Fixing Health Care the Ownership Way

A few years ago there was a very sound op-ed on Bush's ownership society agenda at the Pittsbugh Tribune-review's website. Here's a taste:

During a campaign stop in West Palm Beach, President George W. Bush wasted no words in explaining his vision of an ownership society: "No one ever washes a rental car. When you own something, you care about it." ... As with the privatization of retirement, Mr. Bush is expected to push the idea of health savings accounts as a way to expand individual ownership of health insurance through tax-free savings, to expand competition among insurers, and to establish a market force of millions of self-interested consumers who will shop around for the best deals in medical care. The theory? No one washes a rental car, and no one cares about a $100 aspirin when the cost is being shifted to a third-party payer.

Sounds right to me. The contrast with the Obama approach to health care reform could not be more striking.

Comments

[Rusty]

Bush never took this past sloganeering, which was typical of many of his alleged initiatives.

Bruce Bartlett did a good job of describing Bush's lack of a policy shop, and Bush's fondness for slogans.

Eight wasted years.

[Cornellian]

If Obama reforms this country's horrid health care system that will indeed be a contrast to Bush's eight years of inaction.

[spencer]

Rental cars are washed every time they are turned in.

Actually, they are probably washed too often for their own good.

It is a horrible analogy.