From The Left An Obama Backer's Counterargument In The Health Reform Debate

Editor’s note: After reading a guest editorial on Sept. 10 by Sheldon Richman, the Gazette’s “Salty Sally” responds. -- Ed.

First of all, I, too, get tired of the endless focus on the lowest levels of the debate, but part of the reason for the excess is that it’s often precisely these extreme, even sensationalistic notions that capture people’s fancy and cause them to support or reject proposals for reform. If Sarah Palin is going to speak falsely about death panels, with the real example of her disabled son as a possible victim, it’s a good thing we have the liberal news media to balance her out. Otherwise, mass hysteria might result.
Second, the reason I, for one, don’t say much about the anti-reform arguments based on cost and the rest of “the real case against government control” is that for me, they’re beside the point, because my motivation for supporting reform is to offer real health care to as many folks as we can. Years ago there was a slogan, “Only the wealthy are healthy,” and that fact has only become more true as time has gone on. Since my purpose as a Christian is to “spread the health,” it doesn’t matter so much that reform might eventually lead to some form of rationing of care. The way things are now, care is already in effect “rationed” for millions of people who either can’t afford insurance or can’t afford the high co-pays and deductibles.
Mr. Richman’s point that Obama regularly meets with insurance and pharmaceutical industry representatives is true, but his conclusion seems misguided. I believe those corporations “support most of what Obama wants” because they don’t want to be left out in the cold any more than they have to be if some of the proposed reforms pass. They may be hoping that by supporting some reform, they can protect themselves from more extreme reforms. An example would be the idea of a public option that would only be activated by a “trigger” if the insurance companies don’t change enough in response to the reforms. Those on the left who reject this compromise have argued that such triggers in the past have almost never been activated, so the industry might decide they can safely support it.
The only statement of Mr. Richman’s that seems completely false to me is his claim that the insurance and drug companies stand to make a “huge profit” from new regulation. What??? More than they already do? Please explain.
To deal with Mr. Richman’s economic arguments, I would start by trying to clarify some things that seem to be confused. Yes, if the government subsidizes demand for primary and preventive health care, that action will exert an upward force on those prices, but the prices Obama is most interested in controlling are insurance prices, which will be driven down by competition and regulations. Hopefully, the total price paid by consumers will be lower, or at least will stop skyrocketing at a continually alarming rate the way it has for as long as I can remember.
Also, making the system more efficient will save money. It seems an established fact that a substantial percentage of everyone’s money is currently wasted on things like duplicate tests. And more money will be saved by focusing on prevention of illnesses like diabetes, which is far more costly to treat than to prevent.
Finally, while I understand where Mr. Richman is coming from with his closing comment suggesting that the government is never efficient, I think efficiency judgments should be made only in light of the scale of the operations being compared. Medi-care seems to be efficient enough given its size. With some careful legislation to stabilize it financially, it should be able to continue to function as a government-run health care program that works.