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Health Care in John Kerry's World
By Richard E. Ralston
March 2, 2004
Americans of all political parties need to give close attention
to health care issues in this election year. Regardless of how they
intend to vote, they need to understand that health care is the
primary cause of increased government spending. It confronts
Americans with the greatest threat of increased government intrusion
into their daily lives. Health care and politics are a toxic
combination for a life and death issue.
The essence of John Kerry’s attitude toward health care was
evident in an interview he gave on February 25th to “Good Morning
America.” He decided to attack Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), the
only redeeming feature of the horrible Medicare Prescription Drug
bill that was signed into law a few months ago. He indicated—with a
sneer—that HSAs showed the Bush Administration only wanted to help
“people with money.” Senator Kerry said that, if elected, his policy
would have the government provide health care to “people with no
money.”
In Senator Kerry’s world, it appears, citizens who take
responsibility for their own health care—and who put aside something
to pay for it—are objects of his contempt. He evidently thinks that
they deserve to pay Income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare
tax on every dime they save to meet the health care needs of their
families. Better to spend those taxes giving health care to anyone
who meets a single qualification—having “no money.”
This is a breath-taking division of the entire nation into two
groups of people: those with money and those without money. It is,
of course, ridiculous. Does everyone without health insurance have
no money? If that is the case, how do they eat? Do they wear
clothes? Do they make rent or mortgage payments? Do they own and
watch a television set? If so, then what they lack is not money, but
priorities and foresight. If not, wouldn’t it be easier to just give
them the money, rather than an expensive bureaucratic nightmare of
government provided health care? This wouldn’t do much for people
that just don’t give a damn about paying for their health care—but
neither would anything else.
Health care can be expensive. Paying medical expenses and
insurance premiums can be a struggle. Medical emergencies or
temporary unemployment can make this struggle even more challenging.
But helping people do this by reducing the tax burden on health care
savings can provide much more real help than government handouts. It
keeps it simple. You save your money, you save more because you
don’t pay taxes on it, and you spend your own money. Most
importantly, with the advice of your doctor you make your own health
care decisions. That is freedom. That is taking responsibility.
That, in a word, is America. Or at least it used to be.
But in Senator Kerry’s world, there are thousands of pages of
regulations, rationing, and other limitations on what is actually
available. There are price controls on drugs that won’t ever come
out of research because they cannot be paid for, and hundreds of
forms. There are hundreds of thousands of administrators and cost
reviewers, rationing controllers, payment processors, equipment
purchasing approvers, medical record collectors, price controllers,
physician inspectors, and medical police—all of whom get paid twice
a month.
This sounds like Health Care Hell. It is. But for many
politicians it is Paradise. Why? Because they want a world in which
everyone has to depend on politicians for their health care. Such a
world requires a total government monopoly on health care. That is
why these politicians love “people with no money,” from whom they
want nothing in return but office and power. That is why the very
idea of free, autonomous citizens taking responsibility for their
own health care by paying for it from their own savings fills them
with horror and contempt.
Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.
Copyright © 2004 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
Send reprint requests to . Reprints must include above copyright statement.
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