Galt's Gulch
10

Why government shouldn't get involved in healthcare

Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago to Government
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This is a short, but very well written logical piece on why government-run healthcare fundamentally differs from say police or fire protection.
SOURCE URL: http://www.dailywire.com/news/13828/how-single-payer-healthcare-different-paying-ben-shapiro

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  • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 7 years, 1 month ago
    I have a simpler reason why government should not be involved in healthcare...our Constitution does not allow for it.
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    • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 1 month ago
      Correct. Healthcare is not an enumerated power. For over 150 years we got along just fine and created the best healthcare industry in the world. A Tenth Amendment issue.
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      • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 1 month ago
        And, now we will destroy the best healthcare in the world. We're already lagging. Look at the health of Americans. We're a mess. If it weren't for our (relatively) clean drinking water most of us probably wouldn't even be around to read this...
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        • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 1 month ago
          What bothers me in the current debate of "Repeal and Replace" is the complete lack of the obvious question of - why replace? The federal government has no business in this at all. Just let the free market work its magic again. I.e., get out of the way!

          And then what is this crap about not being able to purchase health insurance plans across state lines? What happened to the bonafide role of the federal government under the Interstate Commerce Cause intended to insure that commerce across the states is merely equitable? They've screwed that one up too.
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          • Posted by $ jdg 7 years, 1 month ago
            The reason to replace (at least with the right to buy coverage from any state) is that state regulation of health insurancee also produces very bad results -- and such a law, which is all about interstate commerce, would actually be constitutional.
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            • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 1 month ago
              Except that the federal Congress has no jurisdiction to pass anything regarding healthcare and any purchasable insurance related to it. Again, there is no enumerated power. The Interstate Commerce Clause only provides the feds with the oversight to ensure that the commerce and trade between the states is on a equal footing basis. It does not provide an authority to completely prevent such commerce.

              State regulation of health care and related insurance is also not without limits. But to the point, it is a well known principle that the experimentation within each of the States is a fertile ground for the best solutions to compete and come forth for all the States to emulate based upon the results of success. The one size fits all approach of a central federal government denies this.

              Healthcare is an industry like any other. It is provided by qualified individuals to willing paying patients that can comb a free market for the best service for their money. Government on any level has no role except where claims leading to proven crimes have damaged one citizen by another. Hence, it is and always has been with the State jurisdictions to establish certifications for providing services.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 1 month ago
    Congress in cahoots with the executive has a habit of doing stupid things. Running the healthcare system ranks right up there as one of the stupidest.
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  • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 1 month ago
    Objectivism has a very different view of why government should not be involved in health care. It’s because government exists to protect individuals from force or fraud, and health care is outside the scope of this purpose. So are education, fire protection and welfare. The whole (anti)concept of “public goods” is bogus.
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    • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
      Not to disagree with any of that, but how many of us run in Objectivist-only circles? These are good arguments to answer a real gotcha question in a way that doesn't first involve a two-hour primer on Objectivism ;)
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 1 month ago
        I don’t run in Objectivist-only circles, but I can effectively argue against government health care without a two-hour primer on Objectivism (or a two-hour primer on supply, demand, price, rationing, and non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods and services). I simply bring the issue of individual choice front and center. Everybody understands the importance of choice, and everybody wants to be free to make their own choices. Obama lied that “if you want your doctor, you can keep your doctor” because he understood that the choice of a doctor was a major issue for voters. It’s not difficult or time-consuming to explain to the “man in the street” that without government oversight, he will have more choices of insurance plans, medical providers and types of treatment. And that puts the other side on the defensive, since all of their government health care proposals take away many of the voters’ choices.
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        • Posted by term2 7 years, 1 month ago
          Government should stay out of healthcare for moral reasons first, and also because they cant possibly be efficient at it secondly. There is no competition in government, so it will never be better.
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          • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 1 month ago
            Don't forget that government by nature has the power to tax, fine, imprison, or kill depending upon the degree of resistance that one gives to some law. The gun is always there when government is involved. So be careful about using government for more than the protection of individual rights of life, liberty, and property. All other use of government will infringe on those rights.
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        • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
          I commend you on an audience that will accept the choice argument. Many I've talked to either don't connect those dots or aren't as concerned about personal liberty to really care about government involvement. Their primary focus is "will I have healthcare?"
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          • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 1 month ago
            Yep.

            I like to really speak Martian to people and tell them that the partnership between healthcare and government has proven throughout history to be the most lethal, intrusive example of moral hazard and social engineering mankind has ever devised.
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            • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 1 month ago
              It sure feels like I'm talking to aliens sometimes ;)
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              • Posted by LibertyBelle 7 years, 1 month ago
                I don't really think that, in the end, it will do any
                good to explain and prove until you're blue in the face why government health care won't work, why it is inefficient, etc., without any reference to individual rights, and that that is why the government should not be involved in it.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 7 years, 1 month ago
      The economics problem of public goods is not at all bogus. The fact that it applies to a small number of services that are essential to civilized life is what makes the existence of government necessary at all, in spite of the large negative externalities it nearly always brings.
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  • Posted by wiggys 7 years, 1 month ago
    how about it is none of the business of OUR employees to tell us anything about how we individually should take care of our selves. of course they just like to interfere in other peoples lives. hell of a way to live.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 7 years, 1 month ago
    basic reason....it violates the right to life, liberty, and the product of one's life...which outside the preamble of govt...it is univeral...ref: Hobbes, and Locke...natural law...
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