Here’s a radical idea. Repeal Obamacare and replace it with what works best in the provision of almost all goods and services: the free market! From David Walden, a Straight Line Logic reader, via email:
Representing the Trump administrations’s first priority, the cry of “repeal and replace” fills the musky swamp gas of Washington. ”R&R” is supposed to represent the solution to the fact that “Obamacare,” the slang accreditation to the person who shamelessly takes responsibility for the Affordable Care Act, is failing to do almost EVERYTHING that was touted on its behalf during passage in 2009.
Yes, “R&R” is definitely needed. However, what is actually needed is “Repeal & Return” – NOT “Replace.”
Upon Japan’s surrender in 1945, my father left the Army and was hired by a small “mom & pop” machine shop as an apprentice tool & die maker. During that time we lived in a cold-water tenement on the first floor. As we could afford little, there was no medical insurance, and the small company dad worked for certainly couldn’t provide any.
When we got sick we either called the Doctor, who came to our home, or in the case of a serious illness/accident, we went to the hospital. In the case of the former, a small charge for the visit and any “medicine” he might provide during the visit, was our cost. Depending on the relationship between us and our Doctor, we would either pay in cash, or subsequently be billed. Should any of us have needed to go to the hospital, the terms of payment would be negotiated with the hospital – with monthly (or whatever) payments for the costs of more serious conditions.
The time frame was the late forties/fifties. I can remember going to a hospital only once in my entire childhood. Twice I recall seeing a Doctor at our apartment/home. At that time the “market” for health care was largely unencumbered by those who would improve it through political means, being dominated only by those who would do so through economic means – with each segment of the market trying to make a buck by providing an ever-improving service. They would continually do so in the traditionally American manner of making it better, cheaper, increasingly available to the expanding market, etc., much as does ALL enterprise and entrepreneurs when simply left alone to do so.
