The Health Care Reform debate rages on. Now, people are starting to look at what Republican Mitt Romney did as governor of Democratic Massachusetts to create an almost-universal health care system. Personally, I am not a big fan of Romney, though I have respect for his accomplishments and think that he has some very good ideas. The MA model for health care provides many lessons for us as we discuss an even more government-intrusive health care system. The first problem I have with “RomneyCare” is the fact that it is based on “mandates,” a government-enforced obligation of all citizens to purchase health insurance simply because they have “health.” This essentially benefits the health insurance industry in general because it expands the size of the market, by force. I disagree with mandates because I do not think that the state should be in the business of telling people what to buy and what not to buy, it is another form of redistributing wealth, only in this case the wealth goes form the general population to corporations. The Obama plan is considering, or was considering, mandates for businesses and/or individuals. So does it make sense, in the current recessionary economic climate, for people and businesses to reduce their purchasing power by mandating that they spend a percentage of it on health insurance? Not really.

The next issue is addressed in this article by a New Hampshire physician: a shortage of primary care physicians. Right now in MA, the average wait time for a new patient looking for a primary care physician is one to two months. So the predictions of long lines and long waiting periods are not exaggerations, they are a necessary by-product of a universal health care system that has a scarcity of primary care physicians. Economically and logically speaking, the only way that we can change this is to have government pay these physicians more, but this would only increase the cost of health care in this country and bankrupt us even faster. In other words, if we enact a near-universal system like MA, we will be stuck with choosing between long lines or national bankruptcy. We have already heard the horror story of the Canadian woman who may have died if she kept waiting for Canada’s universal health care system to help her instead of coming to the US for treatment:

Since the MA system is essentially a government program, it has come in over budget and will end up costing billions more than initially expected. Given that Obama’s plan is slated to cost $1 trillion, it is probable that the real cost will be much higher. With higher costs, we have higher deficits and/or higher taxes.

The fun part of this debate is that every single liberal that I have spoken to is convinced that the current plans will not include rationed care, that there are not long wait times, that the government will keep administrative costs downs, and that the quality of care will not be affected. I wonder what planet they live on. Even in the private health insurance system, health care is rationed: by the consumer’s willingness to pay higher premiums. The question is who should choose the quality and quantity of care, patients or the government? As for the long wait times, look at every country with universal health care. I rest my case. As for a government program that keeps costs down… do I really need to address this? We already have a government “option” for the poor and elderly and we are going bankrupt because of it. As for diminishing quality of care, as soon as government requires tens of millions of new patients to be treated by a health care system that is already overburdened, you can bet that quality will go down.

In sum, RomneyCare, while not overly reliant on the state, suffers from many problems and according to the article I linked above, 70% of the people in MA are happy with the program. Compare that to the 77% of Americans (87% have health insurance times 89% who are happy with their health insurance) who are happy with their health insurance and the fact is that even with universal health care model, people are less happy than with the current unworkable hybrid system that the rest of America has. RomneyCare imposes a government solution on the public (mandates) while ObamaCare (with Public Option) imposes a government solution on both the public and the free market. What we need is to expand the free market model in a way that promotes innovation, quality, and fairness.

-AG