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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Megan McArdle addresses the comment that "no one's talking about national health care."

When I wrote the other week about why I am opposed to national health care, a number of people angrily demanded to know why I was writing about something that "no one is proposing". Now, this is clearly a lunatic statement. I was writing about something that many people were proposing. I just wasn't writing about the nebulous bills currently wending their way through various committees.

I hadn't intended to. I was writing about my deeper opposition to the entire project of providing, paying for, or otherwise guaranteeing health care. ...

Now, I felt this was relevant, because in fact, no one I know who is interested in national health care views these bills as the final iteration of American Healthcare 3.0.

The goal of everyone, to a first approximation, on the "pro" side of these health care reforms is a European-style system where the government basically runs the whole show. Maybe they contract out the billing services to insurance companies, which you may choose between (though you can't choose covered services, etc). Maybe there's a safety valve in the form of a private system that the very affluent can buy into. But for 95% of the population, the government dictates what treatments are covered, and usually, how much should be paid for them.



Read the whole thing.

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