Another voice on health care

Because I’m in Crisfield stuffing myself on fried clams as we speak (I just don’t care for crabs – they must be an acquired taste) I’m going to put up another opinion that’s somewhat as libertarian as mine. Ah, the joy of being able to prewrite posts!

A lot of what Congressman Paul says makes sense, although I’m not keen on his idea of tinkering with the tax code aside from the medical savings accounts.

To me, Paul’s key point is that we’ve brought our system to a point where, because government money is perceived as free, a number of corporate interests do their best at rent-seeking by lobbying to have regulations written in a way which suits them at the expense of smaller providers, like your personal physician.

My take on healthcare is radically simple – get the federal government out of it.* I’m not keen on the state being in the field either but that’s closer to their Tenth Amendment right so that’s a battle best fought in Annapolis later.

Regardless, the solution of a single-payer system (the one Obama really wants, he’s just not saying it in so many words) is no solution because, instead of fate picking winners and losers, he puts the federal government in charge. I’ll take my chances on fate, thank you!

* As part of what we pledge to those who serve in our military we should keep a skeletal VA health system, but it could be done in such a manner that their costs are covered by the government in private facilities (perhaps through vouchers) should the veteran so choose to do so.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.