Sick or Not, You’re Going

Cato’s David Boaz makes a strong point about just how scary John Edwards’ health-care plan is:

John Edwards says that his universal health care plan will be mandatory not just for taxpayers and doctors, but for patients: You will get preventive care, and you will like it:

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat “the first trace of problem.”

As Jon Henke notes, Edwards also proclaims that “the right to choose and the right to privacy are fundamental constitutional rights.” But apparently abortion is the only thing you have a constitutional right to choose. You have no fundamental right to choose not to get a mammogram. Or any other kind of preventive care. Shades of This Perfect Day and Brave New World.

This is, of course, a fundamental problem with socialism, or with socialization of the cost of anything. Edwards sincerely believes, with good reason, that preventive care helps to reduce costs by catching problems early and helping people stay healthy. (Though he may not be right about that.) But why is my health care budget his concern? Because he plans to socialize the costs of health care. So indeed, if I fail to take care of myself, I’m imposing costs on the collective. And as the collectivist-in-chief, Edwards wants to treat me as a national resource, not as a free adult individual.
To which Michael Tanner adds:

As if John Edwards proposal for mandatory preventive care wasn’t proof enough that national health care means less freedom, the Tories have now proposed that the UK’s National Health Service monitor Britons to ensure they are living “healthy lifestyles.” Those who don’t measure up could be denied treatment under the NHS (which could be a blessing in disguise). Those who lose weight, give up smoking, and make other healthy changes can have the government pay for their gym memberships and even buy them fresh fruit and vegetables.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with preventative care, and those who wish to stay healthy would probably be wise to seek it in some form or another.  But just because something can be good doesn’t mean it ought to be mandated.

And as far as Edwards’ idea that everyone ought to be lined up and sent to the check-up room, like it or not, well, I’m not sure if it’s crazy, laughable, or terrifying.  Really–are we actually thinking that we’ll have a Med Squad running round door-to-door, hauling off people to their yearly physicals?

If someone doesn’t want to go to the doctor, they’re not going to go, and I have a hard time believing that any politicians is really going to go through the necessary steps to force anyone to do so.  We’ve already seen this problem with RomneyCare in Massachusetts; you can stack mandates on top of mandates, but it’s pretty tough to actually get people to comply with them if they don’t want to.

On the other hand, maybe Edwards really is serious about forcing people into the doctor’s office lobby — and in that case, the proposal is just frightening.

And even if the mandate did work, and everyone just lined up for their check ups as required, wouldn’t that end up wasting huge amounts of time on unnecessary check-ups for healthy people?  If you want to bring health-care costs down, adding that sort of inefficiency to the process sure doesn’t sound like the way to do it.