The Health-Care War Is Coming

Long article by Phil Klein in the American Spectator makes the case that the Left is going to implement 'single-payer' (that's Gummint, folks) health plans--but piece-by-piece. And it is a propaganda war, where (as usual) the Fascist Left has controlled the language, thus the perceptions.

There are, of course, sensible alternatives to the Lefto-Fascist plottings.

HEALTH-CARE ANALYSTS OFFER several ideas for reforms that would usher in a consumer-based market. Most pressing is the need to change the tax code that makes the country overly dependent on employer-based policies. The purist free market reaction would be to simply scrap the benefit altogether, which would lead to higher salaries with which individuals could purchase their own insurance and which would save the government $200 billion in tax subsidies. The more politically palatable option would be to extend the same tax status to individuals purchasing insurance on their own, which would lower the ranks of the uninsured and allow people to maintain their insurance when they leave their jobs.

Another reform would be to allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines, which would create a national market that would help consumers get around onerous regulations.

A change that Herzlinger believes is crucial to an efficiently functioning market would be requiring hospitals and doctors to disclose data on patient outcomes and publish prices, so that consumers can make informed choices.

... there are several other solutions offered for how to cover the very sick.

Herzlinger would prefer organizing things the way they do in Switzerland, where there is a consortium of insurance companies. The companies that take on the higher-risk patients receive compensation from the companies that get the healthier patients in a system that resembles revenue sharing in Major League Baseball.

So what plans are favored by the candidates?

John McCain's health-care plan actually goes a long way toward addressing the most egregious problems with the system. His proposal would provide tax credits to individuals and families for purchasing health insurance, thus ending the tax code's discrimination against the individual market; he would move to allow people to purchase insurance across state lines; and he would improve transparency.

In contrast,

Obama...ended up with a plan that, if implemented, would expand the role of government in health care while decimating the private insurance industry. So while it would be inaccurate for conservatives to charge that Obama's plan would represent "socialized medicine" in the immediate term, there's no doubt that it would put America on the pathway to socialized medicine.

That's because Obama's plan uses the favorite method of the Fascist Left: incrementalism.

In the end, Conservatives cannot just 'scream Socialism!!' to win this battle. The crypto-fascists are adept at code-talk, psychological manipulation, and incrementalism.

After all, they convinced Romney, who (fortunately for him) left the Governor's chair in Massachusetts before his "RomneyCare" program blew up in the State's face.

UPDATE: Owen has a related post which demonstrates the cost-problems in Gummint Health.