BCT Editorial – 3/13/09

This page was last updated on March 15, 2009.

Falling short; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 13, 2009.

The editorial subtitle is “Despite best intentions, coverage under COBRA is no long-term solution.”

My first response was “duh!” COBRA was never intended to be a “long-term solution.” The purpose of COBRA is to allow employees to purchase healthcare insurance via their previous employer while they are between jobs, up to a maximum of 18 months.

Please read my Healthcare paper.

The editorial says, “That’s why the way in which the U.S. health-care system is run needs to be changed. Americans need health care that is rational, not rationed, as it is now. That reform will entail some form of universal coverage. The Obama White House has proposed making the effort. The question is whether Congress and the American people are fed up enough to join the effort.”

Note the comment about healthcare rationing. Apparently the Times believes there’s a utopia in which healthcare isn’t rationed. That’s a false but common claim of those who favor a government-run, taxpayer-funded universal healthcare system. Healthcare will always be rationed, whether by a free market or by government diktat. There simply aren’t enough resources to supply everyone with every healthcare good/service they need/want.

As with all previous editorials, you’ll note this one doesn’t get into the subject of how we got here. The reason is fairly simple. Any discussion of how we got here begins with government interference in the healthcare market going all the way back to World War II. As a supporter of something it calls “universal coverage” or “universal healthcare,” the Times can’t afford for people to know this history. My healthcare paper gets into this discussion.

As previous editorials, I believe this editorial would lead most readers to conclude the Times is in favor of a government-run healthcare system. However, Times editorial page editor, Bob Uhriniak, disagrees with my conclusion that the Times supports a government-run, taxpayer-funded universal healthcare system. You can read more about this here. If you’ve been following Times editorials on the healthcare topic, you’ll note the editorials refer to the nebulous term “universal healthcare” yet never describe what the Times means by that. It’s difficult to debate someone on an issue when they don’t define their position.

Finally, here’s what I wrote in a comment posted on the Times website in 2008: “Even if I believed (which I don’t) the idea a government-run, taxpayer-funded monopoly could deliver healthcare cheaper than a true free market system (which we haven’t had since at least WWII) for a given level of accessibility, choice, quality, timeliness of treatment, etc., I’d oppose it because my freedom isn’t for sale.

“When we went with a government-run, taxpayer-funded monopoly to educate our kids, we gave up a bit of our liberty. Very few families can afford to pay both school taxes and the tuition of a private school. We lost another bit of freedom with the enactment of Socialist Security, another bit with Medicare, and so on. Since the line of thinking used by nationalized/socialized healthcare system proponents also applies to every other industry, where do we draw the line? Do we stop at healthcare, or do we move onto the next industry whose ‘overhead and administrative expenses’ are deemed ‘excessive’ by someone?

“Every time we turn over a personal responsibility to the government, or push a local government responsibility to the state or feds, we’re selling our liberty one piece at a time.”