Reflections on Rod Long's "Libertarian Three-Step Program". Bryan Caplan

Wolf Blitzer: You're a physician, Ron Paul, so you're a doctor. You know something about this subject. Let me ask you this hypothetical question.

A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides: "You know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it." But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it. Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that? 


Ron Paul has a three-part answer: (1) The young man should have been more responsible, and strangers shouldn't be forced to bail him out; (2) private charity will help; and (3) regulation makes health insurance needlessly expensive.


Furthermore, there are many problems that laissez-faire won't much improve.  Take alcoholism.  Yea, you could claim that bad government policies drive people to drink.  But that's far from clear.  And don't liquor taxes make people drink less?  The hard fact is that free people make lots of bad choices.  Libertarians should accept this fact - not pretend that government policies are the "root cause" of bad choices.     






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