I know that not everyone is passionate about these issues, and that sometimes its easy to get lost in all of the vitriol. I recall seeing one Facebook status last month that said "Got up early to study healthcare." This can be pretty heady stuff!
I think one of the best ways to evaluate this issue, is to consider these questions: 1. What has resulted from government involvement in industry? 2. How has government involvement in healthcare worked already, (in our country or others).
To this end, today's L.A. Times provides two excellent answers to these questions.
First, there was a front page article on the Canadian system in today's paper. This article goes a long way to answering our second question.
Though none of the bills currently in Congress contemplate the Canadian model, the system has for years been touted by the left as an example of successful government-controlled healthcare.
There are several anecdotes in the article. All detail the frustration Canadians have in waiting for health care. An active 72 year old is told she would have to wait a year and a half to have surgery. The justification for this delay? Her injury wasn't life threatening. Now ask yourself, if your in agony from back pain, would you want to wait eighteen months for surgery? What kind of quality of life is that? The woman in the story ultimately went to the U.S., paid out of pocket and received the care she needed.
To boot, the Canadian government is facing huge budget deficits. For example, health providers are being told to "[hold] the number of MRIs to last year's total...[and reduce] elective surgeries by 14%.
All of us have complain when public services get delayed, or when budget cuts affect our schools. But how would you like being told you can't get the care you need because services are being cut back? Now that's a budget cut that really hurts!
Another example of just how badly the government handles heathcare, is the Veteran's Administration. Have you ever talked to a veteran whose happy with the way he or she is treated at the VA? I have a classmate who is a Iraq veteran. Her take is, if the government can't treat returning soldiers right, it surely won't be able to handle taking care of the general population.
Think of your own interactions with government employees: the post office, county officials, the DMV - do these experiences inspire any confidence in the government?
Juxtaposed with today's article on Canadian health care, the Times also had a very frank opinion piece on the disfunction that occurs when government gets involved in private industry. The article discusses the mortgage industry and government sponsored companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac The Times editorial board is absolutely correct when it says:
The companies' troubles demonstrate that the mix of public mission and private ownership is too combustible to be sustained. The federal sponsorship and duties convey an implicit governmental guarantee against failure, which gives the companies an incentive to take excessive risks as they compete for market share. And grabbing the biggest possible share of the $10-trillion U.S. mortgage market works for shareholders, but it only increases the consequences for taxpayers if the companies go belly up. The private sector has shown in the past that it can sustain a secondary market for mortgages. The government should give it the chance to do so again after the wave of foreclosures has passed, either by cutting its ties to Fannie and Freddie or by dismantling them.
I suppose one could read this and argue that one solution then would be to eliminate private ownership from the equation. Of course this would be the very government takeover that those on the right have been warning of.
Of far greater value is the lesson to be learned from Fannie, Freddie and the mortgage debacle: the best fix to economic issues will always be based in private, market-based solutions. Does this mean the private sector had no role in causing the current crisis? Of course not. But it does mean that the best chance of solving the problem will be through private industry - not the Federal government.
In conclusion, I hope that as our leaders debate these issues, they will ignore the doomsday rhetoric from both sides, and focus on demonstrable track record that Canadian Health care has laid before us. I hope they see the havoc that the government mandates to broaden home ownership has wrought upon the mortgage industry.
The lessons from history are in front of us. We'd be foolish not to learn from them.
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