Let’s do the same thing with transportation! Everybody should be ask to buy a car and given $10,000 to buy one. So that basically we get market incentives and nobody is left without a transporation! And we should punish somebody if they refuse to buy a car!
Oh wait! You mean, some people might prefer to walk? Idiots! How dare they question my great wisdom?

Is the similarily between walk and self-insurance clear enough?

How long before someone suggests a tax increase on those that don’t have private medical insurance?

In Australia, there is a Medicare levy on your income tax, with an additional amount if you don’t have private health insurance. Medicare is our public health system. We have a similar model to the US with government messing with the system all the time.

I personally know pregnant women who have been turned away from hospitals whilst in labour because of a lack of beds.

Years ago they decided to limit the number of doctors graduating out of Australian universities, and now complain about a doctor shortage.

Must be the free market’s fault somehow…

Actually Larry you are too much of a moron to still be sucking wind. Did you click the link and read the full post including footnote 2? Notice footnote 2 in the quoted part. Or were you a completely blinkered moron and you decided you knew exactly what I was thinking and then posted your idiotic comment?

Yes, people who are young, healthy and have no appreciable assets might very well view health insurance as a sucker’s game. After all even if the unlikely event of getting sick occurs sick, guess what the way our country works this young person will still get his medical bills paid for by the rest of us through higher health care costs and taxes. Our system is seriously inefficient.

One response could be: get the government out. That would restore efficiency…if there are not serious problems with moral hazard and adverse selection let alone the issues of externalities (e.g. a sick person is quite possibly a nice little walking talking disease vector).

And I also realize that there are those people who would rather eat, pay rent, or even buy a television than have health care. For them, all these things are percieved as enhancing their welfare more than having health insurance.

The problem is that we also live in a democracy and not an anarocho-capitalist world. The politician who decides to do away with the wasteful and inefficient parts fo the current system and replace them with the “harsh” market incentives will be beaten by his opponent. All the challenger will have to do is start running ads with poor little children who get no health care because of the cruel heartless S.O.B. currently in office and our fellow countrymen seem to fall for such ads.

So, we can

1. Do nothing.
2. Try to do the impossible.
3. Make the current mess better.

Maybe then going from 3 to 2 will be a bit easier, but I’m not going to hold my breath, but feel free to hold yours Larry.

Does Oliva’s quote misrepresent your position, Steve? If making the current mess better includes insulting the victims of the current system, or worse, victimizing them further, I’m going to have a hard time advocating it, pragmatic or not.

Hi Kristian: Regarding your quest “…to see a good argument as exactly how those who are net-recipients of government services and welfare payments would be better of in a anarcho-capitalistic world”: i should probably first ask what arguments you’ve entertained that struck you as lacking, but let me take a kick at the cat now anyways.

1. Given the lack of options to receive welfare payments relatively anonymously, many would just go to work and become productive. They would benefit by acquiring some self-respect.

2. Those who truly needed assistance would get it from private charitable and religious organizations. These private organizations would be far more motivated to get those who could to become self sufficient sooner. The livelihoods of members of such private organizations don’t depend so much on the failure of their program as government work often does. They tend to be motivated to successfully help. Those helped, too would benefit by becoming productive and so acquiring some self-respect.

3. People knowing that there is no government safety net would pay much closer attention to their finances and their health, and taking care of the future for contingencies. Again, they would benefit by knowing that they are responsible for themselves and thereby gain an increased sense of self-respect.

4. Families, which play a small role in providing a safety net presently, because the state took this over years ago, would become a much more important feature of our society. People would recognize the practical importance of family ties and would pay more attention to maintaining them. Parents would be more prone to take care of their kids, and later in life kids would be more prone to care for their parents and grand-parents. There are many benefits to this beyond the economic ones.

5. In general, since people are not having their wealth confiscated for most of their lives and wasted by the government, and commerce would not be stifled by over burdensome regulations, the overall wealth and standard of living of all members of society would be higher, including those on the lower end of the income scales. Everyone would be more prosperous.

I don’t know if you’ve already heard these arguments and found them to be inadequate. If not, yet you find my presentation of them weak, you can find them better argued by others such as Rothbard, for example, in i think, “For a New Liberty”.