Interesting in light of supreme court ruling.
What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us
via FREEDOMWORKS.org
[Day 5 of Robert Wenzel’s 30-day reading list that will lead you to become a knowledgeable libertarian, this Mises Daily was originally published August 21, 2009.]
In 1918, the Soviet Union became the first country to promise universal “cradle-to-grave” healthcare coverage, to be accomplished through the complete socialization of medicine. The “right to health” became a “constitutional right” of Soviet citizens.
The proclaimed advantages of this system were that it would “reduce costs” and eliminate the “waste” that stemmed from “unnecessary duplication and parallelism” — i.e., competition.
These goals were similar to the ones declared by Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi — attractive and humane goals of universal coverage and low costs. What’s not to like?
The system had many decades to work, but widespread apathy and low quality of work paralyzed the healthcare system. In the depths of the socialist experiment, healthcare…
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Common Sense 