Meditations on Healthcare, the Post Office, and Reality Checking John Stossel

Posted by J.D. Dunn on 07.03.2009

"[M]eetings of the Libertarian can be pretty hilarious when you get cornered by a high school algebra teacher who wants to talk about privatizing the sidewalks for an hour." - PJ O'Rourke



Oy. The life of a Reform Libertarian. I remember when Libertarians used to be about protecting the Constitution. Freedom from strip searching and random surveillance. Decriminalizing drugs. Legalizing prostitution. Keeping abortion legal. Getting government out of the church, and out of the bedroom. Generally speaking, I like to keep them out of my wallet and out of my hospital room too, but I like to put needs before wants. "Pragmatism" is apparently, a dirty word, and we have to adhere to our principles, even if they're demonstrably wrong because, well, they're our principles.

With the self-righteous wing of the Republican Party imploding, and taking the whole ship down with it, the fiscal conservatives have hopped over to the "libertarian" label. Not the party, necessarily. Just the label. Kind of like the Democrats when they got smeared with the "liberal" label and adopted "progressive" about a decade ago. It's as if libertarians made a deal with the devil. They adopted Michelle Bachmann as one of their heroes for the tea-bagging and "Light Bulb Free Choice Act," while ignoring her stance on religious indoctrination and abortion.

(Btw, *this* is why I could never be a Republican – too much cognitive dissonance:

Michelle Bachmann on same-sex marriage: "I was the chief author of a constitutional amendment in the Minnesota Senate defining marriage as between one man and one woman."

Michelle Bachmann on light bulbs: "[T]he government has no business telling consumers what kind of light bulbs they can buy."

Gotta have priorities in life.)

The problem is that the fiscal conservatives are just as illogical and intractable as the religious zealots. Just replace "God" with "free market," and you'll see what I mean.

Now, I'm a free-market guy in most settings, the same way I believe in God in most settings. But I also happen to believe in evolution, and I also happen to believe that government is not an evil thing in every instance. But trying to convince a libertarian of the benefits of some government intervention is like trying to talk to a Biblical literalist about the possibility that the earth is more than 10,000 years old. It just becomes a miasma of excuses, deflections, obfuscations, and logical fallacies.

For example, in 25 years of receiving mail, I've had maybe 2-3 things lost or damaged in USPS transit. However, when I try to get something delivered by UPS or DHL online, they tell my street address doesn't exist. When I call the 1-800 number, after several minutes of a recording that assures me that my call is very important to me, they transfer me to India to help me find my own house on the map. So I have to say, "Hi, India. Apparently, I don't exist in your system. But I know that I'm living somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it's here. Can you help me out?" More holding and assuring me that my call is very important to them, and eventually, they tell me my address doesn't exist. I live in Petoria, apparently.

Now, the Libertarian argument is that, if I have a problem with UPS and DHL, I should just go to their competitor. I did. I went to the US Postal Service. It was awesome! Right to the P.O. Box, baby. And hey, on time, contrary to the libertarian meme that USPS never delivers on time.

All of that brings me to the healthcare debate, and the libertarian argument against Obama's plan for universal healthcare. [In all honesty, I'm pretty skeptical about his plan working the way he says it will. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, as they say. But with 72-percent of Americans in favor of healthcare, and 52-percent saying they'd pay higher taxes for universal healthcare, it's pretty clear Americans *want* this service. You can't get 72-percent of Americans to agree on anything. So *some* change is demanded by the American people, and with the pragmatic libertarian spirit of supply and demand, someone has to supply that change. Obama, at least, has a proposal.]

Back to libertarians. I've been disillusioned with their zealotry for a while now, so imagine my lack of surprise when I stopped by the Reason magazine's website and found an article by John Stossel, douchebag emeritus of Libertarian University. Reason magazine was, for years, the publication of choice for Libertarians, and I suppose, still is. However, over the last few years, I've come to notice that "Reason" is just a moniker, not a philosophy.

Now, I agree with Stossel's fundamental philosophy, but his methods are atrocious. He's not above blatantly lying, twisting, or manipulating his coverage to get his point across. He's really no different than Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh outside of a few pounds, serial-killer eyes, and a creepy moustache. ABC News, in fact, has had to retract no less than four stories in the last decade due to Stossel's blatant disregard for the facts. And that doesn't count the ones Stossel has retracted on his own.

Stossel starts his article with a silly premise. "Barack Obama says government will make healthcare cheaper and better. But there's no free lunch." Well, no one promised a free lunch, so we're off to a bad start already. Actually, the subtitle of the article claims it's about Canada's system, but many of the links are to England's system , so we're off to a *really* bad start.

"In England, health care is "free"—as long as you don't mind waiting. People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth."

Now. That sounds horrible. And he's provided links to back up his statement… so long as you don't click on them. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!)

The first tells the story of overcrowding at a British dentist's office where 1,500 people lined up to register, not receive care. I mean, think about the sheer numbers involved. When was the last time you had 1,500 people showing up to a dentist's office for an appointment? Was Russell Crowe in town or something? And the only complaint in the article comes from someone who *couldn't afford private care*. Remember that for later.

The second link is to an article about a man who pulled his own teeth when he couldn't find a dentist. Stossel's text makes it seem like he did it due to long lines and rationing, but actually, the guy did it because A) he *couldn't afford private care* (remember that for later) and B) he didn't go to the emergency care services who could have easily recommended him to a public one.

At any one time, half a million people are waiting to get into a British hospital. A British paper reports that one hospital tried to save money by not changing bedsheets. Instead of washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over.

The first link he provides about the half million people doesn't lead anywhere, but what the hell, he's been so honest so far. Let's take him at his word. The solution seems to something akin to:

Day One: 500, 000 people lined up for healthcare.

Day Two: Man tells them to go home because they're not going to get healthcare.

Day Three: Zero people lined up for healthcare

Day Four: Problem solved.

The second link, about a hospital not changing its bed sheets, says nothing about the universal healthcare system and, in fact, says that the method was used to reduce deficits. When has a government-run organization *ever* worried about deficits? This was a privately-run (although NHS participating) hospital that wanted to cut corners to cut costs. Would that ever happen at a privately run business?

Moving on.

Obama insists he is not "trying to bring about government-run healthcare."

"But government management does the same thing," says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute. "To reduce costs they'll have to ration—deny—care."

Theoretically, yes. If you have only 20,000 concert tickets, and 50,000 people wanting them, you either have to re-arrange seats, or turn some people away. The free-market model says you offer the tickets to the 20,000 highest bidders and use the profits from that to run a second show. But eventually, you get dwindling returns because the people who couldn't afford to top the bids of the first 20,000 will have a lesser pool of money. Eventually, you'll have to start denying people tickets just because they don't have money.

See what I did there?

The complaint is that healthcare will have to be rationed – like gasoline was in the 1970s. Some people won't get it, and some people will. That's rationing, all right.

The free-market solution, then, is to go with a market system where those who can afford to buy healthcare get it and those who can't pay don't.

So the solution to the problem of some people getting healthcare and some people not getting healthcare is to create a system where some people get healthcare and some people don't.

Yeah, it seems like a hollow complaint to me to.

Moving on.

"People line up for care, some of them die. That's what happens," says Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of The Cure. He liked Canada's government health care until he started treating patients.

See above, re: rationing. Think it would be hard for me to find a story about someone not being able to afford private healthcare and suffering or dying because of it? It's not. In fact… didn't I tell you to remember something a while back? Something about people not being able to get care because they couldn't afford it. Something in articles John Stossel provided.

Gratzer continues:

"The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house." "You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months."

First of all - see above, re: the solution to 500,000 people waiting for healthcare.

Second of all – Wow. What an elitist position from Gratzer, and he doesn't even know it. I should explain a few things before moving on. 1) The usual definition of 'demand' is that 'people want stuff.' Loose definition, but I don't think too many people would object. 2) The economic definition of 'demand' is 'people want and have the ability to buy stuff.

The problem with the free-market solution is that mistakes one for the other. Just because someone doesn't have the ability to pay for something doesn't mean they don't want or need it. That's what the whole debate is about. In economics, if you remove people's ability to pay, they no longer are considered "demand" because "demand" means 'desire and ability to pay.' Ironically, that was Stalin's solution too, although he was more aggressive about it.

Gratzer's premise is that he sees people who have to wait for healthcare. His logic is that, if they weren't waiting for healthcare, he'd never see them, and thus, they wouldn't exist. Rewrite Gratzer's sentence to solve the problem. The person Gratzer mentioned who was waiting for radiation therapy stayed home because they knew they couldn't afford it. The person waiting for the knee replacement never came in to see him. The person with the headache and the MRI suffered in silence. If I don't see them, they don't exist, and the problem is solved.

Canada and England don't pay the price because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their systems, we could worry less about paying for health care, but we'd get 2009-level care—forever. Government monopolies don't innovate. Profit seekers do.

Well, we saw in Stossel's own article about flipping sheets how well profit-seekers do.

But all of it is moot because the American system wouldn't be the Canadian or English system. Obama's plan is for a public option, not a government takeover. I know, I know. Slippery slope. But let's try to base our arguments on reality, not conjecture.

The Obama plan has several problems, none of which Stossel chose to tackle. Instead, Stossel hyped his own TV segments, spun a web of lies, and fought a good fight with a windmill.