In the first two blog posts, I explored how abortion could, and likely would, be a part of the Obama healthcare plan and how illegal immigrants certainly would receive care.  Today, in the third of this three part series, I examine how rationing will be a part of any taxpayer supported “free” service.     

Obama Healthcare will be Rationed

            We live in a world of limited supply, so manmade products and most natural resources are rationed.  Most things of value are rationed by price however, available supply can be allocated by other means such as by quality, availability or a combination.  The reason most people buy more hamburger than filet mignon is the price.  Price serves as a means to ration available supply.  Currently health care is rationed by price.  If you have good insurance or enough cash, you receive world-class healthcare. 

           If Obama healthcare legislation passes, taxpayers will provide the funds for what will, at least initially, appear to be a “free” service.   Like all things that are of value, when price goes down demand goes up.  Urban hospital emergency rooms are essentially suppliers of “free” primary care and are therefore crowded. 

           If to the average American healthcare appears to be free, demand will rise and continue to do so until it exceeds supply.  Imagine what would happen if the Department of Agriculture provided free beef in grocery stores to all who were hungry.  What would happen to the per capita consumption in this country?  It would rise and continue to do so until either the distribution system became too expensive to continue or the quality would decline until people were again willing to pay for better beef. 

           Perhaps both the upward pressure on price and the downward pressure on quality would happen at the same time.  This is what has happened in public education.  Provided as a “free” service to all, schools are crowded with “customers” while quality declines.  Education, like anything of value, will be rationed.  Price will continue to skyrocket and quality will continue to fall while those that can afford it, such as President Obama, pay to send their children to better schools.

           Sarah Palin has been roundly criticized for her comments about death panels, but she correctly understands the final means of rationing.  President Obama has stated that he will not increase taxes on the vast majority of citizens to pay for a healthcare program that will cost a trillion dollars.  Further, he insists that the quality of the care will remain high.  Imagine again our free beef program.  If the government gives the meat away (free healthcare) the cost to taxpayers will skyrocket, but the president has said he will not raise taxes.  The quality of the care could be allowed to decline so that demand would fall, but the President has assured us that will not happen.  The only other means to control demand is to limit availability.  This would certainly mean long waiting periods for elective surgery.  The elderly are rightly afraid that in a healthcare system of limited supply, care would go to the young taxpayer, not the elderly social security recipient.  From a strictly bureaucratic point of view, the cost-benefit ratio would demand that the elderly receive only low cost care.   

           The price of insurance, co-pays and deductibles serve as a better means of rationing than soaring taxes, falling quality and denying care to the elderly.

The Bottom Line

           President Obama and most of his advisors are intelligent, capable people.  When analyzing a policy they consider situations and events like those I have outlined in these three blog posts.  They have foreseen these events, but they have done nothing to avoid them.  Indeed, they have blocked efforts to prevent them.  So, let me be clear.  When President Obama stands before you, waging his finger and declares that his healthcare plan will not mean rationing, will not cover illegal aliens or fund abortions, he is lying.