NATIONALIZED MEDICAL INSURANCE EXPANSION
REJECTED BY ARKANSAS POLICYMAKERS
(December 2011) Arkansas policymakers,
pressed by fiscal conservatives have rejected an expansion of nationalized
medical insurance by disbanding seven advisory groups seeking to establish a
state-operated health exchange.
State officials tried to launch the
exchange with a $1 million federal grant but fiscal conservatives objected to
additional funding, noting the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the
constitutionality of nationalized insurance.
Government
Misses Forecast
Proponents of nationalized medical
insurance were proposing the state exchange though they have dramatically
missed their own forecast for enrolling individuals with pre-existing
conditions. Arkansas officials estimated 2,500 individuals with pre-existing
conditions would participate. But the
most recent data1
released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows only 310
Arkansans enrolled through September 30.
How will Arkansas policymakers
establish a state-operated health exchange when they have proven incapable of
estimating demand for a less complex component of nationalized medical
insurance?
Fatal
Conceit Remains
Arkansas officials are afflicted with
the fatal conceit2
identified decades ago by F.A. Hayek, the 1974 Nobel Economics laureate. Hayek spent time at the Univ. of Arkansas in
1950, and terms "fatal conceit" the idea that "man is able to
shape the world around him according to his wishes." Officials overlook that civilization evolved
in a spontaneous order, not through central planning.
--Greg Kaza
2 Hayek, F.A. 1988. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
(Chicago) Univ. of Chicago Press