The Grim Reality of Universal Health Care

It seems like every time you turn on the TV, read a newspaper, or do your health insurance research on the web, people are talking about universal health insurance. Despite the current hype — believe me when I tell you — universal health care will not solve our nation's health insurance problems. Although it may have its benefits, it's not hard to see universal health care for what it really is: a federal bureaucracy that will raise taxes, destroy market efficiency, thin medical resources, and, worst of all, distract us from fixing our current system.

Basically, a universal health care system aims to provide every resident with health coverage, regardless of income. Such a system will receive funding from the government.

Unsurprisingly, this has immense appeal, especially if you are one of the 47 million people in this country without access to decent, affordable health insurance. Even if you are insured, how can you resist free coverage? Politicians have picked up on hype. With the 2008 elections approaching, many have made health care reform a significant part of their campaign.

But like all flashy quick-fix schemes, universal health care has some catches.

First of all, universal health care will not be free. Like the universal health systems in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the funding will primarily come from taxes. On some lower conscious level, you knew you would have to pay some way or another. There is no free lunch.

Secondly, a universal health care system will wreck the competitive efficiency of a free market by placing everything in the hands of one entity: the government. Because there's no competition for customers, health care companies under a universal policy will lose motivation to lower prices or improve service as the state can refer them an endless stream of customers.

Thirdly, insuring everyone will greatly strain the already distressed U.S. health care system. With the surge of new patients under universal health care, new doctors cannot enter the system fast enough to compensate. The shortage will be acute. Also, because everyone is guaranteed coverage regardless of their health condition or lifestyle, healthier people will end up shouldering the burden of their less healthy neighbors.

So essentially, a universal health system is a bureaucratic medical network (which you MUST join), with fees in the form of taxes (which you MUST pay), that insures those who don't take care of their health (with whom you MUST share resources).

We need to focus on improving our current free market health system instead of abandoning it so easily for this flashy, and ultimately flimsy, health plan. Once you take the reality of the health care situation into consideration, it's not hard to see why implementing a universal health care policy in the U.S. will not be easy, or wise.