Nobody seems to understand Frederick Hayek and no one seems to have taken note of Naseem Taleeb.

What would happen if government stopped paying for Medicare, Medicaid, and prescriptions, and stopped legislating insurance mandates? My guess is that doctors would take whatever fees were offered or could be negotiated. Hospitals would mostly shut down and procedures would be limited to office, clinic and home. Surgery would be performed in what was left of hospitals paid for with money saved from insurance payments. Children and parents would learn a lot of medicine and administer that medicine in less crowded settings like home. Medical personnel not at the MD level would hire themselves out like cleaning crews. Folk medicine would be administered by elders in the family informed by readily available internet literature and readily available drugs that needed to find a market – like in Mexico. Research would return to university departments and remain in medical schools – funded by a capital rich country not being taken to the cleaners over medical bills.

This scenario follows the principle that if you want a garden but cannot afford to hire a gardener, then you will have to mow and rake all by yourself. You might want to make it a family task. Just think, the elders would remain useful and children would become useful. Those without families would develop support groups – like in the HIV community. Altruism is still a part of our genetic makeup, unless we decide to breed it out of our offspring.

Of course, medical care does not have to turn out in the manner I have described, but at the very least we should find a way to avoid authorizing the government to kills us when they see fit. Removing hope is removing the reason to live. Do we really want to give up hope, as well as freedom?