You said that ‘society’ doesn’t bear the costs of you getting sick. I think you misinterpreted my comments. The situation here is someone who doesn’t have insurance. If this person is sick or injured and can’t pay for his treatment, his only option is to go to the emergency room – where he will be treated. Your healthcare premiums pay for that. Or he could go sign up for Medicaid. Your taxes pay for that. Either way, it sure sounds like a cost to society to me.

And here’s your straw man argument: Competition works great for groceries and thus competition will work great for healthcare. What about individuals with pre-existing conditions? In order to be the most competitive, a healthcare company would do well to sign on customers who are unlikely to have health problems, and to shut out those who are like to have health problems – or those who are already sick. The grocery store analogy falls apart pretty quickly.

I think that healthcare really is far too complicated to draw any simple analogies.

Speaking of which, I would still love to hear the author’s perspective on how to make his argument work.

Actually, this is false. Let me explain why.

“Society” does not bear the costs of me getting sick. The doctor or hospital does. And if I get treatment, then I pay the doctor or the hospital. Government has no moral authority to intervene in a private transaction between a sicko and his doctor. Thus your statement is pretty much a straw man argument.

Let me propose an apt analogy to the health care debate. The idea that we need universal health insurance is interesting. Consider groceries. Can you imagine a call for universal grocery insurance? Surely access to groceries is a fundamental right? We all need to find and eat food.

Yet, we don’t have that debate because adjusted for inflation, Americans spend slightly less on food now than they did fifty years ago. Why is that? Fierce competition between grocery chains. We don’t need grocery insurance because the free market for food works very well.

The same mechanism can work for health care if government got out of the way and let competition work its magic across state lines. The fundamental mechanism for buying groceries and buying health care can be the same. The fact that it isn’t is one of the tragedies of contemporary American life.

When you drive a car there is a possibility that you will hit someone. Auto insurance is required so that if this happens you will be able to compensate them. If you don’t drive a car, there is no risk that you will hit someone, and thus insurance is not required.

Unfortunately, when it comes to healthcare, everyone represents a risk to society and its government. If you get sick or are injured, society will have to pay for you to get better. There is no way to remove this risk, and thus insurance is required for everyone.

How exactly do you make your argument work for health insurance? “Those who do not want to ____ are not required to have insurance.”

The Claremont Institute link you gave talks about helping preserve life in life-threatening situations, and how that is a high-minded, ethical act. But it isn’t paid for by ethics. It is a huge cost. We require doctors and hospitals to provide treatment in acutely dangerous situations, or they can be prosecuted, so it isn’t solely ethically motivated, but is a de facto legal right. It is paid for by hospitals, by taxes, by increased prices for the insured at hospitals, and by increased costs in insurance, because insurance companies aren’t going to pay for it. If it is constitutional to make us pay in these indirect ways, how is it worse to make it more direct?

I also fail to see exactly how liberties are being impinged upon (other than those of health care corporations). A currently uninsured person (like my wife, because it would cost an additional 15%+ of our small income to insure her) would have the opportunity to make preventive visits to doctors, thus reducing the chances of something catastrophic but preventable. She then has the choice of preventive v. palliative care, instead of only palliative care which someone would be forced to give in the event of a major incident. That seems like an increase in liberty to me. Millions of people would have this increased choice, far more than will be limited by paying extra taxes for somewhat more limited care that might result as a consequence of this bill (but might not). Then financially, we’re paying huge amounts for the current palliative care system, whether directly or indirectly. (Natural, pre-government conditions did not have modern medicine, and neither did the founding fathers. The most expensive medicine of 1800 was cheap compared to today, so please update any arguments regarding 17-1800s philosophy to explicitly bridge this gap.) Government directed health care in wealthy countries does a much better job of preventive medicine, at a much lower cost, than the US, and thus protects the health of a larger portion of the populace. Following one of the systems of Norway, Denmark, GB, France, or Germany (mentioned by the Claremont Institute), with a fraction of the money currently spent on health care in the US, would provide exceptional care for almost everyone in the US. It would leave more money in control of the people (rather than insurance companies and health care administrators). I see that as increasing my financial liberty. Maybe I’m just as afraid, or more afraid, of de facto corporate control of my liberties than of government control where I at least nominally have a vote. Of course changes in health care will never happen in an elegant, efficient way, but since hypothetical loss of liberty is being presented on the one side, I give hypothetical gain on the other.

I personally think financial reform (which is what this bill really addresses) is treating a symptom, but will only further expose the disease of the current system. We need a change in the model of care. That said, it’s the first significant change anyone has fought for in my lifetime, and I hope it will put the need for further, more substantial changes into the consciousness of the public. With modern medicine, the infrastructure is so expensive that the competitive market economy doesn’t function well. It takes a big entity to build and supply a hospital. Competition might work for primary care physicians, but most people can’t really choose what hospital to go to, and hospitals can’t choose not to treat people who show up in their emergency rooms.

Having revealed my bias in favor of the bill, I really am interested in your responses to my thoughts, particularly the first two paragraphs. I do want to understand Liberty better, and it’s a big word.

If this law is upheld as constitutional, I am tempted to opt out once I can no longer be denied for a pre-existing condition and simply pay the penalty, which will likely be cheaper for me, and re-enroll when something happens.

Also from what I can gather about the healthcare plan in 2 years the government will take over the policies to their own plan. This is in violation of the Commerce Clause in the constitution which states congress can regulate but not enter into operations in the market. They are entering a market and they dont have the authority to do so.

I really appreciate your objective comments and I find them refreshing I wish more would look at it like you do and find facts rather than just focusing on words like Hitler, Death Panel or even fair, free or everyone.