S/L: Mandate Birth Control Insurance Coverage for Women

Cost should not matter when deciding birth control

My commentary:

Posted by zemack July 25, 2011 at 11:39AM

“But it’s up to every woman to decide for herself whether or not to use birth control.” Who would disagree with that? But it’s also up to that woman to pay for it herself, not force others to pay through a compulsory insurance mandate. But, there are hundreds of benefit mandates forced upon our “private” health insurance across the nation. So, if a woman is forced to pay for some guy’s prostate cancer treatment of Viagra in the same way, why shouldn’t she demand he pay for her birth control? It seems only fair, right?

What’s unfair is for government to impose any mandates at all. Insurers and their customers have a moral right to contract freely with each other, to mutual benefit, without government interference. Government’s job is to enforce those health insurance contracts and prosecute fraud and breech of contract, not redistribute wealth through regulation and law. That is not only immoral, but is one of the prime reasons for out-of-control health costs. When each of us is forced to pay for everyone else’s healthcare, but not our own, then the incentive is to not give a hoot what our’s costs, but to simply pressure government to dump our costs on others. Socialism turns everyone into predators, not “brothers and sisters”.

Our health insurance system is a socialized system through and through. “Private” insurance is only nominally so, and is really an extension of government. It is far from anything resembling a free market, being more in the nature of economic fascism – i.e., socialism through the back door. Of course, we have real socialism in the system too, through Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, and so on.

The S/L justifies this new mandate on the grounds of “public health” because “About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, which places a heavy strain on society.” But who switched the burden of unplanned pregnancies onto “society” – onto others through their taxes – in the first place? It was the statists themselves through government programs. To “fix” that problem, they propose to widen government control of medicine through our quasi-governmental insurance industry in the form of this new mandate.

No one is morally responsible for another’s health care needs, except as dictated by personal choices and actions – such as bringing a child into the world. Beyond that, the moral standards of individual rights, free markets, and a free society means every adult individual is responsible for his own healthcare needs only, until and unless he/she volunteers to give financial help to a neighbor or friend or even a stranger. No one’s unfilled needs places an automatic moral claim on the money or services of another, beyond private voluntary charity. Until we accept these moral truths, we will continue to build toward totalitarian socialism one brick at a time.

Rationing - Canadian vs. American Style

We Ration. We Ration. We Ration. We Ration.

My Commentary:

Posted by: Zemack | August 31, 2009 8:45 PM

Mr. Klein's line of reasoning fails to distinguish between earning one’s keep and getting something for nothing, between government force and voluntary trade. As any honest man knows, one cannot consume what one has not produced. As any honest man knows, one can morally consume what another has produced only after acquiring it by voluntary means…by trade or private charity. As any honest man ultimately knows, one cannot consume in excess of what one earns.

Being unable to afford the price of what someone else produces is not rationing, despite the fact that that term is sometimes used in reference to the laws of economics. Your money represents the value that you have created for someone else through your productive work ... be it a product, service, your labor, or what have you ... in a voluntary trade. You then use your money to purchase the healthcare you need in the same manner … by voluntary trade, on mutually agreed terms, to mutual benefit. If no voluntary agreement is reached, no trade takes place. The fact that one person can’t pay for a medical procedure, while another can (whether in cash or some other means such as a prior contractual agreement like insurance), is not rationing. Nor is it unfair in any way. In a health care free market - which America’s semi-socialist, semi-fascist, government-controlled system is not - physical force is absent.

Government is a unique institution, possessing a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. When government runs healthcare, it must necessarily use its coercive powers to dictate who gets what healthcare when, because when government pays, government sets the terms. The winners are the moochers, the losers are the self-supporting. The essence of government rationing is to forcibly deny health care to those who have earned it, for the sake of those who haven't. The essence of market "rationing" is justice ... each person must earn his health care, by his own effort, in voluntary trade with providers. To advocate the former over the latter is a moral perversion. But then, socialism in all of its collectivist forms is a moral perversion.

Rationing is government distribution of goods and services, as in both World Wars. It is force, and nothing else. There is no coercive central distributive authority outside of government (or government controlled quasi-private insurance giants), only millions of individuals producing and trading by mutual consent. But however one chooses to define rationing, the choice is stark. The choice is voluntary human association or brute bureaucratic state force; earned wealth or the unearned; market justice or "social justice"; the risk of going without or government dependence; the dollar or the gun; freedom or slavery.

Missing the Real Alternative In the Health Care Debate

In an 8/29/09 editorial, the New Jersey Star-Ledger discusses a growing practice called "medical tourism." In this piece, entitled Seeking affordable health care overseas, the Ledger also exposes the fraudulant choice being presented to the American people.



My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 08/29/09 at 10:22PM

Also called "medical tourism", the Star-Ledger hints at what free markets create - competitive conditions under which "patients can receive quality care at lower costs". But the editors don't draw the obvious lesson from their own observations. Instead, the Ledger exposes a gross fraud being put over on the American people by the Left during this health care debate...that the only choice we face is between the status quo and complete socialized medicine. What's missing from this false choice is the third option - the only real antipode to the two choices cited above - a free market in health care. In this, the Left is all too often aided and abetted by conservatives and Republicans who, as the editors point out, merely defend "the world's greatest health system."

Ours does have its strengths. It is still the freest, making America the engine of innovation. If it weren't for America's market, cutting edge medical technology research would dry up, both here and abroad.

But the fact is, our "sick" American health care system is a government created monstrosity. Nearly 50% of healthcare spending is by government, through programs like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and a host of smaller state-level carbon copies...socialism. Nearly 40% of the spending is through the allegedly "free" part - the quasi-private, government created, government regulated, and government protected cartel of health insurance companies. The third-party-payer system and the state-imposed trade barriers protect them from nationwide competition as well as the necessity of having to compete directly for the consumer's business. Hundreds of government-imposed insurance mandates (nearly 2000 nationwide, from community rating to guaranteed issue to benefit) have turned "insurance" policies into pre-paid wealth redistribution schemes. Our government-crippled insurance market has turned private insurers into conduits for government coercion. This is not indicative of a free market, but is in the nature of fascism...i.e., socialism through the back door. This double-barreled government assault on medicine creates huge and unnecessary administrative expenses, empowers government and insurance company bureaucrats, disrupts the patient/doctor relationship, drives up costs, disconnects the patient from the providers, etc.

The problems in American medicine have grown in lock step with the growth of government intervention over the past 75 years. Any honest and objective healthcare reform debate must begin with an examination of how we got to this point to begin with. That is not what is happening. Instead, we get defenders of the semi-socialist, semi-fascist, semi-free status quo ... against those advocating more government control and/or outright nationalization masquerading as "reform". We get statists on each side, while the freedom alternative gets no major party sponsorship.

The only real alternative to all of the above is a free market. Instead of everyone being forced to pay for everyone else's healthcare, whether through government-run programs or government-controlled "private" insurers, people should be free to assume responsibility for their own healthcare with their own money. Insurers and providers should be free to compete directly for the consumers' business. A free market leaves patients, providers, consumers, and insurers free to contract voluntarily with each other to mutual advantage, based upon the principle of individual rights, without the kind of massive government coercion noted above. The absence of physical force is the hallmark of a free market. That is what the "free" in free market means. The government's only job, but an important one, is to protect against fraud and breech of contract, and to mediate legitimate contractual disputes.

The natural incentives of a free market ... the consumer seeking good value and the provider seeking expanded sales ... have been proven both in theory and practice to lead to increasing quality and ever-expanding affordability. Health care is more valuable and needed than most other products and services, but it is no different in the most basic fundamental respect ... it is man-made. As such, the same laws of economics apply to medicine as to any other economic sector. Most importantly, a free market is the only moral solution, because it forbids the predatory practice of people seeking to force others to provide for them what they perceive to be their "right" to healthcare. Instead, everyone is guaranteed their unalienable rights to their own life, liberty, and pursuit of their own health care (and happiness).

Related Reading:

Patients Without Borders: The Rise of Medical Tourism--by Brittany Hunter, 6/21/18

The more health care is able to function like an actual free market the more options will be provided to consumers.

Medical tourism Booms in Costa Rica via FIRM

See also The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery, Open-Heart Surgery--90% off, and Club Med.

"Health Care Debate"--What about the Third and Moral Option?

The following letter was published in the Star-Ledger Reader Forum.

Health care debate

I am perplexed and discouraged by the fight over health care. It's pretty obvious that what we're doing isn't working so well.

In the big picture, it seems to me, if we want our businesses to be competitive, getting health care off their backs is a necessity.

I still hear people, even those who love their Medicare, complain they don't want the government involved in their health insurance. They don't want a government bureaucrat telling their doctor what's okay to do and what's not okay. Meanwhile, I guess, they don't mind some insurance company bureaucrat making those decisions.

I've heard some people suggest we be allowed to buy our insurance in another state where it's cheaper. Think they'll have any preferred providers in your state?

I believe in a compromise: single payer via taxes with a government plan in the mix and private insurance companies competing. This would get the premium dollars off of industry, would let those who want private insurance get it, would let those who want public insurance get it, and would insure all the uninsured. It would help our industries be more competitive, and your health care wouldn't be connected to your employment.

John Smith, Hamilton


My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 06/12/09 at 8:29PM

John Smith cites a couple of problems such as employer-based health insurance and insurance company bureaucrats making healthcare decisions. His solution, though, amounts to "First, do more harm".

All of the problems in American healthcare can be attributed directly to government intervention. The third-party-payer system was imposed by government via tax-code distortions. Perversely, the insurance company works not for the consumer but for the employer, union, or other third party, even though the consumer's earnings pay for it. The thousands of state and federal mandates imposed on the insurers force consumers to pay for coverages that they may not want, sharply drives up the cost of the policies, and actually creates a system of pre-paid healthcare...not insurance. These mandates are really wealth redistribution masquerading as insurance. State restraint-of-trade laws prevent a competitive national insurance market from developing, also driving up prices and choices down. Medicare and Medicaid, which have made government the largest purchaser of healthcare products, have so corrupted the market that the normal forces that lead to higher quality and lower costs have been inverted. This is just part of the story.

Our system of health insurance is an absurd, government-created Rube Goldberg concoction, administered by quasi-private companies forbidden to tailor policies to market demand; i.e., the choices and budgets of the actual, individual consumers of healthcare. It has created huge administrative costs throughout the system, undermined the doctor-patient relationship, placed undue power in the hands of government and insurance company bureaucrats, and tied people to their jobs.

Yet Mr. Smith's "compromise" would reward the government with totalitarian control over all aspects of healthcare. When the government pays, the government sets the terms...period. You hand your money over to the state, and in exchange you give up your freedom...a lose-lose proposition. This, in essence, is communism. "Allowing" private companies to "compete" against the government-run "option" is merely socialism through the back door, where "private" companies are merely conduits for government control...i.e., fascism. So, according to Mr. Smith, the choices are either the status quo, or some totalitarian combination of communism and fascism.

It's imperative, before we sink to that level, that we consider the third option...the only moral one and the one ignored by both major parties. End the system of compelling everyone to pay for everyone else's healthcare. End all government interference in the insurance market, leaving government to its proper role of protecting individual rights such as through anti-fraud laws and contract enforcement and mediation of disputes. Leave consumers and patients free to decide, along with their doctors, what treatments to use along with prices and payment options. Leave everyone free to plan for their own retirement, to accept responsibility for their own decisions, to take responsibility for their own lives...not be forced to pay other people's expenses. Leave everyone free to decide when and in what capacity to help others, based upon each person's own personal values, assessments of the worthiness of the recipient, and affordability.

Leave insurers and providers free to compete directly for the consumer's business. Leave providers, consumers, insurers, doctors, and patients free to act upon their own judgement, and to contract voluntarily with each other to mutual advantage.

Free market capitalism, the original American system based upon the unalienable and equal rights of every individual, is the only moral path to health care reform. The government's proper role is to protect individual rights, which are guarantees to the freedom to take the actions necessary for the advancement of one's own life and happiness. Rights are not an automatic, unconditional claim on the earnings, property, products, services, or skills produced others. The government's job is not to guarantee health insurance or healthcare to all, but to maintain the societal conditions of liberty and non-coercive association required for people to live their lives and solve their own problems.

Eliminating coercive government interference in healthcare and insurance combined with individual rights in medicine will dramatically reduce the cost and lead to greater quality. That is what always happens when consumers are free to spend their own money and producers to compete for their business. Healthcare, though a high value product and need, is essentially no different than any other man-made product. Consumers seeking the best value for their money, and profit-driven producers seeking to expand sales and grow, places incentives on the side of greater and greater availability and affordability. These basic laws of economics would work no different in healthcare than they would in any other market, when people are left free.

The current healthcare "crisis", if you want to call it that, is not a failure of freedom or free markets. Any honest and objective healthcare reform debate must begin with an examination of how we got to this point to begin with. The problems in American healthcare have grown in lock step with the growth of government intervention. The solution is to discover capitalism. The only just and moral course to take on healthcare reform is to rid healthcare of government interference.

Today's problems in medicine represent a failure, not of freedom, but of statist government intervention. The choice we face is not between a government-run healthcare dictatorship and the status quo, as Mr. Smith, would have us believe. The choice we face...for doctors, patients, drug producers, etc...is between being held in a stranglehold by government central planners, or taking control of our own healthcare in a truly free market.