clancy12 said:
It is true that Medicare and Medicaid are hemorrhaging money, (or will be soon), but Social Security is not. The problem with medicare and medicaid is related to the costs of health care, the cost of which is fast outstripping inflation. In addition, the costs of medicaid and medicare are so high because they cover a disproportionately sicker and older segment of the population-- I don't believe that private insurers would do any better with this population. We need to be discussing how to bring down health care costs. Solutions such as vouchers to purchase private insurance do no such thing.
In addition, I would like to remind those that fret about our "entitlement culture" that these programs are paid for with payroll taxes rather which are actually quite regressive-- not progressive.
As Gramarye points out things such as section 8 are not budget busters. Attack them, and you'll do little to reduce our deficit.
Social Security's long-term red ink is serious, even if it hasn't started piling up beyond repair just yet. I did take care to contrast it with the medium-term picture of Medicare, however. I know Medicare is in much more serious shape.
As for bringing down the costs of health care, I think that vouchers or some other kind of defined-expenditure plan are going to have to be part of that conversation. The alternative is direct price controls, which will be far more onerous, even more politically explosive, and more economically distorting. That is not to say that I think that vouchers are a complete solution, and I would also be in favor of other reforms such as reductions in the length of patent protection (healthcare is an IP-heavy field) and deregulation of the pharmaceutical industry (healthcare also deals with some of the most financially burdensome regulatory environments of any industry).
The bottom line: socialization of the costs does not reduce the costs. Someone is still paying them. It might reduce the direct burden on particularly needy individuals, but that actually increases costs; it does not reduce them. As long as it is considered only a fringe-libertarian statement to say that those who cannot pay for care should not receive care, the costs of healthcare will continue to skyrocket. Providers have almost no incentive to reduce costs when they know that someone will pay for the costs of whatever treatments they provide, because it is considered socially taboo to even contemplate denying them.
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