Medical Care A Right is Wrong!

The hottest topic in election slogans is the newly created right to medical care.  Naturally, I have an opposing point of view. 

First, if what were being called for was the universal right to access medical care, I would agree.  Everyone should have the right to access any service offered by a free market and no one should be restricted from participation in the market. 

Access, however, does not seem to be what politicians are now promising, but rather, the government's nationalizing the health care industry and imposing government control of the system.  I disagree with that strenuously. 

As Americans, we have certain rights guaranteed to us by both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Besides the Bill of Rights, we have the right to a prompt, fair trial by jury, the right to vote in elections for public officials, the right to apply for federal employment requiring U.S. citizenship and the freedom of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  It is presumably the “pursuit of happiness” that leads some people to believe that medical care is a right.

Our constitution is pretty clear on this point, you have a right to pursue happiness, but you do not have a right to a definite outcome.  Water is necessary for life, but you do not have an absolute right to free public utilities. 

Traditionally, the “pursuit of happiness” has been interpreted to mean the fundamental right to freely pursue joy and live life in a way that makes you happy, as long as you don't do anything illegal or violate the rights of others…. And therein lies the problem, for health care is the product of someone else’s labor. 

No one has the right to someone else’s labor, unless we intend to reintroduce slavery. 

Health care—like food, clothing, and shelter—are needs, not rights.  Rights are something inherent to us, not something that requires involuntary contributions from others. 

Some have argued that the “right” to healthcare simply means that cost should not be a barrier to receiving health care, regardless of income.  I would agree, if all of the plans proposed to date did not call for the imposition of price controls on the physician and every other "provider".  Setting fees, controlling what procedures are allowable, and denying treatment based on cost are all examples of price controls, which never work.

Price controls invariably create shortages, raise the effective price of goods, and stifle innovation.  This is true whether we are talking about the price of Russian bread, of Mexican tortillas, or of Canadian gallbladder surgeries.  The latter has a wait time comparable to the sightings of major comets. 

There may be an example of price controls that worked, but none comes to mind.  Even some of the more famous examples in history, after closer inspection, have revealed that the results produced were the opposite of what was intended.  During World War II, Great Britain began a complicated and thorough system of food rationing that not only discouraged new people from entering food production, but stifled all innovation.  The result was a robust black market with higher prices, and rationing that continued for eight years after the war ended.  The availability of food rose immediately after rationing finally ended.

Perhaps it is because I am getting older, but I am really concerned about the lack of innovation that comes out of controlled economies.  I want medical innovation to continue.  While Americans pay more for medicine than most Western countries, less well-known is that America files over half the new medical patents each year.  (And roughly 30% of all the other forms of patents.)  Innovation occurs most often where it is most rewarded, and where there is little opportunity for financial reward, innovation is rare.  As China has started to embrace a free market, its rate of innovation has dramatically increased. Last year, for the first time, China filed more new patents that Germany did.

Inversely, as other countries' medical systems have become more socialized, the numbers of patent applications for either new medicines or medical devices have dropped.  Fifty years ago, the French filed almost as many new patent applications as the United States.  Today, they file roughly a fifth as many as the United States.  Actually, the numbers are worse than that, since several pharmaceutical companies do their research in America, but their corporate headquarters are in Europe, artificially inflating the number of patents filed by European countries.

Throughout history, the most consistent method of improving quality while simultaneously reducing cost has been a competitive free market.  That bears repeating—if given time, competition is the best method of lowering price and improving products.  Justifying government control by inventing a new “right” will not change that. 

Our nation’s system of delivering health care certainly has inequities—of that there is no doubt.  People who do not work qualify for free federal programs while middle class workers pay outrageous prices for health insurance that functions, not as insurance but, as a health finance system.  As poorly-written government regulations continue to imbalance the system, the desire for more comprehensive legislation increases, leading to more regulations.  It's a particularly vicious circle.

The solution lies not in moving away from the free market, but in a return to it.  Government could subsidize the cost for those who need, but cannot pay for health care—but not because it is the "right" of recipient to receive that care at no cost.

An especially cruel Latin American dictator once opined that the public would complacently allow any industry to be nationalized if it is first legislated into ineffectiveness.  Is that really the kind of example we want to follow?