Comments on: The Therapeutic State: The Myth of Health Insurance

By: The myth of health insurance | LDS Freemen

The myth of health insurance | LDS Freemen — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:20:04 +0000

[...] to explain the myth that is health insurance, is Thomas Szasz writing for the May 2003 issue of The Freeman: [...]

By: Kelli allred

Kelli allred — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:05:18 +0000

How encouraging it is to read the voice of reason coming from young voters (under40). You havenot lost the vision that our elected officials assume to be a thing of the past. You joint comments are important. Join me and other \"boomers\" in reminding Washington that we areNOT STUPID & we will not be led or dragged into socialized healthcare.

By: Skip Shephard

Skip Shephard — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:15:00 +0000

I found the article to be quite enlightening. I also felt the comments were straight forward and hit the nail on the head. One in particular hit home! It now appears that the IRS is supplying Medicare with our tax return information and the government is using our tax returns to determine what we should or should not pay! I just got my letter today. My concern is that the data supplied by the IRS was for 2007 when both myself and my wife were working. We are both retired and make only half of what we made in 2007, yet the government is basing their calculations on the 2007 tax return! This means I have to pay again. This system is not fair and I hope to challenge it.

By: James Madison Fan

James Madison Fan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:15:50 +0000

I could agree with this in regard to Obamacare but I pay for my health insurance. It is a service. If Cigna and Kaiser do not like providing this service they are a business and they can get out of the market any time they like.

Mr. Szasz is correct when he says, \"What we choose to call “health insurance” is, in fact, a system of cost-shifting masquerading as a system of insurance.\"

That is the whole purpose of insurance. A large number of people pay into it so that a few people can capitalize on it when it is needed.

It is in the best interest of an insurance company to cover basic treatment so people will go to the doctor before an illness becomes critical. If someone avoids the doctor because he does not want to pay $250.00 and ends up in the ER, hospital, or surgery the company will pay out FAR more money in the long run. Better to treat a cut before it becomes infected with stiches, soap, and a bandage than to pay for a suit of antibiotics, surgery, and amputation later. Preventative maintenance may not be covered by homeowner\’s insurance but so give discounts to premiums if you have security installed or annual termite inspections.

Mr. Szasz is wrong when he says, \"We treat a public, statist political system of health care as if it were a system of private health insurance purchased for the purpose of obtaining private medical care.\"

As long as we are not talking about Nationalized Health Care I fail to see how \"Statist\" applies unless he\’s talking about Medicare. It certainly doesn\’t apply to Cigna and Kaiser. If they weren\’t making scads of money they wouldn\’t be offering the services.

By: Austinaustrian

Austinaustrian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:30:31 +0000

To tooearly–one should not confuse correlation with causality. Otherwise we might conclude that changing temperatures cause the use of SUVs.

By: Reality check

Reality check — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:27:23 +0000

I grew up without health insurance because my dad was self employed. We took care of ourselves! We did not expect or desire government assistance! Today’s clinics and ER’s are abused because people are not paying directly for services. HSAs and taking the employer out of the equation would be a start as well as tort reform. People expect the same standard of care, they should expect to pay for the technology! And if they decide against a test due to costs they should not get to sue for having different results (you get what you pay for). So, inequality is to be expected in a free society. But you are free to ask for assistance from community, church, and family, too. I’m a physician who has worked in the military and public health. There is more abuse and less gratitude when people aren’t financially responsible and view it as a “right” .

By: tooearly

tooearly — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:15:33 +0000

“From a public-health point of view, the state of our health is partly, and often largely, in our own hands and is our own responsibility, even if we have a chronic illness, such as arthritis or diabetes. It is an immoral and impractical endeavor to try to reject that responsibility and place the burden for the consequences on others.”
Partly, or largely?
Partly no debate. Largely: nonsense. The evidence is abundantly clear that our health is foremost a product of social determinants: ie your zip code is more important than your genes.

By: DD

DD — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:23:29 +0000

Sick and Tired,

It doesn not border on economic slavery. It is slavery! Actually, everything that the government is doing to us is a crime.
As long as people continue to believe in our \"democrach\", as if it were a God, we will continue to on the path to Fascism.

By: Sick and Tired in Massachusetts

Sick and Tired in Massachusetts — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:29:53 +0000

I live in Massachusetts and “universal health insurance” or what is often euphemistically called “universal health care” is one of the most invasive and oppressive systems of social control I’ve ever experienced. In order to guarantee compliance, the state of Massachusetts fines those who do not purchase health insurnance policies if the state deems individuals who don’t have insruance can afford it. The state tracks each resident over the course of the year and sends a letter at the end of the year stating how many months out of the year the individual was uninsured. Then, the individual is fined for those months without insurance. The level of surveillance required is truly Orwellian. There is no organized resistance and I suspect, in part, resistance does not occur because the insurance mandate is tied directly to each individual’s state income tax return. We have the tax arm of the government monitoring each individual’s health insurance policies through the direct exchange of information with health insurance providers who turn over every individuals Health Identification Number to the Department of Revenue. This is clearly unconstitutional because health insurance has become another tax that has not been identified as such. No one in the state can contract with an insurance provider without that information being readily available to the DOR. Those who do not comply with the law can find themselves paying fines which can easily exceed $2,000 each year. Where that money goes is not considered residents’ concern. What the state of Massachusetts is doing goes beyond privacy invasion and borders on economic slavery.

By: Richard Day

Richard Day — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:05:42 +0000

In your comment, you said, “In the case of genuine insurance, there is a direct relationship between the dollar value of the protection purchased and its cost to the insured.”

More and more people are discovering the Health Savings Account type of insurance plans. This is where you pair a high deductible health plan with a savings account for medical expenses.

The beauty of these plans is that they allow the insured to pay for the small things such as doctor visits and medications out of their savings account. Then, the High Deductible Health Plan will cover the catastrophic occurances which require hospitalization.