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There is a lot of debate about healthcare in the U.S. Should everyone be entitled to taxpayer-funded healthcare, as is the case in the U.K. and Canada? Or is that a form of socialism, which as we all know is the absolute enemy of all we stand for (spoken with a dose of sarcasm)?

First, let me talk about healthcare vs. socialism. The health insurance system itself is a form of socialism, and relies on this principle to work at all. Wealth is essentially redistributed from the healthy insured to the insured who need care – it’s just currently done through a private system that also redistributes the wealth of the healthy insured to the shareholders of the insurance companies. That’s the only way this avoids being called socialism in the first place – because there are corrupt people who get richer every time they screw over one of their own insured. Is that really a good system? I’m talking to YOU, Ron Paul.

Sure, it’s an opt-in system. But that’s how we end up with things like pre-existing condition clauses, which used properly, are absolutely necessary for the insurance companies to survive. Without this restriction, the socialism could not exist – only sick people would sign up for insurance, and nobody would be able to afford it. Unfortunately, this is heavily abused by insurance companies in order to avoid paying for a legitimate claim (and thereby making themselves richer).

This all could have been solved long ago, without government intervention. All it would take is one enterprising philanthropist to create a NON-PROFIT, nationwide insurance company – and I can’t stress enough the importance of the NON-PROFIT part of it. A non-profit corporation is just like a for-profit one – it pays its employees and is fiscally solvent. The only difference is that it is NOT obligated to line the pockets of any shareholders, because it has none. A non-profit health insurance company would accept premiums from its insured just like any other insurance company, but it would be beholden to no-one except its customers. It would not have to make profits – only break even on its operations. This would mean that, given the same healthy and diverse base of customers as a regular insurance company, nobody would have to get screwed out of a legitimate claim.

Such a system, if successful, would have avoided any government interference at all. But nobody has stepped up to do this, and I don’t have the money it takes to be a philanthropist. At the moment, we have insurance companies essentially colluding by sharing price information in order to avoid competing on premiums. And there is no way insurance companies have to compete on service, or how well they hold up their side of the bargain: by the time you get meaningfully sick, there is no way you can ever change insurance companies, because no other insurance company will have you. At this point you are completely at the mercy of your insurance company, and if they decide to just take your entire history of premiums and say “See you later,” you are just out of luck. Does that sound like a good free-market system, Ron Paul?

As it stands, the Senate Health Committee’s current plan is the best and only remaining way to fix healthcare from within the constraints of a free-market system. They are starting a new insurance organization that will not collude with the existing establishment. A system that is essentially guaranteed to abide by their part of the contract rather than searching for loopholes which will allow them to deny a legitimate claim. This is regulation by government competition which is an important tenet of a free-market economy. The fact that they are spending taxpayer money to start this venture is unfortunate, but it could have been avoided by a private party taking the initiative as I mentioned above. In fact, Ron Paul, it’s still not too late to do that. Collect 50 bucks from each of your rabid followers and you can start it yourself.

Now I want to examine the economics of medicine itself. It takes a lot of talent, money, and time to become a good doctor – so whatever I say next is not to imply that doctors don’t deserve to be well compensated for their efforts. However, a lot of doctors go a little overboard on their fees. They probably figure it’s alright to do so because it’s the insurance company that will pay. But when the insurance company pays, we all pay. If doctors would try to keep their fees a little more reasonable, people would be a lot healthier. I have a specific examples of a close friend who had to pay an extra $10k over the $90k their insurance already paid, for one procedure. The doctor in question is a gifted man and we are grateful and happy that we went with him. But he does 2-3 such procedures a week. If he halved his fee, he would still be doing extremely well and would never want for anything.

The reason for this is another line of free-market logic. Doctors – especially gifted ones – are scarce, because the barrier of entry to the field is extremely difficult to overcome. Rather than spending a trillion on their new healthcare system, the government could spend that amount on scholarships for talented would-be doctors to go to med school. Flood the market with talented doctors, and fees will decrease. Of course, that’s just a musing – I support the public option and I think it’s a good idea.

And there’s the punch line: I support the public option and I think it’s a good idea. It will certainly help us more than spending the same amount in Iraq.