Reality Check on So-Called Universal Health Care

As the electorate's memory fades, notions that voters previously rejected for good reasons start looking attractive to them. While this strikes us as much the same effect that alcohol consumption is said to have on the drinker's perception of the attractiveness of members of the opposite sex, we nevertheless hope that some rational discourse can bring the body politic back to sobriety.

Our concern is for Democrat proposal for so-called universal health care, which is really about health insurance, not health care, and is about greater government control of the same. On this subject, we point gentle readers to James C. Capretta's column at NRO.

To summarize Capretta's admirably brief and demonstrably logical piece, here are some key points:

• While all Democratic proposals currently involve both private and public insurance, they do so only to give the appearance that people's present health insurance, which most voters like, will continue.
• But all such plans involve a "pay-or-play" provision for employers: employers must either provide a health plan for employees or be taxed for participation in a new government plan.
• The projected tax for the government plan is significantly lower than the average cost to employers of current health insurance plans.
• Few employers will hesitate to opt for the government plan if it appears cheaper.
• Insurance companies will therefore be driven from the market.
• The government plan will then be in a position to dictate what services are available and how much providers will be paid, driving providers out of the market as well.

SWNID normally doesn't heed warnings about slippery-slopes. This one, however, looks dangerously slippery to us.

And to those who think that the bottom of the slope, that is, a health-care system run paid for entirely by the federal government, is fine, we urge a trip to the local VA hospital. Our limited experience in such institutions, viewed through the lens of our more extensive experience with single-payer systems in another place, tells us that we can all expect that level of care, or worse, from Uncle Sugar.