Health Insurance in the 1960's?

Miscellaneous Newbies
1

I recently posted the following on my Facebook page from the Libertarian website:

Health Care: As recently as the 1960s, low-cost health insurance was available to virtually everyone in America - including people with existing medical problems. Doctors made house calls. A hospital stay cost only a few days’ pay. Charity hospitals were available to take care of families who could not afford to pay for healthcare.

To which one of my bleeding heart Facebook friends replied:

Jim, in 1961 only 7% of seniors were able to get or pay for health insurance which is why President Johnson push for Medicare in 1965. Your assertion that low cost health insurance was available is incorrect and laughable. See the book Sick by Jonathan Cohn. He details the last 100+ years of the health care / health insurance issues in the US.

How would you respond? It seems to me that my point really should have been that health care costs back then were much lower, rather than insurance cost. i.e. insurance was not as much of a necessity back then while today we see it as indispensable due to the exorbitant costs of health care.

2

Well, he doesn’t understand basic economics first of all, you should also point out that programs like Medicaid and Medicare drove up the costs of healthcare. Like most products/services, healthcare should be getting cheaper over time, not going in the opposite direction (I’m oversimplifying the matter here, there is much more to this issue regarding govt intervention).

Your friend seems like an arrogant little p**** by the way, maybe you should stick around these forums for awhile, read the blog posts on Mises, and start reading some of the books here. Then you can out your friend for the lummox that he truly is and make him feel really uncomfortable. He seems to be pretty content with intimidating people with his terrible, strawman arguments.