Health Care

The best method I have found to explaining a libertarian position on health care consists of showing how government has made it harder for everyone to get health insurance. Explaining the mechanics of Medical Saving Accounts and introducing competition into the system sometimes requires to much economic explanation.

• According to the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association, it now costs $359 million and takes 12 years to get a single new drug approved by the FDA. This greatly raises prices and delays life saving medication to terminally sick patients.
• Insurance companies are also forced to comply with over 800 state medical mandates. These include forcing health insurers to cover toupees, psychiatric services, and teeth-whitening. Although these mandates provide additional income for toupee manufacturers, psychiatrists, and dentists, they increase the cost of health insurance enormously for everyone. Eliminating these mandates would be the easiest and fairest way to increase the number of people with health insurance.