She analyzed a recent exchange during one of the GOP presidential debates and makes a point that too few in the mainstream press are making -- namely, that there is a false alternative between ObamaCare and "letting patients die":
The logical fallacy... is that our only choices are to either (1) force hospitals and doctors to provide care and citizens to purchase insurance, or (2) "Let Them Die." This erroneously limited view fails to consider the existence of humane, liberty-preserving alternatives. It also ignores the history of increasingly intrusive government actions which have seemingly left us with only these two equally unacceptable choices: government coercion or Let Them Die.Dr. Haynes discusses the many ways in which government intervention in the marketplace has driven up costs and limited the ability of Americans to receive affordable health care and health insurance.
She also makes this crucial point:
This false alternative, Government Control or Let Them Die, arises from a misplaced confidence in government and the erroneous belief in a fixed quantity of available healthcare resources. It is bolstered by the lingering remnants of the Marxist belief that profit-seeking requires exploitation and that because physicians know more than patients, an "asymmetry of knowledge" leaves patients too vulnerable and incompetent to make their own healthcare judgments. These errors are held by Democrats and Republicans -- which results in both parties crafting "solutions" that require ever more government involvement in the provision and funding of healthcare.Dr. Haynes offers both the right diagnosis and the right treatment for our current health care problems. Let's hope more Americans start listening.
But a system of voluntary exchange creates wealth by increasing the availability of resources. Competition drives affordability by increasing efficacy and decreasing cost. Profits are not the result of exploitation but simply the reward justly earned for providing patients with what they want, while losses are the correcting and cleansing consequence of failing to do so in a cost-effective manner.
(Read the full text of "False Dichotomy: ObamaCare or Let Them Die".)
