Government-run healthcare is all the rage these days among America’s youth. After all, who doesn’t like free stuff? Marching under the banner of “Healthcare is a human right,” these young people want to make sure the government gives equal healthcare access to all. If these young people were old enough to have doctors visits as a more frequent occurrence, maybe they would know better.
Whenever the government promises to make something “equal” for everyone, they really mean “equally terrible for everyone other than the extremely rich.” The federal government may be huge, but even it has a finite amount of resources. Government-run healthcare would mean bureaucrats would be the ones deciding how many hospitals would be built and where they would be built. Bureaucrats would control how many x-ray machines those hospitals would be allowed to have. They would control it all. That’s why they call it a “single-payer system.” Just like with anything else, if you’re paying you get to call the shots. We don’t need the government calling the shots when it comes to healthcare.
However, the placement of hospitals and the number of x-ray machines is just the tip of the iceberg. The government with the power to pay all of your medical bills will have the very same power to deny you the treatment you desperately need. This isn’t all theoretical either. Nations that have embraced the single-payer system like Canada and the UK have actual panels of bureaucrats who decide whether you are worthy of treatment or not. It might seem like the plot of a science fiction movie, but it happens every day just north of our borders.
No one thinks America’s healthcare system is perfect. Obviously, healthcare can be expensive. However, the solution to our nation’s problems is not to run in the direction of nations where you have to wait months or even years for treatment. We should be running toward the time-tested principles of free market economics. Free markets mean freedom of choice, freedom to invent, and freedom to live. Let’s keep the government out of our healthcare system.
