Time to Discharge the State from Our Health-Care System

Note: The following article was originally published at Associated Content.

While watching the various members of the Political Class going back and forth on how, exactly, to further socialize our health-care system, I am noticing the glaring omission of a major question. The question no one seems to be asking is should the politicians do this at all? Of course, the politicians are not willing to ask this of themselves.

But the reason we need to ask the “should they do it?” question, and answer with a resounding “NO,” is because the members of the Political Class often create the very problems they set out to fix. Moreover, they have a habit of making those problems worse. This health-care issue is no exception to this sad fact. Rather, it is the perfect example.

Fixing Health Care, or Putting it in a Fix?

Less than a hundred years ago basic health-care was widely affordable. The early 1900s were a time when thousands were fleeing countries that offered government guarantees of wages and food and medical care. They were flooding into this Republic, a land that offered no such guarantees, and building wealth, promise of a future for their children and their children’s children, and built an economy that included charities that surpassed that of any other country on Earth.

That should tell us something about these State programs—they cause more problems than they fix, and harm the very people they are said to help. Here in the United States, health-care, and pretty much everything else, was entirely within the realm of the Private Class. Until recently, the Market determined the cost, and the State had no say in it. So what happened?

Fraternal groups were incredibly popular in the early-to-mid 1900s. Unlike the portrayal in some books and movies, they were not thriving on the promise of secrets and treasures. What they offered the poor and newcomers to this Republic was affordable health-care, among other things (such as early forms of life insurance). Groups like the Knights of Columbus, the Shriners, the Elks, the Masons, and more, offered what was widely called Lodge Practice.

Lodge Practice was a Market-driven vehicle that provided basic affordable health care for those who couldn’t otherwise afford such care for themselves and their families. Unlike the State-driven model we have today, everything was entirely voluntary, based on mutual agreement of only two parties: the provider and the consumer.

Annual dues paid by members of the fraternal organization funded payment to a physician who was on contract with the Lodge. The contract, which was renewed annually on review, was an agreement to provide basic health-care to members’ families. The participating doctor made a little less than he would otherwise, but he found the security of steady work for the year attractive. The families had health-care that they otherwise would not be able to afford. The agreement was mutually beneficial for all parties.

Doctor Ron Paul touches on this issue in his book The Revolution: A Manifesto

So what happened to this entirely voluntary and affordable system? While it made a lot of people happy, and fulfilled a genuine need, it also made a lot of people angry. Some of the more greedy members of the medical industry began to complain to the Government that health-care was too cheap! Lodge Practice, along with the evolving efficiency of technology, was pulling down the cost of health-care for the entire industry.

Rather than allow the medical community to cope and to compete, members of the Political Class began working with lobbying members of the medical community. The collusion of State and the health-care industry resulted in medical societies, such as the AMA, imposing sanctions on doctors who signed lodge practice contracts. Controls on medical license procedures were used to coerce doctors into not participating in Lodge Practice. Laws were enacted making for stricter, and more expensive, processes to gain the various licenses and permits being required to practice medicine.

It was claimed that the State was simply looking out for the safety of the Private Class. The result of all this was physicians unwilling to sign Lodge Practice agreements, medical fees rose, and the overall pool of physicians decreased. The lobbying medical groups were satisfied and the election coffers of the Political Class were filled. The free market had made health care too cheap, but government fixed all that.

By the 1970s the cost of health care had gone up. After blaming the “evils of the free market” for the high cost of basic health care, the politicians offered themselves as the solution to the very problem that they created. In the early 1970s the Political Class embraced HMOs as the solutions to everyone’s problems. Thus we were given, among other things, the HMO Act of 1973.

Of course introducing a third party the size of, well, the Federal Government only served to further drive the cost of health care ever higher. So again they are promising to fix health care, and cursing the evils of the HMOs, and hoping we will all forget that the Political Class gave us the very problems they are prosing to fix.

I guarantee more government will only bring more problems. The only solution is to eject the State from the health care market (And why stop there? …from EVERY market.) Because the Political Class doesn’t see fit to reduce their own size, we’ll have to do it for them. And we can do it in a very peaceful and practical way: by refusing to comply with the demands of the State.

Agora! Action!

Of course many of us are quite angered at the Political Class. They often do not have to live a day-to-day existence with the consequences of their actions. But we in the Private Class do. It makes us mad, and for good reason. It makes us want to demonstrate our feelings of resentment for those clueless elitists living in Versailles D.C., but violence would only serve to give the Political Class a special victim status and more power.

There’s a more practical, peaceful, and utilitarian way we can react to the ever-expending socialism. Agorism is a Counter-Economic lifestyle, and it involves choosing to live with as little government as possible. Through voluntarily rejecting State-aid, avoiding payment of taxes into the system, and simply where ever possible avoiding Government; we are in fact fighting the ever-expanding reach of government.

Whenever someone does work “on the side” and receives payment “under the table;” that person is being an Agorist. Whenever a family could qualify for State aid, but refuses it; that person is being an Agorist. Whenever someone says “don’t vote, it only encourages them,” and means it; that person is being an Agorist. It a wonderful “do what you can,” “take what risks you are comfortable with” approach. Agorism is less activism, and more of a lifestyle. It also lends itself well to business practice, including the medical profession.

In fact, we can choose to live our entire lives, not in a belligerent way, but by simply going about our lives as if the State didn’t even exist. There are some doctors who are choosing to ignore the system, and are practicing medicine as doctors did 40 years ago. Guess what? They are treating people, outside of the State-managed system, with affordable quality health care.

One such doctor is Dr. Robert Berry, of Tennessee. His clinic does not accept insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. And because he refuses to operate within the system, he has no interference from the fat bloated third party we call the Federal State. Because the only people involved are the patient and the provider, costs are low. Best of all, the treatments are decided only by the doctor and the patient, not some HMO bureaucracy. Dr. Berry boasts that his patients are largely low income.

In the end, if we wish, we can avoid participation in that system called the State. Some even choose to unplug altogether. After all, we always have a choice. We don’t have to have State-managed health care (or State-managed anything) especially in light of how government tends to create more problems than it fixes. I believe that as the hand of the Federal State continues to meddle in the medical community, more and more physicians will begin to practice medicine outside the official system.

The truly beautiful thing is, the more we shun the State-driven system, and operate in the alternative market; the more the alternative market will become, simply, the market! This Counter-Economic model is a wonderful, and peaceful, way of protesting the intrusion of the Political Class into every nook and cranny of our lives.

Sources:

Berry, Robert. “Testimony of Doctor Robert M Berry, M.D.” AAPS, 28 April 2004. 13 Dec 2009 .

Long, Professor Roderick. “How Government Solved the Health-Care Crisis: Medical Insurance that Worked Until Government ‘Fixed’ It.” Libertarian Nation. (Article reprinted from Formulations, Wint 1993 issue.) 13 Dec 2009 .

Paul, Ron. The Revolution: A Manifesto. New York: Grand Central, 2008. Print. Pages 86 – 90.