Less Government is the Solution, More Government is the Problem

Over and over when debating Obamacare supporters I hear the claim that the number one reason why government needs to take on a massive new expensive role in healthcare is because it has become too expensive. These Obamacare supporters think adding more government to the equation will make healthcare less expensive. They are so wrong.

The reason why healthcare is expensive is because of government. Adding government to healthcare in the past has resulted time and time again with a higher cost for healthcare. Government is the problem, not the solution. And this is not just rhetoric- the evidence and data supports the conclusion that adding more government involvement and interference in the private industry of our nation's healthcare has made it much much more expensive.

Presidential-candidate Harry Browne wrote about this back in 2002. He wrote:

It may be hard to believe, but back in the 1950s health insurance cost just a few dollars a month for most people -- and it was available to virtually everyone, including people with pre-existing conditions. The percentage of people covered grew steadily from the 1940s. And by the early 1970s, almost all Americans were covered by some form of insurance. Then the politicians went to work to load up policies with mandatory coverage of all sorts of conditions that may be of no use to you. More and more people decided that insurance had become too expensive and decided to risk being uninsured. By the 1990s coverage had dropped to under 70% of Americans.

In addition, many employers decided health coverage was too expensive. In 1980 fully 97% of the companies with 100 or more employees provided medical coverage. By 1995, only 77% were doing so. The growing number of uninsured people gives politicians more ammunition for more programs to force more costs onto insurance companies, and to push the price of insurance still higher.

Once again, the politicians are seizing the opportunity to save us from their own handiwork.

Over and over it is demonstrated that when government becomes more involved in an industry, that industry becomes less efficient, less responsive to market forces, and services suffer while prices go up. That is why our founding fathers designed a system where government would not have the authority to even think about doing what it does today- they knew that having government run health insurance companies, auto companies, banks, home loan companies, alternative energy companies, and all the other companies that the government now runs would only result in a poorer society.

Government is the reason why healthcare is expensive- the solution is in every way possible less government. Not a lot more government, not a little big more government, not even the same amount of government- the solution to healthcare costs is less government. LESS GOVERNMENT.