"Therefore, if demand for health care services increases—which is Obama's point in extending health insurance—prices must go up. But somehow Obama also promises, "I won't sign a bill that doesn't reduce health care inflation."Obviously, I've been saying this repeatedly. It's shocking to me how people don't realize that reality dictates what options we have. We don't get to magically eat the cake and still have the cake.
This is magical thinking. Obama, talented as he is, can't repeal the laws of supply and demand. Costs are real. If they are incurred, someone has to pay them. But as economist Thomas Sowell points out, politicians can control costs—by refusing to pay for the services.
It's called rationing.
Advocates of nationalization hate that word because it forces them to face an ugly truth. If government pays for more people's health care and wants to control costs, it must limit what we buy.
So much for Obama's promise not to interfere with our freedom of choice."
In my regular discussions & debates with proponents of ObamaCare, there seems to be a willful ignorance on the meaning of the word "ration". To be fair, economists really need to strike the term "price rationing" from their lexicon as it not remotely similar to the way most people conceive of the term "ration" and obsfuscates the difference between actual rationing - where a central & monopolistic authority controls the supply of a good and aribtrarily apportions allotments to a population - and price allocation. But boy, oh boy to liberals get hysterical about the term. I suppose I should be amused, but to be hysterical over something you're completely ignorant of is always more obnoxious and embarrassing I think.
Anyway... the basic laws of supply & demand are going to win this and every other round. Until politicians can stop meddling and let free enterprise do it's job as unparalleled mass-producer, we will see nothing but the continued increase in cost as more and more people chase after fewer & fewer resources.
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