When the government is in charge of deciding who gets health care, suddenly everyone is sick!
Nowhere is this concept more apparent than on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where 1.8% of the population, an unusually large proportion, has made disability claims for blindness. (About 0.3% of the U.S. population is legally blind, according to Centers for Disease Control data.) The Wall Street Journal this morning reported fraudulent disability claims cost Greece hundreds of millions of euros a year.
To crack down on disability fraud, the Greek government required claimants to show up in person to register their names in a centralized database? resulting in 36,000 fewer claims nationwide last year. Of 700 Zakynthians collecting blindness benefits, only 190 registered. "It appears the 'blind' of Zakynthos saw only the color of money," a Greek newspaper reports.
The mayor of Zakynthos was pelted with yogurt when discussing the disability fraud crackdown at a recent public appearance. It makes me wonder? Here in the northwest U.S., our economies are as mired in government waste as any in the country. I'd hate to get hit with a
100-pound salmon. Remind me not to discuss austerity measures in public.When you give things away to people who didn't earn them, you've eliminated any potential downside. So all they see is upside, the stuff they can buy with free money or the services they can get without paying for them. When people must earn what they consume, they tend to see things differently. They see what they must do without in order to get what they want. They immediately become students of Economics 101, balancing endless wants against the finite amounts of money and time available to satisfy them.
When you take away the risk of misallocating resources, resources get misallocated all over the place. That's what Europe is teaching the world right now, if we'd only listen? Obamacare will be even worse than Greek disability fraud. Health care is more abundant and much bigger business here. (The U.S. is No. 1 worldwide in health care spending per capita.) That feeds the illusion that it ought to be free of charge or otherwise cheaper for everyone. If the Supreme Court doesn't strike down Obamacare, you'll find out quickly how expensive health care becomes when you give it away.