George Rebane
[This is the transcript of my bi-weekly KVMR-FM commentary broadcast on 21 January 2011.]
The dodgy passage of Obamacare last year, its rejection by most Americans, and the results of last November’s election have ushered in a new season of healthcare debate. It is doubtful that repealing that abominable legislation will come to pass any time soon, but even Democrats are beginning to discover that it will not be the cost saving solution to socialized medicine that they touted before they passed it.
From all best estimates, no member of Congress has yet to read the damn thing, let alone understand what’s in it, or what impact it will finally have on keeping Americans healthier. Pelosi’s prescription regarding ‘pass it first, understand it later’ is still an ongoing voyage of discovery for our nation that daily reveals more shoals, rocks, and sandbars where clear sailing was promised. Even as we speak, a flood of patchwork regulations are being issued daily by various bureaucracies, new and old, in order to launch all the needed programs to implement the law. This mess is getting messier and more expensive by the day.
Today the arguments for keeping Obamacare all center on the idea that healthcare is a right bestowed on everyone found within our borders. No other nation, not even the socialists of Europe, will accept that approach. Since their programs are taking an increasing share of their gross domestic products with every passing year, all of them are proving daily that nationalized healthcare is not sustainable. Their only alternative to massive reform is ever more stringent rationing of health services and medicines. In the meantime, more and more EU members are queuing up for fiscal failure and bailouts from nowhere.
So how should we approach our own healthcare problems? First, is healthcare a right, and for whom? Today the obvious answer is still a definite NO according to our founding principles. If we wish to make it so, then it should be done after extensive public debate, and not on a partisan railroad in the dead of night. But the question remains, how can our system of commerce and governance deliver better healthcare?
The first answer is that we cannot do so under the current system of tort laws and market mangling regulations that hinder delivery of medicines, medical services, and health insurance. Second, we cannot do so with a static view of technology while ignoring its accelerating advances. All the current approaches attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole – it isn’t going to happen. It’s like trying to legislate levitation.
Any serious attempt to make healthcare available more broadly and cost less will require the following major components to be put in place.
- Revise medical malpractice laws to reduce the cost of practicing medicine at every level.
- Free up the health insurance market to allow insurance companies to offer all manner of policies nationwide.
- Simplify the process of incorporating new technologies into the medical industry. Specifically, do not impede the introduction of intelligent machines into diagnostics and treatment recommendation. Encourage the wider application of tele-medicine over the internet using low cost communications such as Skype and remote sensing.
- Reregulate the definition and hierarchy of medical practitioners allowing the market along with advancing technologies to guide who does what with what equipment. Our current system is woefully outdated, and it discourages too many people of all ages from preparing for the limited medical practitioner slots now available. As our country ages, the exact opposite should be happening.
- Finally, we should take a hard look at delivering healthcare through non-profit public service corporations for the poor and indigent. I have described these on my website georgerebane.com.
Given all the European healthcare chickens coming home to roost, we should strive not to repeat their experience. And this is doubly so as our country teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. No socialized healthcare system has yet to sustain both people’s wallets and their quality of life.
My name is Rebane and I also expand on these and other themes in my Union columns, on NCTV, and on georgerebane.com where this transcript appears. These opinions are not necessarily shared by KVMR. Thank you for listening.
rebanesruminations.com 
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