Taxachusetts is at it again. Maybe the Free Staters should build a wall of freedom between New Hampshire and Taxachusetts. :)

And so the "Greatest Generation" and their Boomer kids impose yet another tax on the young. Maybe if you pledge not to use the public health care system, you shouldn't have to buy health insurance much like someone who doesn't own a car doesn't have to buy car insurance.

Maybe more people could afford insurance if governments would stop making health care more expensive!

If you think health care costs have risen at a crazy rate up until now, wait until the fallout from subsidizing health insurance hits the fan. Forcibly increasing the demand of something will always increase the price.

Yet another reason to not live in Massa(chusetts).

Has any other Libertarians have a hard time convincing 'progressives'and even Republicans that universal healthcare is not the answer?

My grandparents -- one of the two nicest people you would ever meet. Republican...and in favor of "free" healthcare. It's hard to sell private healthcare when one thinks that 'free' healthcare is the answer.

I always use the poor man as my example because the poor are the ones hurt the most by government taxes and regulations. I explained that the poor and working class will be taxed to hell and back to subsidize the medical care they receive for 'free' and that we should take steps to getting the government out of healthcare.

As a former liberal, I always had good intentions when wanting more government...thinking it was going to somehow make things better. After researching, I realized mandates on insurance companies drive up the costs of health insurance which does NOTHING at all to help the working class. Coverage for wigs, abortions, etc. etc. in a one-size-fits-all package which means high costs for all package.

The thing is...it's hard to sell because I'm 20 and people just think I'm still a "punk kid" talking a lot but not saying anything. But I can only hope people open their ears for us younger freedom lovers -- for I will continue on to show that Libertarians are working class people too

A state that has given this country great men like John Adams and Samuel Adams and others has very much changed for the worst. It should now be called the People's Republic Of Massachusetts. Everyday the state government there tries to take away as mush freedom and liberty from the people as they want. It si dispicable. This is just one more example of it.

Yet another reason to vote Libertarian!

P.S. Adopt the Liberty Penguin as the official symbol of the LP!

People's Republic of Taxachussettes would be more accurate.

The true cure for our health care ills. Eliminate medicare, medicaid and all other government health subsidies. Eliminate research subsidies to drug companies. Severely limit patent protections. Eliminate patent protection completely for any drug in which government money was used for research.

Eliminate health maintenance organizations and limit ordinary insurance to catastropic coverage only. Put everything else on a cash for services basis.

By so doing, the supply distortion has been eliminated and artificial demand has also been eliminated. Prices will immediately and severely drop until a balance is reached in the market.

Too bad this simple concept is so difficult for the vast majority of the public to comprehend.

I think its great Massachusetts is forcing residents to sign up for health insurance. Health insurance can be a great aspect to many families.

i agree blue cross, i'm glad our campaign contributions paid off!

Chuck B: I fully appreciate your dilemma. I'm going to share my approach with you. But first, a caveat. You can't change their minds. They're the only ones who can do that. The most you can do is to help them acquire new information that might lead them to decide to change their own minds. You're no more than a catalyst, encouraging them to change, but in the final analysis they can only change if and when THEY decide to do so. Be prepared for the fact that they may be unwilling to do so, no matter how good your points are.

With that in mind, how do you sell the LP's position on healthcare to your grandparents?

My suggestion is that you don't try to sell the LP's position on healthcare to them. Instead, ask them in effect to sell it to themselves. Here's how to do it.

Start by defining the basic premise about what the LP is all about: small, limited government; protection and defense of individual rights; free enterprise; and the non-aggression principle. I suspect your grandparents have already heard this stuff from you, but it's good to review. Total time: about 1-2 minutes.

Now that you've defined our standards, ask THEM to derive the LP's position on health care. Try very hard to avoid feeding the answers to them. It's very tempting to do so, but it undermines the learning process for them.

In the course of answering your question, you will find that they may do all kinds of things. First, they will likely try to evade answering the question. Insist that they do it anyway. When they start to move away from it, bring them right back to it. If they refuse, ask them why they oppose liberty. Yes, make it that black-and-white. Then, bring the discussion right back to asking them to explain the LP position on the issue. If they get confused, go over the premises about small government, free enterprise, etc. to refresh their memories. Then ask them once again to define the LP position.

They will soon find ways to object to it, saying that it can't work for one reason or another. In every case, it's your job to show them how their alternative is screwing someone else. For instance, if they get free healthcare, someone else is having to pay for it. Ask them what is moral about that, what is right about that. And keep coming back to the main, original question.

Ultimately, what you're trying to get them to do is to explore liberty while simultaneously having to defend their anti-liberty position.

You see, when talking with someone about liberty one-on-one, the last thing you want to do is to make the argument for them. When you take that approach, you leave them in the very comfortable position of picking holes in your position. That's a losing approach.

Instead, what you want is for them to have to make the argument, for them to leave themselves open to having holes poked in their arugment.

Or to put it another way, if you give them enough rope, they'll hang themselves.

No wonder Massachusetts is called Taxachusetts. Maybe Vermont and New Hampshire should [like others say] shut their borders with that state. Better yet, spread the gospel of Vermont Commons ad the Free State to Massachusetts.

Another reason to stay the Hell out of Taxachusettes. Maybe when they finally succeed in driving out all their residents, they will finally regain their reason.

Of course then again think about it, the country is full of nanny stateists and Socialists, maybe this could be one of THEIR havens while we Libertarians go about the business of restoring liberty to the rest of the country. I've always considered the possibility that this country would end up divided along certain socio-economic interests. Each of these areas could accommodate those various interests. Commies and Nanny stateists in Taxachusettes, Aryan-Nation types in another section, war mongering souless neo-cons and their right wing christian Ayatolah masters, yet somewhere else, etc.In this way when we finally succeed in breaking the back of the Federal colossus and restoring the Republic, these people will stay at home for their handouts and not pester us again.

Then again, probably not - they will always envy what a free, independent people can accomplish, but will never figure out that a free ride and the involuntary servitude of free people through opressive taxation can never accomplish it.

"People's Republic Of Massachusetts" is dead on target. Guess I'd be walking.

Wow, that is even worse than requiring a person to have car insurance(which mine and many other states do).

So is this to mean someone like Paul Allen, who has more money than God and could pay for any medical procedure up front in cash, still has to buy health insurance which he will never need or he is a criminal? Ridiculous.

Walt, that sounds like a interrogation. Most people would be hopelessly turned off by such a thing. It sounds way too much like someone asking me if I've been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, and demanding to know the answer so they can preach to me if I answer "no".

You're going backwards. You take our principled standards and try to make them agree with it. We have to go in exactly the other way, with every proposal we make. We start at where non-libertarians are and attract them into libertarianism by advancing proposals to change policy in the direction we want it to go that wont seem extreme to them, but moves policy in the direction we desire. We have to attract the votes of NON_LIBERTARIANS to ever elect ANY LIBERTARIAN.
We dont want those grandparents to become libertarians more than we want them to VOTE FOR LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATES! We dont sell them on libertarianism, we sell them a free market health care plan!

Example in education: advocating school choice instead of demanding all public education be abolished. People will vote for school choice. They wont vote for "abolishing" public education. We propose policy changes non-libertarians will vote for. That's our job.

You cant sell what people wont buy.

Look.....I dont know how to say this, but you're probably about 10X smarter than me, and probably more well informed, and I'm not kidding or jivin you. But I simply cannot understand you when it comes to how you expect to advance the party by these means. It's all been done before, and we dont have much to show for it. I cant concieve why you would think this is the way to sell liberty to two elderly folks who dont cotton to any of this stuff anyway. Confrontation is a lousy sales techinque.

Is it simply possible that as a purist type guy, your sense of idealism about liberty just blinds you to political methods & means? I'm not picking on you, I'm trying to understand you. But frankly, you just baffle the shit out of me sometimes! It's like we are on two different parallel libertarian universes. :D

We sure are different cats. Or maybe I'm a cat and you're a dawg.

I'm not picking on you....I'm just exasperated! I just dont understand you sometimes. I bet the same is true in reverse, eh?

I am of the belief that everyone should have health insurance. I also of the belief that people should be able to have Medical Savings Accounts. That is, having a portion of one's pay deducted and put into an account to meet individual and family medical emergencies. What I do not believe, is politicians using the force of the government upon the people, to purchase that which they may not want.

What is needed here is persuation, not force. Inform people of the benefits of having a health insurance policy. Educate them on the benefits of having such. Educate them on the different kinds of policies offered in the free-market and let them decide which best meet their needs. But, for God's sake, do not force people to buy. To do that is an act of tyranny, not freedom.

I also believe everyone should have the benefits of health insurance. I also believe that it should be affordable to the lowest wage earners in society. Because of the meddlesome interference of government and the litigious nature of today’s society these wishes are pipe dreams.

Insurance of some sort is available now to virtually everyone, only a precious few can pay for it.

Mark B:

You said: "Eliminate health maintenance organizations and limit ordinary insurance to catastropic coverage only. Put everything else on a cash for services basis."

I'm really, honestly wondering how you think that would work. Everything else on cash for service basis???? Have you any idea how much, I don't know, a heart-lung transplant would cost? I have a hard time thinking that 90% of the country could afford that. Not trying to critize, but I'm really interested in understanding your logic.

Oh. and to the "Taxachesetts" crowd....You may find this link interesting: MA is way down in the list. 31 states have higher taxes (not defending them, I just like to see actual facts and not emotive statements used):

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/

Oh, and one more thing about MA. I'm moving to NH soon, but will be working in northern MA. Can anyone confirm if it's true that I will still need to pay MA income tax, even though I live in NH? If so ... WTF????

another Matt:

I do believe that Heart Lung Transplants would fall under the "catastrophic" catagory for most folks. :)

However for things like tonsilectomies and other minor surgeries, putting them on cash for services would tremendously reduce the cost. Remember, in the free market, these surgeries will cost tremendously less, so most folks could afford them. Obviously there are the major surgeries and for that I advocate the retention of insurance coverage at catastrophic level only.

But I am a total believer in the power of free markets to regulate prices. And as a side note, to allow Americans total choice of those medical goods and services that they wish to receive.

As for the People's Republic (where I lived for a year by the way). It is not so much the taxes, but the endless volumes of repressive and horrible laws and regulations that Massachussettes is just chock full of.

Mark B: Thanks for clearing things up. I now understand. I agree with the MA regulations part. I want to bring my pistol with me. I'm no big gun nut, but I occasionally do recreational shooting. It seems like in MA you need to jump through more hoops than an acrobat just to get a license. Which is why I like NH.

"Robert Brendon, from the Harvard School of Public Health defended the two proposals by stating, "We have entered an age when there is more of a sense that there should be individual responsibility for your life and your family, that you owe it to your community to have coverage."

Is that a fiduciary duty or a constitutional duty or does it come from the fact that our government has once again stuck it's nose into a market it shouldn't have and driven costs up.

I wonder if this is the first time someone in MA noticed that personal responsibility is paramount. To bad he has used it to promote greater government intrusion.

Does this guy actually teach at Harvard? Maybe I could have gotten an Ivy league education after all.

I know this is a totally un-Libertarian argument, and is certainly no excuse for the plan.

One thing that really irks me is that I subsidize people without health insurance with my own insurance policy (as do we all). Hospitals are forced to treat all who come through their doors, personally I would hate to live in a world where this wasn't the case. Normally those without insurance use hospitals as their primary care source, a very inefficient and costly way of receiving treatment. The hospital needs to cover the expense of treating these people somehow and it has 3 methods:

1) Wage garnishing (these folks normally don't earn enough)

2) The government (thats a joke)

3) The rest of us in higher medical bills and hence higher premiums.

What a fraud. What a great way to drum up business for the insurance companies. First they made auto insurance mandatory, now they are going to make health insurance mandatory.

This country really is going to hell in a hand basket.

A question for all to ponder:

Is health care a basic right guaranteed under the Constitution?

Health care is not a right, either of a natural nature, or a right guaranteed by the Constitution.

No human being has a claim on the private property or skills of another. A purveyor of medicine or of medical skills most definately have a private property right in his skills and medicine and the right to sell, barter or otherwise dispose of services or medicine in whatever manner and whatever price he or she wishes.

Tim: Have you ever actually tried what I suggested about getting the other person to derive the libertarian position on an issue? I sincerely doubt it. If you had, you would realize that the last thing you want to do in such a situation is to interrogate them or turn it into an argument of some kind. It's a low-key kind of situation, not a high-key interrogation.

Once I pose the question, I shut up until they give their answer uninterrupted. If I don't like where their answer is going, I don't interrupt them with some form of "...but what about...?" If their answer doesn't actually answer the question I wait until they're done, then I reply, "But that doesn't really answer my question, does it!" And then I restate the question and shut up once again. So long as I don't treat the situation as confrontational and argumentative, I've found this technique to be extremely effective. Perhaps you and I ought to sit down with someone so you can watch me as I do it with them. Maybe that would make it easier for you to comprehend just how effective it is.

Now, you'll note in my post to Chuck B that I started out by stating that you can't change anyone's mind. This means that if the other person says something equivalent to, "Yes, I understand what you're driving at, but I still think...yada yada yada." At that point, you must realize that you've gone as far as you can go, that the discussion is over. A key part of passing along the libertarian message is knowing when to stop because you are wasting your time and risking pissing off the other person. That's counterproductive no matter who they are or what they believe. Part of being a successful activist is realizing that we're not trying to win people over to our point of view. Rather, we're trying to find people who are already potentially sympathetic to our point of view and encouraging them to explore areas of thought that they previously have not explored.

Chuck asks: "Is health care a basic right guaranteed under the Constitution?"

The answer is no because health care is not a right.

There is a very simple test you can apply in any given situation to discover whether something that has been claimed to be a right is actually a right. The test is this: does someone else have to provide the thing in question? If the answer to that question is yes, then having that thing not a right.

Yeah this nationalising is stupid. As a resident in massachusetts I don't support this.

Mark B and Libertarian TV: Thank you for validating my point. The leaders of the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts are literally advocating slavery. Slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment. Its Govenor, Mitt Romney along with whoever sponsored or co-sponsored this Bill should be immediately brought up on articles of impeachment for violating their oath of office to defend the constitution and removed from office by whatever means the Commonwealth has at its disposal to do so.

Crack-brained Communist Professors such as Robert Brendon are protected under the First Amendment to advocate whatever they would like.

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I think it's great they are forcing to buy health insurance as it is very important and many people just dont realize that.

I think we should just pass a law saying everyone makes at least $100,000.00 per year, then we could all afford it and there would be no argument.

Oh, and we should also outlaw the flu. I'm tired of it. And there's the problem of pi. It should just be 3.14. Congress should just pass a law saying pi is 3.14 and be done with it.

Hey Blue Cross of CA: How about a law dictating that Insurance Companies can charge no more than $1.00 per year for their top health plans? Still think its a great idea??