Free-Market Health Care Looks Worse Every Day
The idea of handing even more power over our health care to private insurance companies is getting a dead-fish aroma. First, here's a column from economic writer Paul Krugman that takes apart, brick by brick, Sen. John McCain's idea of moving responsibility for buying insurance from employers to individuals and families. The headline says it all: "Health Care Destruction." And the Wall Street Journal reports today that McCain would pay for his health plan's individual tax credits by cutting $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid. Still, McCain stands by this radical free-market idea.
Krugman's conclusion really gets to the heart of it:
"In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”
"I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified."