Monday, March 22, 2010

Obamacare Outcomes

So, assuming I am correct in my prediction below of being stuck with Obamacare, how do I see health care playing out over the next couple of decades? We have several models upon which to base predictions.

First is public education. It is now true that large numbers of public school teachers in large urban areas send their own children to private schools. Don't take my word for it, go look it up. They know how bad are the schools in which they are employed, and don't want their own children in such.

Second is the Post Office, which cannot figure out how to break even, much less show a profit. Neither of these public institutions has the faith of the tax-paying public. All of these are examples of deciding a function is a public good, something to which everyone has a right, and letting the function be performed by government.

The upshot of these government functions is that private institutions have sprung up in parallel to perform the same or similar service for those willing and able to pay. Private schools and FedEx are examples. It is likely that the same thing will occur in medicine, and to some extent it already has.

The result is that, similarly to education, we will pay once for government health care which we will not much use, and again for private health care which we will use. Meanwhile all those government health care workers will be unionized and their political contributions will keep socialists in office, effectively at our expense and in opposition to our interests.