Using Legislative Capitalism to Improve US Healthcare

Yes, it is correct that if the US taxpayers are helping to foot the bill for part of Obama's healthcare package, then at least part of the package is socialistic. But before we get too wrapped around that axle, let's look at what other major programs are paid for by the government on behalf of the good of all citizens:

- Interstate and intrastate highway and road projects

- US Defense

- Public school education

- The National Institute of Health, which will dole out close to $40B in grants this year for fundamental research to help improve the quality and reduce the cost of healthcare for all.

- The Center for Disease Control

- State employee and teacher pension programs

- Social security

The list goes on, and it's a long one, but you get the point. Does this make us a socialist nation? In part, yes. There are aspects of our nation that are most definitely socialistic, and it can be argued that some of them should not be. One is education. Personally, I believe the privatization of education would lead to a far better end product. I have numerous data points in my own life. I went to three different public schools and one private school growing up. The private school was far better in every respect. I was fortunate enough to send all three of my children to private schools, and the end result was generally far better than their counterparts in the local public school system, especially since the high school had no interior walls. Open classrooms were an interesting experiment for children without ADD and a distraction for the rest. But, I digress.

When it comes to healthcare, we know that privatization is, at best, lacking. We see it every day from lengthy waiting lines in ER rooms to the lack of qualified doctors and nurses. The cost of malpractice insurance makes it harder for anyone who wants to be a doctor. A couple of months ago, I had an appointment at 9am at a hospital to see a doctor that was attending to a relative who was recovering from a severe stroke. The doctor arrived at 2pm and did not have the courtesy to call to say he would be late, or to even apologize for being five hours late when he finally did arrive. I worked in a hospital for a couple of years early in my career, and though all hospitals are not created equal and many are just fine, there are disasters going on in many hospitals every day that are swept under the rug to protect their reputation. I was young and naive at the time, but in retrospect, I can see that many of these disasters were clearly malpractice. However, most people who never work in a hospital would be surprised how much this happens. Instead, what happens all too often is the offending physician, nurse, etc, is encouraged to quietly move out of town, and he/she ends up in another hospital to commit the same mistake(s).

Our healthcare program is clearly badly broken, the fix is not simple, and it will not happen overnight. Obama's program does nothing to improve upon the need for whistle-blowing when malpractice occurs and is swept under the rug, but it does move to encourage better healthcare for all. Now, we need a better program to pay for it. Here's one:

Legislative Capitalism

People who are obese, smoke cigarettes or drink heavily account for a disproportionate amount of the healthcare dollars spent. This amount is knowable. So, they should pay proportionately more in taxes to supplement their portion of the tax burden. How can this be done easily? At the shopping counter. Unhealthy food, cigarettes and alcohol should be taxed far greater to help pay for healthcare for all. For many it will help drive healthier lifestyles. I'm sure there are enough actuaries out there who can tell us exactly how much these unhealthy products should be taxed to make the system fair. The result of this is that a lot of the junk food products and/or companies would either be forced to change their product line(s) or disappear. Good riddance.

You cannot mandate a healthy lifestyle, but you can tax an unhealthy one, until it hurts so much that people will be forced to change their behavior or suffer the consequences. And all of the burden should not be placed on the individual. Any corporation putting out such products should pay their fair share of the tax burden for making products that drive up the cost of healthcare. That's using legislative capitalism to help drive appropriate consumer behavior to offset the higher cost of socialistic healthcare.

This simple addendum to the proposed legislation will do more to reduce the cost of healthcare than most great life science discoveries.