June 7, 2009
(The Swamp) - Last week, we talked about how we got into the health situation we are in, today - unaffordability and impersonalization brought about by government intervention, greed, and their misdirection of societal morality which stems from the misinterpretation of the scientific imperative.
What I'm offering as a solution, today, is painful, embarrassing, and terrifying to those who have no stomach for a genuine cure. Slyly, I have tried to prep you with a dose of de Tocqueville so as to fortify you with a will to be independent and self-reliant. This is important, because, if for even a moment, you think you need to be saved by government, this cure will fail as utterly as Jimmy Carter's down-sized military did, in the Iranian desert.
The first thing is to abandon "incidental" health insurance; that is, health insurance which covers every incidence of medical treatment. Instead, a solid policy for emergency and long term care or terminal health situations is cheap and profound in its implementation. This will have two important effects on the medical market. Within a year, all common medical procedures will fall in price, as doctors realize they can no longer set the price of medical care at an unreasonable level. As they see their clientele lost to doctors who are willing to cut their prices, even the priciest physicians will come down on their fees. There will be an interim period in which people who have been spoon-fed either government or wealthy private "free" medicine will panic. It is unavoidable. The compassionate person will turn a deaf ear to the sycophants of "nannyism" and "saviorism" in government and media as they whine about the poor, forgetting or ignoring that, for the first time in over 75 years, the poor will actually be able to "afford" treatment.
Second, laws restricting the ability of insurance companies to investigate government interference in medical matters should be abolished. Government interference in the pricing of medical matters of any kind should be abolished, by law. Government interference in the licensing of medical persons, by law, should be abolished. Government restrictions on the legal profession in the matter of lawsuits should be abolished, by law, save the most important one, which is the fairest law, and has yet to be allowed - the loser pays. This will have several consequences. Legislators will have no sway on the legal community in the matter of medicine and medical recompense. Bad lawyers will slowly disappear. The cost of insurance will decline. Medical costs will continue to decrease.
Third, laws restricting the dispensation of drugs should be abolished. By itself, this one action will have the salutary effect of reducing, substantially, the cost of drugs and law enforcement, at the same time. Yes, people who cannot resist currently illegal drugs will pass into the next realm of existence, but that is also a matter of their free will. For some reason, there are people who cannot sleep at night because they don't control other people's lives. They have a genetic defect which makes them seek legal remedies to problems which don't exist. Example: there is no moral law which says these people have a right to "protect" a certain class or group of people. There is actuarial evidence which suggests that for every person who wants to "help" someone..
ignoring the rules of natural freedom, there are five examples of unintended consequences which stem from the "help" of that person. Societal morality doesn't keep any person or private group of persons from trying to help someone, and they should - that's what religious and rescue organizations exist for - it's when government does it (as we said last week) that it all goes bad. We're seeing a perfect example of that with the President's and Congress's TARP and Stimulus money-wasting enterprises.
What about purity of product? Shouldn't the government get involved there? Well.. no. If the loser in a lawsuit pays and escape by bankruptcy is denied, you won't be able to take a breath before all substances and foods are as pure as can be. Anytime the government gets involved with anything, it's a sure bet that screwing up or screwing over is bound to happen. The open, free market is lethal to fakirs and false claims
There is a result, which most people are afraid to address. What happens to the stupid, the ignorant, and the lazy? The answer is quite simple - they either stop being stupid, learn whatever needs to be learned, and/or do whatever needs doing, or they stop sullying the gene pool. The number of logical, learned, working people will increase. The poor, the brain-challenged, the unlucky will always be there as an opportunity to give a fellow worker a helping hand - some of the hardest working people are Down Syndrome or Autistic. What goes away is the government perpetuation of the stupid, the ignorant, and the lazy - which government always has a tendency to do.
As to the healers, themselves, they aren't dummies. Even the holdouts for higher fees will get the message when their waiting rooms are empty. Some doctors have already started a lower fee system - charging $1,500 a year which covers everything for that patient that year. It wouldn't hurt to give a substantial tax deduction for every healer who treats a person for free.. not less, FREE.
The final change is legislative restraint. Once the legislature makes these legal changes, they must persevere in restraining themselves from passing any more such laws. Fine, throw the drunk in jail if he drives, but it would better to fine him. Throw him in jail if he steals, but it would be better to make him work to pay back what he stole, plus money for loss of income with prejudice. Throw him in jail if he takes a life, but it would be better if he were manumitted for life to labor and pay his wages to the family of the murdered person. Only child abuse and rape should be an offense for permanently locking people up.. but that's another fight for another day.
This solution WILL work. What the Progressives are proposing won't. It can't, but they are too blind to do any differently. Since they seem to be acting like alley cats, why don't we hold a spay and neuter clinic for them? It's called an election, and there's one coming up in 2010..
- Dick Anderson
