Universal Health Care

It looks like Gary will get his Universal Health coverage. No matter how often collectivism has failed, people still want more. People in Venezuela in recent years have voted to give up their individual freedoms in favor of the collective. Recent elections in Brazil, Bolivia, and Nicaragua also favor collectivism over individual liberty. People are afraid of individual liberty because it requires transparency. Who you are is readily apparent because you are in a competitive environment and individual choices and behaviors show consequences. In a collective society it is easy to hide behind poor performance and pose as being equal to the strong and swift, and feel safe, no matter the unseen cost to the society. It is painful to be of low status in a group. Better to be equal to all, even if all in the group are miserable.

It looks like the consumers will be forced to buy health insurance. What would happen to the cost of computers if the consumers were forced to buy computers? When force is used, the consequences are most often negative.

It is ironic that Fidel Castro will likely die from a curable disease, diverticulitis. His socialized health care required him to import a doctor from Spain. One of Castro's best-known slogans was "Socialism or death!"
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53879

President Bush wants to make health insurance premiums a standard tax deductible item, reducing the amount of taxes buyers of health insurance pay. Anytime the government interferes in the market place the unseen consequences are negative. Allowing insurance premiums to be tax deductible will only increase the cost of health insurance. The same can be said about a mortgage for a house which allows the interest to be deductible. The consumer still pays out of pocket what they can afford. If the mortgage interest deduction was canceled you would see the price of homes reduced accordingly to what the consumer could pay.

In the 19th century the United States, except for slavery and the mistreatment of the American Indians, was a short open window of liberty. People had the most freedoms, except slaves, of any people in the past history of mankind. One will argue that women did not have the right to vote. Somehow they had enough power to get the right to vote without firing a shot! The window of liberty has been
closing in the past few decades. Young people today are inured to the thousands of laws they are required to live under. Only someone who grew up in a time and place where liberty existed can see the window closing.

Denis sent me a quote a few months ago-- "I want either less corruption or more opportunity to participate in it." - Ashleigh Brilliant. In Fredrick Bastiat's, "The Law", Bastiat predicted in 1849 that plunder would become a way of life in a democratic group.

"Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter - by peaceful or revolutionary means - into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely
different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it."
Fredrick Bastiat, The Law
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G16372

Universal Health Coverage shows the instinct to share (legal plunder) in group benefits is alive and well. As long as the group is responsible for me, I have no responsibility.

Anyone knows the way to reduce the cost of a product or service is to increase the supply. To reduce the cost of health care all that is needed is to increase the supply of health care providers; doctors, nurses and hospitals. The way to increase the supply of doctors and nurses is to
eliminate the requirement for a license to practice medicine. A nurse who has worked for years in Obstetrics should know how to delivery a baby. Let her visit homes to delivery the baby in-house. This will reduce the cost of a birth from thousands to a few hundred dollars.

People should be able provide health care even if they do not have a license. The health care doctor lobby and medical schools lobby will argue that this will cause many patients to surfer from quality care. How do they know? It has not been tried. There is no data to prove their point. Some people will not have the best medical care money can provide, but they will have more medical care and more choices without licensing requirement.

Columnist Ted Rall wants universal health care. He even thinks doctors should be federal employees! The government only operates on force and violence, yet people of both parties want more force and violence. The government forced me to contribute to Social Security. It forces me to pay increases premiums for Medicare Part A. The government forcibly makes me
pay for the Medicare premium out of my social security. If I think the premiums are too high the only way I can opt out of Medicare is to give up all of my social security benefits, benefits I was forced to pay for.

Throughout history the elite in socialist societies have always lived better than the masses. If you get universal health care do you think the U. S. Congress will give up some of their perks and take the same universal health care we get. From; http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=343 "The Attending Physician's Office is a $1.8 million-per-year operation that encompasses three separate facilities employing nearly twenty doctors, nurses, and technicians in the U.S. Capitol (some of whom are part-time workers). The clinics are open to Members of Congress and Legislative Branch employees. Until 1992 lawmakers were entitled to receive acute care, lab tests, and other clinical work free of charge.

Since that time, an annual fee has been instituted, which this year is reportedly set at $332 for House Members and $520 for Senators. At this rate, the annual taxpayer subsidy for the Attending Physician is still at least $1.6 million. However, Americans may take comfort in the fact that their subsidy has personal value -- Capitol visitors who fall victim to medical emergencies may receive treatment as well.

One medical benefit for lawmakers that even other Congressional employees can't obtain is the combination of outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital -- along with inpatient care at the minimum flat daily rate even if intensive care treatment is required."

Bilbo Baggins