First, Burke was a liberal, and now Hayek?

[elfs]

It was a stunner to me to realize, while reading through Reflections on the Revolution in France that Burke wasn't a "conservative." He wasn't the anarchist that seemed to take over and lead the French every couple of years while he watched in horror from his armchair in England. He also wasn't the fatalist that most conservatives worshipfully portray him to be, committed to the restoration of the existing monarchy. He was a middle-way political thinker, imploring the French to pick a tradition, any tradition, that had existed at a time of prosperity and stability. It didn't matter which:

In your old states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding with the various descriptions of which your community was happily composed; you had all that combination, and all that opposition of interests, you had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe.

Now it surprises me to read that in Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, Hayek makes an equally stunning point, namely that universal healthcare is a good idea:

Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.

Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance - where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks - the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong... Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken," - The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9).

I think this is exactly right, and libertarian worshippers of Hayek should re-read him carefully.

For centuries, humanity has been plagued by random disasters that strike either our property or our being. We've learned what to do to protect our property and we've evolved fire and police protection. But those were easy. Health, on the other hand, is something we've only recently come to grips with in the past century, and truth be told it's only in the past forty years that healthcare as a positive power has come into its own. In 1970 a heart attack or cancer was a death sentence: today, it's a manageable medical crisis. We've had centuries to master the economic and communal benefits of property protection (although there are still libertarians who hanker for privatized police and fire protection services), but not nearly long enough to master arguments for the economic benefits of communal health protection.

It's time we did. Because Hayek, of all people, thinks we should. There's an old quote: "Every time someone dies, a library burns to the ground." If we own our own bodies, then healthcare is a property right, and we should seek commensurate communal support in keeping that library from burning to the ground.

Comments

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Another good argument for universal health care, and a big reason why the state continues to support it:

What happens when people go un-immunized or relatively minor things like cold and flu go untreated? The rest of the populace suffers as they spread. Providing health care for those who can't afford it goes a long way towards preventing epidemics. It seems like basic self-interest to me to make sure everyone is reasonably healthy just so we all don't get sick.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Agriculture was our collective attempt to secure the food supply. With it, we humans did more in 6000 years than we did in the previous 70,000-200,000.

Securing our susceptibility to natural disaster has been a slower one, spanning tens of thousands of years. But we continue to make progress. (Well, we did at least until recently...)

Securing our physical health against disease is still in its infancy. We've had a few missteps (like overpopulation). But some fairly basic things can be done.

Why not cover basic doctor visits? Universally. No questions asked by anyone but the doctor/nurse treating you. Is that really so difficult?


Oh wait. I forget. The U.S. wants to make being healthy a privilege … just like it is in other Third World countries.