News reports about Senate Democrats taking their $15.2 billion government health care plan off the state budget negotiating table are misleading and confusing.
The fact is the Senate Democrats offered to take their government health care proposal off the table IF Republicans would agree to other big tax increases. A state government health care plan isn’t going away. In typical Democrat fashion, they will work incrementally and incessantly, continuing to bring the plan back again and again.
I’ve written extensively about the problematic Senate Democrat plan. Los Angeles radio talk show host Frank Pastore provides another take, likening government health to an all-you can–eat buffet. Pastore writes in a column:
“There’s one fundamental dynamic that must be changed in our health care system, whether we go the liberal or the conservative route, and it has to do with basic human nature.
If something is free, it will be undervalued, underappreciated, taken for granted with a sense of entitlement, over-consumed, and ultimately wasted before finally being rationed. Think of those cafeteria-style restaurants with an all-you-can-eat buffet. Would we get healthier people and waste less food by giving them a “Free Buffet Coupon” every day for dinner or a $20 bill and the choice of ordering off a menu and keeping the change?
Obviously, someone does pay for the “free” healthcare provided to the poor: the American taxpayer.
But, instead of taxpayers handing a “Free Buffet Coupon” directly to the cashier for all the poor, what we’ve got to do is provide the poor—and all health care consumers—with a greater sense of ownership, individual responsibility and choice to eliminate the incentive to overeat and waste food.
The best way to do this is with money, either in the form of cash or credit.
After all, if we want people to save for college or retirement, we offer them a tax-free IRA.
If we want people to buy houses, we allow them to deduct the mortgage interest from their taxable income.
And, if we want people to save money for health care, we should let them open a tax-free Health Savings Account.
And, if we want them to buy health insurance, we should allow them to deduct the health insurance premiums.
Put simply, if we want people to lead healthier lives, we need to give them the incentive to do so.”Here is Pastore’s
column in its entirety.
It is appropriately entitled, “No More Free Lunch at the Health Care Buffet,” because free health care is far from free.
