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HSIEH: Free market reforms healthier than Amendment 56

By Paul Hsieh, MD, Special to the Rocky

Published September 19, 2008 at 12:01 a.m.

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This fall, Colorado voters must decide whether to require all businesses with more than 20 employees to provide health insurance for their employees (Amendment 56). Although voters may be tempted to say "yes," this is an immoral and impractical solution to the problem of rising health insurance costs.

It is morally wrong because it violates the rights of employers and employees to negotiate to their mutual self-interest in a free market.

Businessmen create jobs through rational thought and hard work. Consequently, they have the moral right to decide on what terms to offer those jobs to prospective employees, including specific wages and benefits.

Similarly, workers have the right to negotiate for any specific wages and benefits they desire, and the right to reject job offers that don’t meet their criteria. But they have no right to demand a specific salary or benefit from employers (such as health insurance) via government force.

Two motivations behind this proposed law are (1) the mistaken notion that health care should be a guaranteed “right," and (2) the desire to force businesses (rather than government) to pay for this supposed obligation. But health care is a need, not a right. A right is a freedom of action in a social context, such as the freedom of speech.

It is not an automatic claim on a good or service that must be produced by someone else. There is no such thing as a “right” to a car or an appendectomy. Any attempt by the government to guarantee a false “right” to health care can only be done by violating the actual rights of someone — in this case, business owners.

Forcing businesses to provide health insurance to employees will also cause serious economic harm to Colorado. Such a law would cause many businesses to fire workers, outsource jobs, or cancel plans to hire new workers. This will disproportionately harm unskilled workers and those at the lower end of the income scale — the very people the measure is intended to help.

According to Howard Roerig, owner of Seale & Associates, Inc. in Centennial, “This measure will have a chilling effect on all small businessmen. Although I don’t have 20 employees at present, I would make certain never to hire that 20th person. The costs would be so high that I would be better off starting another firm in a different state, and letting it do business in Colorado as an out-of-state firm.

"I would have to find some means of skirting this measure or else close my doors."

Other states such as California have driven away many businesses and jobs due to high taxes and heavy regulations. Colorado must not repeat these mistakes.

To “solve” the problem of high insurance costs by foisting those costs onto businesses would be just as wrong as “solving” the problem of rising gasoline prices by forcing businesses to pay their workers’ gasoline expenses.

Our current high health care costs have been caused by decades of government interference in the free market. Hence, the proper solution is not more government regulations, but instead free market reforms that addressed the problems caused by prior government controls.

Some examples of free market reforms include allowing Coloradans to purchase health insurance across state lines and eliminating mandatory insurance benefits. Patients should be allowed to purchase Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for small routine expenses and insurers should be allowed to sell low-cost catastrophic-only policies to cover rare but expensive events. These measures could greatly reduce insurance prices and allow patients to purchase from the best offerings of all 50 states, thus making insurance available to thousands of Coloradans who want to purchase it but currently cannot afford it. Furthermore, the state legislature could adopt these reforms without permission from the federal government.

If Coloradans want to address the problem of high health insurance costs, they should reject the Amendment 56 and instead demand free market reforms. This is right for employers, right for employees, and right for Colorado.

Paul Hsieh, MD, of Sedalia is co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM).

Comments

  • September 19, 2008

    6:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    Union Ritter and his immoral Unions lead this effort.

  • September 19, 2008

    8:18 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    roger44 writes:

    Can't put all employers in the same category, but an outfit I worked for changed insurance agents, employee costs went up, found out later the agent was good buddy of employer, went to the same church. nice of those Christians to make their friends bottom line a little better. all 3 owners bought new vehicles, One spent $100,000 for surrogate Mom, related expenses, wants kids but don't like girls. Always excuses as to why they can't pay more in wages and benefits.

  • September 19, 2008

    9:23 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    BrianSchwartz writes:

    Excellent article, Paul. Dr. Hsieh blogs about health care policy at Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine:
    http://westandfirm.org/blog/

    To see how Colorado Amendment 56 would destroy jobs for the poor, minorities, and single moms, see:
    http://www.patientpowernow.org/2008/0...

  • September 19, 2008

    10:15 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    gidreich writes:

    Dr. Hsieh makes the important point that is usually lost in health care discussions. Health care is not a right. Rights do not pertain to objects or services that others need to provide you with; as Dr. Hsieh correctly states a right is "a freedom of action in a social context." It is immoral to use government to force employers to provide health insurance for their employees. If people wish to make health insurance more affordable government intervention in health care needs to be removed, not increased. Dr. Hsieh's suggestions of "allowing Coloradans to purchase health insurance across state lines and eliminating mandatory insurance benefits" are excellent suggestions in that direction.

  • September 19, 2008

    11:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    paralyzedvet1971 writes:

    Who does this Hsieh guy think he is? I bet HE has health insurence. What's immoral is letting people get sick and die while their bosses turn a profit off them. It's not right. Our health matters.

  • September 19, 2008

    4:27 p.m.

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    jbowen43 writes:

    The free market has been a failure at providing health care so far. We need Medicare for ALL.
    HSAs are Wall Streets way to get your money and provide nothing in return.

  • September 19, 2008

    7:38 p.m.

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    mmannino writes:

    No one is denied health care. The issue is payment not service.

    Socialized medicine (Medicare for all) will decrease health care availability, not increase availability. Demand for health care will substantially increase because it becomes a free good for a large part of the population. We will have price controls and rationing of health care services. Unless you can compel private individuals and organizations to provide health care, you will get less health care. Every country with socialized medicine has less health care, not more. The elderly should fear socialized medicine. Rationing is most heavy for the elderly because they have shorter life expectancies and less value than the young for scarce health care services. Those advocating socialized medicine should have the honesty to acknowledge that price controls and rationing will occur. Some may feel better because they no longer need to worry about paying for health care. These feelings will come at a steep price with price controls and rationing.

  • September 19, 2008

    8:14 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    seeingeyeseesall writes:

    God God, why would we want socialized medicine for all when we just socialized TRILLIONS of dollars of losses by big investment banking firms, the principles of which made billions personally accruing and will pass down to their families for generations now that YOU took over their bad debt?

    Welcome to Chinamerica, now shut up and get to work, somebody's got to pay these new national debts you owe without any benefit of due process and ... it's you.

  • September 20, 2008

    12:03 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ksells writes:

    "It is morally wrong because it violates the rights of employers and employees to negotiate to their mutual self-interest in a free market."

    I have to say I never thought I'd see the RMN advocating unions. In the same year that the RMN supports destroying unions by not allowing them to collect union dues by automatic paycheck contributions and refusing to allow employees who do not belong to the union to reimburse them for the costs of union representation.

    But the RMN is the paper that has said for the last eight years that McCain was incompetent to lead the country. And now he's the best thing since sliced bread.

    I'm looking forward to the Pravda Mountain News to explain how the Republican administration spending 500 billion dollars in a week of our income to bail out rich people is in my best interest.

    Without a vote from congress.

  • September 20, 2008

    10:12 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    bpartoens writes:

    Dear mmannino, Where did you get the fact that every country that has socialized (do you mean single payer system?), has less health care? Have you ever lived in or worked in a country that has single payer system? I have. I am even in the process of moving back to that country(I am a dual national). I had surgery(even emergency), was able to make dr. appointments to receive care within 6 hours, and had a dr. make house calls when I was too ill to visit the office. I have family and friends still living there and I visited several months ago, and saw a dr., without an appointment,immediately. No, he was not a general practioner, he was a specialist (a phd and md who also works at John Hopkins, so he is not a light weight in the medical field). We have schools,police and fireprotection that we all pay for and we all benefit from, and we do not refer to them as Socialized Schools, Socialized Police etc..... The best technology in medicine does not translate to the best health care other wise we would not have such a high infant mortality rate etc...The health insurance industry does not allow dr.s and patients to make decisions for their health care. It is rationed by an industry that can only make money by denying access to not providing health care. One third of what Americans pay for health care goes for administration of this failed system. It is simple, maximize profits, minimize payouts. Many of our large companies are not turning profits in this country because the large burden that paying for health care coverage for their workers intails. The California Nurses Association backs a single payer system and they are on the frontlines of this battle. I have heard the arguement that if our system is so bad, why do illegals cross the border to get here? Wow, we are better than Mexico. I feel better. It is because we are better than Mexico and we have pourous borders! I am curious how you came up with your opinion because mine is from experience. If you need to understand the facts even more, Mr. Kucinich and his wife have tutorials on You tube that can spell out the details of the benefits of a single payer system such as HR 676. The California Nurses association also does an excellent job of explaining the personal and economic benefits of a single payer system for the USA (except for the Insurance CEO's who make over $100's of millions of dollars per year and then some even get greedy and back date stock options because it's hard to live on $300 million per year).

  • September 21, 2008

    8:55 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ingemarson writes:

    Kudos to Dr. Hsieh for pointing out the immorality of socialized medicine. Just because someone needs health care doesn't give him a right to it. Instead of imposing more rules and regulations we should remove the existing roadblocks of mandatory coverage and let insurance companies and health care providers compete for the uninsured. There's a big market for low-cost, limited coverage insurance out there, but our politicians have blocked all access to it. Let's make it available. That is the true moral solution.

    Anders Ingemarson
    Centennial, CO