Dave Schuler says he’s not particularly surprised to learn that the majority of Americans want universal (read: free) health care.

Frankly, I’m stunned but perhaps I shouldn’t be. Within the American ethos is the notion that low-cost is good but free is even better. Curiously, when it comes down to either side’s political arguments for universal health care, both the left and the right continue to presume that free care is a good thing.

I know that most economists on the left side of the aisle continue to believe that the key problem with our healthcare system is “adverse selection” i.e. they believe that the main source of increasing is is that insurance administration costs are rising because of the lengths to which insurance companies are willing to go to avoid covering the highest-risk people. That’s why they favor going to a single-payer approach in which the government becomes the only insurer. Economists on the right side of the aisle tend to believe that the problem with our healthcare system is “moral hazard” i.e. that people with government- or employer-provided health insurance have little reason to be thrifty in their healthcare choices.

Frankly, whether it’s the left or the right, the arguments in favor of government-sponsored health care are short-sighted and dangerous. Witness, for instance, the case of the overweight boy in England whom Social Services wanted to remove from his parents’ care.

• This boy was not being sexually molested.
• This boy was not being exposed to illegal drugs or activities.
• This boy was not being physically beaten, forced to sleep in a cage, shut in a closet or made to sleep among animal feces.

This boy was loved. He had a good home. He was safe and his educational needs were well met. Sure, perhaps Mummy should not have brought sweets and fattening foods into the house once it became apparent the boy had gained too much weight. But, nevertheless, the boy had a mother who actually bought him food rather than spending it, say, on a drug or alcohol addiction. It wasn’t like his mother was forcing him to eat those things, either:

“He’ll hover around the kitchen for food. He’ll continually go in the fridge,” McKeown said of her son. “I just keep telling him to get out of the fridge, wait until meal times and stuff. But at the end of the day, he was born hungry. He has always been hungry.”

“Bacon. Mmmm… That’s my favorite. Um … chicken , steak, sausage,” the boy told the camera [for SkyTV, which filmed a day in the boy's life].

The case was not about an adult inflicting abuse on the child, nor was it even remotely about an adult actively neglecting a child. The case was about whether the effect of the child’s own choices and actions should be sufficient grounds to remove him from the care of a parent

So why did the boy’s weight in and of itself trigger Social Services’ inquiry into whether he should be removed from his parents care? Because in a land where the government pays for health care, the government has the power to not only define ‘good health’ but to legally enforce compliance with good health practices.

Think I’m exaggerating? Think it couldn’t happen here? Think again. Think about our new “war on childhood obesity” and the rationale behind it:

“Childhood obesity is a costly problem for the country,” Bush said before starting the private meeting [with food manufacturers like McDonald’s and Kraft[, which also included first lady Laura Bush. “We believe it is necessary to come up with a coherent strategy to help folks all throughout our country cope with the issue.”

Now think about the USDA’s Food Pyramid, the CDC’s recommendations as to physical activity, and recent states’ legislation banning trans fats.

Then think about the government not merely making recommendations and pronouncements, but also having the authority — by virtue of paying for everyone’s health care — to control health care costs. How do you think they’d do just that? Why, by the same measures that England’s adopted: intruding even more into our personal lives.

And at that point we just might get that there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

UPDATE: Still think it’s far-fetched? Then read about how schools are now putting a child’s Body Mass Index (BMI) on their report cards. Envisioning an amendment to the No Child Left Behind to tie school funding in with a school’s average BMI per student really isn’t that big of a stretch.

Friday, March 2nd, 2007, 2:22 pm   |   Food Bites, Politics Bite  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.