Obamacare: fascist medicine

In the old days, right-wingers would often decry “socialized medicine,” which was a code word for state control of the health care industry. When you think of “socialized medicine,” you can consider the case of the UK, where doctors and nurses are literally employees of the government, but it may be more accurate to consider the cases of Cuba and the former Soviet Union, where everything is controlled by the state.

Obamacare is not socialized medicine. It is fascist medicine.

You are excused if you do not know what fascism truly is. Most people don’t. They are fooled by the false left-right paradigm. Fascists are not and never were “right-wing.” Fascism as an economic system was seen as the “third way” between free-market capitalism and socialism:

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

So, if you want to use the left-right paradigm, leftists believe in Communism or Socialism and “right-wingers” believe in free-market capitalism. Fascism is right in the middle. So, you could call fascism a “moderate” economic policy, just as Obamacare retains a veneer of capitalism with government control.

In what other ways is Obamacare fascist?

First, let’s completely understand the features of a fascist economy:

1)Private enterprise exists but is controlled by the state. If you have seen the movie “Schindler’s List,” think of Oskar Schindler, who was a businessman operating in the Third Reich. He could make all of the money he wanted, but his businesses had to serve the government, i.e., the Nazis (National Socialists). Fascists called this “corporatism,” i.e., corporate cooperation with the government.

2)These private enterprises are nationalistic in that they serve state needs first and foremost. These state needs are defined by the strong men leaders of the government, who are usually on the take from the businessmen that they allow to make money.

3)The government creates “cartels” and controls the winners and losers.

4)Fascism involved full cooperation between business owners and labor, who would work together “for the good of the state.” Both labor and business owners pay off members of the government so that they all may remain in power.

5)Fascism discourages entrepreneurs in favor of large corporate enterprises and collectivization. (In a true free-market system, entrepreneurs can engender admiration and take the focus away from the state; think of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, whom many people see as role models. Fascists want only the strong men of government to be seen as role models).

6)Fascism necessarily involves bureaucracy. The customer experience is the last consideration — state control is more important than creating products that work.

7)Fascism could care less about personal liberty — the most important function is “the greater good” as defined by the fascists who control the government.

There are other features of fascism, but these are certainly the most important. It should be obvious that this is exactly the model for Obamacare.

1)Obamacare allows private enterprises such as health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and doctors to exist, but they are all controlled in one way or another by the state.

2)The strong men of government (Obama and his cronies) determine the purpose of health care as a state-run program whose only goal is “national health,” as defined by the government.

3)Obamacare solidifies the position of certain health insurers and pharmaceutical companies and makes it nearly impossible for new companies to come along and take business share. In addition, Obamacare encourages doctors and nurses to end private practices and join larger corporate hospitals.

4)The 2,400-page Obamacare law was literally written by congressional staffers in cooperation with Big Labor, Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance. All of these groups, and several medical pressure groups, paid off various politicians so that the law will benefit labor, big hospitals and corporations, rather than you and me. Follow the money: the corporations make money, they use their profits to buy off politicians, the politicians pass laws that help Big Labor, which uses union dues to pay off more politicians. Who gets reamed? You and I do.

5)Doctors in private practice used to be small businessmen, who were able to do what they liked best, i.e., practice medicine. Obamacare makes it nearly impossible to survive as a doctor in private practice, meaning that more and more doctors are having to join large corporate hospital systems to survive. In addition, Obamacare has special taxes that punish the medical device manufacturers, harming another source of entrepreneurship.

6)Anybody who has read the news lately know about the horrific rollout of the healthcare.gov website, which is classic fascism, i.e. a government function that is so complex it serves nobody. Shoddy service is the hallmark of the fascist state, whereas true free-market capitalism is about serving the customer. This is why healthcare.gov is a disaster but Amazon.com remains a pleasant experience.

7)Don’t want to buy health insurance? Too bad, the fascist central state says you must. Want to buy a health insurance policy without birth control? Sorry, the fascist central state says you must. You are simply too stupid to know what you want, and therefore the nanny state must decide for you. Personal liberty is not even an afterthought to the national socialists.

To sum up, readers, if you support Obamacare, you are literally a fascist. You can see why some of us rejected the entire thing and will always favor free-market health care. Heil Obamacare!

This entry was posted in General by Geoff B.. Bookmark the permalink.

About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

22 thoughts on “Obamacare: fascist medicine

  1. Great post Geoff. Have you read “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg? He outlines it very much like you have here.

  2. Yes, great book. Goldberg will get a lot of credit over time for helping people understand the true nature of fascism as a movement of the left that was seen as the “third way” and is definitely NOT a right-wing movement.

  3. It occurs to me that many readers may not know what “free-market health care” looks like. We have not had a free market system for about 50 years.

    The free-market health care system existed in the United States from the 1600s until the 1960s. Here were its features:

    –A doctor was a businessperson, who ran a small business aimed at pleasing his or her customers, i.e., the patients.
    –Hospitals were businesses or were run by charities.
    –The vast majority of Americans, certainly close to 90 percent, could afford going to the doctor or to a for-profit hospital when they were sick. Costs were relatively modest.
    –Medicines were generally affordable.
    –Doctors made house calls and were concerned about pleasing their customers, the patients.
    –The working poor would buy catastrophic health insurance policies, either on their own or through mutual aid societies such as the Lions or the Knights of Columbus. If they got in a car accident, their costs would be covered by these policies.
    –Routine costs like office visits were paid out of pocket. These costs were very affordable.
    –The very poor went to charity hospitals. Most doctors would do a significant percentage of pro bono work. Health care was sometimes quite good for the poor, but is also true that many people simply could not get care except in extreme emergencies. But it is worth emphasizing that this percentage was very small, certainly less than 10 percent of the population. This same problem exists today, despite 50 years of government interference.
    –People with severe illnesses would rack up huge hospital bills, just as they do today. Most peoples’ catastrophic coverage would help them in these cases, but it is true that some people went bankrupt from medical bills, just as they do today. People whose homes were destroyed by floods or blizzards or tornadoes also would go bankrupt. This is part of life. It is a good idea to save money for emergencies. This same problem exists today, despite 50 years of government interference.

    There are still small windows into the free-market health care system today. If you get Lasik surgery, you will notice that service is good and costs are going down. The cost of the surgery is affordable compared to a lifetime of buying glasses and contact lenses.

    In summary, the fascist system of government control over our health care system has caused much more harm than good. The free-market alternative offers a glimpse of how much better things could be.

  4. If you go point by point by your definition of fascism you quickly see that fascism is not more and not less than socialism.

    Usually the terms socialism and fascism describe the political system and planned economy and free or market economy describe the economical system.

    So yes, Obamacare is a version of socialist medicine only to a lesser degree than in the UK or in Germany (where I come from and live). With Obamacare the government plans your health for you. They tell you to get insurance. They tell you what kind of insurance you can get. They’ll plan everything for you. That is planned economy or – politically – socialism.

    And of course fascism has nothing do to with a right-wing movement. Fascism fits every description of socialism and in so far these two terms are indeed interchangeable. In Germany Nazi was short for national socialist. Hitler’s party was called National Socialist German Workers Party. So fascism is not right in the political spectrum, it’s left. That’s why in Germany Nazis were also called Brown Socialists (mainly because of the color of their uniforms). The Russians and their hemisphere were referred to as Red Socialists. And this description is very true.

    Let me tell you something about the German Obamacare (only that we had it long before Obama was even a senator): In Germany there are two kinds of people. People who earn about the average wage or less cannot choose what kind of health insurance they want to have. They have to be insured using one of the official health insurances. These insurance companies are not real companies but instead are government agencies (just like the IRS in U.S.). There are many of them but all of them offer 98 % of the same services as required by law. The remaining 2 % is not worth mentioning (nothing of any real value).

    Oh, and they do not only offer all the exact same services, they also charge you all the same amount of monthly premiums: 15.5 % of your wage (yes, no typo here). That’s before taxes of course.

    And then there are the self-employed and people who earn considerably more than the national average and – not to forget – people who work for the government (funny, isn’t it?). They can choose what ever private insurance company they want. They can also choose what kind of health plan they want, what to include, what to exclude… Premiums are different for each plan and company of course and are about the same what you pay in the U.S. for private health insurance plans. You are still required by law to have a health insurance but this usually won’t be enforced.

    So the government will choose your entire health insurance for you if you do not earn enough money.

    But that’s not all: Doctors cannot charge a patient with an Obamacare plan (or more like a Merkel plan here in Germany) the usual way. The government agencies (the government owned health insurance “companies”) will pay a fixed amount of money to all doctors every year depending on how much they collected in premiums (or rather taxes – remember the 15.5 % of every month’s salary). It just doesn’t matter how often a patient goes to see his or her doctor. It doesn’t matter how often he has to go to the hospital or what kind of costly operations are performed. The amount of money is fixed. The doctor will get payed regardless of how often he sees the patient or what kind of services he renders him. It’s all been planed for by the government.

    If you are lucky enough to be eligible to choose your own private health plan (self employed, earning a lot of money or working for the government) then you pay your doctor the usual way. You’ll get a bill from his office and pay according to the procedures performed by him.

    But since the doctor will not make enough money when treating Obamacare patients because he only gets his fixed amount of money from the government regardless of how often he sees his patient, he will charge patients with private health plans three times as much as what he gets for treating an Obamacare patient on average. And of course a private health plan patient gets appointments right away – he pays a lot more than what the doctor gets for treating an Obamacare patient. The private health plan patient will get the newest drugs and the best treatment in the hospital because of the same reason. Great for such patients except when it comes to the bill, but bad for the Obamacare patient because he will be treated sub-standard – or in other words: his treatment is rationed.

    This has nothing to do with freedom of choice or a free economy. And honestly this is what Obamacare in the U.S. will grow into. This is just the beginning. The situation in the UK, in Germany and in Canada is what is waiting for the U.S. Sad but true.

    And if you ever wondered why politicians what something like this and come with things like Obamacare: Never ever think – even for second – they’re doing this because they love all the people so much and want just your best. No. I mean they might even believe this themselves. But that’s not the true reason. Politicians hate it when people can make choice and decisions without politicians. In order to grab onto power and be important they need to control the lives of other people. Otherwise they would make themselves irrelevant.

    Bottom line: NO, don’t call Obamacare fascism. Don’t use a new word. Just call it what it really is: a version of socialism.

  5. Klaus T, good comment. It is nice to hear from a European about the failures of socialized/fascist medicine in Europe.

    In addition, you are correct that, while there may be well-meaning supporters of socialist/fascist medicine, the main purpose is political control, not helping the poor. People who want to help the poor go help the poor themselves — they do not force other people into nonfunctional health care systems that will do nothing to help the poor.

    If you mean “socialist” as in “democratic socialist, or something in between free-market capitalism and Communism,” then Obamacare is both socialist and fascist at the same time. You are correct to point out, as I have, that fascism is a movement of the left and is indeed functionally the same as socialism.

  6. I always say that if we used our car insurance, like we use our heath insurance we’d be making claims every time we fill up the tank….and there is the problem. And you pointed it out in your list too. I would love to just go to the doctor, and have him hand me a price list and not even bother with insurance. And it used to be called hospitalization insurance, just for that, going to the hospital. I remember when I was getting ready for my mission and I didn’t have insurance. There was a doctor in our neighborhood that had cash rates for uninsured. It cost me $50 for a physical, and I was done.

  7. Geoff B.: “People who want to help the poor go help the poor themselves…”

    Exactly! The worst thing about this socialist medicine and all the other things associated with it is however that it kills personal responsibility for yourself and others as well. Why should I care about my neighbors? They can get handouts from the government. My taxes are already high enough. That’s their argument. And it’s absolutely understandable.

    “It is nice to hear from a European about the failures of socialized/fascist medicine in Europe.”

    Yeah, however I doubt that many Germans or Europeans will share my views. We recently have had an election in Germany. All members of the house were to be elected. 80 % of all seats in the house (Bundestag) went to two parties with almost the same socialist political agenda (Merkel’s party being one of them). Given the recent polls next year the vast majority of the senate (Bundesrat) seats will also be held be these two parties, thus allowing them to amend the constitution in whatever way the like.

    So watch what happens here in Europe – sadly so – and please don’t make the same mistakes in the U.S.

    I grew up in the Eastern Germany, the former communist part. As I was a young boy I looked up to the U.S. under Ronald Reagan (though far from being perfect himself) as being a beacon of freedom. So I really feel sad for what has become of the U.S. 30 years later (not only related to Obamacare of course).

    So maybe you need to know what oppression is and how it is to live under a dictatorship to value your freedom. I can only hope that the U.S. won’t need to learn it the hard way.

  8. There is something in what you say, specifically in terms of an economic system; but I do not think you are essentially correct, because fascism was not only an economic system, but had other features.

    (In fact, there have been so few fascist societies that it is hard to be sure just what it was – http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=fascism)

    Firstly it was a reaction against communism, secondly it was strongly nationalist and nation-glorifying, thirdly it was strongly pro-military.

    (This is not meant to be an exhaustive list – but to highlight how historical fascism was very different from the ‘Liberal’ mass media/ government/ public adminstration/ legal/ educational elite ideology.)

    Therefore I don’t think that Obamacare is truly fascist – what it is, I think (and this applies to many other US trends and policies), is an unstable transitional state, which is intended to lead to communism.

    Thus not a reaction against communism, but instead a step on the road to communism.

    (Albeit, communism under a different name – and perhaps more ideologically extreme than any previous communism; but at any rate a step on the intended path to totalitarian secular Leftism.)

  9. Klaus T, thanks for your comments.

    Bruce, one of the purposes of this post is to help people think about what fascism was as an economic system. We have two clear cases of fascist societies, Germany and Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. What were there economic policies? Exactly as I describe in the OP. They were “moderate” for their day, a third way between Communism and free-market capitalism. We must face the fact that Hoover and FDR admired many aspects of fascism *as an economic system* and instituted some fascist programs in the United States. Keynes, FDR’s economic adviser, admired many of the early economic steps taken by Hitler and advised FDR to take similar steps. Today, we concentrate quite rightly on the horrors of German fascist society, but we ignore what it was in terms of economics. We ignore that we have adopted fascist economics into our society.

    It is true that fascism as a political and social phenomenon had many elements that are not really relevant for a discussion of Obamacare, but this is not a post about the Master Race, the Gestapo or the reasons why Italy invaded Ethiopia, it is a post about economics. Obamacare is fascist economics, pure and simple.

  10. I think that there are many aspects of the Affordable Care Act that have been enacted that are feasible and a step in the right directions: allowing children to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until 26, eliminating caps on insurance, and allowing people with pre-existing conditions to be insurable. Those aspects have made a difference in many people’s lives, so I think that part of the legislation is a positive.
    I think ACA is a step in the right direction, but I also think that there’s still work to be done to reverse this trend of our healthcare spending in the U.S., and making costs for families and young people sustainable. As a downside, I think that ACA is a bandaid solution. I think the President made a good faith effort, but ACA doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how deep this problem goes.
    Geoff, you made a good point about how our health system used to be in the U.S. It was a system that allowed people to have access to quality healthcare for reasonable prices. It wasn’t always perfect, but for a vast majority, it was sustainable. I’ve always wondered why it can’t be that way now, ever since I was a teen and had my first severe bout of illness. Why can’t my mom and dad just pay and be done with it? What’s all this deductible and copay crap?
    I think another issue that has contributed to the problem is lifestyle. I think we need to start promoting preventative health again in this country. We’re becoming increasingly stressed out and unhealthy. We need to have a system in place for promoting healthy lifestyles as well.
    My question for you Geoff is, what are some steps that the government could take to lead healthcare back into a less-restrictive and free-market system? How would insurance and pharmaceutical giants factor into that? Could we ever sustain a free-market system of healthcare again?

  11. D, good comment and excellent question. I will be posting on this in the next week or so (depending on time constraints). To give you the short answer:

    We need to understand that insurance is for emergencies, not for going to see the doctor for a checkup. So, we need to have catastrophic insurance for emergencies. We need to understand that when somebody else pays for something we stop caring about the cost, so we need to create a mechanism where we pay the doctor when we go, not have the insurance company pay the doctor. We need to change things so that health insurance is not linked to employment. Just like with auto insurance, you should be able to choose your own insurance directly from the insurance company (preferably on-line). The poor need to buy their own insurance, and the government can give them subsidies so they can afford it. For the most difficult cases, charity will need to step in to help. We need to allow people to buy insurance across state lines so that there is more competition. We need Health Savings Account so that people can save money tax free for medical emergencies.

    There are two primary reasons for the health care mess we are in: 1)health insurance should never have been linked to employment, and the tax subsidies that made that happen were a huge mistake 2)government involvement in health care should have been avoided except to provide subsidies to the very poor. Anyway, much more on this later.

  12. ACA is not a step in the right direction. The fundamental model is completely wrong. Joyce already touched on this: Routine care ought to be out-of-pocket. ACA has actuallly extended the mandated level of routine care.

    I believe a vastly more rational system would consist of insurance against truly low-probability, high-consequence events, which are the only kind for which insurance is really appropriate. There might be an element of tax support for emergency rooms for the uninsured, though one must be mindful of the moral hazard involved in such a thing. Perhaps the individual mandate actually makes sense, if it is directed against emergency expenses that we would not wish to deny a dying person, however foolish they may have been to fail to purchase insurance.

    Routine expenses are not insurable. Oh, sure, you can call it “insurance”, but it’s really a health savings plan with a lousy rate of return and a rotten incentive structure that is only propped up through artificial tax incentives. Those really must be the responsibility of the individual.

    Preexisting conditions are best covered by an annuity of some kind purchased before birth (or, better yet, before conception) when no chronic conditions can yet exist. It’s a form of insurance, but a very different form from term catastrophic insurance.

    But ACA does absolutely nothing to move in this more rational direction; quite the contrary. It needs to be completely repealed.

  13. Free Market Health Care existed until the early to mid 60’s if memory serves. Then corporate America got involved and we ended up with the choice between bankruptcy and having a life saving operation. Frankly, medical care lately has been all about corporate greed and not the needs of the patient.

    The ACA or obamacare is a step to try and remove corporate dominance from this industry but nothing will work until we go to a single payer and the sooner the better. Corporate America has killed this goose.

    As for Fascism, my family left Italy just before the 1930’s to remove the possibility of being executed for their refusal to be under corporate/government dominance by Mussolini and his thugs. They left behind a very profitable business to relatives in order to leave for the United states and find freedom.

    The textbook fascism you describe is not much different from what we have in America today. Less overt thuggery perhaps and U.S. corporations do a much better job at buying government influence since the Supreme Court in its “Citizens” case has now allowed game on buying of votes at the capitol. All the laws controlling our behavior, health care, self defense, etc. Yes, we have a new world.

    There really is not a “third way” here. Control of the people by the few, and their elected minions, is nothing more than what it always was. Grind the face of the poor and less affluent. If you are wealthy, it must be due to your goodness and blessings. How many members I have known in several Wards break laws right and left and then call upon and thank the Lord for their blessings.

    Sorry for the thread jacking. I am working middle class. Raised 5 kids. But for a union contract with good healthcare, defined benefit retirement plan, and others like me who fought against the constant corporate take aways I would have very little.

    Its not fascism or communism or capitalism. Its the same old story. Go to the Temple. Listen carefully. You will find it there.

  14. OAK, I agree with some points and disagree with others in your comment.

    –Free-market health care did not change because corporations got involved. They were always involved. The difference was the government getting involved in terms of 1)providing tax breaks to companies for providing health care to their employees 2)Medicare 3)Medicaid 4)SCHIP 5)Obamacare. It is the government involvement that killed our good medical care, not the corporations.

    –Agreed on fascism.

    –Control of the people by the few. Nobody worries about Steve Jobs and Apple controlling you (well, some people do, but the majority just like good products). Nobody worried about lasik companies raping you because it is like any other product — you go, get your eyes operated on and happily pay because the service is good. But people do care about 1)The Fed and the big banks because they are a government cartel, and this is fascism 2)The health insurance and Big Pharma cartels because this is fascism 3)military contractors who work with the government to spy on you because this is fascism. Rich people can be good or bad. Many rich people got their money simply by working hard and starting businesses that provided goods and services that people want. There is no problem with these kind of rich people (although if they do not help the poor, they are certainly under condemnation from the Lord). There is a problem with rich people who use the government to control others (banks, military contractors, health insurers) because these people are indeed engaging in fascism. So we need to separate between the different kinds of rich people.

    –Yes, go to the temple, and you will learn surprising things.

  15. There is a small episode in the book Karl-Heinz Schnibbe (friend of Helmuth Hubener) wrote about his war years in Germany: There came a time when the public health insurance would no longer pay for visits to his family’s doctor, who was Jewish. The mechanisms are being established in our nation to implement such ideological disqualification of service providers.

  16. I suppose if you want to call it fascism you can. It is based on the fact that we are living in one of the most corrupt nations on earth but because we as individuals are fat, dumb and happy, we don’t care very much. If stormtroopers were at our door taking away our things, we’d feel differently. But the Corporate-Industrial complex, aided by corrupted, bribed politicians are doing it to us every day in more subtle ways. I am not opposed to a healthcare system that takes away the unbridled power given to the insurance and healthcare companies. The execution as, up to now, been poor, but I am hopeful that it gets better. I know there are politicians who are trying as hard as they can to preserve the status quo for their real constituents, the big corporations, but I will do all I can to make sure they fail. Let’s abolish the $75 Tylenol pill!

  17. Jeff, fascism can only exist in a corrupt nation where individuals are fat, dumb and happy and don’t care very much. The United States, up to the 1930s, never would have allowed fascism because our republican system of government, with respect for individual rights, the rule of law and property rights, never would have permitted it. Since then we have slowly been on the road to fascism *as an economic system.* To reiterate, I am not discussing fascism as a political/social/cultural system. I am discussing the *economic* features of fascism, and Obamacare is classic fascism in that sense. Fascism *is the “Corporate-Industrial complex, aided by corrupted, bribed politicians.”*

    Regarding the problems with insurance and health care companies, let me ask you a question: do you have a huge problem with your auto insurance or your home insurance? You may, but most people do not, in fact, customer satisfaction with auto insurance and home insurance is sky high. Why? Because it is a service that is valuable. If you get in a car crash, or your car is stolen, you put in a claim and you get money. I lived in Miami for two decades and I had my car stolen, broken into about 6 or 7 times. I put in a claim each time, and each time I got a check and the system worked quite well. This is *insurance* that works. So most people don’t have a problem with auto insurance, but almost everybody, including me, has a problem with health insurance. Why is that? Because we should not be using health insurance for routine stuff. We should only use health insurance for emergencies. The rest of the time we should pay out of pocket. If we did this we would negotiate with doctors and doctors’ visits would be less expensive. The same thing applies to hospitals and prescription drugs.

    So, when you analyze the reasons that people are unhappy with health care it has everything to do with a broken model that gets in the way of the free market. If we truly had free market health care today, like we had up to the 1960s, the vast majority of people would be quite happy with our health care system and with health insurers.

  18. “Fascism is the ‘Corporate-Industrial complex, aided by corrupted, bribed politicians.’” Wow, you and I agree on something Geoff. End Times!

    Looking forward to reading your ideas on how to solve the current mess that our healthcare system is in (pre- and post-Obamacare mess, hopefully). I have some thoughts on that but will hold off on them for now.

  19. I guess I don’t have a real huge problem with the idea that healthcare does not operate under a free market system, but also that there are few things in the US that actually do. Your auto and home insurance example does not correlate for me because it is not a free market choice either. Firstly, there is a finite number of companies that sell those types of insurance and they set the rates based, not just on your driving habits but on those of the community and the rate of theft and other factors. So, you cannot go to another state and buy insurance on your car that reflects that communities cost structure, even if your own experience mirrors that cost structure. Since you live in Miami, your insurance costs may be higher than some other place, even though you are as good a driver as someone in that other place.

    The other important factor is frequency of use. Health insurance is used significantly more than car or home insurance. so the pay outs are very different.

    I guess I am saying that it does not compare. But, I do agree we’d be much better off if we eliminated the middle man for most healthcare transactions. They only add cost and do not enhance the value of the delivery.

  20. Jeff, I am not understanding your point. Auto insurance is controlled by two things: 1)state regulators and 2)the conditions of the marketplace. The first is not a feature of the free market and is antithetical to the market, and the second clearly is a feature of the free market. But even in this controlled environment, there is more choice in auto insurance than there is in health insurance, and this is exactly the point: where there is (something) of a free market, there will be more choice and better pricing and more customer satisfaction. It is basic common sense that auto insurance should cost more in Miami, Florida than in rural Kansas. This is a function of the auto insurance companies studying the likelihood of risk and pricing it accordingly. This is the free market.

    I am still getting the feeling that you do not understand what insurance is (although in your defense, very few people do). Insurance is to insure you in case something bad happens. It is not to take care of everyday needs. So, you don’t get insurance for oil changes, but you do in case your car is totaled or stolen. The same thing should apply to health insurance, i.e., you should not use insurance for going for a checkup but you should if you get in a car crash or have cancer. If we had true health insurance (rather than this weird fascist system we have), most people would go through their lives never dealing with a health insurance company.

Comments are closed.