"Neither Healthy, Caring, Nor a System": Concerning the American Health-Care System

The story of government-involvement in health-care in the United States is a long and complicated one. So much so, that I was too daunted to even attempt to understand it while at college last year when all the reform madness was happening. Just take a look at the Wikipedia page “Health care in the United States” and you will know what I mean. The scroll-bar is perhaps two or three millimeters long, as it is on each of the “See Also” pages (See also: Health care reform in the United States, Health care reform debate in the United States, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010).

Even if I read each of these entries all the way through, I would have a lot of reading ahead of me yet. I would want to understand the effectiveness and strategy of our system as compared to health-care systems in other countries of the developed world. And I would want to learn of our health-care past and future possibilities.


Since I figured that health-care reform wouldn’t impact me directly, and that I probably couldn’t do anything about it, and, of course, because it would take so much effort to understand thoroughly, I didn’t even bother to research it until I watched some of Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary Sicko and felt compelled to read what my libertarian / anarcho-capitalist friends from the Mises Institute and the Acton Institute had to say in response to his demand for universal health-care in the United States.

The gist of Sicko is that trying to get health-care in America sucks if you don’t have thousands of dollars to spare, which covers most of us. The United States government spends 16% of our GDP on health-care, second only to East Timor among UN member nations. Yet, Sicko illustrates through several human stories (somewhat convincingly) that, compared to the French, the Canadians, the British, and basically all EU nations with universal health-care, Americans have pitiful access to affordable treatment. Not only that -- Moore makes it seem that: 1) Health insurance companies are evil, and 2) Achieving affordable universal health-care would be a piece of cake and anyone that would oppose it is either irrational or evil.

My first strategy of investigation was Mises.org. Next, I went to Acton.org, and from there went on a search for non-biased articles critiquing the universal health-care systems in place in Europe. What follows are links to the articles I liked best, along with their highlights.

I would like to say that I side with Hans Hoppe from the last article below, and that I agree with the Libertarian argument that health is a positive right that government cannot efficiently provide, but at the same time, if we have the capability and the collective desire to leave no one uninsured and uncared for, then I am firmly in favor of doing what it takes to make it happen. However, I find it hard to believe that the most prudent strategy to achieve universal care can be formulated and carried out completely by the government. With something as important and personal, as immense and difficult as treating every single person in this country with the highest quality medical care possible, it will take an “equal and opposite” effort from each American citizen. If we could mobilize the people to do what it would take, it just might happen that government would only get in the way.

Bylund, Per. “How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden”, The Mises Institute. 2006.

“The welfare state might have been a successful project if people had continued to have the pride and morality to supply for themselves and only seek support if really in need. That is, adding a welfare state could possibly work in a ceteris paribus world, which is what the welfare state really presumes. But the world is ever-changing, and the welfare state therefore requires people to be stronger and morally superior to people in societies lacking a welfare state.”

“I am myself part of this second generation of people raised with and by the welfare state. A significant difference between my generation and the preceding one is that most of us were not raised by our parents at all. We were raised by the authorities in state daycare centers from the time of infancy; then pushed on to public schools, public high schools, and public universities; and later to employment in the public sector and more education via the powerful labor unions and their educational associations. The state is ever-present and is to many the only means of survival — and its welfare benefits the only possible way to gain independence.”

“The French Lesson in Healthcare”, Businessweek. 2007.

“That's not to say the French have solved all health-care riddles. Like every other nation, France is wrestling with runaway health-care inflation. That has led to some hefty tax hikes, and France is now considering U.S.-style health-maintenance organization tactics to rein in costs. Still, some 65% of French citizens express satisfaction with their system, compared with 40% of U.S. residents. And France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.”

“In France, the sicker you get, the less you pay. Chronic diseases, such as diabetes, and critical surgeries, such as a coronary bypass, are reimbursed at 100%. Cancer patients are treated free of charge. Patients suffering from colon cancer, for instance, can receive Genentech Inc.'s (DNA ) Avastin without charge. In the U.S., a patient may pay $48,000 a year.”

“PMI and other such programs are starting to get attention in U.S. health-care circles. "If we really want to ensure that no child is left behind, then the PMI system is a good way to do it," says Daniel J. Pedersen, president of the Buffett Early Childhood Fund. "It's based on the practical idea that high-quality investments made at the start of a child's life will pay huge dividends to both the child and society in the future."

Condit, Donald. “What’s the Matter with Socialized Medicine?”, The Acton Institute. 2008.

“Resource consumption increases when people think someone else is shouldering the cost. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman observed, “Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.” More than 60 years of “someone else” paying for health care has led to medical expense inflation. Our predominately third-party reimbursement “system,” beginning after World War II for employees and after Medicare in 1965 for the retired, has resulted in out-of-control spending.”

Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. “A Four-Step Health-Care Solution”, The Free Market, The Mises Institute. 1993.

“It's true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls.”