Re: A "Right" to Health Care? Moore assumptions; by Michael F. Cannon


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The National Review Online
June 29, 2007, 6:00 a.m.

A "Right" to Health Care?
Moore assumptions.

By Michael F. Cannon


Michael Moore, whose film SiCKO premiers this week, criticizes
America's health-care sector: "We're the only country in the Western
world that doesn't believe it is a human right to provide free
universal health coverage for every one of its citizens."

Medical care can be as essential to survival as food. But does it
follow that people have a right to medical care? Would creating a
legally enforceable "right" to health care solve America's health-care
difficulties, as Moore supposes? Or would it add to them?

Suppose Congress created a legally enforceable right to health care.
Even if such a measure could win approval, the debate would not and
could not end there.

The first difficulty would be to define the scope of that right.

Do we have a right to preventive care? If so, health care spending
(and taxes) would explode. Researcher J. D. Kleinke notes that if
everyone followed government recommendations, the number of people
taking preventive medications for hypertension, asthma, obesity, and
high cholesterol would increase anywhere from 2- to 10- fold.

Should mammograms be available to women regardless of their likelihood
of developing breast cancer? What about experimental treatments?

With the wide variety of tests and treatments, someone must decide
where the right to health care ends, lest the nation be bankrupted.
Whoever makes those decisions will wield enormous power over people's
health. Who should have that power? Most nations hand that power to
unelected bureaucrats, who ration medical care - often by making even
seriously ill patients wait for care.

A second and related difficulty is the question of who pays. By
definition, a right to health care could not be conditioned on ability
to pay. Delivering on that right would require additional taxes
proportionate to the scope of that right.

A third difficulty is the incentives created by a right to health
care. Patients would demand far more medical care because additional
consumption would cost them little. Higher tax rates would discourage
work and productivity, yielding less economic growth and wealth.

What a bull*** argument on any number of levels. I've worked jobs with
little or no co-pay on my office visits or prescriptions (unfortuantely not
the case now that I have two kids on my coverage), and that never increased
my "incentive" to run to the doctor for frivolous reasons. I work now for a
Medicaid provider, which costs patients/clients nothing, and people still
only seek services when they are sick or are concerned about coming so.
People don't routinely run to see their doctor just because they "can".
Even if they need/desire to do so, how many physician practices can
accomodate that in their daily schedule? Most people struggle to be seen in
a reasonable amount of time when are legitimately ill- why would we except a
doctor to be able to handle an influx of pointless visits just because
health coverage is free or cheap?

And wouldn't higher taxes be offset by the money freed up for businesses and
consumers who no longer had to pay insurance premiums? Surely people who
believe in trickle down economics can see the benefit of THAT.



- Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the
libertarian Cato Institute (www.cato.org).

Who was it who said that libertarians are just right-wingers who don't want
to pay taxes but who want to get high?

Still and all, Cannon raises legitimate questions. But these issues are all
addressed by private HMOs when they determine eligibility for their
customers. Medicaid managed care insurers and Medicare supplements have
worked these things out. Why couldn't some form of nationalized healthcare
do the same? Michael Moore's supposed idealism and lack of a realistic
healthcare plan are hardly arguments against universal health coverage.


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