The Moral Imperative of Getting Health Reform Right

Where’s a separation-of-church-and-state crowd Democrat when you need one?

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) recently appeared at an event designed to gin up support for congressional plans to further inject government into medicine. “Health care is a moral issue,” he said.

Strictly speaking, health care is no more of a moral issue than cell-phone service, small-appliance repair, or the growing and distribution of food, all items that are part of modern life.

Now I would agree that our public policies can be evaluated, in part, through a set of moral questions: Do they promote individual dignity and choice? Are they financially sustainable?

I would argue that our current approach falls short. It ties people to specific jobs (job lock), encourages wasteful spending and promotes political control over the lives of citizens.

So if Reid wants to argue that health care policies should in part be evaluated by their moral qualities, I’m in. But turning health care over to government (that is, what it doesn’t already control), isn’t exactly the morally admirable thing to do.

One wounded veteran who showed up outside the meeting to show his displeasure with Reid’s recommendations did a decent job of expressing some concerns: “Government health care, as evidenced by the VA, Medicare and Medicaid, is a financial and health care disaster. It is rationed care. There is no other way you can handle infinite demand. When the cost is zero, demand will be limitless.”

Is going down that path moral?

There are much better alternatives to the status quo than what’s being talked about these days.

Cross-posted from State House Call.