Invariably, every time the staff of the Texas Public Policy Foundation write about limited government and free market principles for health care reform the responses roll in charging that we clearly don’t care about sick people, poor people, and children. They suggest that conservatives are greedy people more interested in protecting our own wealth than trying to help the less fortunate. If all else fails, they simply resort to calling names and impugning our character. These responses misunderstand our position, or perhaps reflect just how poorly the free market limited government position has been articulated for health care.

In fact, we are very concerned about how all Texans can experience the most freedom in making health care decisions, by making individual choices in a marketplace that delivers great quality and lower cost health care—including the poor, the sick, and children of all ages. Yet we know from experience that if the Left succeeds in turning health care over to the government, it is not the healthy or the wealthy who will suffer the most. Indeed, people with resources will always be able to find the best care available: they will buy their way to the best care at private facilities, with extra payments to providers, or by traveling to the best specialists in the world. Instead, the poor and the sick will suffer from being trapped in a non-competitive health care system that lacks the pressures for innovation, efficiency, improving quality, and decreasing cost.

How do we know this will happen?

Consider public education. Those with resources flee the worst schools and districts, moving to new neighborhoods or taking their children to private schools, while those who remain in the failing public schools do not have the resources to escape. Instead, they are stuck in failing schools and the political game for additional resources will always fail to deliver the quality product that the forces of competition could deliver.

Free market people know that competition makes life better for everyone—it brings us more choices, better products and services, and lower costs. The competitive forces that work in everything from cellular phones, computers, and cars can work in public education and in health care too.