Roy Maynard: Early Returns

Every time I get stopped for speeding…

Wait. I’m forgetting my position as a teacher and my duty to set a good example for my young, impressionable students. I’ll stick to hypothetical situations.

Ahem. Every time I get hypothetically stopped for speeding, the hypothetical police officer asks to see my proof of insurance. If I were to tell him that my insurance was, in fact, hypothetical, and I had no proof, he would give me a big, expensive ticket. So even though I have never had a wreck nor ever filed a claim, I pay my insurance premium every month. And I don’t mean hypothetically.

Hmmm. Maybe I should just leave speeding out of it.

Every year, when I register my car, and when I have my car inspected, I must show proof of insurance. When I get my driver’s license renewed, I show proof of insurance.

So every law enforcement officer and numerous other agencies of government actively enforce the state law saying I must have liability insurance on my car. They check several times per year, and they have the power to prevent me from getting things I need (like a driver’s license) if I don’t comply.

Still, the system isn’t perfect. Plenty of people, I don’t know how, drive around without insurance, and I feel pretty certain that if I’m ever hit by someone, it will be someone without insurance.

And here’s what I see as the fatal flaw in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health care plan, as presented last week (see, I do have a point).

The centerpiece of her “American Health Choices Plan” is its “individual mandate.”

Everyone will be required to purchase health insurance.

“Clinton would offer federal subsidies to businesses and individuals to reduce the cost of health care, particularly for lower-income families, while imposing a new federal requirement that every American purchase health-insurance coverage,” the Associated Press reports. “Her approach echoes state-based health care plans … that require individuals to buy health insurance much as many states now require drivers to buy auto insurance.”

Here’s the problem. The “detailed” presentation of her plan, available at www.hillaryclinton.com, includes no enforcement measures.

Economics of the plan aside, simply passing a law requiring people to buy something, without setting up stringent enforcement to ensure compliance, is setting the plan up for catastrophic failure.

And it’s hard to see how such a law could be policed. When all those hypothetical speeders are stopped, they are checked for liability insurance. When smokers try to buy tobacco, will they be checked for health insurance?

Sen. Clinton compares her health care plan to auto liability insurance. Politically, that’s simply a non-starter.

Texas requires auto liability insurance of all drivers, so theoretically, we’re all safer.

But state officials say that 15 to 20 percent of drivers don’t have it.
And the horror stories abound. People pay premiums during years and years of safe driving, only to have their policies canceled after one mishap. Other drivers go through months of labor and litigation trying to get insurance companies to make good on accidents that weren’t even their fault.

The plan’s analogy to auto liability insurance is not going to win it many converts.

But the plan has one other fatal flaw I’d like to mention.

It’s what the ancient philosophers called “The Wife and the Motorcycle Problem.”

Sen. Clinton claims her $110 billion-per-year plan will actually save most of us money.

“By removing hidden taxes, stressing prevention and a focus on efficiency and modernization, the plan will improve quality and lower costs,” the plan says.

From the dawn of civilization, husbands have gone to their wives with a similar claim.

“But honey,” they say, “think of how much money I’ll save on gas if you let me buy the motorcycle. It can get 50 miles to the gallon!”

But then the heartless wife takes out her pencil and does some real calculations. Figuring the difference in cost per mile driven, multiplied by the number of days suitable for taking the motorcycle to work, minus the cost of all those cool accessories, divided by the Shiny New Toy factor, she determines it will take about 35 years for the $18,000 motorcycle to pay for itself.

Aristotle himself, the greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers, was forced to drive a Saturn because he could find no way around the problem.

I am sure there are efficiencies to be found and modernizations to be made in the health care industry. But should we really look to the federal government to lead the way in efficiency and modernization?

I am deeply interested in the state of health care in this country. I have traveled to other countries to examine and report on their systems. I know there are serious problems here, but also serious problems elsewhere. And I want to hear more about solutions that will work.

But Sen. Clinton’s plan is clearly dead on arrival.

Early Returns is the political observations column of staff writer Roy Maynard, who can be reached at 903-596-6291 or at roymaynardtmt@gmail.com.

Roy Maynard
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