Attempts to reform health care by mandating universal insurance coverage remind me of that old joke about the drunk looking for his watch beneath a street lamp despite having dropped it in a different place. When asked why he would confine his search for the missing time piece to an area so distant from its probable location, he replies that “the light is better here.”
That‘s precisely the kind of reasoning that drives the current obsession with “the uninsured.” Unlike the multifaceted and complex forces underlying the many dysfunctions of American health care, the plight of the “uninsured” is easy to see and comprehend. That is to say, the light is better there.
David Hogberg has a great piece in the Washington Times explaining why it is foolish and even dangerous to look for health care solutions beneath the street lamp:
As the debate over the future of the U.S. health-care system proceeds, it is important that we — and especially lawmakers who will craft health policy — understand the very real difference between health care and health insurance. It is vital we realize universal health insurance is not the same as universal health care.
In fact, government mandates requiring universal health coverage has often led to more restricted access to actual health services:
As the experience of other nations shows … universal health insurance often leads to very restricted access to health care … In nations where the government provides universal health insurance … governments must restrict access to health care by using waiting lists, canceling surgeries or delaying access to new treatments such as prescription drugs. The consequences can be quite harmful.
Thus, it is important that we do not allow policy makers to stumble around beneath the street lamp, attempting to “reform” health care by providing insurance coverage for everyone, while the real problems besetting American health care lie unaddressed somewhere out in the darkness. If they are permitted to do so, a real cure won’t be found.
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