The Pelosi-Obama health care plan is the worst health care prescription this country could ever take.   The essence of the plan rests upon three horrible concepts: price controls, coercion and cynical bribes offered to certain portions of the healthcare industry to buy their support.

Does Congress display ignorance of basic economics?

Basic economics teaches us that price controls will always result in less supply of the affected good or service.  Artificially-lowered prices always create a situation where government commands multitudes of people to do something that they would only do if forced, which is sell their labor or goods for less than they are worth.  This results in the coercive power of the government being used against more and more citizens to get them to do what they do not want to do, and for less and less reward.  

Of course, people are never coerced without consequences.  What inevitably happens is that those made to work for less pay eventually decide to just work less,  and to work less efficiently.  In other words they rebel.  They either “play the game” by shuffling around doing as little as possible, or they leave the business.  Either way, if this Pelosi-Obama bill becomes law, we will see a reduction in the number of health care workers and their efficiency and quality of their work.   Many of the most brilliant would-be doctors will not even consider medicine and will look for other careers and lives that are not controlled by gray bureaucrats intent on satisfying the pressure groups they are indebted to for re-election.

Not only will health care workers ultimately have their salaries determined by a corrupt political process under the Pelosi –Obama plan, but health care consumers will have their care rationed by the same corrupt political process we witness every day in the news about congressional shenanigans.  The end result will be a very dispirited health care industry, and the standard of care provided to Americans will regress decades.  Americans will get less health care  - and at a high price in personal freedom.

Who really wins with health care "reform"?

In order to win enough votes to pass this unconstitutional scheme, Ms. Pelosi is offering billions of dollars of special bribes in the form of favored economic treatment to certain very powerful groups, Physicians and Pharmaceutical Companies.   These groups are being sold to the corrupt political wolves for a pittance by their industry leaders.  These industry “leaders" might get their group a temporary benefit, but any benefits will be ultimately negated by the weight of the future government yoke they will shoulder in return.

However, this is great for government and those interested in growing it.  If the health care bill the House recently passed becomes law, government will grow and private industry will suffer.  We may even see shock waves in the health care industry long before the law takes effect in 2013, as investors react to the "regime uncertainty" that greater government control of health care will cause.  If the laws of economics are ignored by an arrogant Congress, fears that this bill will create a public outcry for full-blown socialized medicine may come true if government intervention destabilizes the private health care industry.  Call it a universal "public option," minus the "option" part.

Can health care be fixed?

The only solution to the problems in health care is to allow price competition to flourish once again.  In order for this to be possible, politicians and Americans in general must accept at  least three facts: health care is a good, not a "right"; any current crises exist only because the government has so ineptly interfered with a free market in medicine for many decades; and the market is the best agent to fix health care, not government, for all government solutions are political solutions, and therefore subject to influences that have re-election as the primary concern - not the people.

Where a free market is allowed to exist in medical care the price inevitably comes down precipitously.  The obvious example is the price of eye surgery to correct vision problems.  This surgery is rarely covered by private insurance plans or government programs.  The result has been a price war between providers who have lowered the price to such an extent that it is available to almost every one for a reasonable price.  This could happen in every part of the health care industry if it is allowed to happen. 

But when the government fixes prices, there can be no price competition in the market place and prices don not go down because there is no incentive to innovate and be more efficient.   Price floors keep affected products or services beyond the budget of many people, and price ceilings artificially increase demand, in turn creating shortages and, inevitably, higher costs to producers.  It should be obvious that government health care is a prescription for higher costs on society, less health care availability and the end of innovation in medicine. 

Could Congress be a threat to our health?

Health care innovation is destined to suffer under the Pelosi-Obama plan because companies in the health care industry will make less profit, and have more restrictions on how they can use their profits.  Since we can't predict today all the future inventions and innovations health care related companies may want to invest their profits in, we will never know exactly all the benefits to our health and our lives government interference will force us to live without.  Government inefficiency will kill any other progress that might make Americans' lives healthier, happier and longer.

Unfortunately, there may be no solution but to elect leaders who can see through Pelosi’s corrupt charade and to replace this Congress that is putting our lives at risk.