Do We Really Want Government To Run Health Care?

Eric The Viking gives us a preview of what we'll be in for once the US Government takes over health care: bankruptcy.

It seems that the mandatory health insurance requirements in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is bankrupting the state, with higher than projected costs sucking tax dollars down the proverbial black hole. Despite claims to the contrary by the state government, costs are expected to continue their well above inflation rise. And if history is any guide, the quality and quantity of care will decline.

Other states have suffered the same fate. Just ask someone in Tennessee about Tenncare. Costs went up, the number of health care providers in the system went down, and fewer services were provided as the state tried to shed itself of the increasing costs. In the end Tenncare became nothing more than a shadow of what it was intended to be.

If you want a national viewpoint, just take a look at the National Health Service in the UK or health care in Canada. They've gone down the same road. Do we really want to do something like that here in the US?

As one of my co-workers stated (he being of a left-of-center viewpoint), “We have to do something about this mess!” I agreed, but disagreed that we need some kind of national health insurance. I asked him, “Why would we want to replace a system that is disjointed, expensive, but that works after a fashion with something we know doesn't work at all, will cost billions more than now, and will provide nothing more than access to a waiting list?”

He had no answer.

Neither does Congress or President Obama.