break up and privatize any regulatory, accreditation, or organizing monopolies to create competition and choices.

A new layer of government is not the answer.  Forced participation is not the answer.  Artificial cost controls are not the answer.  Monopolizing anything is not the answer.  Offering more handouts to people trespassing in this country is not the answer.