Socialized Medicine

With the coming release of Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko, a hard-hitting critique of the American health care system, it is inevitable that socialized health care will become a hot issue yet again. This issue is sure to become a quite passionate one, since proponents of the system seem to hold the "common sense" moral high ground -- what sane person could be opposed to a program that provides good medical services for everyone, for free? As is common in these situations, libertarians are left with the unenviable task of explaining why the shallow, illogical proposals of the left are destined to fail and do more harm than good.

The first strike against socialized medicine is that its biggest selling point -- that it is free -- is total nonsense. Of course Americans would have to pay much higher taxes to fund such a program, but the real problem arises when you account for how inefficient government programs are. The U.S. government already pays over $2500 annually per person in health care costs, and this number is certain to skyrocket as a growing bureaucracy devours the lion's share of all funds. We have seen this with virtually every large-scale government program, including public schools and entitlement programs. There is no reason to believe that socialized health care would be any different.

The second problem is that, even if Americans could stomach the necessary massive tax increases, it is unlikely that the government could do even a mediocre job of managing the health care system. Social Security and Medicare are on the verge of collapse, due to the total ineptitude of the federal government. The American welfare system is so absurdly wasteful that only around 10 percent of funds actually go to those in need, compared to an average of 90 percent for private charities. All these programs are rife with corruption and abuse, and are notorious for falling short of all stated goals. After all, we are talking about the same federal government that mysteriously "lost" trillions of dollars that were allocated for reconstruction in Iraq. If the federal government is so obviously incapable of competently managing these programs, what in the world makes Democrats think that something as complex as a national health care system could be run by the government?

I'll have more on the push for socialized medicine as things continue to heat up...