Health Care Subsidarity

David Freddoso has an enlightening article at the Examiner about doctors who want to give away health care for free, but are constrained from doing so largely by the Government.

Stan Brock just wants to help. The former co-star of "Wild Kingdom" wants to deliver free medical, dental and vision care to the poor. Whereas most politicians talk about "bending the cost curve" in health care, Brock simply wants to break it - to provide care free of charge, at the hands of unpaid volunteer doctors and dentists using donated equipment.

RAM [Remote Area Medical] runs on a shoestring budget of about $300,000 and takes no government money. It concentrates its operations in Tennessee for one simple reason: It is the only state with a full-blown "open-borders" policy toward volunteer out-of-state doctors. The obstacles in many other jurisdictions are daunting for an organization that seeks to treat thousands of patients in a short period.

Now I understand the need for high medical standards and accountability and to make sure that not just any quack can start tinkering with the lives and health of the poor (simply because they are poor), but outfits like RAM illustrate a vital point: people who actually want to help out their neighbor don't lack the skill or the will, just the way.

Seems like we need more of this kind of thing and less of that centralized planning model kind of health care "reform". Government's job should be to encourage and enable this kind of innovation, not take it over. What RAM appears to be doing here fits a lot better with the Catholic principle of subsidarity (h/t Brad Miner):

subsidiarity: A term (the Latin subsidium for aid, help) from Roman Catholic social philosophy which expresses the view that, whenever practicable, decisions ought to be made by those most affected by the decisions.

Put another way: the national government ought only to do what the states cannot; the states only what communities cannot; communities only what families cannot; families only what individuals cannot.

This is not to suggest that Catholic social theory (especially as read in papal encyclicals) is always in favor of the minimalist state. John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (1963), while affirming the doctrine of subsidiarity, called for publicly funded health and unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and government support for the arts. Still, it is clear that “a planned economy . . . violates the principle of subsidiarity.

Or put another way, we desire health care subsidarity, not just subsidies. Catholic Bishops have been calling for "universal health coverage" for decades, but the devil is in the details. The "preferential option for the poor" is not synonymous with the current "public option" being rammed down taxpayers' throats in what amounts to a takeover of a fifth of the U.S. economy. Troubling issues remain like abortion coverage, individual mandate, penalties, rationing, privacy concerns -- there does not have to be this all-or-nothing approach the current legislation proposes.

The efficacy of any government program is inversely proportional to the urgency of the need they claim to pass it.