The Republican plan to replace Obamacare did not go nearly far enough in repealing government intervention in the health care market, the president of the nonprofit Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook, told The Daily Caller.
Brook argues that Republicans should push to roll back the government restrictions that existed in the health care system even before the Affordable Care Act, so that “we can really see how a free market health care system can work.”
“The replace would be very different from what I think the Republicans are proposing. I’m against just repealing Obamacare because before Obamacare health care in the U.S. was heading in a bad direction. The cost was too high, too many people did not have insurance. But the solution to it is not more government, the solution is less government,” he told TheDC.
Brook is the author of “Equal is Unfair: America’s Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality,” and a staunch advocate for the free market and capitalism. The Ayn Rand Institute pushes an objectivist political philosophy.
He is calling on Republicans to completely deregulate the insurance industry so that “there’s none of these requirements to cover pre-existing conditions or requirements to cover — I don’t know — acupuncture and alternative health and all the nonsense that has to be covered in every single policy which makes it so expensive. Let there be a true, free market in insurance policies, let there be a true free market in doctors, in hospitals, let there be transparent pricing, real competition. I mean, so the replace should be more free market. I don’t know why the assumption is that by replace, you have to replace it with more government programs. No, the replace should be to take all the pre-Obamacare government programs, eliminate them completely and establish a completely free market in health care,” he told TheDC.
Brook went on to say that, “I would prefer that we ban states from regulating the health insurance industries but I guess the Federalists among the Republicans would object to that. The state has no business regulating health Insurance. I, as the consumer, am in a far better position than any government bureaucrat to determine what kind of health insurance I should buy for myself. All of this is premised in the assumption that we are too stupid to know what’s good for us and that a government bureaucrat is in a better position to know.”
The government has been involved in the health care industry in the United States since World War II. Ever since then, the government has been largely unsuccessful in creating policies that drive prices down and improve the quality of health care. When asked why he thinks the government is unable to do health care well, he said, “I ask audiences all the time, what do they think the iPhone would look like if the government designed it? Everybody always laughs because everybody knows it’s an absurd question because the iPhone wouldn’t exist and if it existed it would be this monster, ugly, inefficient, unproductive instrument that nobody would want to use. And then I ask them OK, well if you don’t trust the iPhone to government why are you willing to trust health care to government? The government is not structured to do health care, and it cannot be structured to do it because the essence of government is force.”
“The essence of government is a gun, it’s coercion, it’s compulsion. Coercion, compulsion and force have no place in health care. Health care, like all other goods and services, should be a product of voluntary trade between individuals. There’s no place for compulsion, there’s not place for force, there’s no place for the mindlessness, that is the essential characteristic of almost all government programs.”
Last Friday Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said that the Senate bill is “still unacceptable” and the Medicaid cuts are “too deep.” In the past, Kasich has asserted that it is his Evangelical duty to keep and expand Medicaid and to do otherwise would be immoral. Brook says that, “I mean I agree with him from an Evangelical perspective that it’s immoral to cut medicaid. I think that until we get rid of the morality and moral code of Evangelicals, we will not get rid of Obamacare, we will not cut medicaid, we will not transition to free market health care. Free market health care requires a completely different, moral, ethical approach. It requires the morality of individualism. It is my moral responsibility to my family and self and then, if I choose to help other people, it has to be my voluntary choice and it has to be consistent with my values.”
“Free market capitalism in America requires an Ayn Rand moral code. It requires a moral code of rational self interest and that’s the real challenge. That is the real barrier that prevents Republicans from truly repealing Obamacare.”
In the event that Obamacare is completely repealed, Dr. Brook sympathizes with those who will lose their health insurance. “Once you stop subsidizing as much as Obamacare does and take the mandate away, a lot of people will not buy health insurance. But part of the reason for that is that all the regulations that preexist in Obamacare make health insurance too expensive. So I sympathize with people who say I can’t afford my health insurance, that’s sad, it’s not a good thing. The solution to that is not more government intervention, the solution to that is less government intervention. More competitive insurance markets and more options in terms of types of insurance insurance companies should be able to sell. And if you do that, then there will be insurance policies cheap enough so that those 22 million people can get and will get coverage.”
Even with the Senate, the House and the White House, Republicans are struggling to put forward a viable alternative to Obamacare. With #RepealObamacare trending on Twitter recently, many members of Trump’s base are urging the GOP to repeal Obamacare completely. This week, President Trump reminded the Republicans that they must keep their promise to America and repeal Obamacare.
I will be having lunch at the White House today with Republican Senators concerning healthcare. They MUST keep their promise to America!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2017
