No Communism in America?

There is often discussion among politicians and political parties of “Communism” and whether what policies proposed are actually verging on a “Command Economy”. Well we may have a partial free market economy, but yesterday’s AP story is the perfect example of where we do have parts of a command economy. (ie where the government decides what business will produce).

Oregon Senate Democrats nix gas tax hike
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_082608_news_gas_tax_nixed.166bb41b.html

Notice the grand plan for the health industry as the article explains the Senate Democrats plans. “Among other things, (Senate Democrats) said they would … create more jobs by investing in health care”. Then a few sentences later we find out… “Lawmakers also might look for ways to raise more money from provider taxes on health care organizations”.

So the government will tax health care providers to make and “investment” in those same health care providers. Thus the government will determine what the health care providers produce (be deciding what gets subsidized), then the tax will determine at least part of what the health care provides stop producing.

For instance consider the following example. The state decides we need to invest money into obesity treatment (i.e. house candidate Jim Gilbert). Ok sounds good, some doctors will then logically spend more of their time and service in that type of treatment since someone will now pay them to do that. This means that less of their time is available for other services. But the state also wants to pay for that by taxing normal treatments say for instance broken bones. So any doctor that has to look at the bottom line now sees that it makes more financial sense to treat obese patients and turn away broken bones. Less doctors will then treat broken bones and WAAA-LAA the government has now successfully manipulated the market so that obesity is served more than broken bones.