Now on to the issue of Health Care. There was an interesting comment on this post and I just had to reply. See, Phil (the commentor) felt that Ron Paul's ideas would lead to a crisis in our health care system. Well, for one, Ron Paul does not have any plans to break the promises the government has made to care for those people who need these programs today, but he does plan to reform the system that is so obviously broken... and that's a good thing. So here's my reply:
Essentially the plan Ron Paul (and others) have for medical treatment is to give control back to the people. The problem we have now is that insurance companies (which are essentially government funded in a number of ways, not the least of which is that the government gives significant tax breaks to companies to pay for insurance but doesn't extend all of those tax breaks to individuals - so they are often left with no option but to use the insurance their employer provides) control what medical providers can provide, at what cost and even what medical provider you are "allowed" to go to. This is not a free market and therefore market forces can't work to keep prices low and quality of service high.
You create a free market by giving people the appropriate incentive to get off their arse and take their medical treatment into their own hands - or rather, by making them responsible for paying for their medical treatment themselves. That may sound harsh, but hear me out because there is a reasonable solution to this: health savings accounts. For those unfamiliar with it, what it means is that you purchase a high-deductible insurance plan for "the perfect storm scenario" so that you will only ever have a maximum amount of out of pocket expenses in any given year. Okay, so once you have this plan, that's actually fairly cheap, you then pay money into a health savings account - think of it like a separate checking account that you use to pay for all your medical needs. The list of "medical needs" includes things that most insurances don't even cover such as over the counter medications and other non-traditional treatments. If you hit your high deductible for the year, then the insurance plan kicks in. If you don't spend all the money in your account for the year, it rolls over for the next year. Don't have enough money this month? Don't pay into the account this month. It's okay! And the money left in your account can work for you in a lot of ways. One way is that it can be invested however you like. Another is that it's tax free so you get to keep more of your money. But then, let's say you retire or have your kids going off to college or something and you find yourself needing money from your health savings account. That's okay too, but you just have to be aware of the tax issues that comes from that.
Now, health savings accounts are already out there - but they don't get a chance to compete on the same level. For example, because of the way that I get to declare the insurance I pay for my family that I purchase through my company, not to mention the fact that my employer is contributing to the insurance for me... it would be a significant disadvantage to leave my companies insurance plan and move myself and my family to a health savings account. I'm essentially stuck with my employers medical insurance plan. But once you level the playing field and give the appropriate tax incentive to employers and individuals, then health savings accounts become a viable alternative to a lot more people. I'm not saying the plan is perfect for everyone - but make ppo's and hmo's compete with health savings accounts and you'll see a dramatic improvement in prices AND quality of service.
How? For one, you'll see that once medical providers start getting paid in cold hard cash (through the health savings accounts), and without the troublesome paperwork and hassle of insurance companies, medical providers will be able to reduce their prices because their costs have dropped. The other thing is that they will also be in direct competition with each other to do so. When it doesn't matter which doctor you go to because the price is going to be the same, why would they offer a lower price? If a doctor is always going to be able to charge the same price, what incentive is their to provide a higher quality of service?
The other part of it is that you should also make doctors compete against nurses. What I mean by that is that nurses are fully qualified to handle a large number of medical issues, but because of the licensing and regulation issues, they can't hand out prescriptions (such as birth control pills)... I mean, come on, those kind of silly monopolistic policies have encouraged high prices for the most basic services. Obviously though, (and I'm paraphrasing Ron Paul here), you wouldn't go to a Nurse if you needed brain surgery.
Couple more points that I won't elaborate on here but I think are helpful to mention:
1. If you want socialized medicine provided by the federal government, that's perfectly fine. I disagree with it but if the federal government is going to provide that service, we should follow the Constitution and explicitly amend the Constitution to allow the federal government the right to do so. If we don't follow the Constitution (which we didn't do for Social Security or medicare/medicaid), we have no rule of law. Get me 3/4 of the states that want it and it's yours, but even then I would also argue I should have the option to opt out of it.
2. Our monetary policy is causing a lot of the inflated costs of medical care. What other presidential candidate is even discussing this?
3. On the issue of states providing services such as socialized medicine - let the states compete in an open market and if they can't deal with things like a huge influx of people because the costs are too high, then that should tell you something. Socialism doesn't work in practice. But let's say a state got it right (we'll call it Utopia), if everyone happily left a state (we'll call it Dystopia) that didn't provide medical care or social security to go to Utopia because they got it right, Dystopia would want to compete by providing a valid option for their citizens. Why is that a bad thing?
4. Others have said it but I'll reiterate - obviously a capitalistic system requires a moral society of which charitable giving, volunteer-ism, etc. are part and parcel. The thing is, when you give people freedom to make their own choices and you give them the ability to truly take personal responsibility, they are significantly more likely to be charitable than when you culture an environment where everyone expects to be given to from the nanny state.
Alright, enough ranting. I think it's important to debate these issues - instead of debating who has the best hair of the "first tier" candidates... and differences of opinion are welcome. Thanks Phil for giving yours!
-Andrew
