BTP always gives more leeway to columnists, after all, good newspapers will present strong opinions from a wide range of perspectives. But where the hell does Kathleen Parker get off telling readers in reference to President Obama's health care plan that Americans: "aren't quite ready to surrender self-determination?" What self-determination will Americans lose with the health care plan? They will get an option to buy into a public health insurance plan. That is one more option. In other words, Americans will have their current level of self-determination in reference to health care, and will also have the option to buy into a public plan. That is more choice, not less. Ms. Parker's comment is simply a non-sequitur; sort of like if someone wrote, they were opposed to ending the estate tax or extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy because Americans aren't quite ready to surrender self-determination. We haven't seen those lines in the Post yet for some reason. It's also worth noting in the context of Ms. Parker's piece that the current health care system is very far from a free market system. We pay $250 billion a year for drugs that would sell in a free market for about $25 billion a year because the government gives drug companies patent monopolies. Patent monopolies are also the reason that expensive diagnostic tests are expensive. In addition, our doctors get paid about twice as much as doctors in West Europe and Canada, even though most of the rest of us get paid less than our counterparts, because the United States has protectionist barriers that limit the number of qualified foreign doctors who can practice medicine in the United States. In other words, Ms. Parker may have missed it, but the current health care system has about as much to do with a free market as the Soviet Union. Maybe the Post can find some better informed columnists before it folds.
--Dean Baker
