cited in Grand Junction Free Press

Linn and Ari Armstrong cited me in their critique of proposals to expand the political control of medicine and medical insurance. Thank you!

The article concludes:

Over the coming months, you may often hear claims that massive tax hikes and expanded political control of medicine will save you money. If you value your health and your money, you will recognize such claims for what they are — dishonest spin. Don’t be fooled: Expanded medical welfare will cost you plenty, and ever more as the programs grow. In the long term, the only way that politicians can control costs is to impose rationing. The alternative is to repeal the political controls that have created the problems and turn to liberty in medicine.

quoted in Colorado Springs Gazette

I was quoted in in the January 4 Editorial in the Colorado Springs Gazette. Here’s the quote:

Brian Schwartz, an Arvada-based optical engineer, proposed to the Blue Ribbon Commission a market-based health care reform package that mostly involved deregulation. Commission member Linda Gorman fought for it, but others scoffed.

“One commissioner said we already have a free market in health care, and it has failed,” Schwartz told The Gazette. “But we don’t have a free market. If you’re a widow, you have to buy a policy that covers marital therapy, maternity and prostate cancer. You have no need for this, but if you want insurance you’re required to buy it. Mandates raise your premium by 20 to 50 percent.”

I actually live and work in Boulder.  Close enough.   I obviously think health care is an important issue, and I’m happy that the editor Wayne Laugesen committed an article to it.

A scan of the print edition is here.

“Should we have single-payer food and housing?”

Yesterday I was quoted in a Rocky Mountain News article about a health care reform meeting in Boulder:

Though the tide at the Boulder meeting was decidedly toward single-payer, commissioners were quick to point out that the sentiment might be different as they solicit public comments throughout the state.And at least one speaker, Brian Schwartz, proposed getting government out of health care entirely – calling Medicaid a “failure” and an example of why single-payer won’t work. Instead, he advocated the free-market system.

“Should we have single-payer food and housing?” he asked. “Didn’t we settle that with Soviet Russia and North Korea? Why is health care different?”

I’ve posted a PDF of the print edition here.

The big lie behind government medical care reform

I had a letter to the editor published in the Daily Camera last week, which was also posted on the Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine blog.

We do not have free-market care

“If the market alone could supply the answer, 47 million Americans would not lack health insurance,” stated a Boston Globe editorial supporting of Hillary’s big-government plan (Sept. 21). This implication that America has free-market medical care is the huge deception behind government’s hostile take-over of medicine. Our tax dollars already account for almost half of all medical spending. That’s no free market.

Neither is a tax code that coddles insurance companies. It deeply discounts employer-paid insurance, chaining you to your employers costly non-portable plans. As a captive customer, insurers can afford to mistreat you — changing insurers requires changing jobs.

Tax-discounted insurance also encourages you to buy more comprehensive insurance than you probably need, hence penalizing saving for future medical expenses. With prepaid health care posing as “insurance,” we consume medical care like a business traveler dining on the company’s expense account: Since someone else pays the bill, patients need not shop around, so providers don’t compete on price.

You can also thank government meddling for mandated-benefits laws, which criminalize the purchase of affordable insurance. This is like banning cars that lack features of a Lexus, and calling for more government controls because people cannot afford cars.

Instead of imposing more government meddling, legislators should restore free markets. First repeal the insurance tax exemption and lower taxes commensurately. If that’s not feasible, extend the tax exemption to all medical expenses and insurance by allowing anyone to open a tax-deductible Health Savings Account. The ability to purchase insurance with untaxed HSA deposits would free us from employer-based plans. The Legislature should also repeal mandates and support the Health Care Choice Act, which would allow us to buy insurance that meets less damaging regulations of other states.

Paraphrasing Colorado activist Robert LeFevre, government-controls are a “disease masquerading as its own cure.”

Which parts of Canada’s or Europe’s health care shall we emulate?

That’s what I ask in an eLetter at published in the Denver Post’s website:

Re: “Taking care of our own,” Sept. 6 Pius Kamau column

Dr. Pius Kamau (Opinion, Sept. 5) suggests we “copy those parts of the Canadian and European systems that best suit us.” But which parts?

Surely it’s not timely medical care. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that in Ontario, “109 people had a heart attack or suffered heart failure while on the waiting list. Fifty of those patients died.”

Perhaps it’s doctors’ working conditions? Yet a former President of the Canadian Medical Association told the New York Times that “physicians across Canada are in an advanced stage of burnout due to work conditions” which “causes them to retire early…or simply leave.”

Or perhaps surviving diseases? But the American Cancer Society reported that “U.S. patients have better survival rates than European patients for most types of cancer.”

History has shown that government-controlled economies fail. Compare thriving West Germany and South Korea to desolate East Germany and North Korea. Medicine is no exemption. As my free-market proposal to the 208 Commission (”FAIR,” at WhoOwnsYou.org) shows, our medical care suffers from too much government interference, not too little. Effective reform requires eliminating government controls that prevent free markets from delivering quality, low-cost medical care — just as they provide other essential goods and services.

More media appearances on health care policy

First, I was quoted in this Denver Post article about a report critical of Health Savings Accounts:

HSAs are an effective way to manage health care costs through the use of high-deductible insurance, said Brian Schwartz, a Boulder engineer who has proposed a free-market insurance initiative to a state commission studying health care reforms.Placing tax-deductible deposits in a health savings account allows individuals to “save money and use it when you really need it,” Schwartz said.

I elaborate on this in a “eLetter” at the Denver Post site:

Health Savings Accounts offer fairness and choice to rich and poor. The tax code’s discounting employer-based insurance is unfair. It ties us to our employer’s expensive non-portable policies and hence limits insurance companies’ incentive to satisfy patients.Imagine you want a more economical insurance plan. A less expensive plan could save you $50 per month, which you could save for medical expenses without your insurance company interfering. But since you’ll be taxed on this investment, you’re left with much less. To avoid this penalty, you’ll probably keep the expensive plan, hence wasting money on premiums instead of saving for medical expenses in the future.

Health Savings Accounts are the first step in eliminating this injustice. If a qualified high-deductible insurance plan is best for you, you can invest income saved on premiums in a tax-free HSA – equivalent to a 401(k) plan for medical expenses.

Since the tax code should not discriminate between money spent on health care or health insurance, HSAs should be available to anyone, regardless of their insurance policy. Further, to free us from our tax-preferred employer-based plans, we should be able to buy health insurance with funds from our Health Savings Accounts.

Michael Cannon at Cato talks about using HSA funds to purchase insurance here and in more detail here.

I was also references in this article about SCHIP (“Medicaid for kids,” get them addicted to government early).

letter: Free markets key to affordable health care

On Monday I had a letter printed in the Rocky Mountain News:

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform has some nerve. Its favorite plans involve funding government programs by taxing you when purchasing snacks, alcohol and cigarettes (“Healthy living may pay off/Sin taxes could fund statewide medical coverage,” Aug. 1). Yet, as shown by FAIR, my proposal at the commission’s Web site, such meddling in our private choices has crippled health-care markets.

First, because the tax code deeply discounts employer-paid insurance, you’re essentially stuck with your employer’s comprehensive plans. These discourage doctors from competing on price and service. As a captive customer, insurers can afford to mistreat you. Changing insurers requires your finding another job or paying taxes on dollars spent on an individual plan.
Second, mandated insurance benefits significantly increase premium costs, hence making it a crime to purchase affordable insurance. Further, ineffective Medicare and Medicaid programs drive up insurance costs.
Instead of further eroding our freedom, the commission should repeal legislation that prevents free markets from delivering affordable, quality health care.

There are many comments on line (see link above).

government run medicine treats doctors like vending machines & adult patients like dependent children

So says my letter to the editor in the Denver Post this past Monday:

“Universal” health care

Re: “Patient, take care of thyself,” June 14 Pius Kamau column.

Surgeon Pius Kamau admirably explains that “each man and woman should be responsible for their own health.” Yet, the “universal health care” he advocates as “ideal” erodes this responsibility.

“Universal” health care is a deceptive euphemism for government- controlled medicine. By forcing providers and patients to abide by its prices and rules, government treats doctors like vending machines and adult patients like dependent children. The only thing “universal” about government-run health care is poor quality, low access, and long waiting times. By restricting choice and freedom, authority-driven health care makes government the parent responsible for the health of infantilized adults.

Contrast this with consumer-directed health care, which combines a low-premium, high-deductible insurance policy with a tax-deductible Health Savings Account. Patients self-insure with money invested in HSAs until reaching the deductible, after which the policy’s coverage applies.

Free-market medicine and voluntary charities promote personal responsibility and accessible quality care.

Brian T. Schwartz, Boulder

Will Pirkey of Evergreen responded the next day, claiming that “Our society does not need more personal responsibility, but rather social responsibility.” I wonder where this “social responsibility” comes from, and what actions does it entail. Who determines that, and by what right?

Pirkey continues: “We have the moral and social obligation to ensure every American, rich or poor, gets the care they need without the threat of lifelong debt.” For sake of argument, say this is true. This does not provide an argument for government controlled healthcare. Since it’s had such a poor record, the “moral and social obligation” (or the personal chosen obligation, which is how I see it) compels us to consider that free-markets can provide quality at a good price, just as it does other products and services.

Pirkey also writes: “The personal responsibility argument here is just another sad example of the blame-the-victim public policy and discourse in the United States.” Surely there are victims here – those who cannot afford health care because government policies have driven up the cost.

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

I finished this book by Richard Feyman recently (for the second time) and recorded a comment on it at allconsuming.net, which I reproduce here:

Feynman’s narrative about the Challenger investigation is a great illustration of bureaucracy and politics that goes on in Washington, D.C. A great passage is at the start of the section entitled “Committing Suicide,” a term Feynman used when referring to going to D.C. to be part of the committee:

When I heard the investigation would be in Washington, my immediate reaction was not to do it: I have a principle of not going anywhere near Washington or having anything to do with government, so my immediate reaction was — how am I gonna get out of this?…My last chance was to convince my wife, “Look,” I said. Anybody could do it. They can get somebody else.” “No, said Gweneth. “If you don’t do it, there will be twelve people, all in a group, going around from place to place together. But if you join the commission, there will be eleven people — all in a group, going around from place to place together — while the twelfth one runs around all over the place, checking all kinds of unusual things. There probably won’t be anything, but if there is, you’ll find it.” She said, “There isn’t anyway one else who do that like you can.”

Reading and typing that chokes me up for two reasons: The first is that it turns out that he does do that, which I admire and seek to emulate. The other is that his wife recognizes that and needs to remind Feynman of who he is and his own uniqueness, which is beautiful. It reminds me of what Victor Frankl writes in Man’s Search for Meaning (see “p. 125″ in link).

Radio Free Yo La Tengo

Click on the above link for a nice interview with Yo La Tengo, one of my favorite bands, about their new compilation CD. It’s pretty funny, though I expect many won’t get it. There’s something about the rapport and under-stated satire.