Imagine a 'Right' to Car Insurance

The major impetus behind health care reform is not economic--it is moral. The claim that health care is a moral right has motivated enormous government coercions against the medical industry. But this moral claim has blinded people to the fact that huge price increases have necessarily followed the growth of the coercions.

To understand why, it is instructive to consider what would happen if car insurance were considered to be a "right."

After the purchase of a home and the ordeal of major surgery, a car is most people's biggest financial risk. One mistake--or one bad driver--can harm dozens of people. We need insurance, so why should it not be considered a right?

Car insurance is provided by companies that manage their investments in order to absorb financial losses. If insurance is considered to be a "right," then someone must be force to provide it: either the companies, or the citizens through coercive taxation. Either way, the new "right" will be mandated through physical force, wielded by the state against those who are bound, by law, to provide it.

To enforce this new "right," the government must take money from some people and give it to others, without regard for the actual risk they pose. As huge amounts of money are pumped into insurance markets, demand increases, and prices rise. Government officials blame the companies, so they pass more controls, thus squeezing the supply. Prices rise further--the law of supply and demand cannot be thwarted.

People demand to be protected from greedy repair shops and auto manufacturers. So the companies undergo a ten-year approval process costing millions of dollars for new products. As lawsuits mount, courts enforce claims of strict liability against the companies--who pass the costs on. Price rises accelerate.

As people get used to a "right" to car insurance, they demand more coverage. Oil changes, brake jobs, torn seats and new tires become insurance matters. If insurance is a "right," then no one should be deprived of these goods because he cannot pay for them. Every visit to the repair shop--big or small, routine or emergency--now involves an insurance claim. Prices escalate.

Male drivers under 25 pay more because they are statistically higher risks--but they resent this inequality. So they assert their "right" to insurance at the same price as older, wiser drivers. Companies spread the costs out across the board--and as good drivers face higher premiums, they demand more coverage. Prices shoot up further.

By this point, no one asks what a repair job will actually cost--they ask only about their "co-pay." Customers have little incentive to keep costs down. Why bother to change the oil, if the insurance will give you a new engine?

As regulations increase, critics castigate companies who are unwilling to cover pre-existing conditions, such as a fender dented before the car was insured. As paperwork increases, repair shops that once had four mechanics and one secretary now have five secretaries, who spend their days filing claims. Prices rise further--until car insurance becomes a crushing burden.

By this point, the very idea that insurance should be used for catastrophic losses--not routine maintenance--has been lost. A chorus of calls for "reform" demands more government coercion to enforce the "right." Anyone who suggests reducing the controls is shouted down by those who blame the "free market" for rising costs. By this point, most people have forgotten what a free market is--or that they had no "right" to insurance before someone else produced it--or that there was a time when insurance was not so costly.

This is fiction, of course--but it directly mirrors what has happened in health care. After World War II, companies began to offer employee health insurance because government controls forbid them from paying higher wages. Twenty years later, the "Great Society" lavished billions on programs--and as prices rose, regulation against the producers multiplied. HMOs and a host of other schemes were tried.

Now, bucking under the weight of economic distortions and regulations, the law of supply and demand is wreaking vengeance on those least able to pay. Medicare and Social Security are approaching insolvency, insurance companies are forbidden from selling across state lines or from offering innovative health savings accounts, and the solution offered is--even more programs, with a price tag so large that it that cannot be grasped by the human mind.

To expand government programs is not "reform." It is an extension of sixty years of government interventions. The government now controls nearly fifty percent of all health care dollars--paid for by skyrocketing prices, taxes and borrowing. The correlation with history, and with the law of supply and demand, is precise and inescapable.

The primary cause of medical price increases is the government coercions. But the cause of the coercions is the idea that health care is a right. Until we understand that nothing is a "right" if others must be forced to provide it, we will continue to swallow the same poison, and we will reap even worse consequences in the future.

Comments

[creolechild]

If you are concerned about receiving "real" health care reform in this country, please take the time to watch a video on our current system. The video was created by Oregon physicians who are advocating for the single-payer option. The video is very informative and helped me to gain a better understanding of various aspect of health care, as we know now it.

https://www.madashelldoctorstour.com/Mad_as_Hell_Video.html

These Oregon physicians are in the process of organizing a caravan designed to inform the public about the benefits of the single-payer option. At last count they will be stopping in approximately 23 states, on their way to demonstrate in Washington. They need volunteers and our support. Please spread the word.

[gd h]

As a car insurance agent--have you ever heard of high-risk pools? Car insurance is MANDATED (unless you can afford to post a bond) and as a result, every risk is offered insurance, through state-run programs for the high risk customer. Perhaps nobody says it is a right. But it is certainly treated that way, as every risk is allowed the opportunity to purchase insurance. Therefore--a right.

[Lisa Polotan]

I wonder how many students voluntarily enroll in this professor's class.

It is a sad day when the human body[ and humans] have been equated
to a car. I can and have lived without a car for many years. Billions around
the world do. Not so without a reasonably functioning healthy body.

The dear Professor needs to go back to America's Bill of Rights and the UN Declaration
of Human Rights[ The Right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness] Or maybe something more basic like Philosophy 101, Logic . This is when a Degree camouflages as expertise but is nothing more than pushing a partisan agenda. Too bad for Duke U.
Thankfully, common folks can see through the BS with that simple device called, COMMON SENSE.

[billw8017]

Lewis is a little flip in blaming government for all the faults of society. Certainly, government deserves much of the blame, but that is because it responds to the wishes of business. Much regulation is designed to rescue business and restore its necessary reputation like the FDIC which saved banks. Other regulations were provoked by commercial excesses and may, in fact, be a bit off. So, when the government took over the railroads for WWI, part of what they did to restore railroad efficiency was to reconsider the laws that regulated the railroads.

Business can screw things up all by itself. The generous pensions exemplify this: Rather than raise wages, some companies chose to offer the generous pensions and push the costs down the line and into the future. As business influence was increased after Reagan, the government winked at companies raiding their pension funds until these were so depleted as to become insolvent as the companies became smaller companies and claims from the once larger work force came due.

[jayraye]

The Professors can philosofize all they want. Supporting American working people, or supporting Big Insurance, but in the end it doesn't really matter which side they take. Of couse we would rather have them with us, but we can win this fight without them. True today as in that day:

I had a letter from California...The boy who wrote the letter said. "Say, Mother Jones, will you bring your McAdoo Women with their brooms to sweep the scab professor when he comes?" You see the students are beginning to think.
Mother Jones
Indianapolis, Indiana
Jan 25, 1901

[lacklustrepanicky]

Do you have a Right to a trial by jury, without the Magna Carta? A consensus that something is definitely right or even seems right, probably means it should be considered a Right. I believe it's right and decent and humane and . . . moral (OMG) to preserve human life and health.
It is right. It's right. Now, repeat. Eventually, you'll realize that it is a capital R right, it is right not wrong, on a plane, on a train, It's right. Why would anyone ever put people's essential health and welfare on the same level as profit and loss. Every extra word spoken, written, read on this topic only further makes it an abstraction. Entitlement or right. Must or should. If homo sapiens have any essential drive or need it is to stay alive. If there ever was a primary, fundamental Right, it's to be alive and sustain life. We formed groups. Stayed in caves. Grasped death, buried and mourned. Villages, crops, housing, food, shelter, clothing. Traded goods, stories and myths. We question the origin, purpose and meaning of life; no thing could be more valuable.
And if not having access to common, proven medical treatment is going to mean that you may be diminished or die before your time when it is within our capability of preventing it, then what was the point of all that.
And if you can't to get to that, you've lost your way, you've lost your humanity and you are not right,

[nahani]

Opponents of health care reform and the health insurance industry claim that the public option is basically government interference in health care, that the government will be between you and your health care provider. How ironic: as it stands, it is my health insurance company that is between me and my doctor. And, unlike the government, my health insurance company is not accountable to any votes, just to their stinking shareholders. I can't wait for some real reform -- single payer -- and put these health insurance companies out of business. Yes, it will increase unemployment, and these unemployed people will lose their health care benefits; they can then go on the public option they so vigorously opposed. I'm looking forward to that.

[nahani]

I can live without a car. I can't live without my body.

[barttelt]

I think there is in fact a right to car insurance in most states.It is known as the assigned risk pool and insurers are required to accept a certain % of high risk drivers at higher rates.What say you???

[mheister]

Lewis entires ignores private market inefficiencies vs. gov't efficiencies. The overhead for Medicare runs at about three percent, whereas private sector health care insurance companies run overhead of 20 percent and up. The VA health care system, under which the hospitals and clinics are actually run directly by the government, is just as efficient.

So when he trash-talks government regulations on the health care industry, he has a point. Government should simply take it over, because we have demonstrated through both Medicare and the VA that the government can do a better job running health care at a lower price than the private sector.

[quiltinglady]

Your comparison doesn't make sense. No one is forcing you to own a car, but if you do, you need to have insurance. Case closed.
I'm assuming that if you think healthcare is a privilege, not a right, you probably have pretty good insurance. Well, good for you. Let 'em eat cake, right?
Anyone, even you, could lose your job and your insurance. Why don't you want some protection in place to enable you to get or keep your insurance?

[MsYellowDog]

This whole article stinks to high heaven of "Atlas Shrugged" individualism and Free Market Bulls---!How in the world did it get on HuffPost?

[LuckyCharmWA]

That's what I was wondering....

[Plurabelle06]

His argument doesn't hold up for several reasons:
1) We are forced by law to have car insurance, but since the government doesn't provide it, we have to pay whatever price a company charges us, and my insurance keeps going up despite the fact I have never had a ticket or been at fault in an accident in over 15 years. My brother was seriously injured in a car accident and it took the at fault driver's insurance (Progressive) over 4 years to pay the $50,000 in medical bills. It is the equivalent of free-market taxation, but when you need the policy to pay suddenly you are without representation. I do believe I have a "right" to coverage if I pay for it, and I don't see how insurance can function properly if it is a for profit business. The share holders' needs will always outweigh the needs of the insured.
2) What coercion is he referring to? Does he mean legislation? A few concrete examples would be nice and as a professor he should know how to write an opinion paper that is backed up with more than just his opinions.
A flawed analogy and a vague, poorly supported argument shouldn't have been allowed, editorial or not.

[Sinick]

One of the worst analogies I have ever heard and a complete waste of time.

Billions of humans around the world do not need an automobile in order to survive. But every single human being will require health care at one time or another during his or her lifetime-- even if it is only to extend a life for a bit longer or prevent them from dying an agonizing death.

Hence, equal opportunity for quality health care may not be a tangible right but it is the right thing to do. BTW professor, if you have the time and resources to theorize auto insurance as a right, what's your theory on tenure?

[Romulus]

I've read repeatedly that the US spends almost twice as much on healthcare as any other industrialized nation. Why isn't it the other way around if government mandated healthcare causes costs to increase?