IBD on health care reform: "Don’t believe a word of it"

Investor’s Business Daily goes against the grain on health care reform:

But is [health care] really a crisis in desperate need of a government solution? The short answer: No.

Unless, of course, you also think that we have a recreation crisis, or a fitness club crisis, or a computer crisis. After all, spending on these and other things went up just as fast, if not faster, than spending on health care. Recreation spending, for example, was up 386% between 1984 and 2004. Spending on health clubs was up more than 300%; spending on computers rocketed 1,600%.

Just because spending on health care is going up at a fast pace in the U.S. isn’t necessarily a sign that something is wrong. More likely it is a sign that we are a wealthy nation that, by and large, has taken care of the essentials of life. As a result, we can afford to spend a bigger chunk of each extra dollar we make on former luxuries, like better vacations, a new laptop and gold-plated health care . . .

. . . When insurance companies or governments pay 83% of the health care tab, is it any wonder that consumer demand for health care rises?

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