Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

This morning while getting ready for work, I was watching the Big 3′s CEOs talk to Congress about getting free money from the taxpayers. Most of the questions from our representatives were useless and stupid, but one of them took the cake: “Why don’t you [the Big 3] lobby to get Universal Healthcare passed so it will save you and your employees money?” (This is a rough approximation of the question.)

Um… money doesn’t grow on trees.

If “government” provides the healthcare, it’s not free; someone has to pay for it. No one will “save money” from it.

There are a couple of ways that you could fund Universal Health Care:

• More individual taxes – so instead of writing checks to “Blue Cross” for health care, you would just write “U.S. Dept of Treasury”
• More corporate taxes – if an employer has to pay X dollars per employee more in taxes to cover Universal Healthcare, then your salary is going to drop X dollars

Either way it seems like it’s a wash.

One thing I’ve heard is that the overall cost of healthcare will go down because we won’t have bureaucracy of insurance companies and there will be economies of scale.

Perhaps, in theory.

In reality, not a chance. You really think that the government will reduce bureaucracy? If so, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

And economies of scale? The aggregate demand for healthcare won’t change depending on who’s providing it. The aggregate demand is based on the number of customers.

But really, here’s the question that I ask every time Universal Healthcare comes up: “Do you really want the same folks that run the DMV, Post Office, TSA and the IRS to run your hospital?”