Subject: Do you need the government to provide non-profit health insurance?
If some magic could be used to prevent politicians from lying, would they have anything left to say? We ask this question only partly in jest. Deception really does seem to be the dominant mode of speech for politicians. The latest example comes from claims being made by the President and Congressional leaders that . . .
* There’s too much profit in the health insurance business
* We need more non-profit health insurance providers
* The government should foster non-profit insurance by creating co-ops
John Lott punctures these claims in a column that’s well worth reading . . .
“Given all the attacks on profit-making insurance companies, what is possibly more surprising is that by far the dominant players in the “full” insurance market are non-profits…in 29 of the 43 states that data are available for in the American Medical Association report…the dominant company in the “full” insurance market is a non-profit company. In state after state, Blue Cross and Blue Shield hold the largest market share. On average, the largest non-profits hold over half of the “full” market share in those 29 states.”
In addition, as we’ve pointed out before, profit margins for the health insurance industry rank only 85th among American business sectors!
The politicians are trying to deceive the American people in order to profit by acquiring more power over your life. And they may profit in monetary ways too. Just watch what happens if the Big Government health care bill passes . . .
A lot of politicians are going to end up with big-paying jobs as lobbyists, or on Corporate Boards in the healthcare industry when they retire. Count on it.
Please share the Lott quote above, and the fact about insurance industry profits, with your Congressional employees. Send them a letter through DownsizeDC/org’s Educate the Powerful System, using our health care campaign.
Use your personal comments to tell your Congressional employees that . . .
* We don’t need non-profit government insurance co-ops because we already have plenty of non-profit insurance providers.
* Tell them profits aren’t the problem.
* Back up your claims by cutting and pasting into your comments the Lott quote and the fact provided above about the low ranking for insurance industry profit margins.
Public pressure has already forced the politicians to moderate their claims about the number of people who lack health insurance. We can also force them to stop making deceptive claims about the need for non-profit government insurance co-ops.
If the politicians know that you know the truth, it will make them very nervous, and may even change their behavior. You can send your letter here.
Please share this message with others.
Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
“Do you believe health care is a right or a privilege?” the CNN host asked two guests.
“Health care is a right, not a privilege,” said speaker after speaker at televised memorials for the late Senator Ted Kennedy.
“Is health care a right or a privilege?” ask hosts and guests on NPR, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC. You’ll read the question dozens of times on Big Government Blogs and websites. In essays and articles by Big Government partisans promoting Government-run medical care, or Government Monopoly-Funded medical insurance.
The Right Answer: “It’s neither. The question is what Logic Texts call the False Alternative Fallacy. The question is an example of an unscrupulous, manipulative sales technique: the Alternative of Choice Close. The words “right” and “privilege” are loaded and deceptive. May I explain?”
1. False Alternative Fallacy: if health care is NOT a right, then it’s a privilege. If it’s NOT a privilege, then it’s a right. False. Many widely desired things are neither rights nor privileges. Literacy is neither a right nor a privilege. Good nutrition is neither a right nor a privilege. Success is neither a right nor a privilege. Love is neither a right nor a privilege. Other alternatives: Health care is a desirable service, but NOT a legal right. Or: Universal health care, like universal literacy, is a desirable social goal, but NOT a legally-guaranteed entitlement.
2. Alternative of Choice Sales Technique: “Which is health care? A right or a privilege? You choose.” Sales Trainers have taught this manipulative sales technique since the 1930’s.
“Would you like one egg in your malt or two?” (Maybe you want none.) “Do you want the red sweater or the blue one?” (Maybe you want neither, or both, or a jacket.) This “do you want this or that?” technique gives buyers the illusion of choice, to get them to turn off their critical thought process, and buy one or the other.
The health care right or privilege question is designed to make its victims choose between caring for everyone – or being an uncaring cad.
3. The word “right” in the question means “government-granted entitlement,” NOT the natural/or God-given rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness that the American Revolution was fought for. When the government grants these kinds of “rights” or entitlements to individuals or groups — it saddles taxpayers with the obligation to fund or provide them.
If person X or group Y have a government-granted right to medical services and medicines, then taxpayers are legally obligated to pay for it through taxes or government mandates. Every government-granted “right” is an obligation on you.
Rephrase the first part of the question to this: “Are American citizens obligated to pay for other people’s medical insurance, or medical services, or drugs and medicines?” Or: Should American taxpayers be obligated to pay medical costs of those who smoke, or drink too much, or use dangerous drugs, or overeat, or refuse to exercise, or engage in reckless or irresponsible behaviors?”
Government-granted right to medical care is your obligation, your increased taxes, your cost, your burden.
4. Consider the meaning of “privilege”: a special right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor; especially: such a right or immunity attached specifically to a position or an office.’ (from Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)
Here’s another dirty little secret behind the false and deceptive health care question: they are trying to con us into choosing between ‘health care guaranteed to all, or to only the privileged few.’ This trickery goes beyond Karl Marx. It goes all the way to Groucho Marx. Except Government-controlled or government-run medicine might just make us laugh all the way to a too-early grave.
5. The Right Questions to ask about medical care and medical insurance:
Do NOT let the political con artists prey on your family, friends, and co-workers. Share this column with them. Send them to this website.
]]>American Colonel: “How dare you relax our rationing system, when there’s a widespread food shortage?”
Subject: Are free market prices and government rationing the same thing?
If you tell someone that government-controlled healthcare will lead to rationing, they may respond by saying, “Healthcare is already rationed, by prices. If you can’t afford a treatment, you can’t get it.”
This seems like a powerful argument, but it isn’t. Here’s why . . .
* Free market prices are flexible, negotiable, and respond to consumer choice
* Prices set by the government are inflexible, non-negotiable, and respond only to back-room lobbying, or to the whims of the bureaucrats who set the prices or do the rationing
Free market price send signals to produce more or less of things, according to consumer demands. By comparison, government rationing only reflects what the politicians want.
Is healthcare different? It is not. Healthcare responds to free market prices, or to government dictates, in exactly the same way as all other goods and services. Consider . . .
In addition . . .
* In a free market, if you can’t afford the cost of a treatment, and can’t find a cheaper alternative that’s nearly as good, your doctors may decide to lower the cost, or even provide the treatment pro bono
* But will doctors be as flexible and generous when healthcare decisions are dictated by the federal Comparative Effectiveness Board, and there are fewer doctors seeing more patients because prices no longer reflect market realities?
If free market prices are really the same as government rationing . . .
* Why have societies run by government rationing and price fixing always had shortages and long lines?
* Why did the Soviet Union fail?
* Why did China adopt a free market economy?
* Why did the post-WWII German Economic Miracle begin precisely when the German authorities abandoned government rationing, over the protests of the occupying powers (see our quotes of the day above)?
It’s a simple fact: human beings have experimented with government rationing and price-fixing over and over again, always getting the same catastrophic results. Must we do it yet again before we finally learn our lesson?
If anyone tells you free market prices and government rationing are the same thing, don’t let them get away with it. Don’t let the politicians get away with it either. Please keep telling them you don’t want their Big Government healthcare scheme. It’s simply impossible for you to send Congress too many letters on this issue. Send them another one now by going here.
Use your personal comments to tell them you will be very angry if they pass any bill that authorizes any kind of “comparative effectiveness” rationing in any way.
Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Imagine that the federal and state governments imposed laws, regulations, restrictions, and mandates on medical care that drastically increased the cost – without improving medical care.
What if it were possible to cut your medical care costs by 20% or 30% or even 50% now – while keeping current levels of quality and service – by repealing and removing these government-created burdens and barriers?
If this were possible, would you want it?
Would you want the U.S. Congress to repeal and remove these laws, regulations, restrictions, and mandates?
Would you want your state legislature to do the same?
Yes? Well, these government-imposed burdens and barriers DO exist – and your federal and state legislators CAN repeal and remove them.
Would you like to see a small sample?
1. Allow price advertising. Let pharmacies, doctors, hospitals, and laboratories to publish their prices for goods and services. Eliminate all laws, regulations, and government provisions that hinder or prevent medical providers from posting their prices.
Charges for the same medical procedure can vary 30% to 300% within a 100-mile radius. But without price information, patients can’t shop for the best value.
In the 1970’s, U.C.L.A. Economist Sam Peltzman compared the costs of eyeglasses in states that allowed price advertising and states that outlawed it. Results? Much lower prices in states that allowed price advertising.
2. Let all Americans buy prescription drugs outside the United States. Do NOT force them to travel abroad. Allow them to have the prescription drugs shipped to their homes.
I’ve seen the 30% to 60% savings in prices of prescription drugs purchased in Mexico.
International competition for prescription drugs will drive down domestic prescription prices.
3. Let all people buy medical insurance across state lines. In New Jersey, a single man would pay $4,000 for medical insurance. If he lived in Pennsylvania, he’d pay $1,500. If the New Jersey man could buy medical insurance from a Pennsylvania provider, he’d save $2,500 a year.
Imagine this all across America.
This would cut medical insurance costs for millions who already have needlessly overpriced premiums.
AND, if the American Enterprise Institute study is correct, this would make medical insurance affordable for 12 million uninsured Americans.
4. Let doctors and patients negotiate discounts for paying cash. If a patient saves a doctor the time, trouble, delay and cost of dealing with insurance companies, Medicare, or Medicaid – let the doctor and patient share the savings.
5. Let patients, doctors, and hospitals enter into into legally binding, limited-liability contracts. This would reduce the cost of medical treatment by reducing the cost of malpractice insurance.
Just as Prenuptial Agreements limit marital risk, limited-liability contracts will limit medical risk.
6. End all government mandates that require businesses or individuals to buy medical insurance. End all government mandates that punish and tax those who do NOT buy medical insurance. Make insurance companies earn our business with lower prices and better quality – rather than lobby government to compel us to buy medical insurance by force of law. (See Carla Howell’s excellent essay below.)
This is just a sketch of small government proposals to UN-do the government-caused high prices of medical care.
A glimpse of small government proposals to come.
]]>“You could theoretically design a co-op plan that had the same attributes as a public plan.” — Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
“Well, I think in theory you can imagine a co-operative meeting that definition.” — President Barack Obama
Subject: Beware the surrender on the so-called “public option”
The Big Government health care bill doesn’t have the votes in the Senate and it’s taking a beating in public opinion. The latest Rasmussen Report shows that 54% of Americans now think passing no health care reform at all is better than passing the current plan.
The President and Congressional leaders have responded by appearing to surrender.
President Obama claims the so-called “public option” (tax funded health insurance) isn’t crucial. They would settle for something called a co-op instead.
Beware of politicians appearing to surrender. They’re almost always “Greeks bearing gifts.” The co-op alternative to the “public option” is a Trojan Horse.
Michael F. Cannon sums it up perfectly:
“On a practical level, it makes no difference whether a new program adopts a “co-operative” model or any other. The government possesses so many tools for subsidizing its own program and increasing costs for private insurers, and has such a long history of subsidizing and protecting favored enterprises, that unfair advantages are inevitable.”
So let’s update the formula we’ve been using to describe where all this will lead . . .
Co-op = public option = single-payer, tax-funded health care = health care decisions made by bureaucrats = no consumer choice or free market competition = declining health care.
We also want to repeat our warning . . .
It will take years for the public option/co-op to bring about a politically controlled single payer system, but it will happen, as surely as night follows day.
It’s also crucial to understand that . . .
* The small amount of consumer choice and free market competition that still exists in America is what drives improved health care not only for YOU, but for the whole world.
* The more socialist systems that exist elsewhere are fundamentally dependent on the INNOVATIONS created by the small remaining sliver of American free market health care.
American health care is the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg. Kill that goose and the whole world will suffer.
We must not be fooled by the politicians’ Trojan Horse surrender. We must only accept unconditional surrender. We must demand that . . .
* Every aspect of the Big Government health care bill be defeated
* Concrete steps must be taken to restore consumer choice and free market competition (including, but not limited to, an expansion of Health Savings Accounts and an end to government mandates that drive up the price of health insurance).
Please use DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System (sm) to tell your Congressional employees what you want.
Use your personal comments to say that the co-op plan is just as bad as the public option, and must be rejected.
Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Subject: Another shocking fact about the true costs of the big health care bill
But it gets worse . . .
* The $1.2 trillion cost reported by the CBO only includes ON-BUDGET items
* The bill also imposes other huge costs on taxpayers that won’t be reflected in the federal budget
This is one of the tricks Republican Governor Mitt Romney used to pass his train-wreck health care bill in Massachusetts, and now the Democrats in Congress are pursuing the same fraudulent course.
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again — you won’t get what you want just because a politician holds office who happens to wear the partisan label you like. The labels mean nothing! You will only get what you want by raising a stink, and doing it constantly, with overwhelming pressure. Now here’s how the Democrats are using Mitt Romney’s playbook to defraud you . . .
The big health care bill imposes mandates on the states, on employers, and on individuals. These mandates will result in massive expenses, NONE of which are included in the CBO’s estimate that the bill will cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
* State governments will have to spend more on Medicaid, which you will pay through higher state taxes or increased debt
* Many employers will have to buy health insurance for their workers, or pay a fine to the government
* These increased costs to employers may result in lower wages or increased unemployment — probably both
* Individuals who don’t currently have health insurance will have to buy such insurance, by law
These expenses aren’t included in the estimated cost of $1.2 trillion. Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute sums it up . . .
“President Barack Obama’s plan would commit states to increase Medicaid spending (governors are furious) and require individuals and employers to spend more on health insurance (Obama’s top economist, Larry Summers, says those mandates ‘are like public programs financed by benefit taxes’.”
Please send Congress another message opposing the Big Government health care bill.
This time use your personal comments to say something like the following . . .
“I know that the full cost of implementing the big health care bill isn’t included in the $1.2 trillion reported by the Congressional Office. Please have the CBO report not only the real on-budget cost of full implementation, as well as the full OFF-BUDGET costs of the various mandates on state governments, employers, and individuals. I will view failure to make this happen as a major dereliction of duty.”
Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Introduction
The government already has promised more than it can deliver to those on Medicare. If it now makes more promises that it cannot keep, the system could collapse for everyone. Certainly the Obama health care plan will require scaling back medical care for those on Medicare — by rationing services.
If press reports are at all correct about what will be in the Administration bill (still being kept a secret from the American people), it has become the author’s view that Seniors are among the groups which will be most disadvantaged by the Administration bill.
Top Ten Reasons
1. The Obama proposal is based upon the faulty premise or hypothesis that there are 46 million Americans without health care. This statement has been repeated so often that it has become almost a “mantra,” but it is not true.
2. The Obama Approach would massively increase the cost of providing health care to the federal government, bankrupting the system for current beneficiaries.
3. Severely diminished quality of care. Turning to a system like Canada and Great Britain would be a major mistake.
David Gratzer, M.D., senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and born and raised in Canada, says that government health care there is neither compassionate nor equitable. Canadians, he says, wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation. One patient, with difficulty walking and in chronic pain, was referred to a neurologist; he was told that an MRI would have to be done, and that possibly there should be a referral to another specialist. The wait for these would be roughly a year. If surgery were needed, the wait would be months more. Instead, he went to the Mayo Clinic in the United States and paid for it himself. An Ontario woman had a 40-pound fluid-filled tumor removed from her abdomen by an American surgeon in 2006. Her Michigan doctor estimated that she was within weeks of dying. She was still on a wait list for a Canadian specialist. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery (with broken backs, burst aneurysms, and other types of bleeding in or around the brain). Only half of Canadian ER patients, Dr. Gratzer asserts, are treated in a timely manner according to national and international standards. Finally, he reports that the physician shortage in Canada is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local physician. Prior authorization turns into bureaucratic delays which turn into formal waits and denials . . . almost inevitably jeopardizing the patient’s health and often causing premature and preventable death. Cancer survival rates in Canada and the United Kingdom significantly are lower than in the United States. Where will the patients Dr. Gratzer describes (and those in the United States!) go if the U.S. adopts the same system as Canada’s?
4. Dictates by bureaucrats on physicians and patients as to what kind of care they may receive.
5. “Guidelines” become hard and fast, and have already surreptitiously been authorized in federal law.
6. Health care rationing will become the norm, and who is hit hardest and soonest by health care rationing? Senior citizens.
7. To pay for the overwhelming costs of the new program, the Congress is considering repealing many tax features and deductions that benefit senior citizens.
8. As governmental review and payment dictates become more onerous, an increasing number of health care providers will choose to leave the system.
9. As federal medical costs spiral upward, look for Medicare (and any new program) premiums (especially Parts B and D), co-payments, and deductibles to go up. Benefits to Seniors will be reduced to help pay for benefits being newly-extended to others.
10. Promised offsetting savings — often cited by the President as in the range of $300 to $400 billion — as a result of “efficiencies” or “modernized systems” will prove to be ephemeral, illusory, or non-existent. The entire history of Medicare and Medicaid proves this. The system is not self-funding. Increasingly, the tax burden will be placed on Americans, including Seniors.
Conclusion
There will be those who will try to convince Seniors that “health reform” is vital and that the changes made will not be as drastic as those outlined above. They are, in effect, quietly repeating: “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”
]]>Subject: The politicians aren’t telling you about all the costs
The politicians are lying to you about the true costs of their massive health care plan.
In fact, they’re lying to you in several ways, using fraudulent accounting tricks and sleights of hand.
We’ll be exposing their tricks this week. Here’s the first one . . .
The Big Government health care bill delays the full implementation of the overall scheme until after the 10-year period evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office. This allows those who favor the bill to claim it will cost “only” $1.2 trillion, when in fact it will cost at least 50% more than that once the whole thing is in place.
If the public is going to accurately debate the cost of this program, and decide whether it’s worth it, then they ought to know what the cost of the full program actually is. Congress should confess, and let the public know the true cost.
Please send Congress another letter opposing the Big Government health care bill.
This time use your personal comments to say something like the following . . .
“I know that the programs created by the big health care bill won’t be fully implemented until after the 10-year period evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office. I suspect this has been done to hide the true cost, which will probably be at least 50% higher than the $1.2 trillion reported by the CBO. Please undo this fraud by having the CBO report what the 10-year cost of the full program will be.”
After you’ve sent your letter to Congress please also alert others, and ask them to send a similar message to Congress using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System (sm).
Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
This column was originally published April 13, 2006. The cost of insurance premiums have risen steadily since then.
Socialized medicine’s true believers – who dominate the ranks of mainstream news reporters and politicians – try to bludgeon us into believing that the lack of medical insurance is a crisis, a disaster, and a never-ending emergency.
Here’s an example of how a news report typically casts the “uninsured”:
“The number of uninsured or underinsured people in the United States is estimated to be about 46 million… they sit on the edge of catastrophe.” (Journal Times, Wisconsin, February 27, 2006)
But “uninsured” Americans are usually nowhere near “catastrophe.” They have plenty of access to urgent care when they need it.
Moreover, they save themselves a boatload of money by steering clear of one of America’s biggest money pits: health insurance.
We don’t need more insurance in America. We need much less.
The black hole of medical insurance
Americans who don’t have health insurance are often neither poor nor do they lack access to medical care. They simply choose not to buy insurance because they believe it’s a bad use of their money.
In Massachusetts – the Overpriced Health Care Capital of the World – young, healthy families can spend over $9,400 a year for the cheapest HMO policy they can find, and over $19,800 for a broader coverage plan. Families with middle-aged parents can spend over $30,000 – every year – to be insured. The older you are, the more unaffordable it gets.
What’s worse, these exorbitant prices don’t even guarantee that you’ll be covered. A policy’s fine print gives insurance companies the option to terminate your coverage if your care drags on too long. The insured who suffer from a serious disease or medical trauma have to turn to the same government welfare programs they would if they had no insurance at all. What’s the point of buying an insurance policy that doesn’t insure you in your times of greatest need?
“Uninsured”: Down & out? Or smart investors?
The “uninsured” are portrayed as poor, desolate souls on the brink of “catastrophe.” But contrary to media propaganda, they have access to the health care they need.
The wealthy don’t need health insurance. Their money is better spent on investments that provide a return. They can easily cover the cost of treating a serious medical condition.
Many above-average wage earners don’t need insurance either. They’re better off investing their money in their retirement and withdrawing funds for health care only if there’s a need.
Even people with no cash savings to fall back on – average and below-average income families – are often able to insure themselves. They may have an IRA or equity in a home or business they can borrow against in the event of an emergency. Although a serious illness could wipe out their assets, they at least have a chance of building wealth – and not depleting what assets they have by forking over huge sums for an overpriced medical insurance policy.
Individuals and families that invest the money they would otherwise spend on medical insurance can build a nest egg worth over $100,000 in just 5 years. In 10 years it could grow to over $250,000 – enough to cover a major health care catastrophe. Or buy a house. If they continue to enjoy good health, they can retire as millionaires.
Hazards of medical insurance
There are other good reasons to avoid medical insurance.
Whenever an insurance company pays for health services, it drives up everyone’s cost – yours included – and renders health care services clumsy, inefficient, and even dangerous.
Neither patients nor providers have incentive to keep costs down. This encourages doctors to prescribe procedures you don’t need – raising costs for insurance companies. They respond in turn by raising the price of your premiums, raising the amount you must pay for co-pays and deductibles, and reducing the services they cover.
In addition, excess treatment can put your health at risk. Patients who undergo unnecessary tests, operations, and drug regimens sometimes end up with worse medical problems than they started with.
At the same time, insurance rules forbid practitioners from giving you services you actually need. Again, your health suffers.
When you pay directly for services, you or someone you trust is in the driver’s seat. You and your health care providers have direct incentive to give you high quality care at a reasonable price.
Medical insurance co-pays, deductibles, and coverage denials make medical bills confusing and hard to read. Billing errors are common – and difficult to correct. You’re forced to either pay what your bill instructs you to pay or to try to avoid overpayment by submerging yourself in paperwork that can be as complicated and infuriating as filing taxes.
The best way to minimize billing hassles is to forgo medical insurance and pay your providers directly for medical services.
If insurance is such a bad investment, why do so many people have it?
Many Americans have insurance because Big Government mandates it, subsidizes it, and provides tax incentives for it.
Seniors are forced to sign up for Medicare or they forfeit their Social Security checks. Taxpayers are forced to fund high-priced health plans for government employees.
Employers are forced to provide their employees insurance. If employers were free to use the tax-free money they now spend on medical insurance to pay tax-free wages instead, many employees would far prefer the higher wages. It’s a much better deal.
Others buy insurance, or seek a job that provides insurance, because of the horror stories they’ve heard about how expensive medical bills can be. A catastrophic care episode can cost tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars and leave a family in dire financial straights.
Big Government is directly responsible for these high costs. Thousands of state and federal laws, regulations, mandates, and subsidies drive up the cost of health care. What should be a minimal part of the family budget is a backbreaking expense. If we end Big Government Health Care, prices will drop dramatically. Far fewer people will need or want insurance.
Rather than end these disastrous Big Government Health Care Programs and allow prices to drop, Big Government Politicians seek to expand them. They keep the demand for insurance artificially high.
People also seek insurance because Big Government outlaws health care charity, leaving poor people with medical problems nowhere else to turn but to Big Government welfare programs.
Years ago, medical special interests convinced politicians to shut down free clinics for the poor, once common in the United States. Rather than allow them to reopen, socialized medicine advocates claim that the high cost of health care is the fault of people who refuse to buy insurance and who run to a hospital emergency room instead every time they have a problem. What they never admit is that Big Government Politicians cut off poor people from life-saving zero cost, tax-free alternatives.
Bemoaning the “uninsured” is a ruse. Big Government Politicians drive up the cost of health care. They drive affordable free-market alternatives out of business. Then they blame the taxpayer for not buying health insurance – made unaffordable by Big Government. It’s a scam.
Get Big Government out of health care
We must reject calls for more insurance. Rather, we should celebrate every time Americans free themselves from unnecessary and oppressively overpriced government-mandated health insurance.
What we need is to bring down the high cost of health care by removing Big Government health care prohibitions, mandates, regulations, and subsidies. We must vote against every politician who refuses to tear them down. Who deny us our health freedom.
We must vote out of office politicians who blackmail voters by threatening to cut needed subsidies – while leaving in place the legions of health care laws and regulations that drive up cost and reduce access to medical care.
We must replace them with candidates who will remove all Big Government laws and regulations that escalate medical care costs or that block free care FIRST and who will cut back subsidies that people depend on LAST – after free market alternatives, including free clinics, are in place.
When we separate health care from government, we’ll dissolve the government-created, artificial demand for needless, high-priced medical insurance. Those who need insurance will be able to buy affordable policies that protect them in their times of greatest need. Those who can’t afford care at all will have access to lovingly-donated free care services. We will enjoy higher quality, cost-conscious health care. We’ll take $1 trillion every year from overpriced medical spending – and put it back in the pockets of working Americans.
Note: Since original publication of this column on April 13, 2006, it was learned that Tennessee is relatively lax about permitting the operation of free medical care clinics. However, free clinics appear to remain effectively prohibited throughout most of the United States. If you find a clinic that is neither sanctioned by government nor free of government subsidies, i.e., an unencumbered health care clinic charity, please let us know by contacting the Center For Small Government.
It is worth noting that while free clinics unaffiliated with government are largely prohibited, many individual medical professionals generously donate their services and/or give price breaks to those in need who lack financial means.
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