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Thursday, February 8, 2007
I know what’s best for you
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A feature common to many of the Big Idea reform efforts showing in Congress and in the Statehouse stems from the belief that people given sufficient information to make an informed choice will make responsible decisions that they consider to be in their best interests. That’s the premise of education vouchers, health savings accounts and Social Security reform.
The Internet has changed dramatically government’s capacity to quickly gather and disseminate information that will allow sick people, for example, to compare prices and outcomes for needed surgeries. If consumers had financial incentive — which they don’t now — to shop for services, they’d be better off, and so would taxpayers and employers. Allowing consumers to pocket some of the savings would be the incentive.
Much of the opposition, in addition to those folks who are simply terrified by anything unfamiliar or new, comes from those on the left who have built careers and belief systems on the notion that the poor can never be expected to make rational choices — so therefore that responsibility falls to government and to the kinder souls in the ivory towers who know what’s best. That condescension has defined their solutions for the last 40 or 50 years.
The nation witnessed all of the failings of that approach in New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. People had become so passive that when politicians failed to send the buses or to give them instructions, they sat below sea level awaiting the arrival of a category 5 hurricane.
The question today is whether the poor and those who shun responsibility and persistently make bad choices in their lives can be induced, with financial incentives and penalties, to take charge of their lives and their families’ well-being? I say yes. Not overnight — and maybe not for a decade or more. But we saw in New Orleans and Katrina’s aftermath the consequences of over-reliance on politicians and government.
