Bill Clinton gets it wrong on health care

Former President Bill Clinton recently weighed in on the current proposal for health care reform. I’d like to break down his statement and point out some of the more glaring fundamental flaws in his thought process.

I basically said that I think it’s an economic imperative. We’re in an economic crisis, we’re trying to bring America back, and I have always been concerned that, you know, 16 percent of our people don’t have health insurance and 30 percent are without it at any given time during the year.

Our current economic predicament was caused by the thinking that “economic imperatives” exist for government. In order to bring America back, government needs to stand aside and do absolutely nothing. As for the figures regarding percentage of citizens without health insurance, I would like to point out two things. One: health insurance is not the same as health care. Two: even if some citizens lack health care, that does not create a moral imperative on the part of others to provide that care for them.

But the main thing, since we’re focused on the economy, is that we are spending 16.5 percent of our income on health care. The next most expensive country is Switzerland at 11.5. The next most expensive is Canada at 10.5. All of our competitors are between 9 and 10 percent. That means every year, it’s like we write a check to all of our economic competitors for $800 or $900 million. And they cover everybody — we only cover 84 percent, and we don’t get better outcomes. We get worse outcomes.

This would make sense, if a government-run health care system would decrease costs and increase quality of care. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that socialist health care systems maximize utility. It is also worth noting that this talk of writing checks to trading partners is evidence of a zero-sum economic mentality of the type that fosters protectionist policies.

So the point I tried to make is that this is an economic imperative. To just give you one example, before the economic collapse of Sept. 15, 2008, with the Lehman Brothers failure, median income after inflation in our country was $2,000 lower than it was the day I left office in 2001 — that’s back in the dark ages. I mean, we went through all those years, and one big reason is, after inflation, health care costs doubled.

Inflation: another problem caused primarily by government intervention in the economy.

So my argument was, this is an economic imperative as well as a health care imperative. Second thing is that on the policy, there is no perfect bill, because there are always unintended consequences. So there will be amendments to this effort, whatever they pass, next year and the year after and the year after. And there should be. It’s a big, complex, organic thing.

If a bill is not perfect in that it violates individual rights and involves government stepping outside its proper bounds, then it should never be passed. No societal progress is worth the cost of even one violation of individual freedom. It is “big, complex, organic” legislation (such as the programs of the New Deal) that shackle our economy and stunt our growth.

But the worst thing to do is nothing. That was my argument on the economics and on health care.

This single statement sums up the liberal/Keynesian economic philosophy. But no political rhetoric can change the fact that the very best thing a government can do for an economy is nothing.