Return To Free Market Will Regulate Health Care Costs

Be very critical of both Democrat and Republican proposals for health care reform (see article.) The ultimate goal MUST be to completely remove federal government intervention from health care and return to a true free market private health care industry (see article.) Competition amongst health care providers and price transparency to health care consumers is the only just and fair method for providing the highest quality coverage to the most people. If the government wants to increase health care coverage, then they should stop taxing it completely and give tax rebates directly to individuals (up to, but not over, the amount of taxes the individual has paid!) for ALL their health care costs (see article.) Individuals should be directly responsible for their own health care insurance policies (just like auto insurance) and not masked by big company employer insurance programs subsidized by government tax incentives.

These actions alone would reduce health care costs such that most people can afford health care expenses out of pocket along with the purchase of a catastrophic health insurance policy. Ultimately the market would probably settle on out of pocket coverage for most things like doctors visits and other non-catastrophic needs (e.g. just like you pay out of pocket to get your brakes fixed on your car). Insurance policies would cover catastrophic health needs with costs driven by actuarial sciences similar to the way car insurance policies are done. Any plans to cover the small percentage of people who cannot pay for health coverage should be handled BY THE INDIVIDUAL STATES (see article) and do something like handing out vouchers (e.g. that effectively translate to money) to individuals so they can make their own choices about their coverage and their provider. Again, the key is to get the federal government completely out of intervening in the private health care industry/market and to return the control of health care to the free market and to individuals.
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Who Benefits from Democracy?

I have started to question if my vote for a "representative" means anything. The pervasive opinion of the day is that "majority rules." I have become frustrated that so many issues are being handled by our "representatives" that take away rights and liberties of individuals. The "representatives" use the fact that they were elected by "the majority" and "it's what the people want" to justify their actions and completely ignore the Constitution and the protection of individual liberties. We have lost the checks and balances of our original Consitutional Republic and our individual rights and liberties are no longer protected from the ravages of "the majority." It appears the mindset of "We the People" has become to increasingly sacrifice our individual liberties for the sake of "false" altruism and "false" security. We sacrifice liberty under the false notion that

• government involvement and intervention in the health care market will improve the health of the people
• government can save us from ourselves and knows better how to solve problems than free markets
  
• wealth redistribution is the fair thing to do
  
• government can protect us better by intruding in our lives by using unconstitutional "pre-emptive detainment" techniques.
• the government must intervene to "save the economy" with stimulus and illegally taking over private companies.
  

The government powers expanded during one administration with one "majority group" cheering the expansion on, can also be used by the next with a different "majority group" cheering.

The "majority" is fickle and one day wants one thing while another day they want another. But it seems that the government is always too willing to grow its powers to satisfy the majority.

In the end, we must ponder "who benefits from democracy?"





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Effects of Government Intervention in Insurance

Government subsidized flood insurance encourages people to live in flood zones and ends up spreading the cost of these people's poor decisions (e.g. to live where there is higher risk of flooding) to other people not living in flood zones. If government didn't intervene, only the people who live in flood zones would share the cost. Additionally (and ironically) it also encourages people to live in ecologically sensitive areas that environmentalists don't want people to live!

In general, government subsidized insurance of any kind is an injustice to the people because it skews the free market in undesirable ways, unfairly redistributes wealth, and has unintended consequences.

See: Save a Tree Hug a Capitalist


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