(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)
Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 4)
Over the first three parts of this series, we’ve seen that:
- 1. Our once magnificent healthcare system is broken.
- 2. Government is the one that broke it (and, amazingly enough, is being asked by the multitude to fix it).
- 3. Universal Health Care is much costlier and results in many people not getting the important care they need, when they need it. It also, in many instances, denies the individual the all-important right to make the choices and decisions they feel are in the best interests of themselves and their loved ones; instead putting those decisions into the hands of a bureaucrat.
The problem is, although Universal Health Care is not nearly as effective as a Free-Market system, we need to go back to point number one and agree that our present system is broken and change is needed. Then we need to be extremely clear about something. As mentioned in the first article of this “series within a series”…
The current U.S. Healthcare System is NOT Market-Based!
Fortunately, the solution is actually quite simple. Get the government out of our healthcare system and let the free marketplace, private charity and loving-kindness do what it once did; provide us with a healthcare system that really works.
A couple of goodies include the fact that with a free-market health care system, prices for health care would be much, much lower than they are now. So more people could naturally afford adequate health care. The government has messed up the natural market (including supply and demand) so badly that costs have rises sky high.
So, first, lower prices solves a lot of problems. Then, it’s taking away government’s power to give the insurance companies control over the drug marketplace. Again, with alternative medicines able to do their work, the drug companies would have to come way down on prices. Then, with decreases in needless regulations, there would be more doctors and other health practitioners, creating competition and lower prices, with service much better than it is now. And, for those relative few percentage-wise who still can’t afford it, sliding scales and charities would cover the rest (as it used to, and quite well).
Yes, it sounds simple . . . because it is! Get government OUT of healthcare in every way but the protection of force and fraud (their two legitimate functions when it comes to business) and then just watch what happens. Our health care system will once again be the envy of the world and – more importantly – it will again work for all of us, including the children the elderly and the less fortunate.
Please, please don’t buy into this government and politically-based nonsense of Universal Healthcare. And, don’t buy into those such as Michael Moore; as well-intentioned as he probably is and the politicians, as well-intended as they might possibly be. Or, to the masses, as well-intentioned as they absolutely are.
This is simply too, too important to not think through in depth and detail. Please don’t let emotions make this decision for you.
Instead, check your premises.
*Note. Although this article was inended to complete the series on Healthcare, I added one more, which you can find here.
Enjoy this post? Receive an update when our next post is published by entering your best email address below and clicking Get Updates.
Forget who said this: “But the best government is the one who governs less!”
Here is Canada, we have social health care but the waits for surgeries are still months down the road and improvement gets worse as the governments steps up their so-called “help” programs.
I totally agree with your point of view.
Living in both Canada and Denmark for a total of 8 years, I experienced in both cases the worst health care system (i.e. Socialized Medicine) in my life!
Keep up the great work of telling it like it is!
Problem is, it’s the current insurance companies that turned it away from free-market to begin with. Too much lobbying money and too much big business loving republicans(and democrats!).
To blame the government intervention is missing the culprit. Universal Care or Free Market but not what we’ve got, and if we go with free market we should eliminate all the current big ones and make it small. Free Market == Lots of Players(Not a few!)
Joey, thank you for writing. Remember, before anything else, first “check your premises.” When you say that the current insurance companies *turned* it away from free market BECAUSE of lobbying money and the politicians they bought, you are missing the premise. They couldn’t do that without the help of the politicians who are operating outside the Constitution, granting special favors to the politically connected and those who support them.
When politicians are *not allowed to operate outside the chains of the Constitution* there is absolutely nothing that could be accomplished by all the lobbying, campaign contributions or anything else.
The insurance companies (and politicians) are merely the symptom of the problem; the problem (premise) is that the politicians are allowed to operate outside the Constitution in the first place.
That’s why, as my good friend, Michael Cloud says, “The problem is *not* the abuse of power (that’s jus the symptom). The *problem* is the power to abuse.”
Take away the power to abuse and all the lobbyists can stand in line from Washington, D.C. to the Pacific Ocean and there’s nothing they’ll be able to affect.
So, indeed, government intervention is the culprit.
By the way, while you are correct that a true free market system of health care will include lots of players (and that will be good for everyone except the special interests, the companies they represent, and the politicians they’ve thus far been able to buy), I strongly disagree with your suggestion that government should “eliminate” all the bigger insurance companies. That, indeed, would *not* be free enterprise.
Joey, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re wating to go free market (which, hopefully, that’s how you would want to go) then *every person and every company* deserves the opportunity to do their best to thrive. When government stays out of it, then those companies will either succeed or fail based on their merits and how much value they are able to provide to the consumers.
All government should be doing is protecting the citizenry from force and fraud.
Thank you again,
Bob
Hi Marie and Kris,
I appreciate your sharing that. It’s what I hear most often from people who either live in or have lived in countries with Socialized Medicine. Yes, I also hear from those who say it was fine; however, they never had an emergency situation (and I’m glad they have not) thus they didn’t have to go through what Marie wrote and what so many reports confirm. I remember one very good friend of mine telling me how great Socialized Medicine is until after I asked about the waiting lists. He then remembered with horror a situation he’d gone through with a loved one and, indeed, by the time the surgery happened it was nearly too late.
Unfortunately, there are plenty that are not in time. Far from it, and these are the stories that need to be shared because people here in the U.S. who are trying for Socialized Medicine just don’t want to believe it is true, and they simply choose not to believe it will happen. They are so fed up with the current system (and I don’t blame them) that, to them, anying would be better than it is now. However, Socialized Medicine is not the answer . . . The Free Market is the answer, and that is NOT what we currently have in terms of healthcare.
This is why the it’s so important to check one’s premises both in terms of the actual situation and the cause of the situation.
Bob
Get government out of a lot things but how do we do this. The last time it seems to me to get govt out it was the 1775 and tea party and few other things happened. Is there a way short of this. I hear lot of press on what is wrong but how do we live in the solution and not the problem?
Hi Scott,
Indeed, you ask an excellent and very important question. I’m not sure we know how so all we can do is our best to try.
I believe that – in the overall sense – it’s not a matter of trying to directly persuade our elected politians through logic because they either don’t care or really believe they know better (cognitive dissonance) and are the solution to our problems (even those they created).
So, my opinion – and it is simply my opinion – is that we reach out to the electorate; the individual, both one at a time and by groups small and large. We can do this through articles (that is my purpose of writing this series on an ongoing basis) and through learning how to present our ideas for liberty in such a way that people are open to accepting them. Of course, in the “selling of liberty” we know that people must first “buy into us” before they’ll buy into our ideas.
The original American Revolution took place as a result of the sharing of and spreading of ideas. Of course, our current “Liberty Revolution” should be a peaceful one. And – again, just my opinion – if it is going to happen, it will be because as people begin to see and recognize the huge damage caused by big government they will also already be beginning to accept the idea of small government and the benefits it brings.
Again, just my thoughts, and I welcome feedback, both agreement and disagreement with this.
Thank you, Scott!
Bob
Bob, you and I believe that liberty is the ideal. This big government healthcare power grab being sought is totally unconstitutional and treats us like a herd of cattle, a poked and prodded dehumanized statistical number on a piece of paper.
I like Michael Moore, but it frustrates me that he never really gets to the bottom of anything. His movies only address surface problems and he never gets down to root causes. I don’t know if this is intentional to suit his own political agenda or if he’s just ignorant of the big picture. My guess is that it’s both the former and latter. It’s also a total contradiction for Michael Moore to criticize the government (within the same administration era, ‘Sicko’ was made during Bush admin.) and at the same time he wants the government to run the healthcare system.
Thanks to alternative news and other sources on the internet, people are starting realize that the Democrats and Republicans are actually a singular party. The internet is truly our savior right now. The pen is definitely mightier than the sword, which is why some governments — including our own — want to censor the internet. So, because of the internet, I think more people are starting to pay attention to Ron Paul who has the most credibility on the health-care issue, among other extremely important issues, since he is a former physician and actually acts upon constitutional principles.
David, I agree with you; excellent, well thought-out points. Regarding Moore; yes, he is the proverbial “enigma inside of a question” in that he seems to really care about people yet the policies he suggests are totally harmful to those he claims to want to help (i.e. the “economically average and underprivileged”). Yes, he addresses surface problems but either never gets down to root causes or just reactively blames everything on Capitalism. It’s as though he’s never read a book or spoken with anyone on this topic and simply has a laser-focus to make us a Socialst nation. Personally, I don’t get it. And, of course, not knowing what is truly in his heart (I’ve never met him and would never claim to be able to read his mind), I can’t answer your thought as to whether his false premises and incorrect conclusions are intentional on his part (political agenda) or he is ignorant. I’ve seen many very intelligent people who allow themsleves to remain ignorant so they don’t have to learn something couner-intuitive to what they currently believe is correct.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Bob, Thank you for your article. I was very impressed with your demeanor and tone. I like the way you point out faults without arguing, without an angry voice, and almost sympathetic to the opposition. My favorite line is, “not knowing what is truly in his heart” speaking of Michael Moore. I only wish that I could have read this last week before having a conversation with an office worker where she pointed out the Michael Moore movie and my only response was out of a blood boiling rage that ended with “Well, Michael Moore is just an a**!” Too bad I couldn’t calmly “check her premises” 🙂 I don’t think I changed any opinions with that one. I am now better equipped for the next conversation. Thank you!
LOL Thank you, Susan. Please believe me when I tell you that I’ve done the exact same thing. :-). The great thing is that we can learn from it and be more effective the next time the same situation presents itself. Thank you for your very kind note.
Thank you for your series – I cannot tell you how many people I have directed to this series, how many times I’ve posted a link to it or how many times I have referred to it to help me have a meaningful conversation with someone who just doesn’t understand why I’m not for this ‘free’ healthcare reform. It is put forth in a non-partisan, non-argumentative, logical and respectful context so I can have a debate with even the most opposite-opinioned person without getting shut down as a crazy right-wing greedy capitalist! I love starting out with checking premises and finding common ground to begin on. It makes all the difference, but you and I already know that since I’ve been using your WWI principles for years. Thank you again!