Dem's health plan is too expensive and too complex.

Org. chart demonstrates complexity of Democrat health care plan.

The chart above, generated by House members, demonstrates the extreme complexity of the Democrat party's proposed health care plan. While I do give credit for bringing this issue back to the surface, I worry their cure will be worse than the disease. Though this organizational chart was produced by members opposed to the plan, it is an honest representation of how health care delivery will work under the Democrat plan.

Our current health care system does some things very well, and others very poorly. We have the some of the most advanced treatments, available practically on demand to 87% of those living here. Something should be done to address areas where the system is not performing well. This plan however, is too complex, too expensive and ignores who we are as Americans; while building new layers of sclerotic bureaucracy, and adding to the very problems a health care plan should be trying to eliminate.

My critique focuses on three primary themes. The first is how the plan divides up our population by groups, instead of holistically dealing with systemic issues such as lawsuit abuse, and crushing state mandates which drive up costs. My second critique is this plan assumes access to a waiting list equates to access to care; setting up multiple levels of groups overseeing a newly created "right" to health care, while doing nothing to address real supply and demand issues currently affecting health care delivery. Finally the plan will create trillions in costs, transfers vast amounts of wealth, and control over medical decision making, to Washington. Lastly, this plan ruins those items in the U.S. health care systems which currently work very well.

Under this plan, vast new levels of government functionaries will be tasked with ensuring "access" for dispirit groups. Yet, are we not all Americans? Why separate organs tasked with ensuring different groups of people have access. A better approach, more suited to a land of free citizens, equal before the law who live by the "content of their character, not the color of their skin" would be to ensure a free market where individuals have real affordable choices and coverage options. This is how auto insurance works. As I wrote here, agreeing with a YouTube post by Cong. Ron Paul, R-TX, and the way to do this is to remove current obstacles to affordability. If citizens had the same tax advantage big business has when purchasing health insurance, and states allowed citizens the choice to purchase high and low deductible plans with a-la-cart coverage from other states, costs would come down on their own. This by itself would increase "access", before anything was done about tort reform and other systemic issues.

Health care, I should add at this point, is not a right. We can discuss whether or not it is a responsibility, but we must understand what a right is and the actual understanding of the concept. Rights, as the founders conceived of them, do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, rights in a society must exist side by side. Therefore, I can have a right to nothing which places a requirement on someone else. My right to speech and assembly asks nothing you. However, if I claimed a right to health care, or a domicile, how would these be provided, I would in effect be laying claim to your property, your money and the product of your labor. Anything which places a de facto burden on another without their consent is not a right. When I give to a charity or hospital this is free will; when you take from me, it is theft. Rather than attempting to create a "right' where none exists, a good plan would be removing state imposed obstacles which currently keep prices too high, often artificially.   

Finally, even supporters of this plan have deep concerns about its costs. At a time when we are monetizing our debt and printing money to keep the government operating, we need to start getting real about how we budget priorities. Adding vast new layers of expensive bureaucracy, interfering with market signals and driving up costs without addressing the systemic causes of high health care prices is not the answer. The independent CATO institute has done extensive reseach and found the state run health care approach severely wanting. While promises of universal access sound good, the reality is a burdensome over layered system. Innovation slows, costs are kept under control through heavy subsidization and rationing, and choice is taken from the doctor and the patient and transferred to far removed "experts", really little more than government mandarins. This is not the approach citizens of the United States want for their health care, and not the level of government control they want in their lives.