Yes there are quacks today, but there would probably be a lot more if there were no standards and certification/licensing.

Are you saying there doesn’t need to be any standards to qualify a person to be a doctor, that anyone who wants to be a doctor should just be one, and then let the market decide who the successful doctors are?

Great article. I am especially glad to see you emphasize how medical practice would be much better and more affordable under free market conditions. Too many articles on the topic take the current high costs and uneven quality in our current system as givens. Few people know that in the 19th century, when we had a much freer medical market, there was much more competition among practitioners, consumers were glad to have these choices, and that medicine was affordable.

Can you imagine an automobile market where a basic car would cost you 100k? Of course not, the industry must design and engineer its products so that they are within reach of potential customers. Why should medical care be so outrageously expensive? Obviously something(s) is (are) interfering with market forces. Sure, it is going to be expensive for someone who has been in a catastrophic accident and needs extensive care for months, but this can be provided for via a sound program of insurance. I am talking about the more ordinary demands, which likely account for 99% of health care costs.

As for health care: The government is the problem, not the solution.
Free markets are the solution, not the problem.

Thank you again for this fine editorial.

In Europe it’s impossible to speak about healthcare in this way. Any politician who will say medical care isnt a right, will not be taken serious, ignored and also, it’s impossible to write an artikel like this one in the regular media.

Very sad, to avoid any discussion

“And, why is it so wrong to push our “Federal Lodge” to contract for Lodge physicians, as you say it was done in the past? Why does it become a “slave proposition” to push for such a thing?”

I will take a stab at clarifying this for you john.

the authors point can be summarized another way by saying “every one ought to get what they pay for and pay for what they get.” this is contract.

rights are wholly different, for starters they are things that you are able to weild on your own with out infringing on the agency of others.

if you need/want something its is your right to seek to obtain it in any maner that is not injurious to others doing the same (pursuit of happiness)… it is not your right to have it provided for you at the expense of others.

it may be provided for you at the expense of others under a voluntary contract (like an insurance policy)… but thats the operation of a voluntary contract granting you a benefit… not the operation of any sort of a right.

The slave proposition enters into it this way: whenever someone consumes goods or services without entitling themselves to those goods or services by paying for them (either directly or through the operation of a voluntary contract – ie. one freely entered into by all the parties thereto) then those consumers are essentially “enslaving” those who have provided – or paid for – the goods or services thusly consumed (in other words stealing either their labor or their money). Since the doctors themselves will obviously be paid they arent the victms/slaves … those whose taxes are used to pay the doctors are the victims/slaves.

when a government institutes a health care entitlement program they are simulating an insurance contract, but in fact several key features of a real contract are missing. most notably that the parties to the “contract” are forced into it by legislators/bureaucrats without freely or personally agreeing to the terms of the arrangement. This is an abuse of the genuine right to voluntary contract and an assault upon liberty.

Best regards.

You apparently missed one of Richman’s main points: “In the absence of a contract, no one can have a right to anything that must be provided by someone else’s labor.” That is why health care is not a right.

Your attempt to link a right to health care to the 9th amendment is quite unconvincing. If we own a right to health care, under the 9th Amendment, then we also own a right to anything and everything that we might imagine a need for, if it will make living our lives easier. Clearly absurd.

Furthermore, your claim that such a right is consistent with the political philosophy of our founders, is even more absurd. The constitution and its amendments were carefully designed to restrict the government from encroaching on the individual liberties of its people. We own a right to free speech, for example. That imposes no burden on anyone else, to provide us with anything. We own the right to keep and bear arms. That imposes no burden on anyone else, including the fact that no one must provide us with a free rifle.

Because a ‘right to health care’ necessarily imposes such burdens on some people to provide services to others, and restricts their ability to choose with whom and under what terms they will enter into mutually beneficial interactions, such a right is about as close to the opposite of the founders’ political philosophy, as could be imagined.

There is no support to be found for the socialist agenda within the Constitution or our other founding documents.

Chuck

You mentioned lodging on a federal level, and one can just “opt-out” by, what, leaving the country? What if you don’t agree with the terms? What if you don’t like how things are handled? What if you reject traditional medicine for alternative medicine? Can the Federal Government administrate something like this that can be all things to all people? Or will everyone be stuck with something that no one can be happy with? Or would a decentralized, community-based approach better serve those of limited means?

I look forward to reading more on this site.
thanks
kellie

And, why is it so wrong to push our “Federal Lodge” to contract for Lodge physicians, as you say it was done in the past? Why does it become a “slave proposition” to push for such a thing? I can find no one advocating that someone not be paid for the services “provided by someone else’s labor.” In fact, the argument to date has been about what is fair compensation for these labors, and whether the Lodge should contract for the positions or whether the members of the Lodge should contract with each other.

But I do see what you mean regarding the “human right” vs. “what a lodge/country should rightly provide it’s members in exchange for it’s dues.” Perhaps rather than saying that it is a “human right” a better way to say it would be that it is a right that the members of the Lodge are entitled to under the lodge charter. In this case it would be the Constitution. I will fully admit that there is not a single section or amendment that specifically mentions “health care” directly. However, the 9th amendment states that just because the right is not in the document does not mean that the membership does not retain it. Since our collective lodges, at no level that I can find, have specifically denied the existence of a right to health care, I assert that health care is a right held by the people and not enumerated, as mentioned by the 9th amendment of our Lodge Constitution. It is also my position that our Lodge founders clearly had this in mind, based on their document declaring the independence of this lodge where they said that the people were endowed by their creator with a right to life. Maintaining that life is at times difficult without health care, and why would we continue to be a part of such a Lodge that did not support that right?

You are, of course, very welcome under our Constitution’s 1st amendment to contest this and advocate that the Lodge not spend dues to contract with physicians. But please try to keep accusations of dishonesty to specific individuals, and cite them, not in generalities, but with hard facts.

Thank you.

This bill, and virtually anything that might be done to improve our healthcare system, involves too much complexity with which we are emotionally motivated to deal.

There’s been too much arguing about the details. People can not describe in 2 or 3 sentences the conceptual parameters of the effort and what it is supposed to accomplish. Unfortunately, people can describe how they feel about it in 1 or 2 words, and that’s not good.

If either side of the debate has to work this hard arguing about something which theoretically should improve the lives of the masses of people, there’s a big problem.

Even more so than how something is done, people are interested in results, not the details. And once again, as is frequently the case with much of human processing, the facts don’t really matter. How people view the world, what they value, and what they want, matters.

And there is nothing collaborative in nature about that. Factor in the strong individualistic American DNA, and this effort is emotionally toast.

These are all fantastic points (as is the rest of FEE’s articles on the topic), and our duty as informed liberty-minded citizens, I believe, is not to barrage the Statists with our side, but is instead to develop and ask pertinent questions dealing with their claims to lead us into medical slavery. Once delved far enough, it will become apparent they will deconstruct their own arguments.

ie- “Medical care is a right” ….

1) where does the right to medical care emanate from? (WFA)

2) does it come from our common law? Our Constitution? Our state governments? I only ask because I haven’t heard this argument before.

3) is medical care a good or a service? (WFA) Does this mean that other goods and services also fall under this category of “rights”? Is clothing a right? Are oil changes for your car a right? What about television sets? How about health spas, chiropractors, or hair salons? Are these rights too?

and so it can go. If they toss a question back your way, pass the porcupine by throwing another question back at them (respectfully, of course). And make these questions good ones.

I’ll be thinking of me own this weekend

In liberty,

Ian

I have given up trying to convince people of the fallacies of Obamacare. I’ve used the Lasisk example before but it’s been met with a sneer “that hardly is the same thing as open heart surgery.” I’ve also mentioned UL (Underwriters Laboratory) as an example of free market regulation.

I work for a medical device company–they make a system that allows doctors to get an ultrasound intra-vascular image to help determine if the patient needs a stint or other surgery. To me, this is a great example of market innovation. Instead of putting someone under the knife for expensive exploratory surgery, they can do it quickly, with just a small incision in the leg and a catheter inserted into an artery. I don’t even think general anesthesia is required. This has got to be something that would help bring costs down, even despite the heavy regulations imposed by the FDA (it makes for a very restrictive work environment keeping the government hounds happy).

Imagine if my company could be free of the FDA? Imagine just how much more productive we could be? Imagine how much cheaper we could ship our devices for, putting them in more doctor’s hands? Isn’t is reasonable to assume that the hospitals would still require certification? I can imagine companies like UL springing up for medical equipment too.

I would suggest that the proliferation of corrective laser eye surgery is a fitting example. My evidence is anecdotal, and comes from living in South Florida. I recall hearing about laser surgery probably about ten years ago when it was a procedure costing thousands of dollars, and was offered by a small handful of surgeons. Some of the executives in our company had done the procedure, and raved about how improved vision had changed their lives for the better.

Over time, the number of providers in the area increased and they frequently advertised on local radio. Prices dropped steadily, eventually to well under a thousand dollars. More and more people in my office building had the procedure done. In addition to gushing about their vision, they would consistently comment on how much better the service was than going to their regular doctor. No one complained about onerous administration or having to wait. They all talked about receiving thorough information and conseling, and the few problems that people had with the actual surgery were treated promptly and typically at no extra charge. It was also clear from advertising and personal accounts that several new surgical innovations were developed to address different vision conditions.

So, a medical service not covered by insurance, not apparently regulated or mandated by any state or federal commissions, pretty much outside the current “system” – what was the result? Falling prices, ample supply, quality service, product innovation and high customer satisfaction. Is this what we need government protection from?