Libertarians On Health Care and Health Insurance

Recent article by John McClaughry addressed the major problems with health care and health insurance in Vermont and the country…

Libertarians favor a free market health care system. Libertarians recognize the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want (if any), the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including abortion and end-of-life decisions. People should be free to purchase health insurance across state lines.

Libertarians believe that health care prices would decrease and quality and availability of health care would increase if providers were freed from government meddling and control.

There are many factors that increase the cost of health insurance and healthcare at the state and federal level.

At the state level, we could remove all the state regulations for health insurance that require:

• Community rating
• Mandated benefits (currently 30)
• Minimum actuarial value ratios
• Guaranteed issue
• Maintenance of reserves
• Annual limits on the rates that insurers can charge their customers
• Caps on the insurer’s revenue growth

The state and local governments must also approve any medical practice facilities. Essentially the governments protects existing facilities from competition, maintaining their control on the market and prices higher. Removing such barriers would help bring more health care professionals and facilities to the state to drive up supply to meet the demand which would ultimately bring down the cost of medical care. Removing the health insurance barriers above would bring down the costs of health insurance as we would many more choices than just the two providers we have now especially if we could buy insurance across state lines.

At the federal level, we could do the following:

• Deregulate health care and medical insurance industries
• Repeal ObamaCare and make participation in all government medical programs optional
• Abolish the FDA or make it optional
• Tort reform

Health care and health insurance should be between the patient/customer and the medical care provider/ health insurance companies. Government should be only involved uphold the contracts and help when there is fraud.

Here is the Libertarian Party Platform for more info.

Some selected viewpoints below:

Excerpt from “Libertarians believe that healthcare prices would decrease and quality and availability of healthcare would increase if providers were freed from government meddling and control.“

Virtually every person wants access to quality healthcare at an affordable price. Libertarians think the best way to achieve this is by removing government interference and enabling free markets.

Government inappropriately controls our healthcare in many ways:

• Government and a handful of insurance companies have a virtual monopoly as payers. Because of this, they make most of the decisions about what kinds of healthcare are available.
• Government regulates where, when, and who may open new healthcare facilities.
• Government agencies greatly slow development of and access to new medicines, devices, and technologies that may improve quality of care and reduce cost of care.

Currently, the healthcare industry is virtually monopolized by the government and a handful of insurance companies. They hold the checkbook and wield it for their own benefit.

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