Of Clinton and health care

I just read an interesting editorial from the New York Post making the point that if Clinton's health care reforms, which would have made our health care system resemble that of Canada, had passed, the former president would likely still be waiting for his bypass surgery, if in fact he hadn't already been felled by a heart attack.

Now of course you have to take this article with a grain of salt. It appears on the op-ed page, and it's an editorial, not a news story. But you have to wonder--how badly do we need to go to a completely government funded health care system--like Canada's--when Canadians are coming here for health care. The waiting times for critical care are simply horrible--according to the Post editorial, the average Canadian who needs to consult a cardiologist waits 3.4 weeks to do so, and a bypass operation can take over two weeks.

Michael F. Cannon (the author of the editorial) concedes the fact that Clinton likely wouldn't have had to wait that long. "[C]ardiovascular surgery queues are routinely jumped by the famous and politically-connected," he writes. But if those jumps are factored into the average waiting time, then how long does the average Joe like you or me end up waiting for care that's often needed as soon as possible, with the risk of waiting often being death?

Let's face it: time has proven that in most cases, there's no better way to get things done than a supply-and-demand driven free market economy. Right now, doctors are able to earn enough money that becoming a doctor--by which I mean going through years of medical school at great personal expense, working round-the-clock shifts while usually still burdened by debt from said personal expense, and generally dealing with illness, injury, and death on a daily basis --is still a desirable profession. Put the Hand of Government into it, dictating what health care costs (and hence what a doctor makes), and you're going to end up decreasing the supply of available health care and driving up the demand. And where will we go when there are shortages?

We'll probably all end up calling 1-800-DOCTORB.