Date: 06/14/2010
Authoritarianism Is Bad For Your Health
by Ron Paul
The administration’s terrible healthcare reform bill is now law, but the debate over how — and whether — the federal government should be involved in providing healthcare services is not over. It is not too late for America to correct its course and stop the march toward a government run, “single payer” healthcare system.
Polls show that a large majority of Americans don’t want Obamacare. Congress should seize the opportunity to repeal the very worst aspect of this new legislation, namely the mandate that forces every American either to purchase health insurance or face an IRS penalty. This mandate represents nothing more than an unconstitutional, historically unprecedented gift to the insurance industry. I introduced the “End the Mandate Act” (HR 4995) expressly to prevent the administration from ever putting this provision into effect.
Instead of mandating the same failed entitlement healthcare schemes that are bankrupting Europe, Congress should fundamentally re-examine the case for free-market healthcare. Our current model, based on employer-provided health insurance, did not arise based on market preferences. On the contrary, it makes no sense to couple health insurance with employment. But federal wage and price controls instituted during World War II left employers with no alternative to attract workers in a tight labor market other than offering extra benefits such as health insurance and pensions. Over time these nonwage benefits became the norm, especially since employers could deduct the cost of health insurance premiums from their income taxes while individuals could not. The perverse consequence is that employees lose both their paychecks and their health insurance when they lose their job.
As reliance on third-party health insurance grew, patients became detached from the true costs of their doctor visits. In the 1970s the Nixon administration, along with the late Senator Edward Kennedy, championed the cause of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Congress accepted the faulty premise that HMOs would reduce costs through centralized management of patients, when in fact the opposite was true: more bureaucracy would only lead to higher costs, less accountability, and worse patient care.
In recent years Congress has only intensified the problem with more laws and more regulations, especially with the disastrous Medicare prescription drug benefit. The drug benefit was another example of naked patronage to a politically-connected industry, and it exponentially worsened the federal government’s balance sheet. Obamacare will be the last nail in the coffin of our bankrupt entitlement system.
More laws are not the answer. Instead, we need to allow a market system to operate that reflects consumer choices while rationally pricing services. In a market system patients likely would pay cash for basic services, while maintaining relatively high-deductible catastrophic insurance for serious illnesses and accidents. The cost of most routine medical care would drop if the patient paid the bill on the spot, especially if doctors no longer needed to employ large staffs solely to deal with insurance and billing.
Let me repeat: we need a system in America where patients pay cash for basic services, and carry insurance only for serious illnesses and accidents. “Health maintenance” is the responsibility of each of us individually. We cannot continue to collectivize the costs of healthcare and expect things to get better.
Authoritarianism is bad for your health. Congress should end the Obamacare mandate and allow market-based medicine to flourish.
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Give Ron Paul a chance. . .This guy really is trying to fix our problems and isn’t continuously going to blame our countries problems on the Bush administration! We don’t need anymore excuses! I want people to be held accountable. Ron Paul likes accountability and I do too.
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Dr. Paul offers a substantial policy position from a notable healthcare background. Still, I think he puts too much hope in the ability of market forces to stabilize healthcare prices effectively. Fees may decrease if insurance is eliminated in the future, but can’t quality of services provided go down in accordance? Free market economics principles translate well to products and services, but is health a commodity? It can’t be traded or stored for the future, and as such, a libertarian policy towards it may not really be sustainable. There is no real cap on the price you can set for health services, or true absolute value you can assign to it. This is because a sick person may (and under the present system, often do) give up everything they own for the chance to be healthy again. Thus, I think doctor’s setting their own payment schemes can potentially have catastrophic effects- the poor and middle class may effectively be priced out of healthcare. And even worse, physicians will begin to directly view each patient in terms of the amount of compensation they can provide for their medical services.
I think comparing the Obamacare package to a single payer option is not very accurate. Though government expenditures will increase with inflation during the period reform goes into effect, the government is by no means blanketing coverage over people, even if Medicaid’s boundaries are somewhat increased. And though the idea of patient’s paying doctors directly for each visit is presented, the question of who pays for expensive medications is not mentioned by Dr. Paul at all. It would be extremely shameful if in a society such as ours, medications for rare conditions could only be acquired by the very rich. Dr. Paul’s comments seem to go against government’s purported reason for existence. If it could not protect and care for its weakest citizens, why would we need this style of government at all?
Dr. Paul’s idea of healthcare being improperly tied to job security is a very good point, and unfortunately, Healthcare Reform doesn’t do nearly enough to address this problem. If anything, like Dr. Paul suggests, it makes it worse, by forcing more people into a system of employer-provided coverage. Unfortunately this staple of American healthcare doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere any time soon.
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http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/doctor-accused-of-misdiagnosing-kids
Another story of ‘when Libertarian principles gone bad’.
Libertarian principles in this story:
-Cheap Foreign Labor (foreign doctor)
-Open Borders (foreign doctor goes back to Saudi Arabia)
-Anything for money is good (foreign doctor diagnoses for extra money. Money it’s a hit, and don’t give me that do goody good bullshoot.)
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When government take over you and your kids well-being and latter tell me that Nancy’s husband killed her and then him self and called murdered suicide.
Give me a break.
Read the story of Nancy Shaefer “child protective agency”
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Bottom Line, We the People CAN NOT afford these programs.
Mises called it a “Crack Up Boom” economy, one where the currency is counterfeited and diluted and no longer has restraints.
Obama-Care is just another government spend thrift program in a long line of Bad Legislation.
Dr Paul said “The drug benefit was another example of naked patronage to a politically-connected industry”
Government is continuously passing bad laws that confer “special protections” for select big industries creating cartels that eliminate Free Choice of the American citizens. [Listen up Fred]
Now just try to repeal the Senior Proscription Drug law passed by GWB. That Big Government spending program alone is a $76 TRILLION unfunded liability.
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Oh! I hold heartedly agree. This piece of crap will dug us deeper into debt and those who are satisfied with their health care plan will lose it and won’t be able to afford it. Obese Government crushes all of us. & I couldn’t agree more that Obama care should be repealed. Because it’s just one bad piece of legislation after another.
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JUST WHAT AMERICA NEEDS NOT ONE BUT TWO DOCTORS PAUL/PAUL 2012
i think the question now is will we make it that far
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I’d like to see them try to force me to pay for health insurance.
Anything mailed to me by any agency regarding not having insurance will be promptly shredded and any individual which comes to my residence to enforce this unconstitutional scheme does so at their own risk.
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Same here.
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Libertarianism is bad for your health: prostitution, drugs, slave labor, no environmental or workplace regulation (anarchy)…
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last i checked the Libertarians were not in power.
Last I checked BP was regulated (by MMS).
Last I checked Enron was regulated (SEC).
Last I checked Bernie Madoff was regulated (by SEC).
Last I checked GM had tariffed wages (through unions).
All those cases turned out to be really good examples of regulation. NOT.
I know YOU may not like to take responsibility for your own life (you need the government to tell you that drugs and prostitutes are not a preferable choice in life), but irrespective of whether drugs and hookers are legal or not, I’d rather not use either. Personal choice thank you. But at least I have the choice. Why don’t you want alcohol and tobacco to be banned as well? We’ve heard these arguments before during prohibition. All that created was Al Capone and the gangs of Chicago. What’s happened since the ‘war on drugs’ was started? 12,000 people dying a year in Mexico. Is that a preferable course of action here?
Fred, I’ve yet to hear a response to you on your actual plan on how to implement tariffs, on which industries, and how you’d plan to enact them. And when enacting tariffs how you do not disadvantage other US producers as a result. Also to what extent do you believe in tariffs. Should technology be tariffed heavily to discourage mechanisation of processes (and hence resultant unemployment). When cars were made by hand a lot more people were employed making cars (and paid higher wages too).
Instead of just ranting, please give your learned readers an understanding of your position.
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“last i checked the Libertarians were not in power.
Last I checked BP was regulated (by MMS).
Last I checked Enron was regulated (SEC).
Last I checked Bernie Madoff was regulated (by SEC).
Last I checked GM tariffed wages (through unions).
All those cases turned out to be really good examples of regulation. NOT.”
Multiply BP, Enron, Madoff by 1,000 and you’ll have your Libertarian Utopia.
Yes yes we all know you Libertarians hate American manufacturing and American labor. You prefer slave labor. Yes yes, we all know that.
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and yet we STILL wait for Fred to actually explain his position.
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Hey FRED…
Libertarian777 is point on!
You’ve never once made a cogent argument for your paranoid protectionists rant.
Dissing everyone on this site with your convoluted logic and insulting derisions isn’t making your argument nor is it undermining the Libertarian’s platform. Your mindset is much more in line with Ed Schultz http://www.bigeddieradio.com/listenLive/ I’m sure your Neo-Nazi Protectionists rants will really IMPRESS Ed, maybe?
Say Goodbye Fred
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“and yet we STILL wait for Fred to actually explain his position.”
Well that might be true since I try to avoid common political cliches/jargon. So you may not know what i’m talking about while I do know what you are talking about, but I doubt it; I just think you’re lying when you claim you don’t know what i’m talking about.
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“Neo-Nazi Protectionists rants”
Are you calling the founding fathers, the original Republican Party, all 4 presidents on Mount Rushmore Neo-Nazi’s? That’s mean, you a big meanie. to hate American foundation principles.
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So what that the founding fathers said do you agree with, just to be clear?
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“So what that the founding fathers said …”
Said, Oh SAID, not DID. I’m more concerned with what they DID then 1-liners that can be taken out of context by Anarchists and Communists alike. What they DID were things like Tariffs, defend the country from pagans, kill people who screw with America, pass Tariffs, so on and so forth.
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