From The Founder's Desk
columnist: Walt Thiessen

Topic: Health Care
Two Health Care Options

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It has become clear that the politicians at all levels of government are determined to push this country into nationalizing health care, one painful step at a time. For those who don't want to live under nationalized health care (for good reason), it's time to discuss having two, separate health care systems.

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by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

With the announcement from New York Governor Eliot Spitzer that he intends to sue the Federal government to make it possible for families of four with more than $80,000 in income to get government-paid health insurance, it is now silly to talk as if nationalization of health care isn't here already. It is here. It hasn't consolidated itself under one program yet, but the days of private health care are clearly numbered.

This is not a good thing. Current trends will lead to health care rationing and health care availability only for those who have the right political connections, leaving the rest of us stuck with excuses, delays, and ever-spiraling prices. God help those of us who actually need health care, because as time goes on it's going to become nearly unavailable to the most desperately ill. Worst of all, costs are going to continue to skyrocket. They show no signs of slowing down at all.

Thanks to a myriad of absurd state laws, Medicare, Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration, the IRS with its health care deductions for employers, a Congress that loves to spend money it doesn't have, and countless other government programs and benefits, there is no longer a free market in health care in the United States.

So I propose that it's time we have two health care systems in this country. Clearly, the voices clamoring for nationalized health care are going to get their way. That battle is virtually lost at this time. Instead of trying to reverse it, I propose that we should create an alternative. I propose that individual citizens should be permitted to opt out of the system completely.

Those who scream the loudest for nationalized health care need not worry. They can be assured that the overwhelming majority of Americans will stick with the nationalized system. There's no risk to them.

But for those of us who would rather not be stuck with nationalized health care, this kind of "opt out" option is an absolute necessity. Here's how I see that it can work.

Under this alternate system, anyone can opt out in favor of a totally free market system. This would put anyone who opts out completely at the mercy of free market forces where health care is concerned. Those individuals who choose free market medicine would be required to sign a paper giving up any entitlement to Medicare or Medicaid. They would no longer be protected by the Food and Drug Administration. If they are business owners, they would no longer be permitted to write off health insurance for their employees from their company's income taxes. The huge body of intrusive health care law would no longer apply to them, and they would no longer benefit from those protections. The only plus would be that they would no longer be forced to pay for Medicare out of their paychecks, and they would receive a tax credit to refund their share of all Federally funded health care programs.

What I'm talking about here, essentially, is a divorce. The small minority of evil free marketers will then go their own way, to scrape together whatever tiny bits of health care they can find. Of course, health care providers can also opt out, but they will also pay similar penalties. They won't get any more Federal subsidies of any kind. And they will, by law, have to display a big, scarlet Free Market Only sign, like Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, on their office door, telling all patients who remain under the nationalized system that this provider is hazardous to their health, will not be covered by their insurance, and should be avoided at all costs.

Insurers who want to opt out will be denied the opportunity to sell their insurance to the vast majority of people who remain under the nationalized system. Most will undoubtedly refuse to do so, meaning that health insurance for people who opt for the Free Market (FM) option will be nearly impossible to get at first.

Of course, all the insurance laws that protect health insurance companies will also not apply to the crazy few who opt for the Free Market Only plan. The people who select the FM option will suffer from all the inherent flaws of a Wild West type of health care, where there are no guarantees, no promises, no subsidies, no government to bail you out. If you can't afford health care, you'll have to go without if you've opted out, and you'll suffer the consequences. You might even die. The risk is entirely yours, and no one will save you.

Pharmaceuticals and other companies that sell products to the health care industry would have to choose, too. They could either stick with the nationalized plan, or they could sell to the Free Marketers, but they would not be permitted to do both. The separation between the two options must be complete and total, representative of the irrevocable divorce we're proposing here. And for certain, the pharmaceuticals would nearly all choose the nationalized plan. After all, that's where the money is.

The patent laws would also need to be modified so that patents in medicine would only be available to patent developers within the nationalized system. FM'ers would not be permitted to access patented technologies. Nationalized health care is where the big money will be found, so that's where patented medicine will stay.

Doctors who choose to opt out will have to give up all of their patients who remain under the nationalized system. As a doctor, you will be permitted to serve under one system or the other, but not both.

The American Medical Association will continue to govern the medical standards of the nationalized system, but they will have no say over anyone who practices medicine (or sells snake oil) under the Free Market system. The same will also be true for any of the other medical associations that currently govern various branches of the medical community. All of them will likely go with the nationalized system. Again, the divorce will be complete and total.

So given the totality of the divorce, we must now answer a very simple, direct question. Why would anyone in their right mind choose the Free Market option?

The answer is difficult for most people to believe, but I'll state it here anyway. Those daring, courageous few, that tiny minority who decide to opt out will end up with the far better, far cheaper health care system, while those who stick with the nationalized system will see their system collapse completely.

How can this be? What childish fantasy is this?

If we were to stack the deck so completely in favor of the nationalized health care system, it would surprise most people to think that the Free Marketers could even survive such a divorce, let alone prosper. Yet, the reality is that it would survive. In fact, it would thrive.

Already, there are many doctors who have opted out of health care entirely, choosing instead to retire because they're sick and tired of dealing with the government-made mess. Some of these would come out of their voluntary retirement and join the Free Market (FM) option. Alternative medicine practitioners would be split. Some would opt for the nationalized system, while others would opt for the FM system. Tiny little clinics would quickly emerge to serve the needs of the FM micro-minority of the population. New companies would emerge seemingly out of nowhere to supply the fledgling new, free market industry, even though they would no longer be allowed to corner the market with patents. (That option would remain the province of nationalized health care participating companies.) The emphasis would be on low-cost (or even no cost) options. And the result would be a new, expanding segment of the economy which the corporate giants couldn't touch (without giving up all of their government-guaranteed advantages).

The FDA would have no say over the FM optioners. In fact, prescription drugs would be a virtual thing of the past for FM'ers. Nationalists would shake their fingers and warn that prescription drug abuse will run rampant, but without prescription requirements, this would not be strictly correct. More accurately, drug abuse would run rampant without any prescription requirements at all. And FM'ers will agree, "Yes, that's part of the price we few pay for the recklessness of our decision to opt out." Those drug addicts who also decide to opt out will find that there's no one willing to bail them out when they find themselves strung out. They'll have to sink or swim on their own. Some will overdose and kill themselves, but a small number will decide that they've had enough, and they'll seek out the tiny number of family therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists who have also decided to opt out. Without a nationalized market guaranteed to them, they may find themselves forced to drastically reduce their rates just to get patients, since so few patients will be available to them. This is how addicts who have reached the end of their rope but are willing to change their habits and their lives will be able to find help.

Every huckster imaginable will come out of the woodwork offering fake snakeoil remedies. That's part of the price the FM'ers will gladly pay for their free market. But there will also be a few who will genuinely offer good, reliable medical products, and these few will soon thrive. Soon their numbers will explode as more and more FM'ers decide to become entrepreneurs to feed viable products to the fledgling market, knowing that they can't corner the market using the government anymore (because they can't get patent law protection), but they'll keep trying to offer products anyway, to the astonishment of the national health care patients.

All this is nothing compared to the comparative cost of the two programs. It will soon become clearly evident to everyone that those crazy FM'ers were the smart ones, and those left behind in the mega-monolith nationalized plans were the big losers. As the nationalized supermajority watch their medical prices sail out of sight (even though they pay "nothing" for their health care which is guaranteed to them by law and paid for out of their tax dollars), the free marketers will actually watch their prices remain stable or even go down. While the nationalized supermajority watch the politicians develop their rationing programs (created under pseudonyms such as "equal access" and "fair access" plans) that make it harder and harder for the supermajority enslaved by nationalized medicine to get anything but the most superficial care, those crazy FM'ers will see their health care options explode and expand with great abundance, as more and more providers and patients decide to opt out of the nationalized system, throw caution to the wind, and move over to the Wild West free market health care system.

Well, that was a fun flight of fantasy. Of course, the reality is that the political and economic leaders of the health care nationalists will never allow a tiny minority of us to opt out, because they know it would destroy their nice, cushy stranglehold on the American political-economy. The "news" that even a tiny free market health care system with no access to most of the population would still manage to outperform and outstrip nationalized health care is not news at all to the top nationalized health care planners. Their followers still believe otherwise (as planned) but the leaders know the truth. They know for certain that a complete free market in health care would outperform their schemes every time. They've known it for decades, but their entire goal, their entire plan, their entire motivation is to do everything in their power to prevent you, the average American, from knowing that it's true. Because if you were ever to figure that out, they'd be finished, and they know it. They'd lose their prestigious positions of power and pots of gold gathered at the end of their rainbows. They'd lose their stranglehold on the economy. They'd lose their ability to monopolize the market. They'd be the has-beens of history.

And there's no way they're going to let that happen.

But they also don't have to worry, because all they have to do is to scare average Americans like you to keep voting for their side, to keep clamoring for it, to keep shouting for it, no matter what the price. History tells them they'll win, just as long as they don't allow that teeny, tiny minority of us to opt out of their system.

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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Last modified: Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The views expressed in this article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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