The Problem of the "Unemployed and Uninsured"

What is the answer to the problem of people who lose their jobs simultaneously losing their health insurance? According to Marie Cocco;

“Only a single, government-financed system can eliminate the administrative waste, unfairness and economic burden of our current health insurance scheme.”

I posted the following sharp rebuttle to her article.

I must have sent shudders down Ms. Cocco’s spine, who apparently can’t imagine people actually taking personal responsibility for their own lives.

There is no word about people losing their homeowners insurance due to loss of a job. Or life insurance. Or car insurance. I wonder why.

The answer to the problem Ms. Cocco frets about is hidden in plain sight. Our absurd and unjust government-imposed third-party-payer system of health insurance should be abolished. There are multiple causes for the current healthcare crisis...all of them due to massive government interference in our semi-socialized hodgepodge. (Advances in medical treatment and living longer are only a "problem" in the mind of a bean-counting bureaucrat in a government-controlled system.)

But in regards to this one piece of the crisis, the solution begins with shifting all tax preferences to the individual through some version of HSAs. (These preferences include payroll, not just income, taxes). The money spent by third-party-payers (business, labor unions, etc.) would simply be deposited into the worker's HSA every year. The employee could then buy the policy best suited to his and his family's own needs, values, and budget, and keep the balance for out-of-pocket expenses, savings, or other health-related purposes. Or he could still participate in a group plan...but that would be his choice. Those currently without employer-paid insurance could, of course, still direct a portion of their earnings into an HSA. The insurance being his, rather than some third party spending his earnings (employer-paid insurance is purchased with the employee's money, since that is part of his compensation package), there would be no automatic loss of benefits due to job change or loss. Just this one simple reform would be a tremendous relief to all employees and their families, who would have enough to deal with due to loss of a job. It gives them the ability to plan long range in regards to their health needs, and likely would encourage more employers to contribute to HSAs.

I'm always amazed at how breezily and flippantly people such as Ms. Cocco can suggest totalitarian control of so vital an industry as medicine. No need to be concerned with the individual rights...of doctors and other healthcare professionals...or the producers of life-enhancing drugs and other medical products...or of any citizen who may not want to be forced into a government-run system. Simply impose a healthcare dictatorship at gunpoint...i.e., by legislative force. No muss, no fuss, and no "administrative costs".

The choice we face in healthcare is either rewarding the cause of the crisis, the government, with total control...or turning to a free market, which is based on the rights of the individual. Ending the current third-party-payer system is just one part of the solution. A massive rollback of government controls is vital here. Protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and property, which includes strong anti-fraud laws and enforcement of contracts, is the only proper role for government.

The choice we face is either a free market or a slave "market".

Others' Commentary 2- Ammunition for Fighting Socialzed Medicine

Following are a pair of op-eds by two well-informed activists for healthcare freedom in America.

Asking for trouble in health care

November 24, 2008 - 5:38 PM
PAUL HSIEH, M.D., GUEST COLUMNIST

In the 1990s, politicians wanted to make home ownership as universal as possible. They used laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act to force banks to make unsustainable loans to millions of people. They also expanded quasi-government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee these loans.

This scheme could last only a few years. In 2008, the housing bubble finally burst and economic reality caught up with the politicians. American taxpayers were stuck with the tab for these "toxic" mortgages. The result was the Wall Street Bailout of 2008 and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

In 2008, politicians want to guarantee "universal health care" with new laws and new government programs. President-elect Barack Obama wants to require health insurers to sell policies whether or not those policies are economically sustainable (for instance by requiring them to issue policies regardless of pre-existing conditions). He has also proposed creating a massive new "National Health Insurance Exchange" to help ensure "universal coverage."

But no politician can evade the laws of economic reality. Massachusetts' program of "universal coverage" requires hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money a year to stay afloat, paid for by the taxpayers of the other 49 states. If the U.S .attempted this at a national level, there would be no one to bail us out.

When Obama's proposed national system inevitably collapses under the weight of market inefficiency and bureaucratic overhead, this will merely pave the way to fully socialized single-payer health care. Health care spending now comprises one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Forcing taxpayers to pay for everyone's medical expenses would make the $700 billion Wall Street bailout look like pocket change in comparison.

Even worse, under nationalized health care the government will eventually have to ration medical services to control costs. This is already commonplace in other countries. A Canadian woman who feels a lump in her breast oftens wait months before she receives the surgery and chemotherapy she needs. In contrast, an American woman can get the treatment she needs within days.

According to The Telegraph, Great Britain's National Health Service paid bonuses to primary care physicians who reduced the numbers of referrals to hospital specialists - thus forcing those doctors to choose between their oaths to their patients or the government which pays their salaries. Whenever government attempts to guarantee a "right" to health care, it must also control it. Bureaucrats then decide who gets what health care and when, not doctors and patients.

The fundamental problem with "universal health care" is the mistaken premise that health care is a "right." Rights are freedoms of actions (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by others.

Individuals are legitimately entitled to health care that they purchase with their own money, are promised by prior contractual agreements, or are given to them via voluntary charity.

Attempting to guarantee an alleged "right" to health care must necessarily violate someone's actual rights - the rights of those compelled to pay for it. The ultimate victims will again be the taxpayers, just as they were the ultimate victims of the Wall Street bailout.

Instead of universal health care, we need free market reforms that reduce costs, reward individual responsiblity, and respect individual rights. Some examples include eliminating mandatory insurance benefits, repealing laws that forbid purchasing health insurance across state lines, and allowing individuals to use Health Savings Accounts for routine expenses and to purchase low cost, catastrophic-only insurance for major expenses. Such reforms could lower costs up to 50 percent, making health insurance available to millions who cannot currently afford it.

We can't go back in time and avoid the Wall Street Bailout of 2008. But we can still make the right decision with respect to health care. We must reject calls for "universal health care" or else we'll be faced with a massive "Health Care Bailout of 2018." The events of the past few months have taught us some important lessons about economic reality. The only question is whether we're willing to learn from them.

-

Hsieh, of Sedalia, is the co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine.




Freedom from the FDA

By Richard E. Ralston
November 28, 2008

It took the Food and Drug Administration more than a century to grow into a massive, expensive, wasteful, inflexible, ineffective, distant and indifferent bureaucracy. It now violates a founding principle of the practice of medicine: "First, do no harm."

The FDA does a lot of harm, every day. Why do we allow that?

The FDA has kept some unsafe or ineffective drugs off the market (although a consortium of independent research organizations could have done the same thing). But at what cost? We can summarize in ten ways how the FDA threatens or does real harm to our health:

1. The FDA adds billions to the development cost and price of new drugs.
2. The FDA delays the availability of new drugs for years.
3. The FDA prohibits the use of new drugs that treat conditions for which other drugs are available, regardless of how much better they might work for some patients.
4. The FDA withholds new drugs—even those that passed initial safety tests—from terminally ill patients, in the name of preserving safety. When one of these patients wins access to the drugs by going to court, the FDA, apparently in a relentless effort to protect the health of the dead, appeals the ruling until the patient dies, at which time the appeal is of course dismissed.
5. The FDA and Congress allow the drug approval process to be politicized to protect the interests of firms with political pull or to serve the anti-corporate political agenda of those who would rather see Americans die than allow any investors or businesses to make money developing new medications.
6. The FDA suppresses off-label use of drugs with proven ability to treat other conditions and restricts the circulation of information about such successful off-label use of drugs that have already been approved as safe.
7. The FDA actively seeks to extend the authority it so ineptly applies to drugs—and for which it asserts to have insufficient staff—to controlling all vitamins and food supplements. Whenever the reach of the FDA exceeds its grasp, it always tries to extend its reach.
8. The FDA constitutes a roadblock to new developments in anti-aging drugs by refusing to consider any science that would extend healthy lifespans—because "aging is not a disease."
9. The FDA states that it lacks the resources to ensure human drug safety but requests more resources to review veterinary medicine.
10. The FDA now publishes lists of drugs it approved but the safety of which it questions—leaving physicians in the lurch and creating a potential jackpot for litigation.

The FDA adds billions of dollars to the cost of developing new drugs and delays their use for years. Yet it is so obsessed with predicting exactly how each drug will perform for any patient—with any condition, in any dosage, for any length of time and in any combination with any other drug or combination of drugs in any dosage—that it often loses sight of safety. So a few years ago the FDA proposed the creation of a new "Drug Safety Board" to provide for drug safety. One would have thought that was the purpose of the whole agency.

That hypocrisy is consistent with the history of the agency. Every failure to fulfill its purpose is met with a review or a study by another government-related organization hired by the FDA to make recommendations. The recommendations are always the same: more staff, more budget, more authority, more buildings, more office furniture and more regulations.

If we want the tremendous progress in the development of medications in recent years to continue, we must act to eliminate the awesome ability of the FDA to destroy that progress. The first steps in reform should be to direct the FDA to focus entirely on safety and allow physicians and their patients to determine efficacy. Research must be encouraged, not restricted, and information on that research must be open to all.

Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.

D.C. Schools-continued

Part 2

In his article, Leonard Pitts describes the educational establishment as an “alternate universe”. Although he stops well short of making the obvious conclusion, one can nonetheless sense his deep frustration and incredulity with the status quo. Given Mr. Pitts’ liberal leanings, it’s doubtful he would ever endorse a radical restructuring of American education, preferring instead to work within the existing system to bring about incremental change. But radical ideas are exactly what is needed.

So I want to expound on the points raised by clarapurdy (discussed in my last post), as the choice between a government-run school system and a free market requires a firm understanding of just what a free market is…and isn’t. This discussion is by no means exhaustive, but rather is a part of my continuing efforts on behalf of freedom in education.

Clarapurdy’s slap at competitive advertising misses the point (11/18/2008 01:07:12 AM). The point is that educators…from for-profits to non-profits to private tutors or homeschool teachers…can appeal to parents in any fashion they choose, and parents can make their choices based upon their own values and judgements. If no school offers exactly what they want, they can either settle on the best available, or seek alternatives…including starting their own school or homeschooling.

There is no “we” or “they” in the market. That collectivist fallacy fails to take into account the fact that every individual mind represents potential ideas and thus competition, if he is free to act upon his thoughts and chooses to do so. There are no inhibiting factors such as the current entrenched monopolistic political education establishment. The solution to any and all educational needs can freely emerge from any mind free and willing to act…especially including the minds of the parents.

Take, for example, the question that I addressed in one of my comments regarding special needs children. To supplement my answer for clarification, I would use an analogy based upon personal experience. My daughter, Susan, had problems that prevented her from conceiving. Her problems were so severe that she and my son-in-law had trouble finding a fertility clinic that would accept her for IVF (invetro fertilization), because of the high probability of failure. Susan faced the prospect of not finding the help she needed. But guess what? She did find a clinic…one that specializes in low probability in-vitros. She now has two little girls. Of course, if no one chose to address this particular segment of the market, would it be just and moral to force someone else to provide the service that no one chose to offer voluntarily, under the fallacious guise of “market failure”? Not in a free and just society. But Susan had a “special need”, in regards to procreation, and someone was there to meet that market demand. The same would undoubtedly be true in regards to the “special needs” segment of a free education market.

This leads to my next point. Clarapurdy expresses the concern that only “smart rich kids” will get an education because no school will take anyone else. But this line of thinking is self-contradictory and is refuted by the whole history of capitalism. Can only the rich get access to a car, computer, house, television, electricity, food, air conditioning, or any number of the thousands of products and services available in the market? The free market doesn’t guarantee that everyone will be able to afford every available product or service. What it does guarantee is that everyone is free to think, produce and trade, which has always resulted in products and services spreading wider and farther down the income scale. That is how the middle class was created. But cause and effect cannot be reversed. The “free” in free market is the fundamental requirement for widespread prosperity. It is absurd to think that the needs of tens of millions of children who are not at the upper end of the scale in terms of intelligence or wealth…a vast market…would go unmet, in a free market. One would have to think that the parents of those children would simply give up on them.

She also worries the schools will only be concerned with keeping test scores up, in order to attract more business, which leads them to seek only the “highest IQs”. Again, she misses the point entirely. And here is where one must break outside of the mental box created by the accepted wisdom that public schools are the prism through which any discussion of reform must be viewed. One cannot look at the miniscule private school segment operating today around the periphery of the public school behemoth and extrapolate from that the way a free market would work. Those schools do not represent a free market…even a limited one. A limited free market is, in fact, a contradiction in terms. The only kind of private schools that can, in fact, exist under the cloud of the government monopoly are facilities specializing in some isolated sector, such as religion or high-end schools catering to the rich. That is because the government has monopolized all of the rest.

Success in any business depends upon what you are trying to achieve. Some schools may specialize in the gifted, some in the athletically or musically inclined, some in special needs or the autistic, some in multiple categories. In each market segment, the rules of competition remain the same. Those who provide the best education at the best price are most likely to thrive. She wants to call this “segregation”. But segregation is only possible through governmental coercion. Her alleged “segregation” is actually the result of free people living and acting according to their own rational judgement, in seeking to perform a market service or in seeking the best for one’s children. Segregation, in fact, cannot exist in a free market…if by segregation one means forced separation. It must be remembered that the purpose of education is to prepare the child for a self-sustaining, independent adulthood, by developing his mental capabilities to the fullest possible. It is not the proper purpose of education to establish a “diverse” student body as a primary goal, apart from that which would occur naturally (non-coercively) through the voluntary choices of parents acting on their own judgement about what is best for their child. The fact that some will act irrationally is no excuse for violating the rights of all.

And here we come to the altruist-egalitarian essence of clarapurdy’s whole argument. Notice that the parents with normal (non-special needs), or gifted children…or who are financially successful…are to be denied their rights to choose the best educational paths for their children because some children have special needs, or are poor. The number of children fitting the categories that clarapurdy agonizes over are a very small percentage. Education need not be a major expense, at least not as compared to the bloated expense of the public schools. Freed from the taxes that support today’s government-run school monopoly, almost all parents would be able to afford to give their children a good education. To say otherwise is absurd, since taxpaying parents are already supporting the existing school systems. The lower cost and higher quality made possible in a free education market would leave most parents and their children better off.

But clarapurdy and the public school apologists, in true egalitarian fashion, would sacrifice most parents and their children on the alter of the “neediest”. This is what’s so immoral about public education. Someone must always be sacrificed to someone else’s agenda…and it’s usually the best and brightest who are sacrificed. Just look at No Child Left Behind. In a free market, no one’s interests are sacrificed, because no one has the state’s coercive power at their disposal. Those concerned about the problems of the small minority that have special needs or are too poor to afford a proper education for their children are free to address that market segment. What is forbidden in a free society is for them to impose the costs of their efforts on others against their voluntary judgement. Ultimately, it must be remembered that all children are the responsibility of the parents who brought them into the world.

A free market won’t “give every child the opportunity to go to school regardless of race, religion, sex, socioeconomic statis etc.”? Well, they all go to school now…and look at the results. Public school apologists want to herd the children into government-run schools, where people like Ms. Rhee need to fight an uphill battle just to make some small common sense reforms to improve the disastrous conditions in those D.C. schools. Imagine the entrepreneurial Ms. Rhee as the owner or administrator of a string of private, for-profit schools. She could simply implement the reforms necessary to improve the quality of her schools, and then the parents can vote with their wallets...and their rational judgements.

It can’t be stated enough. The bogus “opportunity for every child” argument is a thin cover for the massive violation of individual rights engendered by a coercive political monopoly that has no place in a free society. Only a free market gives “every child the opportunity to go to school regardless of race, religion, sex, socio-economic status etc.” …and enables him the opportunity to get the best education most suited to his needs. That’s because his parents are free to choose what’s best for him, which is ultimately their solemn responsibility, and only theirs. Freedom offers opportunity...the right to take action based upon one's own rational judgement...and that’s all. The rest is up to the free individuals that constitute society. A government that attempts to guarantee to all a man-made service such as education is a dictatorship…which precisely describes, despite its superficial appearance and widespread popular support, today’s government-run public education monopoly.

What the debate between government-run public education and a free market comes down to is this. Should force be the determining factor steering the course of education for the young, or should it be rational, voluntary persuasion and free judgement? I’ll conclude with a challenge to those ferociously defending their coercive political stranglehold on American education. Quoting Isabel Paterson from The God of the Machine (Caxton Printers, LTD, 1964, page 274);

“The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogical profession for any suggestion that they be dislodged from their dictatorial position… Nevertheless, the question to put to any teacher [or apologist for the entrenched establishment] moved to such indignation is: Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?”

The Problem With D.C. Schools...and the Solution

PART I

In an article entitled, Improving D.C. Schools is a Test for All of Us, Leonard Pitts describes the efforts by Michelle Rhee, who is trying…maybe I should say struggling…to bring some reforms to the public schools of the nation’s capitol;

“You might not know the name yet, but I'm betting you soon will. She is the Washington, D.C., schools chief who has drawn national attention for an audacious attempt to remake some of the nation's worst schools.

“Among the changes she has instituted, or is attempting to institute, is a cash reward for students who meet certain benchmarks of performance and attendance. She also wants to make it easier to fire teachers who do not perform; under her plan, educators would give up tenure protections for a merit plan that would allow the best of them -- i.e., those whose students actually learn something -- to earn upwards of $100,000 a year.

“Many educators told me that high on their wish list would be the ability to reward good teachers and fire bad ones.”

Mr. Pitts reels off the awful statistics documenting the utter failure of the D.C. schools to educate the children, stating that those results are “hardly unique” to the nation’s capitol.

Mr. Pitts goes on to describe how the teachers’ union “has fought Rhee with bitter tenacity, seeking to block her at every step.” He wonders if that union “exists in some alternate universe where everyone is rewarded equally regardless of the quality of their work.”

The teachers’ union, of course, is no ordinary union. It is indeed at the core of an “alternate universe”… a dictatorial political monopoly…the government-run public school system. It is a union maintained by the physical power of the state. Below are some comments I left in response to that article plus another correspondent who took me to task for advocating the abolition of the public schools, and the institution of a free education market. Following that in my next post will be some additional comments.

11/17/08

I am 60 years old, and the same old laments about the poor quality of public education keep surfacing decade after decade, followed by another official with another plan. Not to take anything away from the laudable efforts of Ms. Rhee, but it’s the suffocating educational establishment itself that is the problem here.

The brutally honest fact is that the “experiment” that has failed is government-run schooling itself. Phasing out and ending public education, and allowing a fully privatized, competitive free market to emerge is the solution. The so-called “competitive cut throat environment” of business is exactly what is needed in education, to weed out the inferior teachers, schools, educational methods and philosophies.

A free market would restore the rights of all parents, not just “parents of means”, to seek out the best education for their children, and liberate educators to compete for their business based on quality and price, just as in the “cut-throat” business world.

clarapurdy wrote on 11/17/2008 06:15:08 PM:
ZEMACK...Competition does not promote the teamwork that is needed in public service forums such as law enforcement, firefighting, education, and the military. Can you imagine competitive law enforcement? Jones:"Any leads on that murder case?"Smith:"Yep, but I'm not telling you anything, I need to solve this case to get that big raise." Some jobs are not meant for competition.

11/17/08

Clarapurdy, you are comparing apples to oranges here. The proper role of government is to protect individual rights, which is what the police force and military are for. They represent the retaliatory use of force, to protect us against domestic criminals and foreign enemies.

Public education inverts this role of government. Here, the government violates the rights of people by forcing them to pay for schools that they may not want for their children, to pay for other peoples’ children, or to send their children to a school chosen by a government bureaucrat based not on the child’s needs or parents’ choice, but on where the parents live. And it imposes on educators the text books, curriculum, and so forth.

“Teamwork” is fine, as far as it goes. But we don’t need a government school monopoly for that. What we really need, though, are the new ideas of entrepreneurial, independent thinking individuals. That is what flourishes in a free market.

clarapurdy wrote on 11/17/2008 06:30:25 PM:
If you "privatize education" who is going to want the poverty and "special needs" children? Remember, this is a competition. The school with the highest test scores gets the most students. The more students you have, the more money you make. Where do the children who have learning disabilities go? Shall we put them in their own schools? Segragate kids according to their IQ's? Where do you think the best teachers are going to be, if they get paid according to how well their students do? Are they going to be with the students who need them most, where the test scores are the lowest? Where would you want to teach? You'd want to teach the kids with the highest IQs.

11/17/08

“If you ‘privatize education’ who is going to want the poverty and ‘special needs’ children?”

The answer is, anyone who wants them. A free market means parents and educators are free to act on their own best judgement, and that means “special needs” parents and teachers as well. They are free to seek solutions that are best for their own children and students…just like everyone else.

But the point is, people need to be liberated from the school monopoly shackles to pursue what’s best for all of the children…at all income and intelligence levels…and be free to solve any problems that may arise.

It must be remembered that schooling can take many forms, and the assembly line method of public education will likely come to an end. As many methods of education as there are childrens’ needs would flourish, as people act freely on new ideas.

There is no “we”. There are only individuals thinking and exercising their rights to pursue their educational goals, whatever they may be.

clarapurdy wrote on 11/17/2008 07:34:35 PM:
Zemack...Individual rights are why the public schools were started. To give every child the opportunity to go to school regardless of race, religion, sex, socioeconomic statis etc. The government forces you to pay for schools...If school is not paid for by the government, who is going to pay for it? If students can't afford school then what? Put them out on the street, where they end up in jail and we pay for them anyway? Ofcourse private schools have good results. They aren't under any obligation to take children who are poor, they kick out the kids who don't "make the grade",they send special needs kids to the public schools, they can expell discipline problems, in other words their full of smart rich kids. Take your voucher and your kid with autism to a private school. They'll tell you "Sorry, we don't have the necessary specialists or educational tools to help your child. Your son would be better served in the public school system where they are set up for a child with his needs."

11/17/08

“If school is not paid for by the government, who is going to pay for it?”

Who do you think pays for schools now? We do, as you say, by force. Force is the negation of individual rights. Rights are a sanction of freedom of action, such as freedom of speech, religious practice, association, etc., coupled with the single obligation to refrain from violating the rights of others. In other words, when government forces you to pay for its schools, and forces you to send your children there via compulsory attendance laws, it is violating your (and your children’s) rights…not protecting them, as it should.

Freed from paying coercive school taxes, each of us can then meet our education expenses as we see fit, with our own money. We can even contribute to charitable scholarship funds to help out poorer parents.

The crucial purpose of education is to prepare the child for independent, self-reliant adulthood. Public schools have long failed most children at that.

clarapurdy wrote on 11/18/2008 01:07:12 AM:
Zemack-A "free market" school system just like the business world...what do you get? Agents for the "good" teachers to negotiate terms and conditions of contracts/salaries? "My client Mr. Jenson is demanding 75,000 per year, choice of top students, and room 13 it's closest to the lounge." How about Brokers for the smart kids? " Little Johnny wants a full scholarship, why should he pay you, his test scores help your school keep it's fine reputation." Marketing " Our school was built entirely from green materials. Students are served the very best in organic vegan cuisine." Advertising " Wesley Academy is the best. We only accept children of the highest quality." Smear campaigning." Wesley Academy says it only accepts high quality children, but it is also full of low quality cockroaches. Come to Eastridge preperatory we are free of low acheivers and vermin."

To be continued…

My Challenge To the GOP: A Philosophical Contract With America

In two previous essays (11/13/08 and 11/16/08), I established the reasons for how we got to where we are, and the philosophical ground upon which I believe the Republican Party must begin to rebuild. Now it is time to begin to get specific.

The pattern since FDR and his crusading band of New Deal thugs has been for the GOP “defenders” of free markets and property rights to initially oppose some welfare state program being advanced by the Left. After passage, the initial, usually tepid and apologetic, opposition fades…to be replaced by a grudging acceptance and ultimate embrace of the now “popular” legislation. Each new rights-violating program…each new step toward total government control…follows the same pattern. A good example of this is the 1980 GOP platform, which promised to abolish the brand new Carter-era Federal Department of Education. That promise quickly fell away and…during an era of GOP domination…morphed into a $70 billion behemoth that became a tool to implement President Bush’s massive expansion of federal intrusion into local public education, called “No Child Left Behind”.

Now, our time is running out. The road ahead demands an end to me-too-ism. The compromising pragmatism of the old Republican Party has reached its inevitable dead-end. The GOP must now embark on a politically risky path that may not lead to immediate electoral success, but is vital to the cause of individual rights and free markets, long term. Thanks to decades of Republican compromises, the job is now much harder. It is no longer enough to simply slow the further expansion of government and consequent shrinkage of individual rights that is sure to come next year. It is time for the GOP to fully and proudly assert its commitment to free market capitalism by laying out an agenda for rolling back the welfare state.

This courageous path will undoubtedly require taking some lumps at the polls in the near term, but it must be done. We are rapidly approaching the point where individual freedom’s time will run out. Bold, new policy ideas based upon the principles of rational self-interest, individual rights, laissez-faire capitalism, and limited government will require an extended educational campaign. But it must be remembered that only 53% of the electorate voted for Obama, and much of that support is “soft”. And while much of the 47% of the electorate that voted for McCain cannot be called pro-capitalist, much of Obama’s 53% likely is open to swinging toward the philosophical platform outlined above, provided it is consistently applied to all of the concrete issues. There is a substantial base of support from which to build, I believe. (click here and here).

The GOP has become known as the party of business, and the party of the Christian Right. It must reject those two labels, and become the party of the individual. This means to embrace the twin pillars of a truly free society;

The separation of religion and state…which means religious freedom, or the right to hold and to act on the belief system of one’s own choice, free from the coercive interference of others.

The separation of economics and state…which means economic freedom, or laissez-faire capitalism.

Freedom in the field of ideas and freedom in the field of production and trade are inseparable corollaries. Yet, each of the major political parties has split down the middle on these fundamental issues. The Republicans tend to advocate freedom of production and trade…capitalism…while simultaneously sanctioning government control in the field of ideas…seeking to impose the religious agenda of political Christianity. And the Democrats tend to advocate freedom in the field of ideas, while simultaneously seeking to shackle production and trade under mountains of taxes, regulations, and controls.

Neither party is a firm and consistent advocate of individual rights. The result is that individual freedom is under withering assault in both the spheres of ideas and of economics. In economics, the Republicans are in retreat in multiple areas…the bailout bill, Sarbanes-Oxley, to name two. In ideas, the Democrats are retreating…witness Obama’s embrace of Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives. And…from campaign finance “reform”, to the fairness doctrine, to the issue of “indecent language” in media…the first amendment is under attack as never before, by both parties.

The sad fact is, both parties have abandoned America…the first nation in the history of the world founded on the principle of inalienable individual rights and of a government constitutionally charged with the task of protecting those rights…of a government as servant, not ruler, of its people. Both parties, in other words, are bankrupt…intellectually and morally.

Herein lies the opportunity for whichever party wants to seize it. I hope it will be the Republican Party.

It is worth repeating the words of Craig Westover:

Analyzing Obama's comment in the context of Rand's philosophy provides further evidence that the conservative-liberal paradigm, the traditional political divide in this country, is shifting to a more overt expression of the age-old battle between individualism and the collective society. (Emphasis added.)

It is time to cast aside the contradictory, unprincipled, and self-defeating doctrines of liberalism and conservatism, and instead forge a new coalition based upon the primacy of the individual and his unalienable rights.

It is time for the individual American to find his political voice, defender, and champion.

From retirement planning, to healthcare and health insurance, to education, to abortion, to gay marriage, to eminent domain and property rights, to the first amendment, to immigration…all across the board…the GOP should forge an agenda in which each of us, as individuals, will have our freedoms restored. The “unalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness” means the right to think and act on one’s own judgement, to set one’s own goals, to pursue one’s own happiness by one’s own efforts, to decide whether, when, and how to help one’s fellow men, and to keep the product of one’s own productive work. And it means to restore the vision of the Founding Fathers-that government’s proper role is to protect the rights of its citizens.

This will not be easy. Nor will it mean an immediate end to all of our government’s intrusive practices. An agenda based on individual rights will face ferocious opposition and hostility from entrenched interests all across the cultural landscape, from powerful politicians, to business and labor, to the beneficiaries of government largess.

But simply discerning the political wind direction in order to determine which positions to take on the issues for the purpose of winning elections is a path the GOP must abandon. America must learn the meaning and nature of man’s rights and the legitimate nature of government, if current trends are to be reversed. The establishment of a firm, uncompromising philosophical platform…one might call it a Philosophical Contract With America…from which Republicans can launch a broad assault against the collectivist tide on one issue after another can draw freedom lovers from all across the political spectrum. It must also mean a complete rejection of the social tyranny of the Religious Right, and the economic tyranny of the Socialist Left.

In the clash between statism and individual liberty, the Democrats have come down clearly and openly on the side of the state. The GOP can, and should, meet the challenge with a bold alternative, presenting not merely a loyal opposition but explicit, positive alternatives to the liberal agenda based on this new Contract. The challenge is to demonstrate what the party is for. The Republican Party must finally realize the promise of Barry Goldwater. In answer to the rise of Obama collectivism, the GOP must finally offer “A choice, not an echo”.

A Thanksgiving Message

Reprinted below is a thanksgiving message that I think captures the true essence of Thanksgiving, a holiday practiced only in America. Regardless of how one believes he came into existence (God or nature), the reality is that man is a being of self-generated wealth based on reason who requires certain social conditions for his survival. America was the first country founded explicitly on those conditions; i.e., a country where every individual owns his own life and possesses inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and to the pursuit of his own happiness, coupled inextricably with the obligation to accept the reality that all people are equally endowed and to treat them accordingly.

It is thus that America, born of the enlightenment ideas of individualism, capitalism, and republican government, achieved in the span of a mere two hundred-plus years (following centuries of stagnation) its spectacular standard of living. The ensuing essay correctly recognizes where the credit for America belongs: to any man or woman, on whatever level of ability or accomplishment, who contributed to American greatness by doing an honest and productive day's work in pursuit of his or her own well-being.

Thanksgiving: A Most Selfish Holiday

By Debi Ghate

Ah, Thanksgiving. To most of us, the word conjures up images of turkey dinner, pumpkin pie and watching football with family and friends. It kicks off the holiday season and is the biggest shopping weekend of the year. We're taught that Thanksgiving came about when pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. We vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head and the loved ones around us. We casually think about how lucky we are and how much better our lives are than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to celebrate, something more sacred about this holiday.

What should we really be celebrating on Thanksgiving?

Ayn Rand described Thanksgiving as "a typically American holiday . . . its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers' holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production." She was right. This country was mostly uninhabited and wild when our forefathers began to develop the land and build spectacular cities, shaping what is now the wealthiest nation in the world. It's the American spirit to overcome challenges, create great achievements, and enjoy prosperity. We uniquely recognize that production leads to wealth and that we must dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. It's no accident that Americans have a holiday called Thanksgiving--a yearly tradition when we pause to appreciate the "bountiful harvest" we've reaped.

What is today's version of the "bountiful harvest"? It's the affluence and success we've gained. It's the cars, houses and vacations we enjoy. It's the life-saving medicines we rely on, the stock portfolios we build, the beautiful clothes we buy and the safe, clean streets we live on. It's the good life.

How did we get this "bountiful harvest"? Ask any hard-working American; it sure wasn't by the "grace of God." It didn't grow on a fabled "money tree." We created it by working hard, by desiring the best money can buy and by wanting excellence for ourselves and our loved ones. What we don't create ourselves, we trade value for value with those who have the goods and services we need, such as our stockbrokers, hairdressers and doctors. We alone are responsible for our wealth. We are the producers and Thanksgiving is our holiday.

So, on Thanksgiving, why don't we thank ourselves and those producers who make the good life possible?

From a young age, we are bombarded with messages designed to undermine our confident pursuit of values: "Be humble," "You can't know what's good for yourself," "It's better to give than receive," and above all "Don't be selfish!" We are scolded not to take more than "our share"--whether it is of corporate profits, electricity or pie. We are taught that altruism--selfless concern for others--is the moral ideal. We are taught to sacrifice for strangers, who have no claim to our hard-earned wealth. We are taught to kneel rather than reach for the sky.

But, morally, one should reach for the sky. One should recognize that the corporate profits, electricity or pie was earned through one's production--and savor its consumption. Every decision one makes, from what career to pursue to whom to call a friend, should be guided by what will best advance one's rational goals, interests and, ultimately, one's life. One should take pride in being rationally selfish--one's life and happiness depend on it.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to recognize what we are truly grateful for, to appreciate and celebrate the fruits of our labor: our wealth, health, relationships and material things--all the values we most selfishly cherish. We should thank researchers who have made certain cancers beatable, gourmet chefs at our favorite restaurants, authors whose books made us rethink our lives, financiers who developed revolutionary investment strategies and entrepreneurs who created fabulous online stores. We should thank ourselves and those individuals who make our lives more comfortable and enjoyable--those who help us live the much-coveted American dream.

As you sit down to your sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner served on your best china, think of all the talented individuals whose innovation and inventiveness made possible the products you are enjoying. As you look around at who you've chosen to spend your day with--those you've chosen to love--thank yourself for everything you have done to make this moment possible. It's a time to selfishly and proudly say: "I earned this."

Debi Ghate is associated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

Have a joyous, and well earned, Thanksgiving.

My Activism-The Health Care Debate

I have signed up to participate as a commenter at Opposing Views, a website dedicated to reasoned debate on the issues of the day. The comments below are related to the debate question, "Should the U.S. Have Universal Healthcare?”

The verified expert answering no is FIRM (Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine). I have chosen to take to task two supporters of universal health care…one a verified expert and the second a commenter.

The National Physicians’ Alliance, an Opposing Views verified expert declares that "It is the moral thing to do”.

Here is my response:

Moral, On What Basis?

"Morality ends where a gun begins"- Ayn Rand

On what basis does one call government-run "universal health care" "the moral thing to do"?

It is only the morality of altruism...the creed that holds individual human sacrifice for a "higher" purpose as the standard of the good...that can sanction any proposal to force others to act against his own will, judgement, and self-interest. But altruism is really an anti-morality, which offers a person no moral guidance on how to achieve the values required for his survival and happiness, but rather simply declares that he is moral only to the extent that he gives up his values for the sake of others...any others.

That is why altruism is always the justification for all forms of tyranny, including government-imposed "universal health care", which is merely a health care dictatorship in disguise. A consumer's right to decide for himself whether and what type of health insurance to purchase; An insurance company's right to determine what insurance products it will offer, based upon its own market judgement; A doctor's right to choose his patients, the treatments to pursue, and the price he will charge; The rights of consumers, insurance companies, and doctors to negotiate and contract voluntarily with each other to mutual advantage; The rights of all people to decide whether, when, what type, and what level of voluntary charitable giving to offer others...these are all merely selfish concerns, according to altruist principles, of no consequence next to a government takeover of a major industry.

It's quite all right for the government to trample and sacrifice the rights of people acting in their own self-interest. It's quite all right to sacrifice the earnings, the healthcare decision-making, the careers, the goals, the personal judgements, and the business decisions of private citizens. It's quite all right to hand enormous coercive dictatorial power over other peoples' lives to "altruistic" central planning bureaucrats. It is quite all right to bestow unearned benefits obtained forcibly from the sacrificial victims of an altruistic state on those who did not earn them, but for whom it is apparently o.k. to selfishly accept their stolen property.

Well, the game is nearing an end. Tyrants, "social justice" totalitarians, humanitarians with a "good cause" in one hand and the lever of a guillotine in the other, and all manner of politically-connected do-gooders have been riding the altruistic gravy train long enough.

All of the "should be" goals listed by the National Physicians' Alliance are desirable when taken out of context. But a government that attempts to achieve those ends can only do so through the power to loot and enslave, which ultimately leads to the opposite results. It is an immoral government. So now let it be said. No one who would use initiative physical force, including "democratic" or "legislative" force, against his fellow citizens to achieve his ends…no matter how worthwhile…can wave the banner of morality. That banner belongs only to people who renounce the initiation of physical force, and turn instead to respecting and protecting individual rights...everyone's rights equally and at all times.

And that means, in the field of medicine, pursuing the moral goal of phasing out the current crumbling government-hampered system, and establishing a completely free market.

Now that would be the moral thing to do.

- Mike Zemack November 16, 2008 4:59PM

This commenter, alisaterry, starts off quoting statistics concerning infant mortality rates in countries with socialized medicine, then goes on to touch upon other thoughts.

Here is my response:

Setting the Record Straight

There are some facts about those infant mortality statistics that perhaps you should consider...namely, the criteria used to compile them. For example, Dr. Linda Halderman shed some important light on this.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-doctor-is-in-infant-mortality-comparisons-a-statistical-miscarriage /

In this article, Dr. Halderman documents the myriad differences from country to country in the methodology.

Adjusted for these differences, infant mortality rates in the U.S. are no worse than other countries, despite the large number of illegal immigrants living here, as well as a less healthy lifestyle. Of course, mere statistics never justify the violation of anyone’s rights. As for the level of neo-natal care in America, I can attest to its high quality. My granddaughter was born at 25 weeks and 1.4 pounds, and is now a healthy, thriving 5 year old.

Cuba? Cuba is a dictatorship. That means the flow of all information is strictly controlled by the government, and there is no free, investigative press or freedom-of-information laws. But just the fact that you use a dictatorship to support your call for socialized medicine is quite telling.

When did "we...as a society" decide on government-run schooling? It evolved from a flaw at our founding…the failure of the Founders to protect freedom of education from political intrusion, in the way that religious freedom was protected behind the “wall of separation” between church and state. I fully and passionately believe that a proper education for every child is one of a parent’s most solemn responsibilities. But I oppose government-run schools, for the same reason as I oppose government-run healthcare. It is immoral, impractical, and a violation of individual rights. But I guess, as an independent thinking human being, I don’t qualify as a part of this “society” that you claim makes these decisions. What’s interesting here is that you would actually use the example of public education to justify socialized medicine. Public education is beset by exploding costs, and deteriorating quality...just what one would expect from a coercive political monopoly. American medicine is heading down the same path, due to massive government interference and controls. A complete healthcare dictatorship, rather than a return to freedom in medicine, is the wrong solution for anyone who values quality, readily available health care.

An "American caste system" is exactly what would result from putting the state in charge of all economic decision-making…which is apparently what you want to do. In a free market...which we now have only in bits and pieces…everyone is free to act on his own judgement, and to advance as far as his ability and ambition will carry him. If one wishes to increase his pay, he is free to increase his skills, work longer hours, seek another job, or create his own job by starting a business. What he is not allowed to do, in a free, rights-respecting society, is force job-creating businesses to pay him more than they are willing to pay through government-imposed minimum wage laws. If you don't like the fact that a particular company hires people you don’t approve of (moving jobs across seas), you are free to protest by refusing to buy their products. If you don’t like a company's "benefit" policy, then again, you are free to move on. You see, when you are free, you control your life...which means you are not at anyone’s mercy. That is what the "free" in free market means. When government regiments the economic life of a nation…when we are at the mercy of government officials...then actual individuals are locked into a cast, having become dependant on government favor.

But I agree with you that " 'Entitlements' aren't just lazy people trying to rip you off." They are also big businesses seeking government subsidies, bailouts, and other favors. They are middle and upper middle class earners seeking "affordable" this or that, and then demanding that government force someone else to provide it. They are workers seeking "living wages" that they are not qualified for or that no one is willing to voluntarily pay them. They are residents of wealthy towns seeking to keep out lower-income "undesirables" in order to preserve the "quality" of "their" communities through restrictive zoning and planning practices. And, yes, they are also "just lazy people trying to rip you off." They come in all shades, classes, and regions.

And the entitlement mentality engulfing this country is made possible by one single common denominator…the government’s power to hand out economic favors to some at the expense of others. A universal healthcare entitlement is a lose-lose proposition. You hand over your money to a central planning bureaucracy, and in return you give up the right to make your own health care decisions.


- Mike Zemack November 16, 2008 4:09PM