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Reread your post. I think you've missed an essential point. Most people simply cannot afford modern medicine. Not because of government interference but because it's really expensive. Like a Rolls or a Ferrari.

But it's hard to convince people that a good society - a rich society - cannot afford to subsidize them. That the society is good even though it allows them - or their children - to die miserably because the can't afford medical care while others drive around in luxury cars and live in palaces.

It's the truth but convincing them is another matter.

Howcum you make so much sense with a name like LiberalLarry?

BTW - the way to get people to understand the limitations of health care is to educate them as to the way the marketplace works to provide goods and services, and to educate them as to how socialized medicine (and socialism in general) has worked out in other countries. Free markets do a better job of providing what was formerly unattainable to the masses. Just look at cars, which were once a rich mans toy. Computers were once owned by only the biggest businesses and governments.

What we need is to educate people as to the fact that there are basically two kinds of health care technologies out there. The first kind is the technologies that have become commonly accepted and widely used. The second kind are the rarely used and the experimental. People have to understand that the second kind are not going to be available to every Joe Sixpack out there, but if they allow the free market to do what it does best those cures may be available to their children someday. In the meantime they themselves can take advantage of better care than their parents had.

It's a mindset that is in favor of free enterprise and that is willing to embrace hard reality. It will be a tough sell to the general public, but it is better to at least try promoting this viewpoint than to just sit back and allow socialized medicine to take over.

Government interference has made both medicine and individual insurance expensive. When employer-sponsored group plans got tax favored status the individual market began its descent into irrelevance. The government put the self-employed into the worst possible position risk-pool wise and didn't even bother offering any tax relief. Then the government turned every emergency room into a free clinic for those who couldn't pay, with their costs getting passed along to others, especially those who pay out of pocket and can't negotiate prices up front. Then the government unilaterally sets its rates for that part of the of the population covered by Medicare and Medicaid further forcing providers to raise rates where they can. Between the VA, HHS, DOD, the Indian Health Service, and the plan for federal employees, the government already controls the better part of the market. Instead of continuing to screw those in the individual market, we would be better off if we consolidated all of the redundant government plans and had the government negotiate contracts with insurance companies for a single national risk pool with an annual open season during which time individuals could choose to enroll themselves or their families at the same premium rates as the government negotiates for its beneficiaries and with the same tax treatment.

think you've missed an essential point. Most people simply cannot afford modern medicine. Not because of government interference but because it's really expensive. Like a Rolls or a Ferrari.

I respectfully disagree. Market economics have pushed down the price for any complex technology you can name (beer, cars, air travel, electricity, air conditioning, 4 bedroom homes, etc.) In fact, practically the only area where medical costs have declined is for uninsured, voluntary procedures: breast implants, Lasik vision correction, etc., all of which were previously limited to the extremely wealthy.

As you correctly point out, the will to live and the natural law right to one's own life renders it difficult for people to accept that good health is a scarce commodity. Solace for this uncomfortable, inescapable fact of existence can be had, among other places, in the teachings of Christ.