Michael F. Cannon describes the universal health care plan passed yesterday by the California State Assembly as
a package of health care reforms that would further kneecap the taxpayers, march them down to Death Valley, and bury them up to their necks to be eaten alive by special-interest fire ants. But perhaps I understate.
Perhaps. Strangely enough, though, in his post Cannon links to something called the "Anti-Universal Coverage Club Manifesto," which includes the following plank:
If governments must subsidize those who cannot afford medical care, they should be free to experiment with different types of subsidies (cash, vouchers, insurance, public clinics & hospitals, uncompensated care payments, etc.) and tax exemptions, rather than be forced by a policy of “universal coverage” to subsidize people via “insurance."
This seems to me to be exactly what the Schwarzenegger plan does: combine a variety of creative, market-friendly ways to make sure poor and sick Californians can get coverage. I can't say I'm surprised Cato doesn't like it, though. The conservative health care strategy works like this: endorse subsidies in theory, since it would seem unacceptably heartless to simply say that people who can't afford medical care shouldn't get it. Then, whenever anybody proposes a plan to actually implement subsidies, vehemently oppose it without offering any alternative plan to expand coverage. (Which is what California Republicans are doing.) In other words, let states experiment--except when they actually do.
--Josh Patashnik
(Photo: Getty Images)