#1078 Healthy Reforms

In all the flap about health care reform, the big issue seems to be that the idea of government-run health care makes some people sick. The bugaboo they always trot out is, “who ever heard of government running anything good?”
Remember that old statistic about 9 out of 10 new businesses failing. It’s true. Business doesn’t always know how to do stuff either. The government has bailed a lot of them out. In fact, our nation has a long and storied history of corporate welfare.
From the Louisiana Purchase and the eventual Homestead Act, to The Transcontinental Railroad and the US Interstate Highway system, we have all benefited from massive injections of federal money into the hands of businesses, which then trickles down into the hands of the taxpayers who put up the money to begin with.
I like to think both private enterprise and government are at least trying to do good. I like my private homeowners’ association. They’re pretty good at planning picnics. But I call the county when there’s a pothole in the street, because no one wants to raise our dues enough to fix roads.
It’s funny how people get up in arms when the government proposes giving people a benefit directly, like health care. It’s okay to bail out a giant insurance and investment company like AIG, but all of a sudden we’re afraid that government administration necessarily means government rationing. Aren’t we being rationed already when we lose our healthcare because we lose our job because the business we worked for cratered after paying all their profits out in golden parachutes?
And why should businesses have to pay for their employees’ health care anyhow? Wouldn’t it be easier to be profitable if workers had their health insurance deducted, as they do their social security and unemployment insurance? If everyone’s in the pool, insurance costs go down.
But hey, I’m no expert. I just think every time people say government shouldn’t get involved in business they should remember corporate welfare schemes like sports stadiums and the aircraft industry after World War II.
And the next time they say government can’t run something, maybe they should look at the most successful military in the world.
America, ya gotta love it.