With the exception of Medicaid, which funds care for the very poor, American society rations tax-supported health care only to the politically powerful. As a result, taxpayers might be asked to cover the cost of a hip-replacement operation for Warren Buffett but will not pick up medical bills for an uninsured beautician diagnosed with breast cancer. Indeed, the hairdresser helps subsidize Mr. Buffett's Medicare coverage through her income taxes. Then we come to President Clinton's latest proposal. Consider unsettling reports that working people are now volunteering for drug-research tests simply order to get free drugs to treat their asthma or other ailments.
Polls help explain the large disparities in health-care subsidies.
Reports that older voters have been shifting their allegiance to the Republican Party must have enhanced the eagerness of the Democratic President to bestow new benefits on this large group. However, the elderly have not been the only politically powerful group to obtain government programs tailored to their medical needs. People with AIDS or the AIDS virus can tap into public funds to pay for such necessities as doctors, shelter and drugs. These benefits are available to a lawyer with AIDS but not to the uninsured parking-lot attendant with an equally serious heart condition. Politically potent groups that need much in the way of health care get their subsidies.