The health care debate is exposing a philosophical divergence of thought between the two sides

President Obama

The liberal Huffington Post “attacks” Republican health care plans stating they “allow patients to spend their own money”. That this is meant as an attack is illustrative of the philosophical difference between the two camps. The Republican plan does indeed seek to allow consumers to purchase their own health care, across state lines and outside of their employers or government. In seeking to attack this, the liberal side is assuming health care should be “provided” by the government to the population. This is fundamentally different from the conservative and libertarian sides, which assume health care is something individual consumers should be free to shop for and purchase.

These may seem to be ethereal questions but they have real physical consequences. Government simply cannot provide health care or health insurance to the citizenry without greatly increasing its size and scope. Medicare is already hemorrhaging money. Any new health program will require massive new revenue sources to finance. Not mention the bureaucratic and regulatory expansions required to administer a public plan. Privacy advocates are concerned with how much information the Government will have access to via patient medical records. One plan even calls for the IRS to transmit taxpayer information to a "health commissioner" to be used for determining eligibility for health subsidies. It is a simple fact, if the U.S. Government becomes the provider of health care, the relationship between an individual and their government will be forever altered. Supporters of a Government plan argue that since health care is a basic right, whatever is required to provide it becomes a necessity.

Opponents of a government plan are starting from a completely different point. They argue, not only is there no “right” to health care provided by the U.S. Government, but Government attempts to provide such coverage will ultimately fail. Opponents further argue “insurance” is not intended to pay for every expense. Like car insurance, health insurance should pay for catastrophic expenses, while routine expenditures are a cost each consumer should bear individually. Finally, opponents are concerned about what it means for the citizens when they must turn to their Government for their health care.

When Government is providing your health care, how much input does the Government now have in everything from lifestyle choices to eating habits? When citizens are reduced to simply a line item on a health agency’s budget, how will decisions be made regarding who gets priority for limited health care dollars? It is no secret, advisers to the President, such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel the bio-ethicist brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, have suggested healthy working age folks will, by necessity, have preference and priority over older, retired, the very young, weak and the disabled.

I do not know what will eventually happen. The President may get everything he wants and the United States will move to a single payer system like Canada, or Republicans and libertarians will be successful in their attempts to remove many of the Government restrictions and state mandates which are driving up costs and interfering with free market signals. Perhaps we will continue to maintain the appearance of a semi-private health care market, replete with Government mandates which prevent it from operating efficiently. In forcing a debate on this issue, the President may have forced us to finally examine the inherent and unsustainable contradictions in our present system, the results however, may be the exact opposite of what President Obama intended.