Reynolds: Remember when protest was patriotic?

In the August 8, 2009 DC Examiner, Glenn Reynolds asks, "Remember when protest was patriotic?"

Here's an extended excerpt:

Remember when protest was patriotic?

"Protest is patriotic!" "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism!"

These battle-cries were heard often, in a simpler America of long ago -- that is, before last November. Back then, protests -- even if they were organized by the usual leftist apparatchik-groups like ANSWER or ACORN -- were seen - at least in the media - as proof of popular discontent.

When handfuls of Code Pink ladies disrupted congressional hearings or speeches by Bush administration officials, it was taken as evidence that the administration's policies were unpopular, and that the thinking parts of the populace were rising up in true democratic fashion.

Even disruptive tactics aimed at blocking President Bush's Social Security reform program were merely seen as evidence of boisterous high spirits and robust, wide-open debate. On May 23, 2005, the Savannah Morning News reported:

By now, Jack Kingston is used to shouted questions, interruptions and boos. Republican congressmen expect such responses these days when they meet with constituents about President Bush's proposal to overhaul Social Security.

Tinkering with the system is always controversial. To make Bush's plan even more so -- political foes are sending people to Social Security forums armed with hostile questions.

By now, Kingston, a Savannah lawmaker and part of the GOP House leadership, has held 10 such sessions and plans at least seven more.

On March 16, USA Today reported that Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum "was among dozens of members of Congress who ran gantlets of demonstrators and shouted over hecklers at Social Security events last month. Many who showed up to protest were alerted by e-mails and bused in by anti-Bush organizations such as MoveOn.org and USAction, a liberal advocacy group. They came with prepared questions and instructions on how to confront lawmakers."

This was just good, boisterous politics: "Robust, wide-open debate."

But when it happens to Democrats, it's something different: A threat to democracy, a sign of incipient fascism, and an opportunity to set up a (possibly illegal) White House "snitch line" where people are encouraged to report "fishy" statements to the authorities.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the "Tea Party" protesters Nazis, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman --forgetting the events above -- claims that left-leaning groups never engaged in disruptive tactics against Social Security reform, and various other administration-supporting pundits are trying to spin the whole thing as a deadly move toward "mob rule" and – somewhat contradictorily -- as a phony "astroturf" movement.

Remember: When lefties do it, it's called "community organizing." When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "astroturf."

But some people are noticing the truth. As Mickey Kaus notes, "If an 'astroturfing' campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn't it ... community organizing?" Why yes, yes it is.

As someone who's been following the Tea Party campaign since the beginning, it seems to me to be the most genuine outbreak of grassroots popular involvement in my lifetime. People have been turning out, in the tens of thousands at times, because they feel that Obama pulled a bait-and-switch and is moving the country much farther to the left than he promised during the campaign.

More significantly, most of these people are turning out to protest for the first time in their lives, and they're planning for future political involvement in years to come. Perhaps that's what's got the critics worried.

It's true, of course, that conservative and libertarian organizations -- ranging from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions to FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity -- are getting involved and providing advice and support, just as numerous lefty groups have always done with left-leaning movements.

But, as I noted in an April 15 column in The Wall Street Journal, those groups were playing catch-up to a movement that was already rolling on its own...

I don't know how the specific legislative battle over health care will turn out. But I do know that the issue has galvanized Americans who are rightly concerned about protecting their health, their individual rights, and their lives.

And lawmakers of both political parties need to know that.

As long as Americans are willing to fight for these things in a principled fashion, then there's always hope...

Longmont Health Care Rally

Ari Armstrong of FreeColorado.com has some video footage from the August 6, 2009 Longmont, CO "Hands of My Health Care" rally:



For more commentary and video, please see his full report.

I especially liked Ari's observation:

Congressman Ed Perlmutter told the Denver Post about tense Town Hall meetings, "They gin up this conflict and in some ways thuggery to try and stop stuff."

In other words, at a Town Hall meeting, where politicians invite people to come and speak, politicians expect people to shut up and take it.

According to Congressman Perlmutter, forcibly confiscating people's money is not "thuggery." Forcing some people to subsidize others through a maze of insurance controls and mandates is not "thuggery." Dictating to doctors how they shall provide health care, to patients how they shall receive it, and to insurers how they shall insure it, is not "thuggery."

But complaining about it, that is "thuggery." Speaking up is "thuggery." Saying "no" to Big Brother is "thuggery." Daring to exercise the First Amendment is "thuggery." According to Congressman Perlmutter.

Lying With Statistics

Stuart Browning again debunks the myth that a single-payer system would save money on administrative costs:

One of the linchpin arguments of government-run health care advocates is that the government can run an insurance program more efficiently and with much lower administrative costs than the private sector. According to them, Medicare overhead is approximately 3% while private insurers have 12% (or 20% or 31% depending on who is talking) in administrative costs.

The argument is complete rubbish...

(Read the rest of "Lying With Statistics".)

Like in the undead creatures in old monster movies, this myth keeps cropping up no matter how many times it's refuted. Fortunately, folks like Browning are ready to keep up the fight for the truth.

Top Ten Reasons to Avoid the Massachusetts Model for Health Care

The Boston Herald website includes this short discussion, "Top Ten Reasons to Avoid the Massachusetts Model for Health Care".

Their points include:

1. Health insurance rates for small businesses and micro-businesses have increased by 50% in two years.

2. Massachusetts failed to enact any limits on trail attorneys, driving malpractice premiums higher, especially in high risk specialties like ob-gyn and surgery.

3. The number of individuals with taxpayer subsidized plans is growing year after year due to the ever increasing costs of health insurance.

4. Mandated coverage has not reduced the number of emergency room visits as predicted.

5. As the state keeps mandating more coverage by statute and regulation, individuals and businesses have very little flexibility in choice of health plans, and insurers have less choice in design of health plans.

6. The Massachusetts plan requires insurance companies to do more paperwork so that individuals can prove health insurance coverage on their taxes in order to avoid the fine.

7. The health insurance program is becoming a budget buster for the state.

8. The promise of lower insurance premiums as the number of uninsured declines is not true. As the insured population grows, so does the demand for medical services.

9. The Commonwealth is experiencing a growing shortage of primary care physicians as the newly insured (mostly on taxpayer subsidized plans) look for doctors.

10. The Massachusetts plan did nothing to address the problem of making health insurance more affordable other than providing a government option.

At the level of economic analysis, the points they make are important and good.

For additional thoughts on the dangers of the Massachusetts model, please see my article from The Objective Standard, "Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong For Massachusetts, Wrong For America".

(Link via SK.)

New Name, Same Old "Public Plan"

The so-called "public plan" is not dead yet.

Politicians have merely changed its name, as Michael Tanner explains in his piece in the July 30, 2009 New York Post. Referring to the Senate "compromise" proposal, he writes:

...[I]nstead of a government-run "public option," it would set up a nationwide health-insurance co-op.

Now, if this was really going to be a co-op like rural electrical co-ops or your local health-food store -- owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services -- it would be a meaningless but harmless diversion. America already has some 1,300 insurance companies, so it's hard to see what one more would add, but it would be unlikely to do much harm.

But these aren't true co-ops. The members wouldn't choose its officers -- the president would. Plus, the secretary of Health and Human Services would have to approve its business plan, and thus could force it to offer whatever benefits, premiums and reimbursement schedules Washington wants. Finally, the federal government would provide start up, and possibly ongoing, subsidies.

A "co-op" run by the federal government, under rules imposed by the federal government and with federal funding is simply government-run health insurance by another name.

Or, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it, "We're going to have some type of public option, call it 'co-op,' call it what you want."

(Full text of "Senate Deal: Change A Few Names").

Rebranding a bad ideas under a different name is an old politicians' trick. Will Americans see through this charade?

Armstrongs Critique Left And Right

In the August 3, 2009 Grand Junction Free Press, the tireless father-and-son team of Linn and Ari Armstrong critique both the left and the right in the health care debate.

Here's an excerpt of their piece, "In health debate, left and right need to check premises":

...The left suffers worse ideological problems. Mike Littwin, also of the [Denver] Post, argued last week that equality-driven, politically-run health care is a moral issue.

We quite agree it is a moral issue. It is immoral to seize people's resources by force. It is immoral to forcibly override the independent judgment of doctors, patients, insurers, and consumers and to nullify their agreements. We oppose politically-run medicine because it violates morality. Moral health care respects people's rights of liberty, property, and voluntary association.

Unfortunately, the right also veers off track...

One of the speakers at the Denver rally, Preston Gibson of the Jefferson Economic Council, eloquently argued that the "public option" would drive out private insurance.

Unfortunately, Gibson also claimed that "employer-sponsored health insurance has been the foundation of the highest quality health care on earth." Wrong. Employer-paid insurance is the product of federal tax manipulation. It is non-portable. It is expensive because it encourages people to use insurance for routine care rather than unexpected, high-cost emergencies.

American medicine is great despite the IRS-promoted employer-paid system. We should move away from employer-paid insurance to individual policies. We support the expansion of Health Savings Accounts to allow the purchase of insurance with pre-tax dollars.

Jeff Crank, organizer of the Denver rally, likewise made many admirable points. However, he also claimed that the "right kind of health care reform" includes "eliminating the pre-existing conditions exclusion." We take this to mean imposing more political controls on insurance companies.

When insurers are forced to take people with pre-existing conditions, many people wait to buy insurance until they get sick, undermining the very purpose of insurance (and leading to Romney-style mandates). The real answer is to remove all the political controls of insurance that have mostly destroyed the market for long-term policies.

Too often neither the left nor the right gets it. The name of our favorite health policy group summarizes the essential values we must protect: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine..

(Full text of: "In health debate, left and right need to check premises")

Too many people in both major political parties have been too willing to violate individual rights in the name of "reform". Until politicians (and more importantly, voters) adopt a firm and principled approach to rights, this problem will continue to recur.

Fortunately, there are excellent resources available from think tanks such as the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights that provide the much-needed proper philosophical guidance, including the classic essays:

"Man's Rights" and
"The Nature of Government"

I can think of no better foundation for genuine health care reform.

Why A Public Plan Will Not Work (In 62 Words)

Amy Ridenour explains, "Why a Public Health Care System Does Not Work (in Only 62 Words)":

To meet budget targets, governments reduce payments to providers and to buy equipment. This reduces the supply of people willing to provide health care services (doctors, nurses, medical staff and support) and the supply of equipment (hospital beds, diagnostic tools, etc.). Shortages develop, and those who are sick or injured, suffer.

They find themselves with health care coverage, but without health care.

This point bears repeating: Coverage does not equal care.

Lewis: "What 'Right' To Health Care?"

Duke University professor John Lewis has written an OpEd in the August 2, 2009 in the Raleigh-Durham News & Observer entitled, "What 'Right' To Health Care?"

Here's an excerpt from his piece:

As the issue of health care reform builds to a legislative climax, it is important that we not merely parrot the same kinds of proposals we have seen for the past 50 years. A Point of View writer on this page recently lamented that "after a half-century of attempted reform" we have not reached the promised land of equality in health care. Let me rephrase this: After 50 years of increasing government interventions, through a maze of agencies that now control half of all medical dollars in America, the financial mess is getting worse.

... But such economic arguments have not stopped the train to further government intervention, and we should ask why.

The answer is that the advocates of government medicine are upholding health care as a moral right. Desiring to mandate this "right" by legislative fiat, they have been unwilling to face the cause and effect relationship between increasing government actions and rising prices. That is because the moral goal of equality, measured against the claims to a right to health care, has trumped the mere economic arguments.

As a result, calls for more and wider programs -- to enforce the "right" -- have continued, even as prices rise. This has led to even greater price distortions, which have fueled calls for more interventions, leading to higher prices and demands for more programs.

This vicious cycle is blinding people to the fact that the fundamental cause of the problem is the government interventions, which have caused the distortions.

Again, even a cursory look at the evidence shows the cost problem beginning in the late 1960s, when the government began its massive increase in programs designed to make us all equal by legislative decree. And if one thinks that England today is a model for what a country should do, one may not know the reality of six-bed wards in National Health Service hospitals, of patients waiting over a year for heart operations or of refrigerated trucks in hospital parking lots to store bodies from the flu season (all of which I saw when living there).

Just ask yourself what your car insurance would cost if everyone demanded it as a government-guaranteed "right." Imagine car repair shops having to go through a 10-year approval process -- as pharmaceutical companies must -- before offering a service that the government will then provide to millions of people as a "right." Then ask what the response would be if some people broke with the consensus and said that car repairs were a service to be paid for. They would be shouted down as immoral -- while people demanded that their insurance pay for oil changes and ripped seats.

Congress would pass more programs. Prices would quadruple, and car insurance would become a crushing expense.

Those who want to see an end to spiraling medical costs should challenge the premises behind the government interventions...

(Full text of "What 'Right' To Health Care?")

Thank you, Dr. Lewis, for addressing the core of the issue!

ABC News Warning About ObamaCare

ABC News reporter John Stossel warns about the dangers of universal health care in this recent 20/20 segment:

Brook: Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?

Yaron Brook asks the question that all Americans should be asking, "Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?"

Here's his OpEd in full:

Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?

By Yaron Brook

Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama's "reforms" will only expand that intervention.

Prior to the government's entrance into medicine, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market--no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.

Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans' rising productivity would have afforded them better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn't for food or clothing.

But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, this view of health care as an economic product--for which each individual must assume responsibility--had given way to a view of health care as a "right," an unearned "entitlement," to be provided at others' expense.

This entitlement mentality fueled the rise of our current third-party-payer system, a blend of government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, together with government-controlled employer-based health insurance (itself spawned by perverse tax incentives during the wage and price controls of World War II).

The resulting system aimed to relieve the individual of the "burden" of paying for his own health care by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. Today, for every dollar's worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out of pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the health care system as a whole, patients pay only about 14 percent.

Shifting the responsibility for health care costs away from the individuals who accrue them led to an explosion in spending. In a system in which someone else is footing the bill, consumers, encouraged to regard health care as a "right," demand medical services without having to consider their real price. When, through the 1970s and 1980s, this artificially inflated consumer demand sent expenditures soaring out of control, the government cracked down by enacting further coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits, and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the health care system.

As each new intervention further distorted the health care market, driving up costs and lowering quality, belligerent voices demanded still further interventions to preserve the "right" to health care: from regulations mandating various forms of insurance coverage to Bush’s massive prescription drug bill.

The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a "right" to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a "right" to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as the Founders conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.

You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services--no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a "right" to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.

Real and lasting solutions to our health care problems require a rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights. This would provide the moral basis for breaking the regulatory chains stifling the medical industry; for lifting the tax and regulatory incentives fueling our dysfunctional, employer-based insurance system; for inaugurating a gradual phase-out of all government health care programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid; and for restoring a true free market in medical care.

Such sweeping reforms would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry. They would provide the freedom for entrepreneurs motivated by profit to compete with each other to offer the best quality medical services at the lowest prices, driving innovation and bringing affordable medical care, once again, into the reach of all Americans.

Yaron Brook is the executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights in Washington, D.C. ARC is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

If you agree with him, then you should tell your elected officials.

Socialized Medicine Through The Eyes Of A Recipient

Another informative video from PJTV: Socialized Medicine Through The Eyes Of A Recipient.

Ralston: Obamacare's Attack on Doctors

The July 17, 2009 Orange County Register published the following OpEd by Richard Ralston (executive director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine) entitled, "Obamacare's Attack on Doctors".

Ralston makes two important points:

...The first and most obvious is that reform advocates in government want the legal power to prevent doctors from deciding "what medical or surgical treatments are needed." They think that role must be reserved for politicians and government officials. Physicians must not be allowed to prescribe a drug if the government decides it helps only some but not all patients and is thus not "comparatively effective."

Second, Ralston also highlights:

...[T]he attempt to disarm doctors morally and politically so they will do what they are told. Any attempt to protect their ability to practice medicine as they think best will just prove that they are greedy profiteers, like businessmen. Anyone who makes a living or runs a profitable business that does not need to be bailed out by the government may be condemned.

Conversely, greed for power is a saintly virtue for those who want to instruct physicians how to run their practices.

From other quarters we hear arguments that doctors should just do what they are told and accept what the government pays them, even if it does not cover their costs, because they owe us all for their medical education. Never mind the huge debts with which most MD's graduate from medical school. Never mind the long years and long hours of medical education and internship. If they went to a public school, never mind the taxes their parents paid to support it. If the government gives you an education, these politicians say that you owe that government your life. Are we now discovering the true purpose of government-controlled education?

(Read the rest of "Obamacare's Attack on Doctors".)

If physicians lose their freedom to practice according to their own best judgment for the benefit of their patients, both patients and physicians will lose.

(For another good piece on the double-speak being thrown about by supporters of Obamacare, see Ralston's July 5, 2009 OpEd, "Paging Dr. Orwell".)

Health Benefits of HR-3200

There are some unintended health benefits to House Bill HR-3200, as Jimmy Fallon explains:

Jimmy, with the help of supermodel Carol Alt, wants to tell you about this exciting new total health system:

The HR-3200! It's a total health concept perfect for burning fat and building muscle! America's Affordable Health Choices Act, running at over 1,000 pages and weighing in at 13 pounds, means RESULTS for your body! For only 52 easy payments of $19,231,769,235, you can't miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime offer!

Five Freedoms At Risk

Shawn Tully of Fortune discusses the, "5 Freedoms You'd Lose in Health Care Reform".

His list includes the following:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan
2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs
3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage
4. Freedom to keep your existing plan
5. Freedom to choose your doctors

(Read the rest of "5 Freedoms You'd Lose in Health Care Reform".)

Instead of losing our freedoms under a sham "reform", Tully offers the following principles for genuine health care reform:

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that's strictly taboo in the bills).

These would all be excellent steps in the right direction towards a free market in health care.

Schwartz on Non-Reform

The July 25, 2009 Boulder Daily Camera carried Brian Schwartz's piece on why the current proposed health care "reform" is anything but reform:

Paying for Health Care Reform

The Democrats' proposals would "reform" nothing. Instead, they would entrench problems with the status quo, as economist Arnold Kling explains in "The Non-Debate over Non-Reform."

Consider the country's total health care spending. Patients' out-of-pocket spending accounts for only about 10 percent. Insurers and government split the remaining 90 percent almost evenly. Since physicians, like anyone else, cater to who pays them, patients are left in the lurch. But Democrats ignore this problem.

Instead, they have been in bed with drug companies, Wal-mart, and hospital groups with plans to stick it to taxpayers. For details, see "A Closer Look at Those Industry Deals" at healthcare.cato.org.

Who should finance so-called "reform?" Translation: who should pay for other people's medical care? Anyone who volunteers, and no one who does not. Health care is not a right. Rights are freedoms of action, not entitlements to what others produce.

If you want to pay for other people's medical care, donate to or volunteer with a charity. Don't ask politicians to compel others to fund government charities, like Medicare and Medicaid. Forcing others to donate to charity is neither virtuous nor compassionate.

Hence, if Democrats want a "public plan," they shouldn't force taxpayers to pay for it.

Citizens do not earn money to fund politicians' pet projects. Politicians should pitch their great ideas to investors or philanthropists. Using tax dollars is just robbery cloaked in conceit and elitism.

Brian T. Schwartz

(His piece is the fourth one down.)

Armstrongs on DeMint Handouts

The July 20, 2009 Grand Junction Free Press published the following OpEd on Linn and Ari Armstrong, "DeMint's health handouts violate liberty".

They analyze what's both good and bad about one of the leading Republican alternatives to the Democratic ObamaCare plan. One key point:

...So long as Republicans play the handout game, they will correctly be seen as "me-tooing" the Democrats, and they will continue to lose, step by step, inch by inch, to those who would subject the entire economy to political controls.

DeMint's handouts also distract attention away from the fundamental problem: health insurance is too expensive because of political controls. You solve that problem by repealing the controls, not by hiding them behind another welfare scheme.

The Republicans need to offer a clear principled alternative to the Democrats, and they need to support ideas that resonate with basic American values of individualism, responsibility, justice, and self-reliance. Otherwise they'll keep losing elections -- and deservedly so.

Hsieh OpEd: The Federal Health Care Muggers

On July 24, 2009, the PajamasMedia website published my latest health care OpEd entitled, "The Federal Health Care Muggers". Here's an excerpt:

The Federal Health Care Muggers

The Democrats' agenda of "universal health care" is in deep trouble, as more Americans (including many "Blue Dog" congressional Democrats) are growing increasingly uneasy about the costs.

...But in addition to this economic flaw, there's also a more fundamental danger to the congressional plan. This plan would violate individual rights on a massive scale by imposing new mandates on individuals, businesses, and insurers, forcing Americans to cede control over their health care to the government.

(Read the whole thing.)

Reynolds on Innovation

In the July 12, 2009 DC Examiner, Glenn Reynolds describes how nationalized health care will have a chilling effect on medical innovation. Here is an excerpt:

...But there's another cost that isn't getting enough attention. That's the degree to which a bureaucratized healthcare system will squash medical innovation just as we reach a point where dramatic progress is possible. To see how important that is, I don't have to look any farther than my own family.

...The normal critique of socialized medicine is to point out that people have to wait a long time for these kinds of treatments in places like Britain. And that's certainly a valid critique. I'm sure my mom and daughter would still be waiting for their treatments, while my father and wife would probably be dead.

The key point, though, is that these treatments didn't just come out out of the blue. They were developed by drug companies and device makers who thought they had a good market for things that would make people feel better.

But under a national healthcare plan, the "market" will consist of whatever the bureaucrats are willing to buy. That means treatment for politically stylish diseases will get some money, but otherwise the main concern will be cost-control. More treatments, to bureaucrats, mean more costs.

(Read the whole thing.)

This is a perfect example of the principle of the "seen vs. the unseen" as described by Bastiat. The effects of government regulations may save money (the seen), but at the cost of preventable suffering and deaths that we'll never hear about (the unseen).

Watkins Rebuts Singer on Rationing

Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has written a great rebuttal to the recent New York Times essay by Princeton philosopher Peter Singer arguing that we must ration health care.

Here's an excerpt from Watkins' piece:

...To impose rationing, Ayn Rand explained in a letter to a friend, means "to distribute [goods and services] in a certain particular manner–by the decision of an absolute authority, with the recipients having no choice about what they receive." Rationing means that the government decides how much of some good or service you are allotted.

This bears no relation to what happens under the price system of a free market. On a free market, goods and services are not rationed. They are produced by individuals and then voluntarily exchanged for the goods and services others have produced. A craftsman builds a chair, which he sells for money, which he uses to purchase a doctor's services. A doctor trades his services for money, which he then exchanges for a lawnmower.

The difference between prices and rationing is the difference between you choosing what groceries to buy and the government telling you what food you're allowed to eat.

Commentators like Singer treat those two as equivalent because, on their view, goods and services do not belong to the individuals who produce them, but to society. They hold, in effect, that brain surgeons and MRI machines are the property of society, which has the right to distribute "its" resources as "it" sees fit. But a doctor's services or a hospital's equipment are not social resources. They are created by individuals, and those individuals have a moral right to dispose of their time, effort, and property as they see fit. Rationing deprives them of this right.

(Read the whole thing.)

Watkins makes a critically important distinction between rationing and the operations of a free market -- one that even many conservatives who claim to support free markets often fail to make.

When such conservatives wrongly accept the premise that the market is just another form of rationing -- just "rationing by price" rather than by government decree -- they merely set the stage for leftists to claim that government decrees can be a more "fair" method of allocating goods.

By drawing the proper distinction between free markets and rationing, Watkins shows that it is only the free market can create a morally just distribution of goods and services. Only the free market protects the rights of the producers who create those goods in the first place to trade with willing consumers on terms they find mutually acceptable.

Albertoli: Immorality of Socialized Medicine

San Francisco artist Roxanne Albertoli has written the following short essay on the moral issues underlying the health care debate. Her original version was written in response to an essay by David Grundy, criticizing the British National Health Service.

I thought it deserved a wider circulation, so she has revised it to make it a stand-alone piece and graciously given me permission to reprint it here:

Immorality of Socialized Medicine

The moral issue of government controlled health care is not discussed, as it is assumed to be self-evident that socialized medicine is desirable (albeit impractical) - i.e., it is ethically good for people to see health care as a right.

This moral perversion of rights is based on the idea that we are all our brother's keeper, and vice versa. That we are all bound economically, one to the next, for medical care. Whatever someone other than ourselves wants medically, we are honor bound to hand over to that person; and that person is honor bound to reciprocate.

No one asks why. Why are we bound economically, one to the next, for medicine, or for any reason? How are we "free" if our income, that which enables us to live, is taken from us by the government to "pay" for someone else's health care, and the same thing happens to that someone else?

Why is it "better" for the government to take my money to pay for Josephine Smith's health care, and take Josephine Smith's money to pay for my health care but it is immoral for me to pay for my own, and for Josephine to pay for her own?

Why am I considered too stupid to judge what's right for me, to pick my own doctor and to contract with him or her for a fair price, but brilliant government clerks know the answers to these conundrums of life?

Why are doctors and hospitals and drug companies considered too venal, too immoral to charge fair prices, but the government is peopled with disinterested philosopher kings who know exactly the right balance between services and prices? And yet the same doctors who are too venal and mercenary to be allowed to set their own prices are still to be trusted to perform open heart surgery or diagnose a life-threatening illness.

Why is this giant shell game called moral?

Because people accept that it is "moral" to live for anther, "moral" to sacrifice for another, "moral" to sacrifice others to themselves - but that it is "immoral" to live for oneself, and "immoral" for each of us to take the responsibility of his or her own life and live for ourselves.

It is a huge responsibility to live for oneself by one's own labor, and solely by one's judgment of reality. But it is the only way to live as a human. To exist for, through and because of others is irrational and ultimately destructive, because our means of survival is our brain. And contrary to the geniuses on Madison Avenue, everyone does succeed alone, because everyone thinks alone. There's no one in there but you and only you can judge what is best for you, despite all the alleged "brains" in the government who claim they know what's best for you. It is your mind, your wealth (if you earned it) and your life - only you, the individual, know what's best for you and where and how you want your money spent that best benefits you. Taking responsibility for oneself and spending ones' own money on oneself is the most rational and therefore the most moral action to take as regards health care.

That is why socialized medicine is immoral. No one can think for another, therefore no one can decide what's best for another. Patients, doctors, medical industry people, everyone, must be free of government coercion in the marketplace of medicine. Our individual lives depend upon it.

Roxanne Albertoli
San Francisco, California

Thank you, Roxanne, for cutting to the heart of the issue.