The decision of several major insurance companies to cut their losses and
withdraw from the Obamacare exchanges, combined with the failure of 70 percent
of Obamacare's health insurance "co-ops," will leave one in six Obamacare
enrollees with only one health insurance option. If Obamacare continues on
its current track, most of America may resemble Pinal County, Arizona, where
no one can obtain private health insurance. Those lucky enough to obtain
insurance will face ever-increasing premiums and a declining choice of providers.
Many Obamacare supporters claimed that the exchanges created a market for
health insurance that would allow consumers to benefit from competition.
But allowing consumers to pick from a variety of government-controlled health
insurance plans is not a true market; instead it is what the great economist
Ludwig von Mises called "playing market."
Unfortunately, if not surprisingly, too many are drawing the wrong lessons
from Obamacare's difficulties. Instead of calling for a repeal of Obamacare
and all other government interference in the health care market, many are
calling for increased penalties on those who defy Obamacare's individual
mandate in order to force them onto the exchanges. Others are renewing the
push for a "public option," forcing private companies to compete with taxpayer-funded
entities and easing the way for the adoption of a Canadian-style single payer
system.
Even those working to restore individual control over health care via tax
deductions, credits, and expanded health savings accounts still support government
intervention in order to provide a "safety net" for the poor. Of course,
everyone -- including libertarians -- shares the goal of creating a safety
net. Libertarians just understand that a moral and effective safety net is
one voluntarily provided by individuals, religious organizations, and private
charities.
Government has no legitimate authority to take money from taxpayers to fund
health care or any other type of welfare program. Government-run health care
also does not truly serve the interest of those supposedly "benefiting" from
the program. Anyone who doubts this should consider how declining reimbursements
and increasing bureaucracy is causing more doctors to refuse to treat Medicaid
and Medicare patients.
Medicaid patients will face increasing hardships when, not if, the US government's
fiscal crisis forces Congress to make spending cuts. When the crisis comes,
what is more likely to be cut first: spending benefiting large corporations
and big banks that can deploy armies of high-powered lobbyists, or spending
benefiting low-income Americans who cannot afford K Street representation?
Contrary to myth, low-income individuals did not go without care in the days
before the welfare state. Private, charity-run hospitals staffed by volunteers
provided a safety net for those who could not afford health care. Most doctors
also willingly provided free or reduced-price care for those who needed it.
The large amount of charitable giving and volunteer activity in the United
States shows that the American people do not need government's help in providing
an effective safety net.
The problems plaguing the health care system are rooted in the treatment of
health care as a "right." This justifies government intervention in the health
care marketplace. This intervention causes increasing prices and declining
quality and supply. Ironically, those who suffer most from government intervention
are the very people proponents of these programs claim to want to help. The
first step in restoring a health care system that meets the needs of all
people is to start treating health care as a good that can and should only
be provided via voluntary actions of free people.
