Listening to the Democrats speak these days might leave one with the impression that health care is a God given right that every American, not to mention every citizen, should be entitled to. Now I understand the arguments – and I agree that every American should have health care available to them if they want it. But I disagree with the Democratic assessment that we are entitled to it.

Health care has always been – and will always be a privilege. Rights, like freedom of speech or worship, are things that in a perfect state of nature exist without human construction (in other words they aren’t social constructs – well speech and to an extent worship are, but not the freedom of). The means of taking these rights away is the real social construct because it requires unnatural behavior. But health care isn’t present in this state of nature. It’s something we’ve invented to prolong our lives – and to increase our own happiness.

We can privilege every American with it (and hopefully not by making our system in to a complete socialized mess) but it remains a privilege.

Well, obviously we can learn that it is not for us. That said, I always like the idea of taking some of the benefits of any system and adapting them so they work in our free market system. How can we adapt our system so that it is free market but also offers many of the same benefits to paying citizens.

Firstly, we need make a law that says insurance companies cannot drop customers after they get sick. In the same law we need to define exactly what a pre-existing condition is (one person in SiCKO got dropped because they once had a yeast infection). We need to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions can get health insurance, regardless of their pre-existing conditions, even if they might have to pay a higher co-pay. Just like car insurance, if you are an at risk person, you should pay more in insurance as you are more likely to have to use it.

Secondly, everybody under the poverty line should be able to get insurance. The government would pay their costs of co-pay up to a certain fixed amount (probably a little above the average co-pay line). They could then pay the rest of their bill from their (which likely wouldn’t be very much). Anytime somebody under the poverty line without insurance comes for assistance at a hospital or doctors office, they would be asked to sign up for the discount plan. The people then would get to chose their own plan at their choice of provider.

Thirdly, all profit margins and practices would be available for government review every single year (meaning the government would have to comply). Any citizen who feels that they have been treated in a way that violates the law can and should report this to the government who can follow up with civil or criminal charges.

Next, insurance companies should not be allowed to dismiss lifesaving drugs as experimental if they have been approved by the FDA. Similarly, drug companies should not be able to charge outrageous prices for the needed drugs. Competition should be induced into the market place to lower the prices. Profit margins should also be examined, although the price of drugs can be a little more lenient than the price of health care.

Lastly, to keep the cost of visits to the doctor down, doctors will be required to have patients sign release forms that make it impossible to sue the doctor for accidental mistakes (however the doctor would have to perform the follow up procedure, ie to remove the scissors, for free). Any alleged criminal wrongdoing would be handled by the government (as always). By cutting the risk of a frivolous lawsuit, doctors don’t have to pay as much in their own insurance, so you don’t have to pay as much in your bill.

One might say that it would be impossible for a company to continue operation under such strict government oversight. I tend to agree so a floating acceptable profit margin would be needed. One years where cost is higher for the company, they should be allowed to charge more and on years when the cost is lower they should charge less. I wish that they could just regulate themselves; in an ideal world the market would force the to conform to the standards the paying masses want. It seems however that enough people aren’t getting angry at some of the crap that does indeed go on; satisfaction of the health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world.

This is a great little movie that explains the actuality of the health care “problem” in America.

More at: Free Market Cure

If you cannot see this movie you may it watch HERE.

As I’ve mentioned, Britain is one an example of a country with socialized health care.  The Health Care system there is so bad that citizens needing immediate help sometimes have to wait in lines for weeks for specialized doctors.  But as I learned this morning the British system has another downfall; the wage system.

I’ve seen Michael Moore brag about how great the wage system was in Britain; the British wage system is great, doctors get payed a ‘fair’ amount of money and then get a bonus on how many people are in better health at the end of the year.  Doesn’t that sound ‘great’ to you?

Well apparently, since the government isn’t paying their doctors a competitive salary (like American doctors get, only not from the government), some doctors are packing up and leaving Britain for better opportunities.  So who then fills the gap of doctors?  Take a guess…. Doctors from foreign countries are bused in to fill the spots.  Do you get what I am pointing at yet?

This last week, several radical doctors have been arrested in connection to the terrorist attacks occuring in the UK.  I do know that one was trained (medically) in Iraq and it is a safe guess that the others are not citizens by birth.

This is a great example of how Socialized Health Care is a threat to National Security, and how it is not good for our doctors (liberals are against outsourcing right?  What about insourcing those same types of people?).