Another Example of "Reduced Rationing on the Basis of Price and Ability to Pay"
Previously, I used 1970s gas price lines as an example of a situation where the government, as Uwe Reinhardt puts it, "reduce[d] rationing on the basis of price and ability to pay."
Here is another example: The Pruitt Igoe housing project in St. Louis, which was abused so badly by its occupants it had to be torn down less than 20 years after it was built.
I will remind you of my earlier comparison of universal health care to public housing:
Lyndon Johnson wants to embark on a futile attempt to try to provide public housing to the poor? Our taxes go up, a lot of really bad housing is built, but at least my housing did not get any worse. Ditto food programs "” the poor might get some moldy cheese from a warehouse, but my food did not get worse. Ditto welfare. Ditto social security, unemployment insurance,and work programs.
But health care is different. The author above is probably correct that some crappy level of terribly run state health care will probably be an improvement for some of the poor. But what is different about many of the health care proposals on the table is that everyone, not just the poor, will get this same crappy level of treatment. It would be like a public housing program where everyone's house is torn down and every single person must move into public housing. That is universal state-run health care. Ten percent of America gets pulled up, 90% of America gets pulled down, possibly way down.
