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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (753)	4/21/2005 2:26:19 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

"if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's 'free.'" Common Sense and Wonder Posted by Jerry Scharf UAW plays deadly health care game (Thomas Bray / The Detroit News) General Motors and Ford are struggling to sell cars to anybody other than their own employees and friends. Their stocks are trading at deep discounts reflecting virtual bankruptcy. So what does the United Auto Workers tell General Motors as the company probes the idea of reopening the current contract to cut health care costs? "As long as we work within the framework of our [existing contract], we'll make joint efforts to lower costs where it's possible," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger was quoted as saying. Translation: Nuts. Last year General Motors' 119,000 hourly workers paid only 7 percent of their health care costs, compared with about 27 percent for the company's 38,000 salaried workers. Even at 27 percent, such a system virtually guarantees gross abuse of health care services by providing virtually no incentive to economize on the use of drugs, physician services and hospitals. No wonder GM's health care tab for its 1.1 million workers, retirees and dependents is closing in on $6 billion a year, or about $1,400 per car. The UAW knows all of this. But its strategy is to use the crisis to jump-start the drive toward a fully socialized health care system -- or, as Gettelfinger put it, a "government-led, national health care plan." That must come as music to the ears of the likes of Hillary Clinton, still smarting from the humiliating rejection of her health care juggernaut in 1994. But a national health plan would still be a bad idea -- a very bad idea. As the humorist P.J. O'Rourke aptly summed up back during the Hillary-care debate, "if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's 'free.'" The point was there is no such thing as free health care. Ultimately somebody has to pay for all the health care, as all those European countries staggering under the weight of their national health plans have been discovering. By shifting the cost from one set of shoulders to another, it makes the cost problem worse by encouraging consumers of health care to overuse the system. Besides, why would anybody think Washington could do a better job of managing one-seventh of the economy than it managed, say, the Pentagon? Canadians can always flee to the United States for surgery denied under their national health system, but where will Americans go when government needs to ration health care? States like Tennessee and Washington that unwisely thought they could move toward universal coverage have been forced to cut benefits sharply in recent years as reality caught up with them. Corporate America got into the health benefits game as a way around government restrictions on pay during World War II. Because health care benefits were tax-exempt, companies began offering fatter health care packages to increase overall compensation and appease their unions. If employees paid for health care out of salary, everybody's incentives would be more closely aligned with supply and demand. Workers would have an incentive to pocket the money rather than run to the doctor for every hangnail. Companies could afford to pay higher wages. Corporate chieftains like GM's Rick Wagoner, doubting such fundamental reform is politically realistic, have confined themselves to useful but marginal ideas like reform of medical liability laws and improved information about medical providers that would help consumers make good choices. Better yet would be to level the playing field by providing tax deductions or credits to everybody, subject to the purchase of a basic (and relatively cheap) catastrophic care insurance policy. That way, individuals would have an incentive to buy only the insurance coverage they need. The UAW is playing a deadly game of chicken, hoping the specter of bankruptcy (and the resulting drain on the taxpayer-funded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.) will provide a huge push for national health care. If successful, however, that will mean bankruptcy for the country, not just GM or Ford. Posted by Jerry Scharf commonsensewonder.com detnews.com