William G. Horter – 5/1/08

This page was last updated on May 3, 2008.

A way to fix U.S. health care; William G. Horter; Beaver County Times; May 1, 2008.

5/3/08 - In trying to defend his position on the Times website, Mr. Horter went reaching even further for reasons. In his post of May 2, 2008 @ 5:20 PM, Mr. Horter wrote, “Stumpy, do you think the Doctors and Nurses will be replaced by government employees? The same people will be treating you, the only difference will be that they will not have to get ‘permission’ to treat you from an Insurance Company. Remember, Insurance Companies make more by denying care. the guy who made the stupid decision to invade Iraq, won’t be making these decisions, your Doctor will. But why are you so willing to spend so much money, and get so little. You haven’t answered that yet, except to repeat some talking point from Limbaugh or Hannity. Is it just because you are scared, or do you have some interest, like selling Insurance. The simple reason there are no bankrupcies [sic], is there are no healthcare bills. DAH”

It’s clear Mr. Horter wants to portray nationalized healthcare as utopia. Mr. Horter asks, “do you think the Doctors and Nurses will be replaced by government employees?” In a nationalized system, healthcare providers become de facto government employees because the government is paying the bills.

Mr. Horter wrote healthcare providers “will not have to get ‘permission’ to treat you from an Insurance Company.” That’s not true because in Mr. Horter’s system the government is the “insurance company.” Healthcare providers will need to get permission from the government just as they do now for Medicaid, Medicare, et cetera. Just as private insurance companies, the government determines what it will pay for and how much. That’s how nationalized healthcare systems attempt to control costs because there’s no market to perform this function.

Mr. Horter talks about no more healthcare bankruptcies as if that’s a reason to force everyone into his government healthcare system. I guess Mr. Horter doesn’t know that people also go into bankruptcy from excessive taxes. At 32.7% of income, current overall taxes are already near the all time high of 34% in 2000, and Mr. Horter’s program would add to that tax burden. By the estimate Mr. Horter himself provides, taxes would increase about 33% to about 45% of income. Does Mr. Horter believe the government taking 45% of your income won’t cause bankruptcies?

Note how Mr. Horter tried to marginalize opposition by claiming his opposition merely parrots pundits Mr. Horter doesn’t like or has some self-interest, “like selling insurance.” That’s not the sign of someone confident of his position and supporting facts, history, and logic.

Finally, in his subsequent post of May 2, 2008 @ 8:49 PM, Mr. Horter used one of his regular tactics, setting up a straw man to attack. In this case, the straw man is that his opposition likes to pay a lot for healthcare. Mr. Horter wrote (to “Stumpy” I believe. He wasn’t specific.), “But you seem to like spending so much and getting so little, what can I say.” This is a regular straw man for Mr. Horter.

Back in January, despite everything I’ve written on the topic, in an e-mail note Mr. Horter claimed I try “to defend the [healthcare] expenditures as they are now.” I responded to Mr. Horter with “Where/when did I ever ‘defend the expenditures as they are now?’ In http://www.TheBirdsEyeView.us/healthcare.htm I gave at least two major reasons why the price of healthcare in the U.S. is higher than it needs to be. You appear to believe 11% of GDP is a good target for healthcare spending. I pay for all my healthcare (premiums, copays, etc.) out of my own pocket for what I believe to be decent coverage. If these costs were anywhere near 11% of my ‘gross receipts,’ I’d be one PO’d guy.” Mr. Horter’s response was “I say you are ‘for’ spending so much on healthcare, and against spending less and getting more, yes, that appears to be your position.” Setting up straw men to attack is simply an effort to deflect the discussion and is indicative of a person who recognizes he’s losing the debate on relevant grounds.

When Mr. Horter isn’t bashing Republicans in general, and President Bush specifically, he tries to push a taxpayer-funded, government-run healthcare system on U.S. citizens. Tellingly, Mr. Horter describes his proposal simply as “not-for-profit” instead of taxpayer-funded, government-run. It’s for the same reason the pro-abortion camp refers to itself as “pro-choice.”

History also shows you need to do your own due diligence regarding the “facts” Mr. Horter presents in his letters and the comments he posts on the Times website. Here’s just one example. That’s why I’m not going to waste my time addressing the alleged facts in the letter.

I’ve addressed Mr. Horter’s talking points at http://www.TheBirdsEyeView.us/healthcare.htm, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much here.

Along with other letter writers I’ve mentioned, I wish Mr. Horter could get a regular column in the Times.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“John McCain has finally brought forth his health-care proposal.

“It’s very hard for me to think he put much thought into it, and harder still to think he has been a senator since the 1980s.”

[RWC] Why does it matter how long someone has been a senator?

“What is wrong with it is that it’s simply a huge gift to the for-profit insurance companies. It will add a huge financial burden, not unlike the pharma bill for seniors has.”

[RWC] The problem with Mr. McCain’s proposal is that it adds more government interference to the healthcare market. It’s just more pandering to leftists. Of course, Mr. Horter doesn’t see it that way. Mr. Horter doesn’t like the McCain proposal because it doesn’t nationalize the U.S. healthcare industry.

“Taiwan is the latest country to institute a single payer, not-for-profit health-care system that most modern countries use to provide health care for all their people. What Taiwan did was put together a committee of medical and financial people to study the problem. They studied several different countries’ health-care plans and took the ideas they thought were best for their own system.”

[RWC] Ah, the “but they did it” argument. That got me nowhere with my parents when I was a kid and it goes nowhere with me today.

“They settled on a not-for-profit model. They use a health card that holds information on all citizens, resulting in administration costs of 2 percent. In the United States, administration costs for our for-profit system are 33 percent. That’s quite a difference.

“McCain’s proposal will add cost to an already overpriced system, the most expensive and least efficient system in the world. Our system uses 17 percent of our GDP now, and McCain’s proposal will add billions to the already too expensive health-care system.

“No other country uses more than 11 percent, and many use less, like Japan and England at 8 percent. The average is 10 percent around the world, but remember that these plans are covering everyone.

“Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s proposals are marginally better, but neither of those plans uses the not-for-profit model. To get to a truly efficient system, we are going to have to go non-profit. It’s a proven system that’s done all over the world.”

[RWC] “To get to a truly efficient system, we are going to have to go non-profit.” This position has a lot of problems. First, whether or not you believe our current method is efficient, is efficiency how we want to measure the effectiveness of a healthcare system? It’s possible (likely?) the optimum balance (care vs. our willingness to pay) as determined by a free market wouldn’t be considered “efficient” using Mr. Horter’s limited criteria. For example, is it efficient to provide healthcare to someone you believe will die? Should that decision be in your hands, or in the hands of the government? Second, didn’t the USSR use the “not-for-profit model?” The USSR was neither efficient nor successful. Third, didn’t Red China (a country Mr. Horter told me he believes is “great”) use the “not-for-profit model” until it finally implemented capitalism-based “for-profit” economic reforms in the early 1980s? Fourth, why not nationalize all businesses if efficiency is this country’s primary goal? Fifth, even if you accept the premise that government is “not-for-profit,” name one U.S. social program run efficiently. Mr. Horter once asserted Socialist Security is “the most successful government program in U.S. history” (Apr 21, 2008 @ 2:57 PM) despite the fact it’s a Ponzi scheme predicted to go belly up without massive tax increases and/or benefit cuts. Yep, that’s efficient - not.

You’ll note Mr. Horter never mentions healthcare quality or timeliness of availability. Ask yourself why. It’s possible Mr. Horter believes there would be no difference in his healthcare utopia, or may even believe these properties would be better. Experience, however, shows that not to be the case. Mr. Horter also doesn’t mention who will pay for the medical research currently paid for by “for-profit” providers, assuming that research is done at all.

Let’s get back to the efficiency issue for a second. If Mr. Horter were truly concerned about efficiency, he’d lobby to replace the current income tax system with either a “head tax” or a national sales tax because their collection would be much more efficient and everyone would be covered. The Tax Foundation reports actual income tax compliance cost for 2004 was $248 billion and projected the 2008 cost to be $310 billion. This amounts to nearly 25 cents for every tax dollar collected. Despite the fact the current income tax system is incredibly inefficient, I won’t hold my breath waiting for Mr. Horter to call for a head tax or national sales tax as a replacement. Who knows, though; I could be wrong.

The fact is, there is no single criterion you can use to determine the efficacy of a healthcare system. The goal is to come up with the optimum mix of quality, price, timeliness of treatment, et cetera all within the context of a free society. If you focus on any single criterion as a measure of success, I guarantee failure.

Finally, for me it also comes down to freedom. Even if I went against everything I know and accepted a taxpayer-funded, government-run healthcare system could do a better job than a free market system, I’d choose to pay more for the free market system in order to maintain a piece of my freedom. Whenever we turn over responsibility for a portion of our lives to the government, we’re also giving away a piece of our freedom.