Uncle Sam the Faux-Medicine Man: Getting Government Out of Healthcare

Government is a disease. Whenever it attempts to “help” any industry in the private sector, this is the first symptom of a grave infection. Falsely diagnosing normal market fluctuations as “reckless capitalism,” it presents itself as a “remedy” for these phony ailments when it is the epitome of snake oil and ultimately the cause of the actual problem. Slowly but surely, taxation, regulation, and bureaucracy take hold, resulting in a horrifying late-stage illness that eventually ends in financial insolvency and collapse. With the damage done, the state, like any virus, moves on to the next victim, allowing it to parasitically thrive at the expense of its host. 

The healthcare industry is no exception. Government intervention in medicine has skyrocketed patient costs and placed many healthcare professionals out of business for over a century. Starting with the American Medical Association and most recently culminating in the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare), all of this was accomplished in the name of making healthcare “more accessible and affordable,” when in reality, the contagion of the state contaminating the medical field has resulted in the exact opposite. 

It is through competition that pricing can accurately reflect scarcity in a particular market, thus allowing consumers access to higher-quality goods and services from different providers at lower prices. When applied to the medical industry, this truth of free market economics would ultimately save lives by raising standards with a much lower entry burden for patients needing healthcare. A state monopoly on medicine ultimately hurts consumers, particularly middle and working-class Americans. Central planning cannot account for the complexity of the marketplace, as too many variables exist of which the central planners cannot keep track. Because of this, pricing can never genuinely reflect the scarcity of goods and services. Inevitably, demand cannot be accurately met, rationing occurs, and many lives are lost.  

American Action Fund supports free market solutions to the healthcare crisis facing our Nation. One particular remedy that offers immediate relief to the government’s stranglehold on medicine is price transparency. When hospitals and doctor’s offices can openly advertise the costs of their services, patients can compare them to those of their competitors. Not only would this allow for more informed decision-making, but open pricing would also drive down costs by allowing competition between healthcare providers. 

This is why our National Coalition of Liberty Legislators has worked diligently to pass price transparency legislation at the state level, having been successful in Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and Virginia. With the creation of our Liberty Lighthouse States, we are facilitating safe havens for patients to have real, affordably accessible medicine and make the correct decisions regarding their health at the best price possible. We are driven towards this goal because our movement acknowledges a perennial yet simple truth: Liberty Saves Lives.