Compare and Contrast
Government bureaucrats don’t reduce costs. Market competition reduces costs. The challenge for health care reform is to get the market competition into the places where we want it — providers and insurers competing to deliver better services at lower prices — and out of the places where we don’t want it — insurers competing to insure only the lowest risks and providers gaming the government reimbursement systems to earn the highest profits.
Government might possibly keep [one] safe and therefore the billions wasted are money well-spent. [One] graciously permits the government to police [one’s] bar-hopping, repair the roads [one] drives on, clean [one’s] water and deliver it to [one’s] door, remove [one’s] bodily waste, treat it, and release it far from [one’s] view.
The government hauls away [one’s] garbage, keeps [one’s] lights on, pumps natural gas into [one’s] water heater, for far less money than it would cost if [one] had to do it on [one’s] own. It keeps food manufacturers from poisoning [one], and inspects the restaurants [one] visits, the buildings [one] lives and works in, the cars that whizz by [one] on the freeway. It created the internet [one] works on, and much of the medication and vaccines [from which one] has benefited. It educated most of the people who fix [one’s] dishwasher, [one’s] car, [one’s] hair, [one’s] dog. All of that is perfectly okay. But health care for people drowning in rising premiums?…[T]here the benefits must stop, there the line must be drawn.[emphasis mine]