Bears, Bulls, Chickens and Pigs: wOw’s Wall Street Weekly with Liz Peek (Week of 9/7) 

Editor’s Note: Liz Peek is a financial columnist and the author of wOw’s SHEconomics.

Here’s one thing that almost all Americans appear to agree on: They want the same health-insurance program that members of Congress have. Good luck with that.

President Obama gave a stirring speech on Wednesday night, his 29th on health care. Americans everywhere were moved by his eloquence. However, many remained completely mystified by his message, including myself. If there is enough fraud and waste in Medicare to fund a good portion of universal coverage, why don’t we tackle it right away? Why do we need legislation to go after lawbreakers? Also – where are these "costs" that we’ll be cutting? Why doesn’t the president offer up one concrete example of what will be eliminated? How can we have "radical reform" but leave everyone’s program just as it is?

Here’s the corker: If the government controls 70% of health care today, and that portion has grown much more rapidly than the private sector (even before prescription benefits kicked in), and the system is cataclysmically broken, does that really lead us to turn over more of the industry to bureaucrats?

President Obama continues to pitch two incompatible proposals. The first is that we need to provide insurance and medical care to an additional 30 million people. The second is that we need to rein in costs. Both of those goals are valid, but who really believes that they can coexist? The notion that his pet program is budget neutral is malarkey, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If you’re skeptical of the CBO – consult the Pete Peterson Foundation, which just published a study saying that the House bill would boost our deficit by $1 trillion in its second decade. Equally idiotic is the prospect that monumental government tampering will please those 84% of Americans who are today happy with their insurance and health care.

What can be done? I think most Americans believe that it is a moral imperative that the needy in this country have access to health care. While the debate has wandered off into a stultifying treatise on insurance, which the administration hopes will bore us into apathy, the real heart of the issue is getting indigent people out of the emergency room and into some alternative health-care situation.

I cannot understand why the administration does not sanction the growing availability of clinics that are being developed by pharmacies like Rite-Aid and big-box stores like Wal-Mart, which offer low-cost care to those with and without insurance. A recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that these operations – there are now 1,000 such clinics across the country – provide care just as effectively as the traditional doctor visit, and considerably more cheaply. Why doesn’t Obama reach out to these providers, and offer government support for a rapid expansion of these outlets as well as vouchers (like food stamps) for those unable to pay? Who do we think will be more efficient – Wal-Mart or Washington?

As to providing affordable insurance for everyone, this can be accomplished by allowing insurers to compete across state lines, and by providing subsidies for high-risk pools. This could be mandated by Congress overnight. Yes, some states will howl over lost fees. Better some unhappy state regulators than upsetting the majority of Americans who will ultimately see their insurance subsumed into a giant government bog.

And how about seriously tackling the exorbitant cost of so-called "defensive medicine" practiced by those fearful of lawsuits? The president, to his credit, actually alluded to this issue in his address – a first for a Democrat to my knowledge. (Mentioning tort reform out loud is to Democrats like whispering "Voldemort" to Harry Potter.) This is a serious problem, accounting for as much as 20% of our health-care outlays. Since trial lawyers vehemently oppose any caps on awards, and since they spend millions supporting Democrats each year, I have little expectation on this front.