Who cares about your health? You and I. Who cares about my health? You and I. Who cares about providing health care for people who can’t afford it? You and I.

But do you know who DOESN’T care about health care? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with “G” and ends with “overnment.”

Health care is messed up. I get it. But you gotta be just a little concerned that the same people who destroy entire villages with remote drone strikes are now the same ones that are going to be responsible for doling out your heart medication. C’mon. The guns of the state do not solve problems. Ever.

The most daunting part of today’s Supreme Court’s decision that “Obamacare” is “legal” because it’s technically a “tax” (HAHAHA!), is the monopoly factor. The government is now setting themselves up as a giant monopoly on health care. They are setting themselves up as a centralized authority and legally barring anyone from competing or improving. And when there is no competition, there is no economic incentive for improvement. Even worse, a legal monopoly on services leaves all Americans (and people in other countries with socialized healthcare) at extreme risk for complete loss of medical services should the government-run health care system ever go belly-up.

In a free market, when a single hospital or medical company goes bankrupt, there are other hospitals and medical companies that will fill the void. In this controlled, top-down, hierarchical, fascist market, what happens when the government goes bankrupt? What happens when the ONLY entity controlling health care can no longer pay workers what they promised or can no longer afford to stock their shelves with appropriate medicines? I shudder to think what will happen.

But don’t misunderstand me – this is not akin to putting all our eggs into one basket. It’s actually more like putting all our eggs into one giant meat grinder.

I’m not a medical professional, but here are just a few solutions that, as I understand it, would reduce the cost of medical care, that don’t involve throwing people in jail for disobeying:

– Make all drugs legal. Yes, all drugs. My insurance company pays a doctor $200-300 for a 5-minute appointment, the only purpose of which was to obtain a permission slip (a RX) for an inhaler I could have bought in Mexico for $5. That drives up the cost of health care.

– Eliminate the FDA. A free-market solution to keeping drug companies in check would severely reduce costs of drug research and production. Not to mention, independent third parties auditors are much less likely to green-light potentially harmful drugs with unknown side-effects.

– Lower the barriers to entry that prohibit more people from entering the medical field. Because a doctor doesn’t need to spend 8-10 years of their life and $0.5 million dollars in higher education to set a broken arm.

– Eliminate lobbying. Because all the millions and billions spent on bribing politicians through campaign donations and lobbying and bill sponsorships doesn’t drive up the cost of drugs?

– End subsidies. To hospitals. To research. Anything that receives stolen money. End it. It’s an artificial micro-economy which drives up the costs for everyone else who can’t compete with “free” money.

– Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid. Again, do you care about health care for the poor and elderly? If the answer is YES, then it should follow that most others do, too, and that if most others do care, then you don’t need to forcibly extract a portion of their incomes to assist others. People will do it voluntarily. Because of these programs, the health care industry is flooded with “free” insurance money, squeezing out anyone else who doesn’t have insurance.

I want the problems of health care to be solved by negotiation. By free choice. Not by the guns of the state dictating the movements of the health care industry. Not by the drug and insurance companies who are able to bribe and control politicians who pass or amend laws in their favor. Free health care for all sounds really nice and benevolent. But the shape it’s about to take is far from benevolent and will come at a much greater cost than most people expect. So please, take care of your own health to minimize the amount of state assistance you’ll need in the future. Exercise regularly. Eat better. Stretch. You know the drill 😉

Thanks and peace,

Nick Foley
The Book of Nick Newsletter
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