Sen Chris Ddd, D-CT and the health care bill (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Commentary: I recently heard the Catholic grade school I attended, Saint Francis De Sales, would not be resuming classes after the summer break. The school, facing declining enrollment and increased operating costs, was a victim of regional consolidation. The long slow decline of the once robust Catholic school system continues apace in many parts of the United States. In this story I find much to foreshadow the future of health care as well.
I am not religious personally, but I recognize Catholic schools, and other faith based schools, fill an important role in American society; providing the benefits of private education at a middle and working class price tag. To my mother, and millions of parents like her, Catholic schools offered a choice, as well as discipline, guidance and an education free of political influence. Catholic schools also manage to do the job at the same, or lower, per pupil cost then many under-performing public schools. Even so, competition is fierce. The government is giving away education for free; try selling something when someone down the street is giving it away. Regardless of value added, you will increasingly find yourself serving a niche market. The National and State Education Associations, the teachers’ union have fought efforts to use catholic schools as way to help struggling kids in poor districts. They are similarly opposed charter schools, voucher and merit pay programs and school choice efforts nationwide. Even the highly successful D. C. school voucher program is being eliminated despite its popularity among residents, most of whom are low income minorities, largely due to pressure from the teachers’ union. The result will be an increasingly stratified education system where the vast majority of folks are locked into a public option, while society’s elites, and most politicians, can choose to send their children to the best and most exclusive schools in the country.
The public education case study provides many clues into how health care will play out, should a public option be adopted. Employers seeking to reduce costs will seek to offload employees onto public plans, shifting the burden to the taxpayer. Federal and state bureaucracies seeking to expand control would continue pushing the types of mandates which even now are largely responsible for the current high cost of private health insurance. The government, once it becomes a competitor in the market, would enact rules favoring its own plans and options at the expense of private insurers while the Service Employees International Union, (SEIU) would work to unionize nurses at public hospitals. We can discuss whether or not these results would be harmful or beneficial, but there can be no question these would be the results.
A real, if unintended, side effect of the government education monopoly has been to trap the most vulnerable members of society in public schools, many of which are failing in their obligations to students. In some cases children are used as fodder for groups from the left and right pushing political agendas through curriculum choices. What will our health care system look like after an experiment in universal public health care? I suspect the similarities would be striking.
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AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!
It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.
STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.
And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public healt
To jacksmith:
The private sector is what made this country great.
UPS and Fed Ex petition the federal governement every year to end the Post Office Monopoly on residential mail because both of those companies could process a letter for much less than the current cost of a stamp with less lost mail. What's wrong with Fed Ex turning a profit if they can lower the price of a postage stamp?
Half the small towns in america that used to have to own and maintain their own garbage trucks now out source that job to private companies like Waste Management. Why? Because Waste Management can do it a lot cheaper, which saves everyones tax dollars. What's wrong with Waste Management making a profit if they help lower my taxes?
Don't confuse greed with efficiency.
The post office and DMV are the butt of everyones jokes. Why do you want to add something as serious as health care to that list?
Great article Mr. Moore!
Well, it all depends how much people are willing to get involved in public life. Governments are generally lousy managers in terms of having the full power over a particular system. As someone who grew up in communism I know of it very well (health care system included). However, government is the only entity that can coordinate and allign various interests for the benefit of the public one. The problem is that the line between occasional and non-intrusive government intervention and its full monopoly over the system is acctually very thin. Once given a power to make decisions over something and to collect dividends from it, government naturally seeks to aquire more of that power. And that's where the real danger comes from.
So your options over the health care are either to give more powers to the government but constantly watch over it, or to just leave it as it is with everything it comes with it, good and bad.
Edwin, you make a great point, it is a careful balancing act, but on the whole, I would always err on the side of liberty.
Steve, you are correct, the private market is so powerful because no one is in control, therefore everyone has a chance.
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