The Coming Medical Brown-Out
I’m sure that a lot of people remember the rolling brownouts in California a few years ago. While blame can be placed at the feet of any number of characters, one of the undeniable villains is not a person or entity, but a law of economics. To wit: You can control the price of a good or service, or the quantity produced. You cannot control both.
California discovered just how iron-clad that principle was as it tried to overcome nature with legislation. The so called “reform” froze the price of electricity without regard to the cost of production. And, as demand rose and the state began paying premium rates to purchase energy from the grid, energy priced much higher than the California set point, the cash reserves quickly depleted and imposed rationing was the order of the day. In this case, the rationing was imposed in the form of brownouts, controlled periods of power restriction for designated areas.
Once again, we are poised to repeat the California experiment. This time, the service involved is not electricity, but medical care. And the “reform” will not be limited to California, but spread to the entire nation.
If the health care legislation passes in its current form, or any form that prevents limits in covered expenses, excluding existing conditions, or raising rates as needed, we will soon find ourselves in the same condition as California. The government will have “fixed the price” of the service, but they will be powerless to control how much is produced. There will be no magic fountain of drugs, no sudden influx of doctors and nurses to cover the new enrollees. When money is no longer the limiting factor, rest assured that there will still be a limiting factor. The factor is time. Gone will be the days when it was ever said “Come back when you can pay.” Then it will be “Come back tomorrow. Come back next week. Come back when we can get to you.”
Come back when it’s too late.
