Chaplin wrote:
Quote:Universal health care makes sense, because the health of everybody is the responsibility of the federal government. That's the reason why the feds makes the laws on health and safety. When ecoli was found in spinich, it's the feds who has the primary responsibility to inspect, find the problem, and resolve it for the health of everybody. Almost the same thing IMHO.
That's not how I perceive the role of government. One's health is, at once, an individual choice and responsibility. Government's role is to protect its citizens and to facilitate commerce at a general overall level. Government should provide services that individuals and even larger groups of citizens cannot provide by themselves like the common defense, infrastructure, adjudication of legal disputes and law enforcement. Obviously, not even the government can protect individuals from organically grown spinach. It is, however, duty bound to mitigate such situations in a way that protects the larger population, this is the basis for governmental licensing and inspections.
In the larger role of health care provider the government can secure some type of price control and keep costs down and this can be a useful governmental function (Wal * Mart uses this very technique to negotiate low prices from its suppliers why can't the government?--Bush's Medicaid part D does not do this) but ultimately citizens pay for the health care they use?-they choose how much they wish to purchase thru taxes (given a governmental health care system)?-it is not magically provided by some nebulous entity ("the government") totally disconnected from economic reality. In this same vein we see the recent victory in Sweden of Fredrik Reinfeldt, of the center right camp, over Groan Persson of the Social Democrats. Mr. Reinfedlt's Moderate Party was handily rejected in 2002 while running on an extremely right platform by promising to slash taxes and disembowel the Swedish welfare system. This time Mr Reinfeldt moved to the center by promising to cut taxes for the low-paid and trim unemployment benefits, but to preserve the "Swedish Model". All Europe should see the writing on the wall. The Swedish model has produced good GDP growth but productivity has been disappointing because a major part of the economy is in the public sector. All this growth, as in Finland, has produced no net job growth over the last 50 years. The answer to perceived social problems is not embodied in the answer "The Government". You may get a free lunch but, be assured, somebody is paying for it.
JM
