The Dialectics in the tradition of Hegel and Marx is a game in which intellectual snits present false dichotomies and paradoxes, then pontificate.
A great example of this game occurs when a political rogue organizes one half of a community against the other half. The paradox is that the community organizer uses unity rhetoric to create deeper division.
Another great example of Hegelian dialectics in action is the upcoming Mansfield Lecture at the University of Montana in Missoula. This lecture is about an imagined conflict between individual rights and social responsibility.
The second one realizes that people own their bodies and that a community is nothing more than a collection of autonomous individuals, then one realizes that this conflict is an illusion. One achieves the goal of social responsibility by helping individuals maximize the use of their individual health resources.
The event is at a tax funded venue. I suspect that a large number of the lecturers and conference attendees are currently feeding at the public trough.
They will spend a weekend moralizing then walk away feeling self-righteous ... oblivious to the fact that they are the oppressors of the modern age.
The enemies of freedom are organized and well fed at taxpayers' expense. There is little I can do about that.
But, imagine, just for a moment, that a group of people wanting to defend freedom got together and held a conference to support free market health care reform?
The group could expose the false dichotomies created by the oppressive ruling elite and start a new dialogue about the foundations of quality health care.
The conference wouldn't get any taxpayers' money, and would not have access to the same lavish facilities at the Mansfield Conference. But, it is the depth of the ideas and not the luxuriousness of the venue that makes a good conference.
There numerous small venues at the ready for conferences. For example, DaVinci Office says they will rent meeting rooms for $25 to $40 an hour. There are numerous hotels that offer meeting rooms as well.
The hard part is finding people who would sacrifice a whole afternoon to stand up for their freedom. This would involve people doing radical things like telling me. I am stuck in Utah. I am willing to travel and am still thinking of heading to Arizona.
I would do all the work necessary to organize a conference if only I knew there would be a half dozen or so people willing to stand up for liberty.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Patient Centered Health Care?
I am thrilled that Paul Ryan is keeping up the fight to repeal ObamaCare.
Politicians tend to name their programs the opposite of what they are. The proper name of ObamaCare is PPACA (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).
PPACA is based on RomneyCare as implemented by the Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney. At heart PPACA is a health exchange. The goal of the program is to trade health care on centrally regulated exchanges. The exchanges are implemented at the state level, but regulated at the Federal Level.
The act of centralizing care has the effect of jacking up health care has the effect of increasing health care costs.
This three thousand page bill created a massive bureaucracy. As health care providers bend to accommodate the new bureaucracy, patients become less secure and care becomes more expensive.
PPACA is the exact opposite of the name. This backwards thinking bill made health care less affordable and reduced health security.
PPACA is a bad law and requires fundamental change.
Again, I applaud Paul Ryan for coming up with the catchy phrase that he wants to replace The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with something called Patient Centered Care.
The problem is that until Republicans go through the challenging task of debating health care, any plan they come up with will be as vacuous as PPACA.
For five years, I've had the simple goal of finding a libertarian or conservative group brave enough to sit down for an afternoon to discuss free market health care reform. The debate would challenge the false assumption that insurance companies should be in charge of care.
Unfortunately, until Republicans actually discuss health care, their proposals will be as lame as PPACA. All of the health care schemes that start with the assumption that we must force everyone into insurance will end up as corrupt as ObamaCare.
Politicians tend to name their programs the opposite of what they are. The proper name of ObamaCare is PPACA (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).
PPACA is based on RomneyCare as implemented by the Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney. At heart PPACA is a health exchange. The goal of the program is to trade health care on centrally regulated exchanges. The exchanges are implemented at the state level, but regulated at the Federal Level.
The act of centralizing care has the effect of jacking up health care has the effect of increasing health care costs.
This three thousand page bill created a massive bureaucracy. As health care providers bend to accommodate the new bureaucracy, patients become less secure and care becomes more expensive.
PPACA is the exact opposite of the name. This backwards thinking bill made health care less affordable and reduced health security.
PPACA is a bad law and requires fundamental change.
Again, I applaud Paul Ryan for coming up with the catchy phrase that he wants to replace The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with something called Patient Centered Care.
The problem is that until Republicans go through the challenging task of debating health care, any plan they come up with will be as vacuous as PPACA.
For five years, I've had the simple goal of finding a libertarian or conservative group brave enough to sit down for an afternoon to discuss free market health care reform. The debate would challenge the false assumption that insurance companies should be in charge of care.
Unfortunately, until Republicans actually discuss health care, their proposals will be as lame as PPACA. All of the health care schemes that start with the assumption that we must force everyone into insurance will end up as corrupt as ObamaCare.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Savings and Loan Scandal
My goal is to have a meeting about free market health care reform.
In this meeting I wish to present a model for financing health care in which all of the funds flowed through accounts held by individuals. I supplement the savings accounts with loans and grants.
I then contrast this model with group funded care.
This game of using group funding to manage individual risk has a long and sordid history of turning individual risk into nationwide systemic risk.
I've called my presentation "The Medical Savings and Loan."
A valid criticism of this name is that many people associate the term "Savings and Loan" with the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.
I think this association might be useful.
At heart, the Savings and Loan Crisis was an insurance scandal. The scandal was created by federal entity called the FSLIC (Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Company).
The FSLIC was created by The National Housing Act of 1934 to insure the deposits of local savings and loans.
A Savings and Loan is a small institution engaged in local financing. The problem with local lending is such lending can amplify local financial risks. Imagine that a local business gets in financial trouble. This will lead to big losses at the local bank which freezes up assets through out the community.
The goal of the FSLIC was to nationalize the local risk. The FSLIC assured deposits of local banks and reduced the risk of local financial panic. This created a sense of lending security allowing Savings and Loans to aggressive expand lending.
The sense of stability created by the FSLIC increased borrowing (debt financing) and led to a brief sense of prosperity. This debt financed sense of prosperity started a bubble.
Widespread debt financing of housing actually created inequities. Notably, there has been a big drop in the ratio of a worker's annual salary to the cost of housing. There has been a substantial decrease in lifetime savings and a continuous stream of housing bubbles.
The country was already in trouble well before the S&L scandal. We had inflation followed by stagflation in the 1970s and early 1980s.
When one is at the height of a bubble, one tries to prolong the imagined prosperity of the bubble by loosening lending requirements, which only made things worse.
Rogues in the financial sector realized that they could use the FSLIC to take huge risks with federally insured loans making the collapse of the FSLIC even more dramatic.
People associate the term "Savings and Loan" with scandal. This scandal was not the result of local institutions engaged in financing local projects. The scandal was the result of politicos trying to regulate finances with federal insurance.
IMHO, the Savings and Loan scandal is simply one in a long series of financial scandals.
My goal is to create a discussion about alternatives to insurance. In my opinion, The fact that the name brings up a discussion of the collapse of the FSLIC is a plus because the collapse of the FSLIC is relevant to the discussion of federally regulated health insurance.
Was the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry the result of small companies engaged in local financing, or was it the cause of federal regulations that took the individual risk of local financing and turned it into a systemic risk for the nation?
Since the goal of my effort is to start a discussion, I revel in the fact that the very name of the project brings up an important historical event in the ongoing saga of federal regulation.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Desires of the Elite
Our health care establishment was not built to the needs of the people but to the desires of a ruling elite.
Markets form around the flow of resources.
In the status quo, most health care resources flow from a large pool (either owned by an insurance company or the government) to the care provider.
Information aligns with the flow of resources.
The valuable information in health care flows from the providers to large centralized entities. The people are simply cut out of the process.
The desire of the ruling elite is to sit on a throne and dictate the allocation of resources.
This desire is at the heart of both the Republican and Democratic approaches to health care. Republicans have a vision of powerful business leaders sitting at the helm, and Democrats have the vision of powerful government bureaucrats.
The health care debate is false dichotomy in which the Left and Right struggle over the control of the ring of power.
But health care should be about care of the health of the people.
Independents must stand up and question the need for a health system controlled by a centralized bureaucracy.
The radical reform that I've proposed is simply to do the accounting on person by person basis.
The heart of the medical savings and loan concept is that all transactions should flow through personal savings accounts.If the transactions for personal care flowed through accounts owned by the individuals, then the accounts would provide complete information about the health spending of the individual. If we add to this a simple document management system, the accounts could serve as the basis of a medical records system.
Changing the flow of resources would lead to fundamental changes in the medical industry. Note, insurance agents and claims adjusters work for the owners of the insurance pool. If the money flowed through individual accounts, the focus of these positions would change from working for the insurance company to people who worked directly with the public. I changed the name of the position to "Health Care Advocate."
I have a wonderful presentation on this plan that I've been dying to give for the last five years. The presentation takes an afternoon. I live in Salt Lake. I am willing to travel.
Our health establishment was built for the desires of the ruling elite. PPACA (ObamaCare) is just a step on the road to ruin. If we wish to assure prosperity for future generations, Americans must stand up for the restoration of health freedom.
Markets form around the flow of resources.
In the status quo, most health care resources flow from a large pool (either owned by an insurance company or the government) to the care provider.
Information aligns with the flow of resources.
The valuable information in health care flows from the providers to large centralized entities. The people are simply cut out of the process.
The desire of the ruling elite is to sit on a throne and dictate the allocation of resources.
This desire is at the heart of both the Republican and Democratic approaches to health care. Republicans have a vision of powerful business leaders sitting at the helm, and Democrats have the vision of powerful government bureaucrats.
The health care debate is false dichotomy in which the Left and Right struggle over the control of the ring of power.
But health care should be about care of the health of the people.
Independents must stand up and question the need for a health system controlled by a centralized bureaucracy.
The radical reform that I've proposed is simply to do the accounting on person by person basis.
The heart of the medical savings and loan concept is that all transactions should flow through personal savings accounts.If the transactions for personal care flowed through accounts owned by the individuals, then the accounts would provide complete information about the health spending of the individual. If we add to this a simple document management system, the accounts could serve as the basis of a medical records system.
Changing the flow of resources would lead to fundamental changes in the medical industry. Note, insurance agents and claims adjusters work for the owners of the insurance pool. If the money flowed through individual accounts, the focus of these positions would change from working for the insurance company to people who worked directly with the public. I changed the name of the position to "Health Care Advocate."
I have a wonderful presentation on this plan that I've been dying to give for the last five years. The presentation takes an afternoon. I live in Salt Lake. I am willing to travel.
Our health establishment was built for the desires of the ruling elite. PPACA (ObamaCare) is just a step on the road to ruin. If we wish to assure prosperity for future generations, Americans must stand up for the restoration of health freedom.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Financial Accounts and Medical Records
In his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, Dr. Benjamin Carson suggested that we give each American a Health Savings Account and an Electronic Medical Record.
My take on this subject is that one's medical records and their savings account are part of the same thing.
Here is my reasoning:
Health Care is the application of time and resources to the care of health.
The actions people take in concerning health occur in a chronological order and involve the use of time and resources.
If we start with an accounting system and add to it a detailed document management, then we would end up with a complete view of each person's financial and physical health.
It is true that doctors record biometrics that go beyond basic accounting. But, this idea that we shouldn't sully medical records by storing them in the same filing cabinet with financial information is absurd. It is on par with the idea that doctors should only speak Latin to avoid sullying the profession with the common tongue.
The system of keeping health records with financial records already exists in the insurance industry.
The flow of information in health care follows the flow of the money. In both insurance and socialism (insurance is socialism at a corporate level) the information flows from large pools to large providers. Health information flows back along this chain.
In many cases, the insurance company will have better information about a patient than the doctors.
The fact that information follows the flow of money is not surprising. Money, after all, is simply information. I have a desk littered with scraps of paper. I can change the scrap of paper called a dollar bill for a candy bar because of the information it represents.
Money is simply a tool that humans use to help quantify time and resources.
So, medical records are created by doctors recording biometrics. There is a cost associated with this activity; so there is pretty much always a financial record that corresponds with a medical record.
If our goal is to create a top notch electronics medical record, we would do well to start by giving each American an account through which we run all health expenses.
We can very easily attach to this a document management system with which we can add extra information.
The sweet thing about starting with the financial record is that it will provide funds for the maintenance of the records.
Dr. Carson is on the right track. I would amend the argument by pointing out that the basic structure of the financial record and medical record are so similar that we would do better to start with a unified record. The easiest way to do this is to start with the savings account and add a document management system.
My take on this subject is that one's medical records and their savings account are part of the same thing.
Here is my reasoning:
Health Care is the application of time and resources to the care of health.
The actions people take in concerning health occur in a chronological order and involve the use of time and resources.
If we start with an accounting system and add to it a detailed document management, then we would end up with a complete view of each person's financial and physical health.
It is true that doctors record biometrics that go beyond basic accounting. But, this idea that we shouldn't sully medical records by storing them in the same filing cabinet with financial information is absurd. It is on par with the idea that doctors should only speak Latin to avoid sullying the profession with the common tongue.
The system of keeping health records with financial records already exists in the insurance industry.
The flow of information in health care follows the flow of the money. In both insurance and socialism (insurance is socialism at a corporate level) the information flows from large pools to large providers. Health information flows back along this chain.
In many cases, the insurance company will have better information about a patient than the doctors.
The fact that information follows the flow of money is not surprising. Money, after all, is simply information. I have a desk littered with scraps of paper. I can change the scrap of paper called a dollar bill for a candy bar because of the information it represents.
Money is simply a tool that humans use to help quantify time and resources.
So, medical records are created by doctors recording biometrics. There is a cost associated with this activity; so there is pretty much always a financial record that corresponds with a medical record.
If our goal is to create a top notch electronics medical record, we would do well to start by giving each American an account through which we run all health expenses.
We can very easily attach to this a document management system with which we can add extra information.
The sweet thing about starting with the financial record is that it will provide funds for the maintenance of the records.
Dr. Carson is on the right track. I would amend the argument by pointing out that the basic structure of the financial record and medical record are so similar that we would do better to start with a unified record. The easiest way to do this is to start with the savings account and add a document management system.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Off Election Year Politics
2013 is not an election year. To build credibility for his show, Sean Hannity allowed Dr. Benjamin Carson on his show to talk about free market health care reform.
I've followed the health care debate since the 1980s.
This pattern repeats every single election cycle.
The GOP will permit free market rhetoric during off years. The GOP then clamps down on discussion of free market reform and push those wishing to advance the cause of freedom into the wilderness.
Notably, during the off election season of 2009, the GOP allowed the Tea Party movement to form. The Tea Party gave the GOP enough momentum to capture the House in 2010. The GOP establishment turned full force against the freedom movement, and in the 2012 election, the GOP produced the disastrous Mitt Romney campaign.
Think of the contempt the GOP has for you the voter. The GOP thinks so little of the American people that the party had the audacity to run the father of RomneyCare to defeat the father of ObamaCare. (The two plans are the same).
I've mentioned in the past that the internal pendulum swing within the GOP is a primary factor in the diminishing liberties in the United States.
The GOP has a long history in which they promote free market rhetoric when they are in the minority. When they get in power, the GOP enacts big government expansion.
Free market rhetoric is fine, but I want to see people moving beyond rhetoric to action.
I was thrilled to see Dr. Carson on the Hannity show, but the good doctor said nothing new.
Dr. Carson repeated arguments for free market health care reform that were made in the 1980s and 1990s.
There was a substantial free market health care reform movement after the HillaryCare debate in 1993.
All of the great ideas people put forward were put down. The GOP (which receives buckets of donations from the insurance industry) suppressed the ideas that arose in that debate.
These ideas have been around for decades. The problem is that the ideas have never been developed beyond rhetoric.
Because the ideas have never been fully developed, the ideas systematically fall short.
The best example of how free market ideas get destroyed can be seen during the Bush Administration.
The Bush Administration included tax deductions for Health Savings Accounts in his push for Medicare and Prescription Drug expansion. Large insurance firms created products that tacked a HSA onto High Deductible Insurance Policies.
If you run the numbers on the Bush plan you will find that the program is extremely regressive.
The rich get a nice little benefit from the tax deduction.
Seeking to cut costs, companies give the high deductible insurance to low wage workers. The low wage workers don't have the money to put into savings. They don't get a substantial tax deduction.
The Bush Era HSA creates a system in which low wage workers stop receiving basic and preventative care.
People with chronic conditions fare even worse. Imagine that your diabetes requires $2,000 treatment a year for twenty-years and your insurance has a deductible of $3,000. Well, you have to pay the full cost of your diabetes. Your insurance company will see your diabetes as a risk and raise your premium.
To add insult to injury, the HSA+HDHC combination fails to restore the pricing mechanism. The cost drivers in medicine happen with expensive care (not with the inexpensive care). High deductible insurance does not reduce costs, because its the expensive care exceeding the deductibles that drives the cost of medicine.
When we let the political establishment implement Health Savings Accounts without any input from the public, the political class will create the worst possible implementation of the plan.
To create an implementation of the Health Savings Account that advances the cause liberty and restores balance requires something that Conservatives are simply unwilling to do.
It requires people meeting together and talking about free market alternatives to insurance.
I am at the ready to discuss this issue. I live in Utah. I will be happy to drive to Arizona, Colorado, Nevada or possibly even Southern California.
Anyway, I am delighted that Sean Hannity allowed a discussion of free market health care on his show.
The ideas presented on the show are undeveloped. If anyone is interested in developing the ideas fully, I am ready to hit the road.
If the GOP remains true to form, Republicans will allow free market rhetoric during the off season but will push the ideas aside during the next election year.
The freedom movement needs to take advantage of the pendulum swing and create a fully developed implementation of health savings accounts that will fly in the next general election.
I've followed the health care debate since the 1980s.
This pattern repeats every single election cycle.
The GOP will permit free market rhetoric during off years. The GOP then clamps down on discussion of free market reform and push those wishing to advance the cause of freedom into the wilderness.
Notably, during the off election season of 2009, the GOP allowed the Tea Party movement to form. The Tea Party gave the GOP enough momentum to capture the House in 2010. The GOP establishment turned full force against the freedom movement, and in the 2012 election, the GOP produced the disastrous Mitt Romney campaign.
Think of the contempt the GOP has for you the voter. The GOP thinks so little of the American people that the party had the audacity to run the father of RomneyCare to defeat the father of ObamaCare. (The two plans are the same).
I've mentioned in the past that the internal pendulum swing within the GOP is a primary factor in the diminishing liberties in the United States.
The GOP has a long history in which they promote free market rhetoric when they are in the minority. When they get in power, the GOP enacts big government expansion.
Free market rhetoric is fine, but I want to see people moving beyond rhetoric to action.
I was thrilled to see Dr. Carson on the Hannity show, but the good doctor said nothing new.
Dr. Carson repeated arguments for free market health care reform that were made in the 1980s and 1990s.
There was a substantial free market health care reform movement after the HillaryCare debate in 1993.
All of the great ideas people put forward were put down. The GOP (which receives buckets of donations from the insurance industry) suppressed the ideas that arose in that debate.
These ideas have been around for decades. The problem is that the ideas have never been developed beyond rhetoric.
Because the ideas have never been fully developed, the ideas systematically fall short.
The best example of how free market ideas get destroyed can be seen during the Bush Administration.
The Bush Administration included tax deductions for Health Savings Accounts in his push for Medicare and Prescription Drug expansion. Large insurance firms created products that tacked a HSA onto High Deductible Insurance Policies.
If you run the numbers on the Bush plan you will find that the program is extremely regressive.
The rich get a nice little benefit from the tax deduction.
Seeking to cut costs, companies give the high deductible insurance to low wage workers. The low wage workers don't have the money to put into savings. They don't get a substantial tax deduction.
The Bush Era HSA creates a system in which low wage workers stop receiving basic and preventative care.
People with chronic conditions fare even worse. Imagine that your diabetes requires $2,000 treatment a year for twenty-years and your insurance has a deductible of $3,000. Well, you have to pay the full cost of your diabetes. Your insurance company will see your diabetes as a risk and raise your premium.
To add insult to injury, the HSA+HDHC combination fails to restore the pricing mechanism. The cost drivers in medicine happen with expensive care (not with the inexpensive care). High deductible insurance does not reduce costs, because its the expensive care exceeding the deductibles that drives the cost of medicine.
When we let the political establishment implement Health Savings Accounts without any input from the public, the political class will create the worst possible implementation of the plan.
To create an implementation of the Health Savings Account that advances the cause liberty and restores balance requires something that Conservatives are simply unwilling to do.
It requires people meeting together and talking about free market alternatives to insurance.
I am at the ready to discuss this issue. I live in Utah. I will be happy to drive to Arizona, Colorado, Nevada or possibly even Southern California.
Anyway, I am delighted that Sean Hannity allowed a discussion of free market health care on his show.
The ideas presented on the show are undeveloped. If anyone is interested in developing the ideas fully, I am ready to hit the road.
If the GOP remains true to form, Republicans will allow free market rhetoric during the off season but will push the ideas aside during the next election year.
The freedom movement needs to take advantage of the pendulum swing and create a fully developed implementation of health savings accounts that will fly in the next general election.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Virtual Office
I admit, I am intrigued with DaVinci Virtual Office. This is on demand office and meeting space. They have locations all over the place. If I subscribed, I could travel around without looking like a homeless, no-good bum. Unfortunately, the subscription fee is out of my range.
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