REFORM MUST BE CAREFUL AND CARING

Yes, folks and fellow libertarians, we DO agree: Public healthcare is an abomination, and should be destroyed, and replaced by PRIVATE, VOLUNTARILY funded systems and organizations, so that nobody pays for something they neither use nor want! The problem is, we're so far down the rabbit-hole in this arena that the transition - just from statist quo to a neutral situation, to say nothing of actually moving toward free market solutions - will require either a very careful and gradual retreat from socialized medicine … or a complete sacrifice of every person who's been left with no choice but the present fiasco, or DEATH!

You see, I do not hold that "collateral damage" is any more appropriate a concept in welfare than in warfare. Challenge my libertarian roots if you will, but I'd even rather see a continued worsening of the welfare state than to see people dying in the streets of America - merely because nobody gives a damn enough to reach out a hand to help!

I do not refer to the "professional victim" class which has sprung up in the wake of massive public subsidization of institutionalized "public charity" … I'm talking about people really in need (temporarily or permanently) and who cannot afford - to take care of themselves - thanks mostly to the way things are mandated and managed, by government and its handmaidens and lapdogs....

When we gave up the ability to contract directly, doctor to patient and vice versa, we forfeited "market behavior" to the corporatist manipulation model. Once that paradigm took over, its partner-demons jumped in: government, bureaucracy, regulation, paperwork, permissions and penalties, "malpractice" lawsuits and insurance, etc. - only an infinitesimal slice of which had anything to do with providing better service in treating health issues! (And lest we forget, as soon as the doctors and hospitals began to allow government to help "protect" them, one of the first incursions was against "drug vending" - leading to countless doctors in jail, and countless legitimate pain-sufferers with no relief!)

Unraveling this snarl is not going to be a simple thing like "abolishing TennCare." It will take a series of actions, and (unless we really want the blood of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives on our hands?) it's going to take some alternative pathways, to create and provide private (or voluntary community) measures - the kind that do what is needed to make "staying healthy" a matter of minor cost and inconvenience, at least for the vast majority of us … the way it once was!

Meanwhile, we will need to focus charitable aid on those who are truly unable to do for themselves. We'll also need to become better at convincing some of the folks around us that "just letting them die" is not a reasonable option for enlightened and self-affirming human beings to take. Only then can we honestly say we are acting in a way that truly promotes liberty - for those who can, to exercise it freely, here and now; for those whose resources are (currently?) limited (by factors beyond their control?) to taste it for themselves, and then strive to do what they can to at least reach toward that personal liberation for themselves.

I don't wish to live in a "free society" where people blithely ignore what is going on around them, and spend all their time cleaning their rifles and bolstering the barricades - instead of seeking ways to connect and become a productive part of a society of free and equal individuals, who leave each other alone … but are also always willing to do what they can, to help a neighbor is in need to regain footing. I don't really think you do, either!

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation.

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