Our healthcare future

Tony Blankley takes a look at what Obama and the Democrats are dreaming up in terms of our bright, bold new health care future...and it ain't all peaches and sunshine.

He points out that Obama's first round of "reforms", the government will offer a plan to "compete" with the private sector...which will, of course undercut private insurance...leading many businesses to drop it...leading to more people on the government plan.

Then they're likely to draw up a set of "specifications" and regulations that all private insurance plans must adhere to in order to be tax deductable for business...driving up their costs, meaning only wealthy people would have it...and even more people would go on the government program.

Then, when the government program essentially owns the market, the move towards European style nationalized healthcare gets in high gear.

From his colum:

The federal regulators could do merely what the British regulators do currently:

--Constantly reduce the compensation of doctors and all other skilled health care providers. (As domestically trained American doctors became scarcer, more not-as-well-trained foreign doctors would be needed.)

--Limit the availability of medical technology. (In Canada, patients have to wait for months for MRIs, so those who can come to America for immediate diagnostic services.)

--Ration available treatment to fit the federal budget requirements. The universal digitalized health data could be used to justify non-treatment on a cost-benefit basis. For example, hip replacement for older people may be denied because they are not likely to live long enough to justify the expense.

At that point, Americans would (too late) understand more fully what happens when health care is a right rather than a service purchased by a sturdy, free people in an unfettered free market.

And, of course, at that point it will be way too late.  Once people think they're getting it "free", it's all over.

And, as Ronald Reagan once said, "the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth is a government program".