In the paper - 01.11.09

In the Sunday Outlook section of the Houston Chronicle was an op-ed from Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. His subject was health care reform, where he tried to make a case against federal controls. He made six distinct points, each of which tries to frighten the reader into concluding that the government cannot do anything to improve the current health care mess. Here they are with my take on each:

You could lose your current insurance - This is a fact of life every time one changes or loses their job. Health insurance is not portable for those lucky enough to have a job and insurance. Plus would losing your current insurance be such a bad thing if the insurance you currently have is crap? And what about the millions of folks without insurance? What would they be losing?

You could lose the power for you and your doctor to decide what retention will receive - Guess what? You and your doctor do not have the power to make treatment decisions now. These are made by the suits in the insurance companies. Perhaps taking these guys out of the equation would give you and your doctor more power.

You could lose the ability to spend your own money for the health care you want - This is just a plain crap. Nothing that the government does can prohibit one from traveling to another country to acquire better health care. You may have trouble getting into the country based on their entry requirements, but unless Bush has taken away more rights from us than I am aware of we are free to travel to obtain health care at our own risk and on our own dime, for those fortunate enough to have their own dime.

You could lose your current doctor - Guess what? Anytime that you change insurance, and this has become more frequent as employers shop companies to get the best rate, you can be told that your doctor does not accept the new insurance. Of course, there are provisions for you to pay through the nose for your now “out of network” doctor, which is more crap to generate more revenue for the insurance companies.

You could lose access to the latest drugs and medical advancements - Do you really think that you have this access now?. These decisions are currently being made by the insurance suits, who current limit your access to the latest drugs and medical advancements, unless you want to pay for these “out of plan” costs.

And, of course, higher taxes - This is the only point that he presents as a definite, i.e., it is not prefaced by the words “you could”. When all else fails tell them that they will pay higher taxes. How did that work out for McCain? The only reason that we would pay higher taxes for health care reform would be if the executive and legislative branches did not try to find a way to fund this with cuts elsewhere. This may be a pipe ream but even so, why should we be concerned that we will pay higher taxes for something that is truly needed? Plus isn’t it interesting that we can find a trillion dollars to invade and occupy Iraq but we do not have the money to ensure that the least among us have health care? Where are our priorities Mr. Tanner?