Atom Feed (xml)Deal Hudson at Inside Catholic has written an excellent article on the problems with government-run health care.
Here is a sampling of what he shares:
Jim Cabretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, served for three years as the Bush administration's top budget official for health care. Cabretta claims that the present health legislation is not economically sustainable. "The plan as it stands," Cabretta concludes, "is not really a trillion-dollar bill; it really adds up to 1.5 trillion."
He explained the reason why the health-care bills are under-budgeted. "The legislation requires anyone who has job-based insurance 'has to stay there and not take the government subsidized program.' In addition, anyone who has not bought into their workplace insurance will be required to purchase it, 'even if they cannot afford it."'
Anyone not presently covered will be able to get into the subsidized program, creating what Cabretta calls "horizontal inequity." In other words, everyone covered by employers will be paying significantly more for health care than those on the government plan.
"What will happen next is inevitable," says Cabretta. "People will complain about the inequality, and Congress will eventually allow everyone to purchase the lower-cost, government-subsidized programs. The overall cost of the nationalized plan will rise by 50 percent."
