The One Minute Case Against Socialized Healthcare

There is no right to healthcare

The United States was founded with the declaration that all men have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Founders recognized that all men have a moral right to be free from the coercion of others, as long as they allow others the same freedom. They believed that rights do not impose a positive obligation on others, but only the negative obligation to restrain from the initiation of force.

The claim that there is a “right to healthcare” violates the principle of individual rights because it requires that the liberty of doctors and the property of taxpayers be violated to provide for others. When the New Deal and Great Society programs forced doctors and taxpayers to become sacrificial offerings to the “common good”, the current “healthcare crisis” was born.

The myth of “free” healthcare

It is a common belief that when government provides something, it is free or cheap. But politicians cannot create wealth – they can only redistribute it. Money for all government spending comes from business – whether by entrepreneurial investment, the wages of patients, or taxes.

Whether by price controls of outright nationalization, when governments make prices artificially low, demand skyrockets, and shortages result. Politicians respond by passing ever more regulations to control costs. These regulations stifle innovation, drive up costs, and force healthcare providers out of business. The end result is to replace capitalism, the greatest wealth-generating system known to man, with an onerous system of central planning.

Capitalism cannot guarantee that all our medical needs will be provided for – no system can do that. But it does give entrepreneurs the incentive to compete to provide the best possible service they can. Centralized socialized systems have no incentive to improve service or to try bold new techniques. Politicians can force prices to be artificially low, but they cannot lower costs – they can only drive doctors, hospitals, and drug companies out of business.

The victims of “universal” healthcare

The waiting time for treatment in Canada varies from 14 to 30 weeks. Waiting lists for diagnostic procedures range from two to 24 weeks. Some patients die while waiting for treatment. To stop sick people from circumventing the “free” system, the government of British Columbia enacted Bill 82 in 2003, which makes it illegal to pay for private surgery. Patients waiting for critical procedures are now forced to seek procedures in the U.S. and doctors are abandoning Canada in droves. Cleveland, Ohio is now Canada’s hip-replacement center. Ontario is turning nurses into doctors to replace some of the 10,000 doctors who left Canada in the 1990’s. 1 2

What will patients do when it is illegal to seek private medical treatment in the U.S.? Politicians are already working towards that goal. State and federal regulation impose onerous regulations which forbid insurance companies from offering services such as basic coverage for emergencies by requiring coverage of many types of procedures. Medicare forces doctors to follow 130,000 pages of regulations. Critics often attack the “capitalist” nature of American health care system. The reality is that the government now pays for 50% of health care, and closely regulates the rest.

Healthcare is only affordable under capitalism

If a society is not wealthy enough to afford healthcare, health socialism will not make it richer. Cuba, a poster child of socialist healthcare schemes, spends $229 on healthcare per person each year, while the U.S. spends $ 6,096.3 Premium services are available only to paying foreigners, while natives must bribe doctors for timely treatment and bring their own towels, bed sheets, soap, food, and even sutures.4

A government can decide to replace individual choice with state-mandated decisions of what goods and services are more important for the “common good.” But it can only spend on one area at the expense of another. If Cubans are not totally deprived of medical treatment, it can only be at the expense of all other goods. A doctor’s salary in Cuba is 1.5 times the median at $15-20 per month. 5 A telling sign of their deprivation is the Cuban suicide rate, which is the highest in Latin America and among the highest in world. Cubans in Miami on the other hand, kill themselves less often than other Miamians.6 When they risk their lives in leaky boats to escape to the U.S., the right to make their own decisions regarding their health is among the freedoms they hope to gain.

References:

  1. “Free Health Care in Canada” by Walter Williams
  2. “Do We Want Socialized Medicine?” by Walter Williams
  3. Reuters: Health care in Cuba more complicated than on SiCKO
  4. BBC: Keeping Cuba Healthy by John Harris
  5. “An Evaluation of Four Decades of Cuban Healthcare” by Felipe Eduardo Sixto (PDF)
  6. Miami Herald: “Study: Suicide epidemic exists under Castro” by Juan O. Tamayo

Further reading:

  • Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” by Lin Zinser and Dr. Paul Hsieh
  • Health Care Is Not a Right by Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D.
  • Health Care Is a Business—or Should Be by Richard E. Ralston
  • Video: Unisured in America (Free Market Cure Documentary Series)
  • Americans for Free Choice in Medicine
  • American Health Care: Essential Principles and Common Fallacies
  • FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine
  • The “Cost” of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell
  • Michael Moore’s Shticko by Michael C. Moynihan
  • NY Times: “As Canada’s Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging“
  • Do fat people deserve medical treatment?
  • The One Minute Case for Individual Rights

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  1. #1 by L. E. M. - June 26th, 2007 at 23:47

    What about state supported patient centered care? A database that makes patients responsible for their own records in as far as it’s all connected to them and not some private practitioner, but it would have to come from a state/fed agency to be cost effective, (not to mention all the revisions of HIPPA.) Wouldn’t that place the power in the consumer/tax payer instead of the doctor?

  2. #2 by mike - June 27th, 2007 at 03:47

    wow, so your saying that we stay here locked in an employer based health system that promotes the private sectors from having to pay out if they don’t have to. insurance is a scam, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be an occupation(there would be no money in it) its hard for me to see how us, as such a prosperous country be stuck in a state of such a poor health system, i think something like 37th in the latest study by the independent world health organization, keyword there, independent. this case is ridiculous, have you ever had to deal with an insurance company, i have a friend who had to pay for an ambulance ride after being hit by a car on his bike, because he didn’t get the ambulance ride pre-approved, cause that is more important than stopping the bleeding. now i don’t know if a governmental system is the right thing for america, but its a step in the right direction seeing how medicare has an overhead of under 3%, which isn’t too bad. people please put yourself in some one else’s shoes before, the system only works for those it wants to work for, and most of the time that isn’t who needs it the most.

  3. #3 by D.J.R. - July 1st, 2007 at 13:04

    “insurance is a scam, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be an occupation(there would be no money in it)” This man cannot be serious. :shock: So by virtue of making money, what they do is automatically a scam? I certainly hope you don’t make money then, since I wouldn’t want to believe your a con man. :roll:

    “…i think something like 37th in the latest study by the independent world health organization, keyword there, independent.” You are absolutely correct, we are rated 37th by the world health organization. But I am curious, they cannot be talking about 37th in treatment time since we treat people faster than any other nation, wonder why so many Canadians come here to get operations? It might be because you have to wait around 18 months for a simple eye proceedure that gets done in 2 weeks in the United States even though they are rated higher by the World Health Organization. http://www.onthefencefilms.com/video/deadmeat/ that website will provide a video of some personal stories involving the Canadian health care system and how inferior it is to our system.

    “i have a friend who had to pay for an ambulance ride after being hit by a car on his bike, because he didn’t get the ambulance ride pre-approved, cause that is more important than stopping the bleeding.” I wonder if they saved his life before asking him for money. Probably seeing as it’s hard to do paperwork when your bleeding to death. Imagine the nerve of people who save your life than ask you to pay for their saving your life, it’s like their doing a job or something. :roll:

  4. #4 by Katja - July 15th, 2007 at 00:57

    “I wonder if they saved his life before asking him for money. Probably seeing as it’s hard to do paperwork when your bleeding to death. Imagine the nerve of people who save your life than ask you to pay for their saving your life, it’s like their doing a job or something. ”

    Ok, emergency services should be provided to people for little or no money, right off the bat. ESPECIALLY if they’re paying for health care already. There are unforseeable events that happen to people all the time and when someone gets hit by a car, or is an accident or having a heart attack is charged simply for the ambulance ride BEFORE they even reach the ER is ridiculous. Of COURSE medical staff should get paid, but for people who go through their lives thinking that they’re covered by their health plans and then get smacked in the face w/ charges for emergency care becuase it wasn’t “pre-approved”? That’s just absurd!

    Also, as for socialized medicine in Canada and the UK, talking to exchange students and relatives who’ve used the system had nothing but great things to say about it. Sure Canadians come to the US for operations. The US has made leaps and bounds in the medical field but in terms of emergency medicine and accsess to treatment it’s pretty bad. In Canada and the UK if you need to see a doctor for something you can see them within 3 days. I don’t know where this 18 months thing is coming from. Emergency patients are moved to the frount of the cue and people expecting cosmetic surgery wait a couple of years. Surgery patients are dealt with in a timely manner depending on the severity of their condition, again the worst of the patients rushed to the front of the line. Mother’s are given a minimum of 7 days rest in the hospital after delivery and arent charged a cent for their stay or the treatment of themselves and their infant.

    A cousin of mine visiting England forgot her insulin at her hotel while exploring the country side. She went to a local hospital and was seen in 15 minutes and was written a perscription for brand name insulin and was able to pick it up down the street for half of what she normally pays here in the states. I personally believe that a Universal health plan can work if appropriately managed. In Germany, England and Canada, these countries still have private insurance and practices that people opt to use instead. Infact, those people who do don’t even pay the health tax since they don’t use the universal system (as it should be, anyone who doesnt pay Social Securiety shouldn’t receive it). So the quality of health care shouldn’t and most probably wouldn’t be affected. the only thing that will change is availability.

  5. #5 by Joseph - July 31st, 2007 at 17:20

    “Cuba, a poster child of socialist healthcare schemes, spends $229 on healthcare per person each year, while the U.S. spends $ 6,096.3″

    That’s actually a scathing critique of the US system. While healthcare in the US is better than Cuba’s, it’s not much better according to the WHO. The US ranks 37 and Cuba ranks 39.

    So why is the US system so inefficient? Cuba does not have much money. It’s a third-world country under embargo after all. Where is all the money in the US going?

  6. #6 by D.J.R. - September 23rd, 2007 at 15:30

    “Cuba, a poster child of socialist healthcare schemes, spends $229 on healthcare per person each year, while the U.S. spends $ 6,096.3″

    If by critique you mean meaningless fact out of context, it certainly is. Perhaps you could see how many tests the average Cuban goes through to ensure his health and how many of those Cubans after treatment remain alive. Saying someone spends less on healthcare than us doesn’t say they have “better” healthcare. Do you expect cars that cost less to be better than ones that don’t? :roll:

    The WHO rating system is not based on better healthcare or patient survival rate, it’s based on nonsensical standards like equal availability and the like. Why do so many Canadians who can afford to jump border for treatment come here? So they can get the terrible service? The best way to scout for objectivity in a source is to use some logic.

    Ohh and all the money in the US should be going to doctors because it takes a bit of time in school to get a degree, which costs money and incurs debt, and they save your life. If you don’t reward people who save your life stop expecting your life to be saved. They do not and should not have the responsibility to save your or my life above theirs, since theirs makes my life possible.

  7. #7 by Valentino - September 23rd, 2007 at 23:18

    This is just pure FUD and false. We can manage to have the second best healthcare system in the world in Italy with almost 200 billion euros of missing profits due to tax bridging (100 billions) and interests on our public debt (thanks to our former leaders, 80 billions). Healthcare should just be public and stop the bu****t.

  8. #8 by valueprop - October 30th, 2007 at 14:20

    Ok. Look at Lasik (vision correction) surgery. This is medicine that health care insurance does NOT cover and which the government is not involved in managing. When Lasik surgery first came on the scene 10-15 years ago, the cost of the service was around $5000.00

    Now, in 2007 you can have it done for typically less than $1000. Why? Because government isn’t there mucking up and limiting practices or tacking on extra red tape. That’s called free enterprise, baby, and it works to to bring the best price and encourages competition which helps lower the price. Government mandates do the exact opposite.

    Health care prices didn’t go up until the government got involved.

    Besides, if the US does concede to a national, government run socialized medicine program, where will all the Canadians go to receive good health care? :wink:

  9. #9 by Steve - November 6th, 2007 at 22:19

    I have lived in Canada for over 50 years and have a family of 5. I never realized it was so bad up here until I read this article.Are you sure you meant Canada? During multiple trips with the kids,wife and periodically myself to the Emergency Dept. or to my family Doctor, I’ve never waited over an hour.As for surgery, it seems that if it’s really urgent, you get in right away. If not…I had to wait 2 months for a nasal surgery…that didn’t seem to bad..
    As for socialized medicine: Canadians would never stand for it or any other Socialist type of system. I prefer our system where you select your own Doctor, hospital or whatever. The nice thing about it is that serious or not, it doesn’t come out of your pocket. As for coming out of our taxes: Canada spends 11% of our GDP on healthcare and covers everyone (reasonably well I think), while the U.S. spends about 16% I’ve been told and leaves about 40 million people without coverage (I assume that in the U.S., once you’re covered, you are covered for everything forever as long as you’re premiums are paid). As for Candians heading south, I’ve never met any, but I understand that some folks have been sent to Seattle,etc because of a spike in demand here..everything paid at government expense which is nice. I can’t quite grasp the concept of paying directly for your healthcare. What if you’re broke or have Cancer or something serious? Is that covered in the U.S.??? I don’t know but it sure is a frightening concept.

  10. #10 by Reality - December 11th, 2007 at 16:36

    The point is, setting all other views of socializing healthcare and the system existing right now in the United States. We still pay WAY more for healthcare now than anyone else does in the whole world. Regardless if anyone has the money or not, healthcare should not be denied to anyone because of money issues. It is unethical. PEOPLE HAVE DIED BECAUSE INSURANCES WANT TO SAVE MONEY SO THEY DENY PEOPLE THE HELP THEY NEED, THE EXTRA TESTS THEY NEED, THE SECURITY IN KNOWING THAT THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM.

    If George Bush is so against ABORTION then why is he allowing millions of people without money to pay for their healthcare needs DIE?

    ANSWER THAT FOR ME!

  11. #11 by individualist - December 23rd, 2007 at 23:33

    Congratulations on an excellent post for a one-minute reading.

    It’s a bit depressing that many of your commenters are so immature that, instead of addressing the arguments presented in the post, they prefer to make wild statements expressing nothing more than their emotions and their appalling ignorance of basic economics. That’s a sad commentary on our educational system.

    I would recommend the referenced article, Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” by Lin Zinser and Dr. Paul Hsieh to anyone who seriously wants to understand the etiology of this problem. I’m not certain I agree with their solutions, however. I would prefer to see employers and private insurance companies voluntarily depart the system until such time as government does likewise.

    Yes, health care and health care plans are expensive. But, so are many other necessities of life like food, clothing, housing and transportation. The obvious solution is that we each have a job that will let us pay these expenses. Otherwise, we must depend on charity. Unfortunately, since the New Deal, we’ve become accustomed to government supporting the non-working parasites on the backs of the real workers by taxing their earnings. Socialized medicine is just another variation of that pattern.

    The only bright spot here is that socialized medicine, like the defunct Soviet Union, is unsustainable in the long-run because it flouts economic realities. The uninformed will have only themselves to blame for the pain and suffering they will create if they persist in advancing this scheme.

  12. #12 by Rhys - November 7th, 2008 at 13:57

    The idea of a nationalized health care system is a prime example of the problem of the public good. In the case of nationalized health care, individuals can’t select their own ideal quantity – it’s a one size fits all issue. This leaves some people feeling like they have too much and others feeling like they have too little provision of the public good.

    A short anecdote illustrates this issue well. My wife’s father had leukemia back in 2003 and had to travel to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to receive chemotherapy and other life saving treatments. While at MD Anderson, they met a Canadian couple in which the wife also had leukemia. Canada, whose health care system many look too as the model for universal heath care, assessed her situation and made a decision. They said that based on her age of 60 years and her condition, leukemia, they would not be willing to provide her with the life saving treatments she needed. So, within three days of arriving in the US for treatment, the family had spent more than $250K out of pocket! You call that equal access to health care?

    Furthermore, the federal government has no right to tell insurance companies, doctors, or patients how to use or dispose of their property or the manner in which they decide to contract with one another. Milton Friedman would no doubt call universal health care coercive, and indeed it is. The government had no right to decide if that woman would live or die, and they had no right to deny her the chance to live.

    It’s quite simple folks, the government is good at nothing. Everything they touch doesn’t turn to gold, it atrophies.

  13. #13 by jack - April 6th, 2009 at 23:24

    The author of this article has neglected a few key factors.

    (1) The US has a history of supremacy in medicine that will not so quickly disappear.
    (2) Cuba is a communist, third-world country.
    (3) There exists a middle ground between the US and Cuba.

    One can find medical horror stories in our current healthcare system too, with patients being turned down for services simply because they can’t afford lifesaving surgeries and procedures. Hospital administrators themselves have admitted to having participated in such decisions. Using anecdotal examples (from Canada, no less) to argue against universal healthcare in the US is simply myopic.

    As far as doctors suddenly inflating boats and fleeing the richest superpower on the face of this earth, I’d say.. unlikely. A recent study showed that more than half the nation’s doctors (that’s our nation, not Cuba) are not concerned about their salaries in the long term. In fact, many were optimistic about providing over 40 million ineligible americans with quality healthcare. To assume doctors will move to say… the middle east, latin america, because their salaries might be reduced in the short-term assumes the american medical profession is powered on money alone. It is not.

    Finally, there are many countries, including several European countries and Israel, which implement a hybrid system that provides quality healthcare to all and allows people who can afford it to elect private services at their discretion. America will doubtfully slip into a medical black-market.

    Let’s not fall into a libertarian, over-simplification of matters and look at this as a black & white issue. The government can do things well. For starters, it can begin to spend the people’s money on the people’s well-being and not on “liberating” the Iraqis.

  14. #14 by DLopes - June 17th, 2009 at 23:19

    @Reality

    Sounds like someone’s bought stock in Michael Moore……. lol. Yikes.

  15. #15 by cura_te_ipsum - June 22nd, 2009 at 23:59

    While I will agree with many of you that insurance is too expensive, I have to wonder how many of you have actually worked with the government insurance we already have called Medicare. I have never seen a more inefficient, money eating, rationalized health care model. I can’t fathom why people would want this for every American. Medicare was financially insolvent by the 1970’s. That’s why it must deny care and strip hospitals and doctors of reimbursement causing many doctors to refuse to treat Medicare patients at all. And for the rest of you that think Canada and Britain have a great system, look what their own countries are saying here: http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#britain
    And it’s NOT FREE! Just because you can get a free hospital visit does not mean that hospital is working for free. Have you any idea the amount of taxes they pay to offer “free health care”. If any changes should be made to our health care system, it should be an increased use of Health Savings Accounts. This allows people to be in control of their money and it keeps bureaucrats from controlling medical decisions and treatment.

  16. #16 by sc - June 24th, 2009 at 20:15

    “The claim that there is a “right to healthcare” violates the principle of individual rights because it requires that the liberty of doctors and the property of taxpayers be violated to provide for others. When the New Deal and Great Society programs forced doctors and taxpayers to become sacrificial offerings to the “common good”, the current “healthcare crisis” was born.”

    Erm… have we ever heard of the Hippocratic Oath? It pretty much says that doctors, by trade, put the good of their patients as their priority, and that they swear to do their best to keep their patients healthy. Besides, I’m pretty sure that the POINT of being a doctor is to ‘provide for others’, but you should check the job description just to be sure.

  17. #17 by Chuck - June 26th, 2009 at 13:03

    @Reality
    PEOPLE HAVE DIED BECAUSE INSURANCES WANT TO SAVE MONEY SO THEY DENY PEOPLE THE HELP THEY NEED, THE EXTRA TESTS THEY NEED, THE SECURITY IN KNOWING THAT THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM.

    Yeah, It will be much better when the government is the cause of these deaths instead..

    I liked someone else’s comment about how he bought stock in Michael Moore, That’s the truth.. If Michael Moore is pro socialized medicine, then why did he go to a private clinic to loose weight?

  18. #18 by cris - August 6th, 2009 at 13:01

    “People have died because of insurance companies…” Actually, people just die, and they were dying before insurance companies or doctors existed, a lot more quickly in fact. Pay less for something better? Pay more taxes for an insurance card that does nothing for you? Sounds like a rip off to me. Come on, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Use some common sense people.

  19. #19 by Larry Garett - August 15th, 2009 at 12:09

    Sad to see how a country leaving millions of it citizens with out health care,and millions with partial care. The fear of financial ruin on top of illness, gives me pause to thank I am an Englishman and health care is free at the point of delivery to all. Its the one thing that gives me any pride in my country our NHS, and gives a sense of unity in a very unequal society.No health system is perfect,but the lies from the US right, I can laugh at, but the poor US people without ,such extreme dogma is no joke

  20. #20 by Mr.Carrot71 - October 23rd, 2009 at 02:31

    Enlistment is a contract; but it is one of those contracts which changes the status; and, where that is changed, no breach of the contract destroys the new status or relieves from the obligations which its existence imposes. ,

  21. #21 by John Williams - October 23rd, 2009 at 18:23

    I worked for the VA hospital system over 40 years. We were a favored agency,who is against veterans,and yet at the end of each fiscal year we had to ration care for a month or so. The VA serves 12 million,those who believe the govenment plan for over 300 million would improve service are confused and naive.

  22. #22 by Free Marketeer - November 19th, 2009 at 03:37

    Having a right to health care in no way requires that the liberty of doctors and the property of taxpayers be violated to provide for others. You have to separate merely having a right from exercising that right. Furthermore you are describing only one type of right. There are also legal rights. The right to ‘violate the liberty of lawyers and the property of taxpayers’ is a well-established right.

  23. #23 by Jeremy - January 22nd, 2010 at 00:21

    Okay, so that Canada lie has long since been debunked, and if you disagree then go ask a dang canadian.
    Let’s look into the morality of capitalism in healthcare- shouldn’t everyone be entitled to an equal opportunity at health? Should your right to health be regulated by your class?

  24. #24 by cura_te_ipsum - January 22nd, 2010 at 01:46

    Jeremy,
    Canadians do have longer wait times and less access to much of the advanced care that we enjoy in America. Compare the wait for an MRI, or just compare how many MRI machines we have in America per population compared to them. Also, when you ask a “dang canadian”, why don’t you ask how much they pay in taxes. My Canadian friends pay about 40-50%. Go to the Canadian (IRS equivalent) website and see the tax breakdown for yourself.
    As for the morality of healthcare, everyone has an equal opportunity for it because no one in America is born into a certain class and forced to stay there the rest of their life (although you are more likely to if you’re living off of welfare because then you never really have to get out and work and move out of that class). Unless handicapped or disabled (who are the exception, but are taken care of) everyone has control over their life and by working hard you can make opportunities for yourself.
    By the way, an ER can’t turn away anyone. That IS an equal opportunity.

  25. #25 by cura_te_ipsum - January 22nd, 2010 at 01:57

    @sc
    Doctors cannot provide for others unless they can afford to. Doctors and hospitals have to profit or they’re out of business. Government healthcare does infringe on doctor rights as seen by Medicare reimbursement for example. Even the Mayo Clinic which Obama touted as so great is beginning to not treat Medicare patients. Those that are forced to, such as public hospitals, have to absorb those losses unfairly. You might argue it’s the right thing to do, but when you try to regulate a doctor’s pay and how they practice you get fewer students going to medical school. While you’re arguing about how doctors gave up their rights with an oath, you’ve missed the bigger picture.

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