Universal health care would be a fiasco

Before everybody jumps on the bandwagon for universal health care as is being touted by Hillary Clinton, one should become aware of the unintended consequences of the ideal panacea it purports to establish.

It takes little thought to recognize how ineffective government control of anything can be. We have all seen evidence of it in most programs of government. Some of the proposed health-care provisions would require mandatory insurance to be purchased by everyone, either by forcing employers to provide it or individuals when they have no employers to force it upon.

Unlike automobile insurance, which you need not purchase if you don’t have or drive an automobile, health insurance will be mandated for everyone, whether or not they have sufficient wealth to pay for their own health care. The better way would be to remove the restrictions that keep premium costs unreasonably high and allow the private market to fill our health-care needs.

The ultimate cost of government health care will ultimately result in more reductions in available health care options to control costs. We need only look at Canada and the European continent to see the devastating loss of health care availability caused by a state run program. Before you buy into universal health care, talk to those who live under it in Canada and Europe. If, in purchasing health insurance in the private market, we could opt out of paying a premium in a policy to cover impossible events, and if you could decline coverage for things you accept responsibility to pay outside of insurance coverage, the cost of insurance would be reduced to an affordable reasonable price.

Other health-care provider changes, such as removing restrictions on which professional can render minor health care requiring no high degree of medical knowledge, would also reduce costs.

To accept universal health care as an ideal solution ignores the definition of an idealist given by the author, H.L. Mencken, who wrote, “An idealist is one, who on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage; concludes it will also make better soup.”

This story was originally published July 1, 2017 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Universal health care would be a fiasco."