Government healthcare

We can all agree that healthcare reform is needed. As currently constituted, the healthcare system is full of perverse incentives that drive up costs and penalize those most in need by denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

But the answer is not a government takeover of the healthcare system. This is precisely what the Obama administration’s healthcare proposal would accomplish. By forcing all Americans to buy health insurance while unfairly regulating private plans, the public option would drive private insurers from the market and eventually bring a government takeover of the healthcare system.

Does anyone trust the government to run an industry that is equivalent to one-sixth of American gross domestic product? Look at the way the government has mismanaged Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid systems; even the Post Office. Do you really trust the government to manage the most important decisions in your lives?

If the history of this country tells us anything, it is that a real free market system is far more efficient than federal bureaucracy. The great flaw in the public option is that it trusts the government to micromanage the entire healthcare system. This is not a financially sustainable solution. We cannot create yet another expensive new entitlement program that will saddle our children and grandchildren with more debt.

A lot about the current healthcare system needs to be fixed. But the answer is not empowering the federal government to take over the healthcare market. The entire history of our free market system tells us that the public option is a financially disastrous idea.


Williams can be heard nightly on Sirius/XM Power 169 from 9 to 10 p.m. EST.

Visit www.armstrongwilliams.com .