I was too young to write 40 years ago! I am just trying to do the right thing today.

“One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows from it,” he (de Toqueville) wrote.

It is exactly the loss of individual strength that has been the disease of France ever since it inflicted upon itself the totalitarian revolution of 1789. The latter turned this once great nation — which produced warriors such as Charles Martel, Saint Louis and Joan of Arc — into what Tocqueville called “a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” In France the Marxist left and the Bonapartist/Gaullist Right alike favor strong centralist, patronizing authority.

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How right you and Hayek are!

Euthanasia actually makes sense, you know, if everything is excluded from the issue except the static economics (”static” because virtue shows up only in the dynamism).

Such benevolence from the benevolent form of government! Such a wonderful element to introduce into humanity’s heart-of-hearts, the multi generational family. Can you imagine the secrets the children will know you’re carrying about grandma?

And such descent into psychological hell is so avoidable–just let the markets run the system, and let the youngsters face the reality in good time that if you want lots of money, you better get busy.

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“I very seriously believe that capitalism is not only a better form of organizing human activity than any deliberate design, any attempt to organize it to satisfy particular preferences, to aim at what people regard as beautiful or pleasant order, but it is also the indispensable condition for just keeping that population alive which exists already in the world. I regard the preservation of what is known as the capitalist system, of the system of free markets and the private ownership of the means of production, as an essential condition of the very survival of mankind.”

–Friedrich Hayek

Most of all we need transparency into doctors, rates, performance records (e.g. how good is your doctor or surgeon – in other words, how many people has he hurt or killed) and hospital records (i.e. costs, quality measures). Right now, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, medical device manufacturers, pharma companies and so on all benefit by the lack of transparency.

I had my fourth knee operation last year. The doctor could not tell me how much it would cost. Nor could the hospital. Neither would the insurance company. Each stands to benefit. The doctor gets to maximize his rate in order to combat the haircut he gets from the insurance company. The insurance company gets to manage it’s profit by being in the middle and taking its share. The hospital just wants you to pay so that you subsidize all the people who do not pay. It’s a farce.

People shop for car insurance, home insurance and life insurance. People are informed enough to know how to buy these products competitively.

Only health insurance is purchased from a limited menu provided through employers. Only healthcare is purchased on the basis of my friend likes his doctor so go to him.

Doctors who went to crummy schools and had crummy records would be driven out of business – as it should be. Doctors would have to compete on the basis of price and quality as would hospitals. If you want a Mercedes, you have to pay for it. If you want the rock star surgeon, you will have to pay for it. No more saying, I want the Mercedes, but make someone else pay for it.

Don’t say it will favor the rich. The rich already get the best healthcare because they pay for it. The difference is that transparency and competition will make the care available to the average consumer better in quality and lower in price.

Steven Mitchell’s other point about freezing spending and allowing us to grow our way out of our fiscal trouble is also on the mark. We have a more than $2 trillion federal budget plus what the states grab. If you can’t run a 400 million citizen country on $2 trillion you have spending problem and not a revenue problem.

Of course, the central planners like markus will argue the opposite and ask for a hopefully benevolent government to care for them – at least until it gets too expensive when they kick out the plug. Don’t think that there are no old ladies eating alpo under a state driven model.

Let’s have lots of transparency and choice. Let’s have freedom. More people will win.

That is right. People do not buy insurance because they are terrified of gall bladder surgery, they are terrified of the cost of it.