After I received the nomination of the Maryland Libertarian Party a
health debate ensued on a national libertarian discussion list: "The
Hammer of Truth." The first article "Maryland Senate Race One to
Watch" is at http://hammeroftruth.com/2006/04/04/md-senate-a-race-to-watch/
There were many comments to that article. As I result I responded with
a column they titled: "Zeese Responds to Libertarians on Single
Payer." The article is below, you can see the comments at: http://hammeroftruth.com/2006/04/07/zeese-response-to-libertarians-on-healthcare-issues/.
Zeese Response to Libertarians on
Healthcare Issues
The other day, I
posted that Kevin
Zeese had won the somewhat unorthodox (but worthy of
experimentation) Libertarian Party nomination/endorsement for his
race for U.S. Senate in Maryland. As I sort of expected, the comments
turned into a debate over his campaign position on healthcare. While
I disagree with Zeese’s position (we are rationally discussing our
differences by e-mail), he’s a duly nominated LP candidate and
should be given a chance to explain why he has chosen his particular
position on the issue. Here’s what Zeese adds to the
debate:
I don’t see national health care as socialized medicine. In
fact, I do not favor doctors and hospitals being made government
doctors and government hospitals — that would be socialized
medicine. One of the advantages of a single payer system is that it
will actually increase competition among doctors and other health
care providers. Right now competition is stilted by private health
insurance carriers who tell patients which doctor or provider they
can go to. Any system based on private insurance will undermine
competition.
I am open to a ‘free market’ solution but to compete with
single payer it must provide: health care for all that is affordable,
comprehensive and transportable for every Americans lifetime. The
problem with relying on the private insurance approach — called
“all-payer” — is that insurance providers will fragment the
market. Healthy, young people (not children but young adults) will
probably have affordable insurance, but anyone who is too young, too
old or has a chronic illness will be priced out of the market.
Private insurance will just be too expensive for them.
Regarding health care here are some issues
to consider:
– the U.S. spends more per capita than any other country in the
world yet tens of millions go without insurance,
– employers get
massive corporate welfare through tax breaks when they provide health
insurance,
– the health insurance and the pharmaceutical
industries get massive corporate welfare,
– politicians of both
parties are corrupted as they take money from these sources (as does
Ben Cardin, so don’t expect him to advocate single payer),
–
we spend nearly $200 billion — 25% of the cost of health care —
on insurance industry bureaucracy (compared to 3% overhead of
Medicare),
– 42% of the typical doctors office overhead is spent
trying to collect payment from health insurance compared to Canada
where a 1/2 page electronic form is used,
– employers struggle
to compete with foreign competition that does not pay for health
care,
– employers fear bankruptcy and are afraid to hire
employees because of the uncontrollable cost of health care,
–
workers are unable to change jobs or stop working for fear of losing
health insurance,
– medical malpractice will be brought under
control by single payer because if there is a bad medical outcome the patient will have health care, combine
that with no fault insurance and the malpractice problem is basically
resolved,
–patients do not have free choice of health care
provider because insurance decides which doctor or provider patients
can go to, this undermines competition and reduces quality.
For these reasons (and others, that I am sure I’m forgetting)
single payer is supported across the board politically —
progressives, liberals, conservatives, businessmen, consumers — by
wide margins according to a Pew Poll — even among
libertarian-leaning voters there is a large minority that supports
it.
I’m open to other solutions, but don’t see any on the horizon.
(The Massachusetts approach — mandating everyone get health
insurance — gives more power to the corrupt health insurance
industry so that is not an approach I favor.)
Kevin
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