Capitalizing on health
Understanding capitalism, we know that competition, private property and profits are the best ingredients for increasing quality and offering cheaper care.
However, it is repeatedly clear that the government will not allow the health care industries to provide service without interferences — welfare, Medicare, compassion — that distort the free market and thus prevent better, cheaper care.
So, instead of listening to conservatives trying to maintain our distorted system or the governmental liberal reforms, we should pursue the logical and proactive expansion of proven free-market ideology to provide citizens with quality health care.
Hanniford Schmidt, a free-market spokeswoman, coined it “Private Labor Stewardry.” Its implementation would allow companies to become completely responsible for their workers and, in practice, own them outright.
This would not only apply to health care, Schmidt notes. “Right now insurance companies can deny care — or companies can fire workers — if they get severely sick. And, this results in homelessness, untreated illness, etcetera. With PLS you extend the employer’s obligation to a 24/7, lifelong concern, [and] you have an entirely different situation” where ownership necessitates protection.
Seemingly, the price of labor would skyrocket if companies had to maintain healthy, nourished private workers for a lifetime. But this overlooks numerous profit augmentations that accompany PLS, including a complete annihilation of unions, minimum wages, child labor laws, environmental regulation, pensions, workplace health or safety standards, sexual harassment lawsuits and a serious decline of civic non-governmental organizations that provide democratic oversight and push anti-business legislation.
Unlike Democrat or Republican proposals, PLS is both good for people and business while conforming to free-market capitalism.
Brian Hennigan
Graduate student
