For too long in our nation, we have maintained a universal, single-payer policing system.
As a freedom-loving citizen, I want to see policing returned to the private sector, because we know government does not do much of anything well. And why should the government have the right to tell me who my police officers should be? I should be able to choose who protects my person and property, and I do not need a government bureaucrat telling me who that should be, or limiting what policing services I purchase for myself and my family.
Furthermore, I do not see why I should have to help pay for policing for other people. Policing should be just like any other insurance--like health insurance, for example. If some people do not want to purchase police insurance, then they will not be protected, and the government has no right to tax me to pay for those without policing insurance.
The free market will allow for private policing insurance companies to compete for my business. And these companies would negotiate with private policing service providers to protect paying customers. They could also contract with prisons, many of which are privately run already. The insurers would be able to operate across state borders, removing the possibility that individual states could pass laws or regulations to guarantee a minimum level of protection--this, after all, is something for the free market to decide. And we ought not to retain any public option, as this would be unfair competition for the private companies.
Just like healthcare insurance companies, the policing insurance companies would be at liberty to charge different rates to different clients according to estimated risks. High-risk individuals, depending upon such factors as neighborhood and income, would be charged more, and low-risk individuals less. Indeed, low-risk individuals, just like seemingly healthy 25-year-olds in the healthcare market, might choose to forego police protection altogether--at least until unexpected disaster struck and they showed up at the emergency room, or its equivalent, where they could not be turned away. At least not unless they were immigrants. I mean illegal immigrants.
I do admit that subscribers would risk, as in our current healthcare system, being denied coverage and having their policing insurance plans cancelled retroactively, due to some possible error on their insurance application forms--such as forgetting to report a pre-existing condition (for example, two owners ago, the individual's house had been broken into, though he or she had no knowledge of this). Indeed, individuals with "pre-existing conditions" might have a hard time finding affordable police insurance on the individual market; but we do not want government meddling in our police care.
Some might argue that we maintain a single payer and single provider system for policing because it works, and it is the most efficient, cost-effective way to do so. Advocates for retaining our socialist policing system might point to the low, single-digit administrative costs of Medicare as compared with the double-digit overhead of private insurers.
They might explain that the basic idea is that all of us are at risk, and we never know when we might require the benefits of police services. We pay into it, and some years we do not need any help from the police; other years, some tragedy occurs, and we use much more police services than we paid in taxes that year. Basically, all Americans are joined in a single risk pool, where everyone is guaranteed access to a basic, comprehensive level of police protection. They might claim that the alternative is chaos, as some might say we have in our healthcare system today.
Why, then, do we have a highly-regulated, single-payer system for policing, but a confusing, deregulated system for healthcare? Well, it does not matter if our policing system works and is an efficient way of protecting the public--because we have surrendered our liberty with this system, and private companies in the free market could do a better job anyway.
In brief, just as the government should not get between you and your doctor, it should not get between you and your constable.
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"Public" policing is done much more rigorously in favor of those who live in nice neighborho
What is a police "pre-exist
Then there's the second police force, private police. They rule the schools, malls, and workplaces
4. Finally, my essay does not depend upon the analogy. I was also seeking to make the point that "single-pa
My suggestion is that we try to put ideology aside and consider what works. Despite the insistence by some that we have the greatest healthcare system on earth, the truth is that while we perhaps have the best healthcare at the really high-tech, high-cost end of things, overall we pay much more per capita than any other country while our healthcare outcomes regularly rank low in internatio
Be well!
Alan
Points 1 to 3:
1. As the comments indicate, whether or not access to healthcare is a right, even a fundamenta
2. One might argue that just as the police and military provide the security and liberty allowing us to pursue happiness, access to healthcare might be a similar basic condition, necessary for the exercise of freedom. But this could be argued too.
3. I think that if we take libertaria
Be well!
Alan
basic!
d
the point is not broken--we are better off w pooled, shared and protected resources when it is the basics. health IS security and that is what government does. the reason people believe otherwise is they have a feeling that they are being served well, now, and can't see advantage to changing their feeling of well being by monkeying w the system.
its about community-
If you say Health Care is a right (which is why I capitalise it when I talk about it here), then you are saying the medical profession
The difference is glaring.
And to be a true right, it cannot infringe on the rights of others. Your freedoms stem from those rights. This is the reason I so vehemently oppose the Health Care proposal. The only way to Health Care is to violate the rights of the medical profession
Rights are a given, protected by force by a government among the people. Unfortunat
But, perhaps, the example would have been better applied to fire protection
After all, fire and rescue protection is a service, not a right.
Then there are libraries, parks, stadiums, streets, water, lifeguards
gave the government the right to tax for only Two reasons, common defense and general welfare. The Black's law dictionary defines general welfare as: “ General term used to describe the government
The same principal of government responsibi
A government is set up among people to protect individual rights. It does this with a military, to protect against foreign invaders; a police force, to protect against criminals; and a court of law, to provide the individual with a peaceful avenue to redress grievances
This protection of your rights is not the same thing as providing the individual with goods or services.
Health Care is not a right. It is a good or service, to be provided by a medical profession
There is no arguement that health care is a need, but need does not impose a responsibi