This article was written in 2007 – but is interesting seeing how some of his predictions are coming to pass.
Nothing free about universal health care – including unhealthy BMI
PAUL MULSHINE
Article Last Updated: 09/12/2007 05:48:30 PM CDT
We owe a debt of thanks to John Edwards for explaining what Michael
Moore was talking about.
In his recent movie “Sicko,” Moore called for the United States to
adopt a universal health care system. In a recent campaign appearance
in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Edwards explained his
vision of how such a system would work:
“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get
preventive care,” Edwards said at a town meeting. “If you are going to
be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20
years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are
OK.”
The report went on to say that under the Edwards plan, women would be
required to have mammograms to find “the first trace of problem.”
But what about women who don’t want mammograms? Will they be hauled in
handcuffs to the hospital?
Edwards didn’t say. But at least you have to give him credit for
warning the American people up front about just what he has in mind
for us. Most backers of universal health coverage talk only about the
positives. Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney loves to
boast about the universal health plan he implemented as Massachusetts
governor. But he somehow neglects to mention the big fines that kick
in next year for Massachusetts residents who fail to buy the required
insurance.
The message of Moore’s recent movie was that people in other countries
get “free” health care. But as Edwards so eloquently
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pointed out, free health care can be incompatible with freedom. The
only logical end is government control of the most intimate decisions
in life.
Imagine that Edwards wins the presidency and immediately implements
his plan, as he has said he intends to do. By 2010 or so, Moore might
be told to report for his mandatory annual checkup. The doctor might
inform him that as a 6-2 guy who weighs 305 pounds, his body mass
index is a very unhealthy 39. To get down to a healthy BMI of 25, he’d
have to lose 100 pounds. Perhaps he’d be ordered to report for morning
jogging sessions.
Or imagine the typical cigarette smoker at checkup time. Perhaps he’d
be told to stop smoking under penalty of being refused advanced
treatment if he later developed lung cancer. Sound far-fetched? That’s
already been proposed in England, which has had socialized medicine
for almost 60 years.
The Tory Party recently recommended that the National Health Service
refuse to pay for certain life-saving treatments for people who refuse
to refrain from unhealthful behaviors. Meanwhile, the government would
subsidize gym memberships and healthy diets for those who take their
doctors’ advice.
“It is inconsistent with the concept of the responsible citizen to
imagine that it is realistic for citizens, having paid their taxes, to
expect that the state will underwrite the health implications of any
lifestyle decision they choose to make,” said the statement from the
Tories.
They’re the conservatives in England, by the way. But whether you’re a
God-save-the-queen conservative or a knee-jerk liberal like Edwards,
the logic of universal health care leads to the same conclusion. And
that conclusion is: There’s no such thing as a free lunch, especially
not the kind of high-fat, high-calorie lunch that both the English and
Americans tend to favor.
That’s why the United States is unlikely to have universal coverage
anytime soon. The plans always founder on the high cost of covering
the approximately 44 million Americans who lack health insurance. Many
of these are working people who make too much to qualify for
subsidized coverage but not enough to afford private health insurance.
Massachusetts has already exempted about 20 percent of the uninsured
from the mandate.
But imagine if the U.S. had long ago adopted a plan similar to the
French and English systems highlighted in Moore’s movie. I can think
of one major advantage: We never would have heard of John Edwards. The
former U.S. senator first made his fortune suing doctors. A New York
Times article reported that he had more than 42 multimillion-dollar
settlements and another 33 that were close to a million.
He couldn’t have done that in France or England, says Mike Tanner, a
health care expert with the free-market Cato Institute. In those
countries, “it’s very hard to sue,” Tanner said. This keeps costs down
since malpractice insurance is cheap. In fact, the average salary of a
French doctor, about $55,000 a year, wouldn’t even cover the
malpractice insurance bill of some surgeons and ob-gyn physicians in
America. No system of universal health care can afford the
lottery-style tort awards that plague the American system.
So if Edwards somehow wins the election and institutes his system, he
will have accomplished one positive thing: John Edwards will have rid
the American system of people like John Edwards.
Now that’s progress.
Paul Mulshine is a columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. His
e-mail address is at pmulshine@hotmail.com.
