Another argument against universal health care

Our family recently had two experiences that illustrate a concept very relevant to the current healthcare debate. It's a concept well understood by both modern day conservatives and the conservatives of 200+ years ago (aka the founding fathers), but completely lost on progressives: I speak of the power of incentive.

Recently someone in our family needed a consult with one of the specialty clinics at the hospital, so Shell and I each tried for day after day to call, but no answer. Only after a Sherlock Holmes like effort was the current contact info discovered and the appointment scheduled. So what's the point. This would NEVER happen in a private clinic's office. As we all know, private clinics have an incentive to have great customer service, including being easy to contact, schedule etc, or they go under. But everyone in this government run clinic gets paid the same whether patients get seen or not.

Second example; Shell had yet another frustrating visit to the base grocery store (called the Commissary) to find them once again out of the most popular items of many different products. In the real market, things a store quickly sells out of would not only be quickly re-stocked, but likely the inventory of those items would increase to wisely supply the increased demand. But since this is a government run grocery store, we find all those common sense economic principles, like the desired items, remaining on back order.

If you've read my previous posts, you know that I believe the liberal agenda is full of emotion-fueled knee-jerk reactions to problems that while allegedly well intentioned do far more harm than good. The perfect example of this is the current debate over health care. According to progressives, the only solution to the current problem (millions of uninsured Americans) is the same solution to every problem: a government program. Universal health care is a bad idea for many reasons, but the loss of free market competition, or incentive, is among the biggest.

Proponents of universal health care might argue that the free market had it's chance to deliver health care efficiently to the American people but has failed. But for years now our government has strangled true competition among health insurance companies with illogical regulations like preventing these companies from competing accross state lines, leaving the market anything but free. It's like someone punching out the tires on pizza delivery truck, blindfolding the driver, and then when the pizza fails to be delivered in 30 minutes, claiming the whole system has failed. The free market has NOT failed. It has proven itself over and over again as the way to deliver goods and services better, faster, cheaper. The answer is for government to get out of the way, not step in and take over. Let capitalism work. Less government, more incentive! JRD