Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recently penned an op-ed in the Washington Times urging Congress to sustain President Bush's veto on the recent Medicare bill.¹ In it, Leavitt argued that the proposed bill would hurt taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries by limiting consumer choice and allowing government to interfere with personal healthcare decisions. The bill was not sensible, he said, because it was not in keeping with free-market principles.

What does the head of a $700 billion-a-year federal entitlement agency know about free-market principles?

Ultimately, congress voted to overturn the veto on the Medicare bill. But neither the passing of the bill nor the vetoing of it realistically could have moved the country any closer to a real market-based system for healthcare.

The bill—now law—did not spur a debate over fundamental principles. It dealt with important but non-fundamental implementation details: changes to physician reimbursement rates, drug classifications, and equipment procurement programs. Granted, such "details" can mean boon or bust for certain special interest groups. But neither side seriously sought to include provisions that would actually extricate the government from healthcare. Regardless of whether the bill passed, the government was still going to be the payer, and it would still set the rules.

Some say that a program like Medicare Advantage, which gives seniors the power to make "free and informed choices" and receive care through private insurers, would constitute a step towards a free market in healthcare. Make no mistake: the freedom of choice we hear about from the mouths of politicians and bureacrats does not refer to anything remotely in keeping with free-market principles. Theirs is not the freedom to keep one's own money and spend it as one wishes; it is the "freedom" to spend other taxpayers' money more freely.

The solution for healthcare is not to replace one government financing scheme with another, or to temper the rhetoric with illusory references to free market principles. To adopt real free-market principles means to put individuals in charge of paying, choosing, and living for themselves. Real principles in healthcare demand real choice, not the system of government intervention we have today.

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¹ Leavitt, M. "Leavitt: The Medicare Veto" Washington Times, July 16 2008

² Press Release, "HHS Proposes $737 Billion Budget for Fiscal Year 2009" Department of Health and Human Services, February 4 2008

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