Speed Gibson

In Laurel and Hardy's "Thicker than Water" an auction house lures the boys in with the claim that "we are actually giving things away today." Actually, it was Mr. Hardy's idea, smugly informing Mr. Laurel: "At last we get something for nothing." Naturally, they wound up getting nothing for something.

Now we have State Senator and Gubernatorial hopeful Becky Lourey's plan for "universal" health care, her Minnesota Health Care Security Plan. Perhaps you heard her discuss this on the Patriot Insider, when she claimed that her plan did not include a tax increase. But just as our current Governor couldn't see a tax for the fees, Lourey thinks a legal requirement to do what she thinks you should be doing anyway isn't a tax either. Really? Don't pay it and see what happens.

Her plan is pure Marxism: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The consumers are completely cut off from the producers in terms of market feedback. If you work in health care, you will work "efficiently" for the common good. If you run a business, you will pay in for the common good, and if that's more than today, well you should have paying this all along for the common good. The common good? That everyone has unlimited access to health care, or at least the health care she thinks you should have.

Her program, if successful, will embody a number of firsts:

1. Government service that is more efficient than the private sector


2. Wage and Price controls that work, with no cheating


3. Corporations that pay taxes without passing them on to its individual customers, employees, and investors.


4. Providers that won't leave the state despite higher taxes, income limitation, and increased regulation


5. Rationing that doesn't diminish quality


6. Consumers that won't question why they can't have more of something that's free

It's all been tried before. It has never worked before. The real answers lie in less government, such as with Health Savings Accounts, not more government as Lourey proposes.