The Medical Freedom Channel

From the Executive Summary: “Why should government be involved at all in our healthcare system? Aside from providing care for low-income families, the most persuasive argument is that in the absence of coercion people will have an incentive to be uninsured ‘free riders.’ In our society, people who choose not to pay for insurance know that they are likely to get healthcare anyway — even if they can’t pay for it. The reason is that there is a tacit, widely shared agreement that no one will be allowed to go without care. As a result, the willfully uninsured impose external costs on others — through the higher taxes or higher prices which subsidize the cost of their care.” [editor’s note: Although the phrase “willfully uninsured” carries it a little too far, this analysis is still quite cogent today - SAT] (04/2001)