that would most likely eliminate the option for self payment.
Generally I'd wait for the person to answer themselves, but this is one thing that Lane has posted multiple times that she wouldn't support. I don't think she believes such an option will be eliminated. I know she doesn't support eliminating it, and perhaps most important at all, rationing/cost control in the government programs that we do have is an entirely separate issue than eliminating self pay, or private insurance.
Furthermore even if we do eliminate private insurance and self pay (which would indeed be a diaster), and had the government pay for it all, we would still need some way to control costs. Those cost controls would be harsher since we couldn't get around them as easily, but they would be no less necessary. The only way to totally avoid them is to keep the government out of the business of paying for health care.
So only rationing is left.
Only if you assume that healthcare is a right and that the government is obligated to pay for it.
Only if you assume government is going to pay for health care. That doesn't require you to think its a right, or even to think the government should pay for it. You could be an anarcho-capitalist and think that there should be no government as we would use the term, and that there are no "positive rights" of any sort, and still think if the government is going to pay for health care it should impose some limits as to what or how much it will pay.
Personally I think there should be some limit as well. I might argue against some of the proposed limits, I'd certainly argue against expansion of the government role, but until we eliminate all government health care programs some attempt at cost control within those programs is needed.
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Rationing in the broadest sense of the word will happen if you assume health care is an economically scarce good (which doesn't mean its scarce in the more normal sense of the word, drinkable water is an economically scarce good. Something is scarce when it can't be had in nearly unlimited quantities for free. Basically if you can put a price on it, and it would have some market it scarce)
Rationing in a narrower sense of explicit government limits on what you can pay for or obtain, can and should be avoided whether or not the government expands its role (or eliminates its role) in paying for health care. |
