Further discussion of "How American Health Care Killed My Father," by David Goldhill (Atlantic Magazine, September 2009)

E: Ah, the art of cherry-picking.

JCB: Hard to believe you could say that with a straight face. But, since I can't see your face, maybe you didn't. ;^) There was no need to cherry pick. I simply selected a few examples that I liked. It wasn't difficult since I liked virtually everything, except certain aspects of his prescribed cure. Even his cure incorporates some sound ideas and would probably be significantly better than the metastasizing tumor that is our current system. But, since he so deftly shows that the problems we're experiencing are due to almost entirely to distortions of the free market produced by government interference, it amazes me that he fails to see that the optimal cure is to simply eliminate that interference as much as possible.

E: Watch out, you might find yourself a seasonal laborer and without health insurance at all.  I can practice this fine art as well but I don't have time this morning, I have to get to my wage-slave job, that...gives me virtually unlimited health care.  I'd prefer the government just pay me directly out of pocket as it would be cheaper for the taxpayer and other people could get their share.  I will try to get to the picking tonight.  I came away from re-reading the article excited about his proposals.

JCB: Not exciting to me, but certainly far superior to what Congress and the President are proposing.

E: The private insurance industry would be gone!

JCB: You act as though that would be a good thing. Insurance in every other area works well, since the free market is more-or-less allowed to operate as it should. There are no serious crises in life insurance (despite con-jobs like Bank on Yourself), auto insurance, home insurance, etc. As the author shows, our health-insurance crises are due to the heavy hand of government, not the invisible hand of the free market. So why not allow the free market to operate in health insurance as well? What is it about it that is so fundamentally different than other forms of insurance?

That said, his proposal actually might not be too bad, since it would only be for catastrophic insurance. It wouldn't be universal coverage for all health-care-related expenses. For non-catastrophic health-care expenses, the free market would be allowed to operate. At least that's what it sounds like he's proposing. I like that aspect of his plan. Still, I suspect there'd be serious negative unintended consequences involved with giving the government a monopoly on catastrophic health insurance and forcing people to buy it. Due to the complexity of the economy, it's hard to predict what they'd be. I suspect that in our political climate it'd probably turn into another enormous Ponzi scheme, such as Goldhill himself warns us against:

"We will need to reduce, rather than expand, the role of insurance; focus the government’s role exclusively on things that only government can do (protect the poor, cover us against true catastrophe, enforce safety standards, and ensure provider competition); overcome our addiction to Ponzi-scheme financing, hidden subsidies, manipulated prices, and undisclosed results..."

Also, from the standpoint of individual liberty, forcing people to buy health insurance would represent a major loss of individual rights and would set a very bad precedent.

I'll be interested to see if you can find any point in the article at which he blames our health-care woes on the free market, rather than on market distortions caused by government interference. I read the article fairly carefully and didn't find a single instance in which he does that. But I might have missed something. At any rate, I'm afraid you're the one who's going to have to do some intensive cherry picking. ;^)