CNN recently ran a story about Lorri Unumb, the mother of an autistic boy in South Carolina who, in true David vs. Goliath fashion, took on the evil health insurance industry and won. When her son was diagnosed with autism, she learned that most policies don’t cover the kind of therapy that was required. Although Mrs. Unumb is fortunate that her family is able to pay for the treatment, they knew that very few others could afford the $80,000 a year needed to cover the cost.
As reported by CNN’s Justine Redman:
“As a lawyer and a law professor, Unumb decided to do something about it, to
force insurance companies in South Carolina to cover autism. She wrote a bill,
recruited other parents to help her lobby state legislators, and two years
later, got the bill passed. Known as Ryan’s Bill, it will go into effect as
Ryan’s Law in July. Ryan’s Law mandates that insurance companies provide up to $50,000 a year for behavioral therapy up to the age of 16. It also prohibits insurers from refusing other medical care to children because of their autism. It doesn’t, however, apply to people or companies who are self-insured, such as the Unumbs.”
How about that? Ryan’s Law won’t apply to the Unumb family, who are self-insured, but as a result of Lorri Unumb’s noble efforts, other parents of autistic children will now be able to force insurance companies in the great state of South Carolina to fork over $50K a year so that their kids will get the treatment they so desperately need. It’s a touching story, and as clear case of good versus evil as you’re likely to find in real life. I can already see Julia Roberts starring as Lorri Unumb in the movie, Ryan’s Law.
Well, I suppose that’s the beauty of modern journalism. All one has to do is focus on what is seen, and avoid what is unseen. Play up the tear-jerk angle whenever possible, because it is so much easier to feel than to think. Here at A Beginner’s Guide to Freedom, however, we take a different approach. We look beyond the obvious benefits that accrue to the few, and examine the hidden costs that are imposed upon the many. We consider the means, and not just the ends.
As the father of an 18-month old boy, I can only imagine what those families must be going through. Although I sympathize with their plight, I still have to look at the broader issues involved here. In the case at hand, we can see the obvious benefit for parents of autistic children in South Carolina and other states with similar mandates. They will now be able to afford the treatment their children need. But if we look closer, we can also recognize the hidden costs. As a result of this new mandate, those families and individuals who do not have autistic children will see their premiums go up. Every mandate imposes a cost on business that must be covered one way or the other. Either the cost will be spread across other customers whose health care needs may not include treatment for autism, or the companies will have to reduce supply, which will force the marginal customers out of the market for insurance entirely.
And all this at a time when most people in this country are up in arms about the cost of health insurance. What do they think is going to happen? Are we to believe that further government mandates will make the cost of insurance go down? Of course not. Government mandates are one of the primary cost drivers in health insurance today. In fact, if it weren’t for all these impositions placed on normal market operations, health insurance in this country might actually be true insurance, much like car insurance. You don’t file a claim with your car insurance provider every time you change the oil or fill up the tank, so why should health insurance cover simple expenses like prescription drugs, annual physicals, runny noses, or headaches? Ideally, health insurance should be a way of hedging against the risk of catastrophic medical issues (such as autism), rather than our current system of pre-paid health care that covers everything from a hangnail to cancer.
Perhaps even more important than the economics of the issue are the ethics. Mrs. Unumb’s efforts are held up by CNN as heroic. But are they? Insurance companies offer a service. They promise to cover certain ailments in return for a price, and their customers may choose to business with them or not. In the CNN story, there is no indication whatsoever that the insurance companies were not performing the services for which they were contracted. The accusation is simply that the insurance companies were not performing services that were not agreed to in the first place. There is no violation of the customers’ rights whatsoever in this scenario.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Unumb turned to the government in order to force the insurers to do something that they were not interesting in doing. Let’s imagine the following hypothetical situation: Mr. Jones hires a neighborhood kid to mow his lawn for $25. Once the kid finishes mowing the lawn, Mr. Jones tells him he now has to weed the flower bed, too. The boy refuses, saying all he signed up for was mowing the lawn. So what does Mr. Jones do? He calls the cops, who come by and tell the kid to get busy pulling up those weeds.
Most of us would sympathize with the kid in this example, but when functionally the same thing happens to an insurance company (or any other business for that matter), our sympathies naturally lie with the person who initiates the force, and not with the one who is coerced. Why the double-standard? Is it simply a case of our natural sympathies for any parents of children with serious medical conditions blinding us to the broader ethical issues involved? Or is it yet another example of latent Marxism clouding our judgment, leading us to believe that people operating in a corporate environment are naturally evil and cruel, whereas people who use force to compel business to act in a certain way are automatically in the right?
It’s not easy to look critically upon the actions taken by people who are dealing with heartbreaking problems such as autism, but these are still important issues to consider because they go directly to the concepts of justice and peaceful interaction within society. Until we learn to reject the notion that it is noble or even permissible to use force against those who have not initiated force against us, our Hobbesian war of all against all in the political and legal arenas will continue. Although certain groups may get what they want from time to time, the ongoing use of force to achieve desired results will reduce the overall well-being of society as a whole. It’s a zero-sum game, with winners and losers determined by whichever group is able to sway lawmakers to see things their way. Voluntary solutions, on the other hand, create win-win results that increase the benefits for everyone involved and should always be preferred over coercion.
