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Free market health insurance

Political ·Wednesday December 31, 2008 @ 04:00 EST (link)

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
—Thomas Jefferson

The key word is "IF". Unfortunately, President-Elect [Obama] was elected under the pretense of taking care of them.
—KM on CLAMS

Interesting New York Times letter to the editor and especially the FAQ on free market health insurance, wherein Dr. Paul Hsieh of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM) explains how the solution to skyrocketing healthcare costs is not more government control (and theft) but a free market; from his letter:
The skyrocketing costs of health insurance are the result of onerous government regulations, such as mandatory benefits.

Many states require insurance plans to include benefits like chiropractor care or in vitro fertilization. Such mandatory benefits raise insurance costs by about 20 percent to 50 percent, according to the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.

More fundamentally, mandated benefits violate an individual’s right to contract freely with insurers and providers according to his rational judgment for his best interest. Instead, a bureaucrat decides how the individual must spend his own money.

Eliminating these mandates would make health insurance available to millions of Americans who desperately want it but cannot now afford it.

The proper solution to the health insurance crisis is not more government, but a free market.
His FAQ answers some common questions, such as: Read it, read it now, and then tell me that you can, with a clean conscience, support such socialist mandates as "universal healthcare", no matter how it's suger-coated.

Books finished: Beyond Technical Analysis.