The unease about Obamacare spreads

Via Hot Air, some articles related to Obamacare. First, videos of three ”townhall meetings” of members of Congress with their constituents. The reaction to Obamacare is not very supportive. These meetings are a taste of things to come as the politicians head home for August break.

Second, a couple of stories of rationing of medical care in Great Britain. Though the administration tells us that the government will provide only the best medical care through those treatments that “make us healthy,” rationing is an inevitable process to keep down costs. To the charge that medical services are already rationed through price and insurance companies, there are two responses. One is that some basic aspects of this rationing can be controlled by law, as long as the costs of such regulation are made clear. But more important is that, in a capitalist system, there will still be choices as to what is rationed and how. Medical care at some level is a scarce good. With medical advances, some treatments will always be scarce, even if they eventually become common-place and other, newer procedures are the “scarce” ones. Thus, rationing is natural. Non-price rationing assumes that government bureaucrats have all the information and the wisdom to make these decisions. That fantasy has been exposed as such in central planning failures over and over. There is no reason to believe that government health bureaucrats would be any better. And, realistically, there will either be no choice to escape, as the subsidized government system overwhelms the private options, or, more likely, private choice will continue but become significantly more expensive, thus producing rationing by price at a much higher level than would exist but for the distortion of the government plan. Such rationing will make the medical services available to fewer people than otherwise, as the price is higher.

Third, though this is an older story and comes from Oregon, the inevitable result of health care rationing as a cost-saving measure. Assisted suicide. As has been shown through studies of other systems, voluntary “end-of-life planning” that results in drinking the cup of hemlock inevitably in a government system metamorphoses into mandatory planning and, eventually, results. Since health care for the elderly and for the gravely ill is the most significant component of costs, and since there is a coming bulge of elderly baby boomers along with a narrowing of the age pyramid, this is the obvious place to cut costs with the most bang for the buck. Obama made as much clear in his recent press conference. Between money and morality, especially where politicians pandering to the masses are concerned, always bet on the former.

UPDATE: More videos of Obamacare townhall meetings via Hot Air.