No American should be denied basic medical care simply because they lack financial resources to pay for such services!  Not surprisingly, few Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, find any exception with that simple, humanitarian axiom.  Yet, health care reform remains a noble but elusive aspiration.

Partisan wrangling aside, the inability of the Administration to enact its health care reform package stems … not from gridlock or a lack of compassion … but from a deep philosophical chasm on the nature and role of government in a free society.  

Earlier this month I received a personal letter from President Clinton reinforcing his profound commitment toward “achieving universal health care … strengthening what is right in our current system and fixing what is wrong”.

However, the programs being peddled by the White House and its disciples for achieving those ends are simply unacceptable.  Collectively, they lay the ground work for a monumental budgetary disaster, further governmental intrusions into the personal lives of all Americans and threaten the quality and availability of medical care.

The Clinton Health Security Act is 1,342 pages and clouded with legal jargon.  It’s doubtful more than a few members of Congress have read this Mitchner-length manuscript and clearly some of the president’s most visible spokespersons have not done so either.  It is tragically manifest this document, like most government programs, was penned by minions of statists with little understanding of, or faith in, either the free market system or inalienable liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Aside from the 105 new and 42 expanded agencies and boards contemplated by its authors, consider some of the Act’s more onerous requirements mandating:

  • everyone enroll in a regional health alliance … the latest form of government monopoly permitting no independent or competitive alternatives;
  • people pay whatever premium is dictated without limit … or face civil penalties of the greater of $5,000 or three times the liability owed;
  • any failure to enroll as directed would double mandatory premiums;
  • government attorneys, bureaucrats and other lackeys, possibly without any medical training, would dictate which diagnostic tests and treatments would be permitted;
  • prohibit any purchase or sale of covered medical services outside the Plan’s framework  … with transgressors incurring civil penalties costing up to $50,000 and possible jail time;
  • doctors to surrender their medical records on all their patients to a national  computer center  … with fines for withholding such information ranging up to $10,000 per violation; and
  • all Americans carry a Health Security Card complete with a computer chip capable of holding up to 1,600 pages of personal information … providing an open book for IRS agents, immigration officials, police officers and untold legions of government bureaucrats.

These and scores of other proposed regulations are so ambiguous and poorly drafted, violations by patients and health care providers could result from simple errors in completing required paperwork.  For anyone who’s every had a run in with the IRS or other federal agency, the specter of  bureaucratic terrorism is a positively frightening prospect.  And, if such infractions were prosecuted as felonies, three typos could conceivably land a dedicated and competent physician into prison for life under the inane “three strikes and you’re out” provisions of the Omnibus Crime Bill.

Fortunately, the hidden details of the President’s initiative became public before they were stampeded through an election-year Congress.  And, while much of the opposition stems from Republicans, there is a growing public consensus all of the health care reform proposals now being debated either make no credible effort to broaden coverage to the uninsured or offer a remedy far worse than the crisis they purport to cure.  Universal coverage in return for fiscal bankruptcy or the unleashing of a health-care police force which might ultimately be empowered to enter homes to monitor such items as indoor air quality, child care and personal life styles is an unacceptable trade-off.

Meanwhile, reflections on the highly touted Canadian, British and German national health care systems  portray societies where costs are held in check by the rationing of health care services, surgical delays are commonplace and the elderly are often denied expensive life-prolonging treatments.

Better answers lie in the privatization, rather than the federalization, of the U.S. health care system … and might include:

  • permitting individuals, rather than businesses, to deduct 100% of their health care premiums and licensing them to enter into insurance pools … concurrently insuring portability between jobs;
  • authorizing IRA-style Individual Medical Savings accounts (to which employers might contribute) permitting individuals to use when and as they see fit … thereby encouraging consumer shopping and choice;
  • enabling private companies, rather than just the FDA, to certify new medicines and treatments … saving millions of dollars and decades in bringing new drugs to market;
  • revamping Medicare and Medicaid … vastly curtailing the its bureaucracy and paperwork guidelines;  and
  • curtailing flagrant damage awards … distinguishing between medical negligence and errors in human  judgement.

Universal access to predictable, high-quality health care at a reasonable cost is an attainable goal.  However, it does not require the type of cradle-to-grave medical bondage the president’s proposals would mandate.  To the contrary, getting the government out of the equation and permitting greater, not less, patient empowerment and choice is a better option.

Health care reform remains desperately needed … but not at any cost!