“Insuring” Good Health

As Congress currently debates a massive government overhaul of our nation’s healthcare system, it seems a fundamental question is being left out of the debate: “Does the federal government have any right to discuss how to manage your personal health?”

The current administration is pushing for a government-run plan that will compete with private insurance plans. Some in Congress have objected to the government-run plan, not because it creates a new and immense bureaucracy, but because it may or may not cover certain procedures, such as abortions. Others object to the enormous costs that will be placed on taxpayers or to the potential debt burden that it is likely to create for our country.

These objections have their own merits, but if a scaled-down version of the current plan is the only other option being presented, we are simply choosing how much control we want to hand over to the government. In time, as with nearly every government program, any plan passed by Congress that gives the federal government more control will only grow bigger and encroach upon more of our individual rights and responsibilities to manage our own personal health.

Of course, we still have the issue of rising health insurance costs in this country. One could spend hours researching the underlying causes of these rising costs only to find a tangled web of government programs, regulations, restrictions, and mandates that have all combined to inflate these costs. These can be found at both the state and federal level.

Only a few factors affect the price of a good or service: supply and demand, and the costs associated with producing a good or providing a service. When government manipulates any of these factors through mandate, it is certain to affect the overall price of the good or service. For example, if we expect government to interfere in private contracts and force providers to cover certain healthcare expenses, we can only expect prices to rise. Insurance companies will simply pass additional costs onto plan participants in the form of higher premiums. And if government limits competition in the marketplace, providers can demand higher premiums while providing lower quality service, without much threat of the consumer going elsewhere for coverage.

If we would let the free market determine the quality and costs of healthcare and insurance, we should expect a myriad of options to choose from, with the best providers getting the most business. But if we allow government to manipulate these markets, then we should expect increased costs, lower quality of service, or both.

There is much that can be done on both the state and federal level to alleviate this problem. In Minnesota, for instance, the governor has proposed an initiative to allow residents to purchase healthcare insurance from other states. Additionally, the federal government could allow market-driven forces to help drive down costs by phasing out its role as an insurance provider. The Constitution does not grant the federal government a role in managing your health.

(Originally posted at www.votechick.com)

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