Health reform: The Road to Serfdom?

Could health reform lead to tyranny? Before you blow off this post as alarmist, please carefully consider the following news:

Humana is a health insurance company, which of course has a vested interest in health reform. Their executives believe this reform would damage their ability to provide quality, affordable insurance. In particular, they offer private insurance for seniors that adds on to Medicare (called Medicare Advantage), and current legislation will definitely alter how Medicare Advantage operates. So they sent a mailer to their customers explaining what they see as the pitfalls of current proposals.

Then the Obama Administration (via the Department of Health and Human Services) sends them a letter warning them to stop. They aren't allowed to exercise free speech, spreading lies and misinformation. Read about it yourself from the Associated Press, as well as analysis from David Henderson. The latter includes links to the actual Humana mailer and the HHS menacing letter. I'm sorry, but even if Humana was sending mailers that were flat-out wrong, they have every right to do so.

And frankly, the effect on Medicare is not clear cut (a topic I intend to address in the near future). Obama's official line is "Medicare will not change a bit;" yet he plans to pay for at least a third of his plan by improving efficiency (i.e. cutting costs) in Medicare and Medicaid! To pretend that the White House stance is the only gospel truth is laughable.

But what really frightens me here is the tactic: silencing dissent. I'd like to believe that it couldn't happen here; but this follows a very clear pattern identified over half a century ago by F.A. Hayek. This Nobel Prize winner noted that economic liberty was inextricably linked with political liberty. Once a government takes over one, it will inevitably take over the other as well. This was the subject of his book The Road To Serfdom. If you read only one book in the next year, this ought to be it. It is downright creepy how applicable it is today. In the meantime, here's a brief synopsis in cartoon form.

One important point of Hayek was to dispel the notion of Communism and Fascism being opposite extremes of the political spectrum. In the end, both were on the same side: authoritarian control. Sure, the Soviets claimed to wield power in the name of equality, while the Nazis claimed to do so to restore national greatness. But in the end, both governments proceeded by seizing economic production and destroying political freedom. Not coincidentally, the worst type of maniacs sought power in such a regime, resulting in millions dead in both cases.

The fact is that liberty can't be confined just to one area of life. If we are free to speak our minds, some of us will advocate freedom to choose our own health insurance. Thus, if a president intends to control our health care ("for our own good"), he will quickly find that he must control our speech, our exercise habits, our reading material, our occupations, etc. to reach that goal. Once you open the door to control, the unopposed government will eventually seize every liberty. The genius of constitutional government (an experiment first attempted by the United States) was to limit government power through checks and balances to prevent such a grab. But make no mistake: it can happen here, if we citizens trade in our liberty for supposed security.

As a side note, this Humana incident also reveals serious flaws in the "public-private partnership" model that has been used for Medicare D (where the government sets up a program for prescription drug insurance, but has private companies compete to implement it) and is likely part of any Democrat reform. What happens if the private sector wants to point out flaws in the government system? You would essentially be biting the hand that feeds you. The regulators can stifle dissent and intimidate critics by threatening to cut you off. HHS will conveniently realize that your company failed to follow some inane regulation, and disqualify your insurance from qualifying.

It appears Humana realizes this; they have already stopped the mailings, rather than screaming censorship from every rooftop. They clearly heard the message: "Shut up and get back in line, before we march you to the wall!"

Whatever your complaints about American health care, this can't be good for us. I want to see improvement in health insurance, but not at the cost of freedom of speech. This incident is the strongest argument yet for keeping government intervention at a minimum, and particularly against any sort of public option. I have previously said that the government will not compete with the private market; they will control, manipulate, and probably destroy their "competitors." Now, they've provided a preview of coming attractions.