The Liberal Fallacy Of Health

Your health is the number one thing in your life. Any number of parables will support that statement. When someone is dealt an unbelievably bad string of luck, invariably they will say "At least I have my health."

In his blog, Dilbert creator and self styled "philosotainer" Scott Adams has postulated a "happiness formula" that is excerpted here:

Happiness = health + money + social life + meaning

I like this theory because it suggests priorities, but is open to interpretation. But again, health is the first priority. Without health, you can't go out and make money. Without health and money, you don't have much of a social life. But what is health? Adams says health can be broken down into another formula: Health = sleep + diet + exercise. I think this is overly simplistic. Having had kidney stones that were not caused by my diet, I know that you need to have access to health care.

That brings me to liberals and their plan for the nanny state. If you buy into Michael Moore and his cause, socialized health care is the answer. On Jay Leno recently, Moore related a story about a man who had accidentally cut off the ends of two of his fingers. According to Moore, he wanted to have them reattached but was told that one of them would cost $60,000 to reattach, and he would have to go somewhere else for the surgery. The other would cost $12,000 and could be done at that hospital. Being a hopeless romantic, Moore said, the man chose the ring finger costing $12,000 while the other finger was thrown away. He then made the claim that if this happened in Canada, both fingers would have been attached for free. He went on to state that the US is the only country where this kind of thing happens.

Moore is great at stringing things together but leaving out the context. The $60,000 finger may have had much more extensive damage requiring more complex surgery to reattach it. If the surgery were that much more complex it's highly likely that a specialist was needed and therefore it could not be done at that particular hospital. Universal health care would fix none of that.

As for it being done in Canada for free, one of the largest trade offs you experience with UHC is that non-life threatening issues do not get preferential treatment (see my last post for an example). Losing the ends of one's fingers does not constitute a life threatening injury. Even a hopeless romantic can wear a ring on a shortened ring finger. And the US is far from the only place where this happens. The example in my previous post happened in France. I also am aware of a case in the Utopian Canada where a woman in labor was put on a plane and flown the equivalent of San Diego to Denver to deliver the baby because no delivery rooms were available anywhere near her home. Most people in labor have a hard enough time just making it to the hospital; she had to fly across half a continent just to find a bed!

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read "I love my country but fear my government." Another sticker said "Universal Health Care Now!" (A third one said "Voldemort Votes Republican" - which is just plain silly because as an Englishman, he can't vote here at all). I wondered if this person even realized that their own choice of stickers was contradictory. They fear the government, but want the government in control of their health care. I fear the day that I need help with something at the emergency room and I'm told to come back when it's life threatening.

And in Canada, Moore says, the $72,000 worth of operations would have been done "for free." Free meaning that if you live in Toronto and make $100,000 you will pay 29.2% in federal income tax alone. Add in regional taxes, payroll taxes and health and prescription taxes, and a married couple with two kids will pay almost 10% more in taxes than the same couple in the US. Single with no kids? You'll pay more too, but not as much (about 2% more). Still, that's a difference of $2000 to $10,000 on a $100,000 salary. I'll pay $216 in premiums for my health insurance this year. In my worst year (damn kidney!) I paid $2600 for all medical services and that included three days in the hospital and a surgery to remove the kidney stone. My total expenses over the last 10 years would not add up to more than $5,000. Under Canada's system it would be, at a minimum, four times that much. So no, the surgery Michael Moore was talking about would not be "free" in Canada.

This is not to say that our health care system is flawless. I think prices are out of control. A couple of itemized charges on my bill were $8 for two Advil; $120 for compression socks; $58 for a cup of juice, a blueberry muffin and cream of mushroom soup (which was horrible tasting). Without health insurance my tab would have run over $20,000 and I would have been bankrupted. But then again, I do have health insurance. And my provider paid significantly reduced prices vs. what was being charged, leaving me to pay a mere fraction. That's what competition does in a capitalist society. It drives prices down. Get on the government teat, and the competition goes away. If you look at the level of pork in our government spending, you would be foolish to think that health care would be immune to the same abuse.

And don't think that the quality of care will get better. The VA hospitals are quasi-socialized, and you don't hear much good about the quality of care given there. Anyone who has tried to figure out how to get a question answered about a misfiled income tax return will tell you that the level bureaucracy in a government institution is unmatched in nature. And we want them in charge of our health care?

As I said, I have health care insurance. I work my ass off to maintain it too. I don't want to pay for someone elses health insurance so they can sit in Starbucks and work on their novel while I grind out 40+ hours a week playing it safe with my benefits. We live in a country where people can do what they want, including not paying for health insurance or a health care savings account. I know that there are situations where people have the deck stacked against them, but I would be willing to bet (and there are always exceptions) that somewhere in their history they've made choices, by action or inaction, that led them down this path. For those that are truly destitute we have medicaid. When my ex-brother-in-law, who doesn't have a pot to piss in, rolled his truck driving while drunk (2nd DUI) and required surgery to repair damage to his spine, he paid next to nothing for the surgery, the stay in the hospital while in a coma, or the physical therapy that followed. He went from being nearly paralyzed to being so fit he could go out and get DUIs 3, 4 and 5, all while paying for whatever medical fees he was responsible for with his Social Security Disability Income. I think the Nanny is doing enough already, thank you.

So back to the happiness formula: Happiness = health + money + social life + meaning. Your health isn't a given. But there are things that you can do to stack the odds in your favor; like applying Adams' health formula of diet, exercise and getting enough sleep. The number one killer in this country is cardiovascular disease, and these three things can help or hurt your odds. So now I'm off to bed so I can get up and go for a run before eating my oatmeal. Here's to your health!