Too many people think that socialized medicine is just what we need to do in the US. I mean, don’t we want the government control our health pay for all our healthcare expenses? I find it very hard to participate in this sort of arguments. They have only appeal to emotions (as in “the poor need healthcare too”) while I have to talk about what’s wrong with the health care system today, what the free market solutions are and why the “freecare” is a bad, bad idea. Although with our Northern neighbor as an example, it’s getting easier.
So, what are your arguments when talking with people who don’t know much about free market? What would work best to make them see your point of view?
John Stossel has an excellent documentary about health care, just look it up on youtube (type “john stossel” and “health care”). You should also have a look at the Cato Institute website, they have a few very good papers on the subject.
The basics are this:
Medicine is expensive due to government intervention. Just the regulation of drugs and close supervision of them causes huge regulatory costs. When only one or two companies, for example, can create medical cocaine or oxycontin, the prices will be high. If we abolish government limiting who can produce these medicines (which, BTW, is a good argument to make for drug legalization), prices will fall due to more entrepreneurs expanding the supply.
Doctors are expensive partly due to licensing requirements. State and national governments often protect doctors by requiring that only MDs from their states can become doctors and creating all kinds of barriers for doctors from other states to enter the market and compete. Also, nurses can do many of the things that doctors do, but licensing requirements prevent them from doing just that.
Another thing that makes medical care expensive is the nature of medicare and medicaid. People with government provided medical insurance won’t care how much they spend - they’ll spend as much as they can. Have a headache? Why wait to see if it’s worse if you can go to the doctor today and not pay for it? So these government insurance programs actually stimulate demand which means higher prices for all other Americans.
“The poor” already get health care via medicaid and medicare… so if you really want to “protect” the poor, I guess you’d have to live with the evils of these two programs, but “helping the poor” is not a justification for universal health care.
If you really want universal health care, don’t nationalize insurance or the health care industry, or anything of the like. Instead, a superior system of universal health care would be based on a national health savings account, similar to social security. Basically, people would get a deposit of a few thousand dollars for health care that they could use to purchase private insurance or pay for their own medical care. Although this is immoral IMO, it is a superior system to make sure everyone can be insured without completely destroying the health care and health insurance markets.
America actually has a superior health care system to other countries. On the WHO report that is so often quoted, the USA actually scores #1 in terms of quality - we just get lower marks for inequality and lower average lifespans (which can be attributed to Americans being particularly nonathletic, junk-food eaters with high homicide rates). Even though we have more health care inequality, American patients actually have a better chance of surviving cancer, AIDS, and other serious diseases.
The first thing I try and do is get my opponent to admit that government uses force to get what it it wants, so anything they want the government to do means they are asking for the crap to be beat out of me for not complying with their wishes.
After that, I start with a smaller claim. Instead of going against all government health care, I start with government care for people who’s diseases are caused by their own voluntary lifestyle choices.
I cite the fact that the large majority of health care spening is on diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabates, which are caused by poor diet and lack of exercise (stress is an important factor as well). So, now that they have admitted that government uses force, how is it right to force me to pay for the health care of people that made their own lifestyle decision? If you voluntarily choose to be sedentary and eat low quality food, what right do you have to my money to pay for your health care when you chose to get a heart attack?
This line of reasoning defeats all health care claims except children with congenital birth defects.
“in the WHO report that is so often quoted, the USA actually scores #1 in terms of quality - we just get lower marks for inequality and lower average lifespans (which can be attributed to Americans being particularly nonathletic, junk-food eaters with high homicide rates).”
Listen to Stefan Molyneux’s podcasts on ‘Health Care’, and another one on ‘Poverty’, found on the front page of Freedomainradio.com. Clears up a lot of questions
Yup. There was only one category that ranked quality and USA was number one on it. America scored lower on other scales due to inequality (even though we have higher average survival rates for the seriously ill) and a bad DALE (lifespan).
If the quality is number one, then how come America is 37th? Did they evaluate the healthcare systems or the general health of the population?
Personally, I don’t trust these reports much. If the healthcare in Canada is better than in the US, how come wealthy Canadians go to the US for our “bad” healthcare? You read how wonderful socialized healthcare in Sweden, UK, Germany but if you look closely or talk to the residents of these countries you see all kinds of problems, from long waiting lines to the subpar service. If you talk to Americans, the complaints are mostly concerned with the costs (even though most people can find ways to pay even for more expernsive treatments). And yet it’s the Americans, who have never expericned the full socialized medicine, that want it so badly…
No. As I explained in my post, the rankings were mainly based on average lifespan, which really doesn’t have much to do with health care quality, as well as “equality” of health care. America was ranked number one when it came to quality.
Here is an excellent article about health care from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
When discussing it with high school students, people who think that Keynesian economics is the only “proven” theory, and avid statists, I stick with two basic tactics.
The idea that, when price goes down, demand goes up, is fairly well-known and understood - even today’s HS students have heard this. Once the person recognizes this point, I point out that it takes 8 years to train a doctor, and ask them what happens when demand goes up but supply cannot go up to match demand. Usually, I get a “lightbulb just went on” look, and they tell me that healthcare will become dominated by long waits and poor care - and I point out that this is exactly what happened in the UK and Canada.
The other tactic is a bit quicker, and probably less effective. I ask them if they’ve ever seen public housing, then ask them why they think public health will be any different.
In virtually every country with national health insurance, politicians, health ministers, and other government officials are searching for ways to reform their health care systems. Increasingly, the reforms being adopted seek to replace socialism in medicine with privatization, competition and market incentives.
Ironically, while are countries are turning to free market solutions America is going away from them. I guess that’s what they call “progressive” these days. And many Americans are so ignorant about the situation in other countries and still think that health systems are better in Sweden, UK, etc. It annoys me to no end!
Besides, when TV is on, I keep hearing this Obama’s ad where they claim to solve the issue by making the insurance companies cover preexisting conditions. As if it doesn’t defy the whole idea of protecting against possible risks. Who would buy home insurance if they could could collect the money after the house is already burnt to the ground? It would either ruing the insurance business compeltely or make the prices skyrocket. I wonder is Obama this stupid or does he think the American people are stupid (or both)?
The Plan is that they get the insurance companies in an impossible position so the only option is for the State to step in and nationalize them thereby creating a ‘single payer’ system out of a ‘market failure’ emergency situation and not to just go out and seek general public support…which doesn’t exist.
Can’t walk it through the front door, sneak it in through the back door.
Not that I’m saying that he isn’t also stupid or making any similar claim about the American people.
As for socialized health care, I like to say that I’m all for it, so long as it’s voluntary. You’re just not allowed to initiate violence against people who don’t want to participate.
This line of arguing will leave most statists speechless, I find.