The Key to Economic Growth

Barack Obama is correct in the assertion that health care is the key to the return to prosperity.

The problem is that he is turning the key in the wrong direction.

Having the right key won't start your car if you keep turning it to the off position.

The goal of the health care bill is to make insurance mandatory.

Mandatory insurance has the exact same effect on the economy as a tax. Such insurance is simply a tax collected then redistributed through a private entity.

Employer based insurance destroys jobs because such insurance naturally devolves from a benefit to a tax as social engineers use the vehicle of insurance to advance political causes. Our insurance premiums keep going up, because the legal system formed around insurance uses insurance to mandate expenses.

If Barack Obama turned the health care key in the other direction (from government control to individual control) health care would transform into an engine of growth.

Group insurance has people putting their health care resources into a pool. People then withdraw funds for health care. This process of withdrawing funds is largely controlled by state laws and legal precedents.

Insurance companies keep some money on reserve, however, insurance works like a spending account with money coming in and going out at about the same rate. In this structure, health care reduces to an expense on the ledger.

If we transitioned from insurance to the Medical Savings and Loan there would be a tremendous influx of money into medical savings accounts. This money would be invested in positive job creating activities.

Don't you see? If we returned health care to the self-funding paradigm where people are saving for their health care expenses, then we will transform health care from behaving like a tax burden to a structure where health behaved liked an investment engine.

The health care plan before Congress impedes economic growth because as mandatory insurance has the same effect on the economy as taxes. The paradigm of self funded care would transform health care from a dead weight on the economy to an engine of growth.

Barack Obama is correct that health care is the key to economic growth. For the key to work, one needs to turn the key to the "on" position.