The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs...
Hidden in all of the nonsense is the scary grain of truth. As healthcare becomes more socialized and less free market oriented, the government will have ever greater incentives to force whatever they think is healthy (at the time) on you in order to save a buck.
Its one thing for the government to warn you that transfats are unhealthy (even by forcing manufacturers to label products as such). Its quite another thing to decide that since they are paying for all or part of your healthcare, you no longer have the right to eat transfats and increase their costs.
"the government will have ever greater incentives to force whatever they think is healthy (at the time) on you in order to save a buck"
You mean, as opposed to the way the health insurance companies reduce coverage and claim pre-existing conditions and in general do everything they can to make you pay more, and get less, in order to save a buck?
I'm sorry, buddy. The free market has failed. I'll take government-style health care like they have in Canada over what we have here. At least then we can vote the sons of bitches out if they pull shenanigans.
I agree that the current system is broken. I actually think that "health insurance" tied to employment as it currently stands is the opposite of free market but I can still switch health insurance providers much more easily than I can politicians.
I know 2 different Canadians who have flown to the US to get MRI's instead of waiting the months required to get them in Canada. I'm not convinced "Canadian style" is the best way either.
What I'm most afraid of though, isn't another failed healthcare system, Ayn Rand style, or People's Republic style. Its when a politician decides that my body in some way belongs to him and he can decide what I can eat. That's what I'm gettin at here; I'm certainly open to debate the merits of different healthcare systems. I just wanted to point out that particular unintended consequence/perverse incentive.
That perverse incentive has concerned me for a while, but I'm less worried about it now that I'm living in Argentina. Argentina has a sort of hybrid public/private healthcare system with universal coverage paid by the government, so the perverse incentive in question does exist here. And the government isn't extremely accountable, doesn't work very well, and in some ways is much more intrusive than the US government. Nevertheless, they seem to handle this problem pretty well. If it's not a big problem here, I think it isn't likely to be a big problem in general.
"At least then we can vote the sons of bitches out if they pull shenanigans."
This is a tempting argument that people come to when they describe government-run programs in democratic political systems, but it's ultimately flawed. None of us is very likely to, 2 to 6 years from now, vote against the politician who appointed the bureaucrat who appointed the bureaucrat who pulled shenanigans, based solely on that one, singular issue. It would take an irrational level of monomania and obsession to track down the elected official to hold responsible and vote against him with no consideration of who the opponent is, whether he would do any better of a job, or how the candidates would perform on any of dozens of other issues. All of this, of course, assumes that the district in question isn't gerrymandered to the point where any opposition of the incumbent is futile. Even without gerrymandering, I somehow need to convince half the voting public to vote against the guy for me to get his shenanigans out of my life!
Whereas in a free market, if Dell pulls shenanigans you can buy Lenovo next time, and it doesn't really matter what the rest of the voting public thinks about Dell's other product lines or how charismatic Michael Dell is on television, because you don't have to put up with his cheap laptops anymore, regardless of public opinion.
Health care is a heavily regulated market, not a free market. It's optimized for the profit of certain large firms. A socialized system might perform better, but a legitimate market system would likely perform better, too. It's not the free market that's failed, it's crony capitalism. Or, put another way, crony capitalism has succeeded in enriching the cronies, but failed at serving the consumer.
Hidden in all of the nonsense is the scary grain of truth. As healthcare becomes more socialized and less free market oriented, the government will have ever greater incentives to force whatever they think is healthy (at the time) on you in order to save a buck.
Its one thing for the government to warn you that transfats are unhealthy (even by forcing manufacturers to label products as such). Its quite another thing to decide that since they are paying for all or part of your healthcare, you no longer have the right to eat transfats and increase their costs.