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Don’t Like the Tune? Try Paying the Piper Yourself

Jimmie | July 24, 2009 | Comments (0)

Have you ever heard the old saying “He who pays the piper calls the tune”? I heard it a lot when I was a kid and I’ve been reminded of it quite often when I hear the President talk about who’ll be making your health care decisions. In fact, I’ve thought about it so often, I hung my latest post at the AIP blog on it.

Did you notice how you, the actual health care consumer, got shoved way down to the bottom of the decision tree? The truth of the matter is that whoever pays the bills makes the decisions, not doctors or hospitals or you.

Let’s use the President’s tonsil example. What if you decide that, in the long term, your child will be better off if he has his tonsils removed? Could you take that decision under Obamacare? No, you couldn’t, because if tonsil surgery isn’t the board-recommended treatment for what ails your child, then it won’t happen. It may well be that both you and your doctor believe that a tonsillectomy is best in the long term, but the choice is not yours to make. You’ll get what the government decides it will pay for, and no more.

Please read the whole thing, and while you’re there, also take a look at Kim Priestap’s latest column on how bad central planning can turn out, even when really smart people run it and their motivations are nigh-angelic.