Healthcare Reform Myth # 3 – Rationing is both bad and avoidable:

Show me someone that genuinely believes this country has the economic capacity to provide every citizen with unlimited access to whatever healthcare services they desire and I’ll show you someone who is too stupid to have the vote. News flash – we already have rationing. It’s called access to care and the basic problem is that right now it isn’t very “rational”.

Here’s one for you. There is only one available kidney and two potential recipients – a 16 year old female and a 75 year old male – who should get the kidney? Welcome to healthcare rationing. By the way, if you answered “the one that can afford it” your moral compass badly needs a reset. The bottom line is that we already ration all goods and services. In a free enterprise system the default rationing mechanism is the pricing model. Nothing wrong with that except that in a "civilized society" we don't let our citizens starve because they can't afford food. We don't let them die of exposure because they can't afford shelter. We don't let the children of the less fortunate go without an education...and we don't let our citizens die on the streets.

Here's what we don't do. We don't provide the hungry with steak every night and we don't provide the homeless with feather beds and five bedroom mansions to live in. Nor (unfortunately) do we provide the children of the less fortunate with world class educations - but that's another rant.

So here we have it. I think all would agree that everybody is entitled to some basic level of care regardless of their ability to pay for it. Put it this way, it's already mandated (unfunded) by the EMTALA legislation so it doesn't matter if you don't agree with that - it's already a done deal. What we refuse to address - or at least the ratbag right refuses to address - is that we can't afford to provide all of our citizens with unlimited healthcare services. That means rationing and anybody who doesn't recognize that reality has their head up their ass. The only question is what rationing mechanism do we as a society choose.