I have been enjoying your articles. In regards to your article, “How to stop losing the healthcare debate” I would offer some discussion. To paraphrase Ayn Rand there can be no equivocation when it comes to fighting socialized medicine. I love her pamphlet on how not to fight socialized medicine. But should the current minority party offer their own solution to the current “debate?” The debate has been forced upon them, and us, by the ruling party. One could argue that they are using healthcare to further their own political goals. Many parts are boldly unconstitutional. It is certainly antibusiness, antidoctor and anticapitalism.

The minority party has been marginalized at every turn in the discussion. They have recommended easing restriction on selling insurance across state lines. They have recommended rooting out fraud and abuse. I think this idea may be anti objectivist in some ways depending on the governments definition of fraud and abuse. Fraud used to be defined as a willful act, but Medicare uses it for documentation errors also thereby unleashing government aggression for economic reasons. The minority party has also repeatedly said that we have the best healthcare system in the world, basically meaning don’t mess it up. But my point is there have been some ideas floated by the minority party.

Mostly the minority party have been in protection mode. They are trying to sustain our healthcare system. They should not equivocate or show compromise. It would let the looters get a toe hold on their arguments philosophical high ground. The answer to the advancement of socialism, pricing controls, regulations and mandates has to be NO!!! The bill will also allow new looters to come into the system setting up bureaucracies, forcing worthless, expensive technology into doctors offices and subsidization of the phamaceutical and insurance industries. They have established the Center for Comparative Effectiveness and Medical Decision Making with TARP monies. Britain and Canada have equivalents of this, it is how they ration care. Therefore I appreciate the the attitude of resistance and shameless partisanship. One does not have to offer a counter argument or one’s own solution in the face of absurdity.

I have read a list published by PricewaterhouseCoopers. It is a top ten list of issues facing medicine in 2010. I think you would find it interesting. The list really shows how the will of the ruling party is already taking over healthcare in many ways. They are setting policy through unilateral Medicare rules changes. They think doctors will go out of private practice into employeed positions. (What a blow to small businesses in communities). Number 10 on the list says, and I’m not kidding, that health will become a SOCIAL responsibility. I thought one’s health was a personal responsibility, but I come from a different philosophy.

If only we had the equivalent of those brave 200 New Jersey doctors, who Ayn Rand praised. They basically stopped the first version of Medicare legislation back in the 50′s. They were threatened with imprisonment by their state government. President Truman threatened them with violence. They stood their ground and did not equivocate. They would not take the government’s insurance. They stopped the bill. The heroes in this healthcare fight have not emerged. It seems doctors have been wooed into subservience.

Thank your for your excellent articles. I look forward to more and to sharing them with colleagues who I am trying to remind that they are individuals.

Gabriel Pitman, DO
Adult Neurology
President S. Central District Oklahoma Osteopathic Association
Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor Ok St University College Osteopathic Med

Dr Hendricks said in Atlas Shrugged

“That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun.”

Oddly enough, the repeal of Medicare and Medicaid, which should be repealed, but would take time and a complicated process even if the Congress favored the repeal, has not been offered by the Conservatives. It has never been on the table for discussion, and probably never will, given the current climate. Even with such a repeal, the liberals, as a rule, want conservatives (or classical liberals for that matter) to “figure out” how all of the people would receive their care.

The proper free market approach to medical care is, of course, individual rights with political freedom, which requires that the individual is responsible for researching his care-givers, finding them, and paying for his care just as he might do so with other products in a free market. Yet, this is not good enough for the liberals, especially those in the Congress, because they believe it is a “right”.

The only free-market approaches to medical care (other than laissez-faire) I have seen proposed are health savings accounts, which exist in some form today, but probably won’t under any new legislation. I have often though that dollar-for-dollar tax deductions for medical care would be a good pro-freedom way to approach the problem as it exists today; yet, this is no long-term solution either.

Unfortunately, if individual rights and political freedom aren’t good enough to solve the problems of medical care, there will never be another “good enough” solution to the problem.

I am a conservative, but in in the process of conducting (extensive) research on health care policy and financial markets I’ve found that libertarian blogs are the only ones effectively articulating the need to solve these problems with free market solutions.

The amount of demagoguery being spewed from the Left about the insurance industry and other aspects of the health care debate that has gone *unanswered* by the Right/GOP in Congress is staggering. We have been accepting the premise that the staggeringly-regulated health insurance market needs to be tweaked or changed, instead of unshackled.

I have scanned hundreds of blogs, and this one best articluates the free market solutions that the GOP Conference is not standing up for and educating the public about.

This is a fantastic blog, and please keep up the great work. These last two articles on health care, and your “inside the mind of” post is the type of article I’m not seeing enough of in the conservative blogosphere, and would urge you to please write more in this vein/direction!

Keep up the great work,

Sean

This post was mentioned on Twitter by grazen: How to stop losing the health care debate: Conservatives share in blame for ObamaCare http://bit.ly/5yPRAj #tcot #tlot #hcr…