Clinton's HMO Plan Is Another Attack on Health Care and Freedom
By Richard E. Ralston
In 1994 President Clinton proposed a national health care plan with an objective of forcing more Americans into HMOs. His ultimate objective was the complete government takeover of all health care.
But the Clinton administration has now discovered that HMOs are not so wonderful, which most of us knew all along. The President is now advocating legislation which will require HMOs to provide patients with a wide range of additional services as a "right," but at no additional cost to the patients. But Clinton can't succeed in making a legal requirement out of a metaphysical impossibility. Good health cannot be legislated. There will be costs to the patients: the destruction of the medical profession and of individual health. When your health falls apart or you die, you will now be able to bring suit against the HMO for failing to perform the impossible. (This legislation therefore may at least improve the incomes of the members of the Trial Lawyers Association.)
America had the best health care system in the world until the government began to mandate that various groups had "rights" to unlimited health care whatever the cost. This resulted in an explosion in costs and rationing of health care. The government response has always been: more mandated care, more spending, more rationing, more controls. The free market system provided the best health care to the most people at the lowest cost. Were it allowed to operate, it could do so again. In such a free market, you would be free to make all of your own health care decisions and to make provision for the cost of your health care through insurance or savings. But the last thing the Clinton administration wants is for people to manage their own health care. They want everyone to depend on government for their health care.
The desire to make people dependent on government underlies a wide variety of programs which control all aspects of your daily life. These programs are based on malicious ideas which the government hopes that you will accept unchallenged -- so they can shove the programs down your throat. For example: If you act to take care of your own health needs and obtain insurance, you first have to pay tax on the money you need for premiums. The Clinton administration opposes any tax relief for those who save for their own health care needs through medical savings accounts (MSAs), because it would undercut "the system" which provides for those who do not have insurance or savings. The political premise is: better that no one have good health care if someone, somewhere, does not have it. It is the same political premise that opposes a voucher system to break up the government monopoly on education because it would undercut "the system" which provides education for the poor. Better that every young person be subjected to a wretched bureaucracy that educates no one, than to allow most parents to find a decent education for their own children. Better that misery be spread equally than to allow you to provide for your own health care and the education of your own children. These beliefs are based on the false moral premise that it is evil for you to manage your own affairs and live a happy life if somebody, somewhere, is unhappy.
Is government takeover of medicine facing any significant opposition? Not from the Republicans, the supposed defenders of the free market. Typically, they are racing each other to propose legislation which will do only slightly less damage than Clinton to a free market for health care. Only a few redeeming features of the Republican proposals have merit, such as permanently allowing for more medical savings accounts, or once again allowing elderly patients to pay with their own money for procedures not covered by Medicare.
If you want a return to high quality, affordable health care, tell Congress you do not want more government control of HMOs, that you do not want HMOs at all, and that the government should get out of health care completely. Demand the right to choose your own health care, the chance to buy health insurance free of taxation, and the freedom to save for your own health care needs in a tax-free medical savings account.
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