Separation of state and economics: a new ideal for America — VOICES for REASON

“Do you have a better idea?”

Some form of that question is directed at anyone who criticizes the Obama administration’s runaway spending and its plans to drastically increase government control over health care, energy, and the financial industry. Unfortunately, many of Obama’s critics have not offered a better idea, instead offering vague denunciations of “Big Government” and vague affirmations of “smaller government”–but without spelling out what this would mean in practice, and how it would address today’s economic problems.

At the Ayn Rand Center, we do have a better idea of what the government should do about the economy: establish the principle of separation of state and economics. This is the subject of a recent position paper I authored, “A Call for the Separation of State and Economics.” The paper explains what this principle means, why it’s proper, and lays out numerous examples of what this principle would mean in practice. Here’s an excerpt on what a truly free market in health care would look like:

Individuals pay for their health and its care. You are free to search out the best, most affordable services from doctors, nurses and other producers, who are free to offer and charge for them. There are no government restrictions on the supply of medical professionals via licensing laws–just laws prohibiting medical fraud and malpractice. For example, a nurse trained in healing minor broken bones is free to start her own practice for lower-income customers. There are no “free” health care programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, or government-imposed collective “insurance” plans to artificially drive up costs. The government cannot mandate that employers offer health insurance. Instead, individuals pay for their own care, perhaps through a combination of direct payment for anticipated expenses and the purchase of catastrophic insurance for high, unanticipated expenses—or some yet undreamed of, superior solution the market comes up with. (The result of a real market in medicine would be the same as in the market for computers: over time the same dollar would buy better and better products and services.)

Read the rest here.