Idea on How to Administer and Distribute Health Care

[Working Poor]

Maybe health care could be run like a church where one could join as a member and pay a tithe of 10% and others who need care could come in and be given care for a donation or for free if they did not have any money. For a 10% tithe one could be guaranteed health care while also giving to people in need and allowing them to pay what they can.

I have always since a small child saw insurance as a scam no matter who is selling it be it the mob (which I would rather pay) or the government or some industry that the government owns.

I think any industry or government that demands and takes more than 10% of my hard earned pay should not be more worthy of my money than God. This is out of balance with the laws of nature. Tithing to ones God can and usually does bring prosperity. No one power group should be entitled to more of my money than what ever God I subscribe to. I know tithing works I have done it for years. I always try to give 10% to some form of so called "charity". It has always saved me. I can attest to times being harder and breaking away from from tithing hurt me more than anything but when I got back to it things straightened out quite fast. I think tithing is one of the so called "Dynamic Laws of Prosperity" if you are into dynamics.

Anyway just something I have been kicking around in my head today. Tell me what you think try not to beat me up too bad please

[Anti Federalist]

There are churches already doing this.

And this was also the template for "mutual aid" societies that had been around for centuries and mostly faded away post WW2.

Maybe they need to make a comeback.

[Anti Federalist]

There are churches already doing this.

And this was also the template for "mutual aid" societies that had been around for centuries and mostly faded away post WW2.

Maybe they need to make a comeback.

[Working Poor]

There are churches already doing this.

And this was also the template for "mutual aid" societies that had been around for centuries and mostly faded away post WW2.

Maybe they need to make a comeback.

I know that but what I am saying is that medical care should become like a church not that churches should become a place of medical care. Doctors would be the ministers. There would be a "minister of Diagnoses" minister of heart care ect...

[Schifference]

Maybe healthcare should not be considered a right.

[otherone]

FREE MARKET

[presence]

Mutual aid cannot work in a regulatory State

To fix heathcare eliminate:

1) Accreditation Schemes
2) Licensing Schemes
3) Patent Schemes
4) Prescription Schemes
5) Drug Approval Schemes
6) Regulation of Facilities
7) Subsidies
8) Care Mandates
9) Coverage Mandates
10) Minimum Wage

Mutual aid arises in FREE MARKETS and is stifled by regulation.

Welfare before the Welfare State

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1 COMMENT
TAGS Free MarketsHealthWorld HistoryEntrepreneurship
06/21/2011Joshua FultonMany people think life without the welfare state would be chaos. In their minds, nobody would help support the less fortunate, and there would be riots in the streets. Little do they know that people found innovative ways of supporting each other before the welfare state existed. One of the most important of these ways was the mutual-aid society.
Mutual aid, also known as fraternalism, refers to social organizations that gathered dues and paid benefits to members facing hardship. According to David Beito in From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State, there was a "great stigma" attached to accepting government aid or private charity during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.1Mutual aid, on the other hand, did not carry the same stigma. It was based on reciprocity: today's mutual-aid recipient could be tomorrow's donor, and vice versa.

Mutual aid was particularly popular among the poor and the working class. For instance, in New York City in 1909 40 percent of families earning less than $1,000 a year, little more than the "living wage," had members who were in mutual-aid societies.2 Ethnicity, however, was an even greater predictor of mutual-aid membership than income. The "new immigrants," such as the Germans, Bohemians, and Russians, many of whom were Jews, participated in mutual-aid societies at approximately twice the rate of native whites and six times the rate of the Irish.3 This may have been due to new immigrants' need for an enhanced social safety net.

By the 1920s, at least one out of every three males was a member of a mutual-aid society.4 Members of societies carried over $9 billion worth of life insurance by 1920. During the same period, "lodges dominated the field of health insurance."5 Numerous lodges offered unemployment benefits. Some black fraternal lodges, taking note of the sporadic nature of African-American employment at the time, allowed members to receive unemployment benefits even if they were up to six months behind in dues.6

Under lodge medicine, the price for healthcare was low. Members typically paid $2, about a day's wage, to have yearly access to a doctor's care (minor surgery was frequently included in this fee). Non–lodge members typically paid about $2 every doctor's visit during this time period.7

Low prices for lodges did not, however, necessarily translate to low quality. The Independent Order of Foresters, one of the largest mutual-aid societies, frequently touted that the mortality rate of its members was 6.66 per thousand, much lower than the 9.3 per thousand for the general population.8

Lodges also had incentives to keep down costs. For instance, the Ladies Friends of Faith Benevolent Association, a black-female society, would pay members taken ill $2 a week if they saw the lodge doctor, and $3 if they didn't. A visiting committee also checked on the claimant to guard against false claims. Members who failed to visit the claimant were fined $1.9

Mutual-aid societies also enforced moral codes. In 1892, the Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics found that societies followed the "invariable rule" of denying benefits "for any sickness or other disability originating from intemperance, vicious or immoral conduct." Many societies refused to pay benefits for any injury sustained in the "participation in a riot."10 Some lodges even denied membership to people who manufactured explosives or played professional football.11

Many mutual-aid societies branched out and founded their own hospitals and sanitariums. The Securities Benefit Association, or SBA, charged $21 for an 11-day stay at their hospital in Kansas, while the average at 100 private hospitals was $72.12 Again, quality was not necessarily sacrificed for price. At the SBA's sanitarium, the mortality rate was 4.5 percent, while the historical average for sanitariums was 25 percent. This is especially impressive considering that 30 to 50 percent of all cases admitted to the SBA's sanitarium were "advanced."13

A large number of African-American societies also created their own hospitals. In the early 20th century, it was not a given that African-Americans would be admitted into many hospitals. If they were, they frequently had to face such indignities as being forced to bring their own eating utensils, sheets, and toothbrushes and to pay for a black nurse if none was on staff.14 When the Knights and Daughters of Tabor in Mississippi, a black fraternal society with a reach across only a few counties, opened Taborian Hospital in 1942, membership nearly doubled in three years to 47,000.15

Mutual-aid societies also founded 71 orphanages between 1890 and 1922, almost all without government subsidy.16 Perhaps the largest of these was Mooseheart, founded by the Loyal Order of Moose in 1913. Hundreds of children lived there at a time. It had a student newspaper, two debate teams, three theatrical organizations, and a small radio station. The success of Mooseheart alumni was remarkable. Alumni were four times more likely than the general population to have attended institutions of higher learning. Male alumni earned 71 percent more than the national average, and female alumni earned 63 percent more.17

Of course, with so many services being supplied by mutual aid, many groups had reason to lobby government for its destruction.

The first major blow against fraternalism occurred when the American Medical Association gained control of the licensing of medical schools. In 1912, a number of state medical boards formed the Federation of State Medical Boards, which accepted the AMA's ratings of medical schools as authoritative. The AMA quickly rated many schools as "unacceptable." Consequentially, the number of medical schools in America dropped from 166 in 1904 to 81 in 1918, a 51 percent drop.18 The increased price of medical services made it impractical for many lodges to retain the services of a doctor. Medical boards also threatened many doctors with being stripped of their licenses if they practiced lodge medicine.19

The next most damaging piece of legislation was the Mobile Law. The Mobile Law required that mutual aid societies show a gradual improvement in reserves. Until this time, societies had tended to keep low reserves in order to pay the maximum benefits possible to members. High reserve requirements made it difficult for societies to undercut traditional insurance companies. The Mobile Law also required a doctor's examination for all lodge members and forbade all "speculative" enterprises such as the extension of credit to members. By 1919, the Mobile Law had been enacted in 40 states.20

The requirement that all members undergo a medical examination effectively barred mutual-aid societies from the growing group-insurance market. Group insurance is insurance offered to a large group of people, such as all the employees at a company, without a medical examination. From 1915 to 1920, the number of people insured under group policies rose from 99,000 to 1.6 million.21 Some lodges, such as the Arkansas Grand Lodge of the Ancient Order of Workmen, tried to get around the medical examination requirement by offering group insurance at a higher price than normal lodge coverage, but this put them at a competitive disadvantage.22

Mutual aid was hindered in other ways. Lodges were prohibited from providing coverage for children. This opened the door for commercial companies to offer industrial policies in which children's coverage was standard. The number of industrial policies rose from 1.4 million in 1900 to 7.1 million in 1920. By 1925, industrial policies surpassed the number of fraternal policies.23 Group medical insurance also eventually became tax deductible, while private plans such as those purchased through a lodge did not.24

[hmmm..... special tax credits for some, but not for all, distorting markets towards otherwise inefficient industrial solutions and away from small business.... where have we heard calls for this recently??? -presence]

Fraternal hospitals also came under attack. During the 1960s, the regulation of hospitals increased. Taborian Hospital in Mississippi was cited for "inadequate storage and bed space, failure to install doors that could swing in either direction, and excessive reliance on uncertified personnel." A state hospital regulator said of the Taborian Hospital, "We are constantly told that you do not have funds to do these things [make improvements], yet if you are to operate a hospital, something has to be done to meet the Minimum Standards of Operation for Mississippi Hospitals."25
The Hill-Burton Hospital Construction Act of 1946 also hurt many fraternal hospitals, especially black hospitals. The act required that hospitals receiving federal funds use a portion for indigent care and that services be offered "without discrimination on account of race, creed, or color." Although this enabled many blacks to get free service at hospitals previously unavailable to them, it also cut into the membership base for black fraternal hospitals. Additionally, some hospitals, such as Taborian Hospital and the Friendship Clinic in Mississippi, received no funds, while their nearby competitors received millions.26

The advent of Medicare also hastened the decline of fraternal hospitals. MIT economist Amy Finkelstein estimated that Medicare drove a 28 percent increase in hospital spending between 1965 and 1970 by encouraging hospitals to adopt new medical technologies. Smaller hospitals, such as many fraternal hospitals, were not able adopt new technologies as quickly as larger hospitals and were driven out of the market, another finding supported by Finkelstein.27
Some fraternal societies escaped the attack of the state by converting into traditional insurance corporations. Both Prudential and Metropolitan Life have their origins in fraternalism.28 Many societies, however, simply died off.

Although millions of Americans are still members of fraternal societies such as the Masons or Oddfellows, the organizations no longer have the importance in society that they once did. The history of fraternalism serves as a reminder of the power of human cooperation in a free society.

https://mises.org/library/welfare-welfare-state

[Anti Federalist]

Of course...without even looking I should have figured ever $#@!ing government was to blame.

Mutual aid cannot work in a regulatory State

To fix heathcare eliminate:

1) Accreditation Schemes
2) Licensing Schemes
3) Patent Schemes
4) Prescription Schemes
5) Drug Approval Schemes
6) Regulation of Facilities
7) Subsidies
8) Care Mandates
9) Coverage Mandates
10) Minimum Wage

Mutual aid arises in FREE MARKETS and is stifled by regulation.






https://mises.org/library/welfare-welfare-state

[tod evans]

Of course...without even looking I should have figured ever $#@!ing government was to blame.

Government and lawyers, can't forget those $#@!s.

[scm]

The first thing is to get people to take care of themselves. Stop eating poisonous foods, and doing stupid $#@!.
Second is return to a free market.

My healthcare plan is to take care of myself and to hopefully never have to walk into a hospital. Those places are known for killling people .

[Working Poor]

Here is a good video of Ron's where he talks about corporate medicine

[osan]

Maybe health care could be run like a church where one could join as a member and pay a tithe of 10% and others who need care could come in and be given care for a donation or for free if they did not have any money. For a 10% tithe one could be guaranteed health care while also giving to people in need and allowing them to pay what they can.

Graduated tax. Boo-hiss.

Consider the same applied to buying, say, and automobile. List price, $40K, but if you are very wealthy, you pay $400K and if you be po', mebbe you gits yo' ahtoe fo' nuffin'. Yeah, that's the ticket. Wealth redistribution... health redistribution... what's the diff?

I have always since a small child saw insurance as a scam no matter who is selling it be it the mob (which I would rather pay) or the government or some industry that the government owns.

And so you concoct another scam to replace the one already gracing us? Not sure where you're coming from on this one.

Tithing to ones God can and usually does bring prosperity.

Sounds like someone be lookin' to bribe her way into heaven.

Good luck with that.

No one power group should be entitled to more of my money than what ever God I subscribe to.

Have you any idea just how insanely this reads? I don't suppose you've gone 'round the bend, so I must assume this is just the product of the wrong idea at the wrong time in an obvious effort toward accomplishing the diametric opposite of each element. Well, $#@! happens, but you may want to rethink this. A lot.

I know tithing works I have done it for years. I always try to give 10% to some form of so called "charity". It has always saved me. I can attest to times being harder and breaking away from from tithing hurt me more than anything but when I got back to it things straightened out quite fast. I think tithing is one of the so called "Dynamic Laws of Prosperity" if you are into dynamics.

If it works for you, that is dandy by me. However, your suggestion, however vague, that this become the standard beyond the current rotten system makes no hay with me because it would be naught more than more unjust force. We have far too much of that already. Putting a different shade of lipstick on the pig changes nothing.

Anyway just something I have been kicking around in my head today. Tell me what you think try not to beat me up too bad please

Freedom is the only workable answer. PERIOD. Force always begets trouble and diminishes us. Force against the rights of men is a UNIVERSALLY failed strategy. It never succeeds in accomplishing anything good because it cannot, just as more water in the lungs of a drowning man will not make him less drowning.

[osan]

There are churches already doing this.

And this was also the template for "mutual aid" societies that had been around for centuries and mostly faded away post WW2.

Maybe they need to make a comeback.

Hear hear.

I support ANY solution that is based in agorist principles. Force is never the solution in such matters. Some will balk at this, citing how "some people will die if we don't..." That is almost certainly true, and so what of it? I am to surrender my sovereignty because someone over there will die if I do not? That's one of the most fidupulating demands I have ever encountered in my life. It is beyond the outrage of child-rape. It is a penultimate evil to so much as suggest a thing, the suggestion itself being a prima facie indicator of the dangerous nature of the one offering it.

[osan]

The first thing is to get people to take care of themselves.

No, it is not. The first thing is to become a true adherent of freedom. That means growing some courage, sense, integrity, responsibility, and the knowledge required to be properly free. It mean accepting the woe with the weal and leaving others to their own devices. If you want to poison yourself, then by all means do so. However, you must also accept the consequences of your choices. THAT is the mark of a freeman and not the whining, whinging, and pleading for special dispensations after your choices come back to bite you in the ass.

Stop eating poisonous foods, and doing stupid $#@!.

A seemingly sound suggestion, but a very dangerous fiat.

Second is return to a free market.

I can be on board with this one.

[Working Poor]

Graduated tax. Boo-hiss.

Consider the same applied to buying, say, and automobile. List price, $40K, but if you are very wealthy, you pay $400K and if you be po', mebbe you gits yo' ahtoe fo' nuffin'. Yeah, that's the ticket. Wealth redistribution... health redistribution... what's the diff?



And so you concoct another scam to replace the one already gracing us? Not sure where you're coming from on this one.



Sounds like someone be lookin' to bribe her way into heaven.

Good luck with that.



Have you any idea just how insanely this reads? I don't suppose you've gone 'round the bend, so I must assume this is just the product of the wrong idea at the wrong time in an obvious effort toward accomplishing the diametric opposite of each element. Well, $#@! happens, but you may want to rethink this. A lot.



If it works for you, that is dandy by me. However, your suggestion, however vague, that this become the standard beyond the current rotten system makes no hay with me because it would be naught more than more unjust force. We have far too much of that already. Putting a different shade of lipstick on the pig changes nothing.



Freedom is the only workable answer. PERIOD. Force always begets trouble and diminishes us. Force against the rights of men is a UNIVERSALLY failed strategy. It never succeeds in accomplishing anything good because it cannot, just as more water in the lungs of a drowning man will not make him less drowning.

I don't think anyone would be forced into going to a medical "church" just like nobody is force to join a religious group. I do happen to think though that people give authority over their body to medical care personnel, and the insurance industry just like people give spiritual authority to their so called god. If I am going to be force to buy medical insurance is that freedom? What if I don't want it? What if I do not worship at the alter of big pharma or insurance they have the right right now to take my freedom but unlike god they demand a higher percentage of my money.

[scm]

No, it is not. The first thing is to become a true adherent of freedom. That means growing some courage, sense, integrity, responsibility, and the knowledge required to be properly free. It mean accepting the woe with the weal and leaving others to their own devices. If you want to poison yourself, then by all means do so. However, you must also accept the consequences of your choices. THAT is the mark of a freeman and not the whining, whinging, and pleading for special dispensations after your choices come back to bite you in the ass.

Ok maybe not the first thing, but we need to wake people up (not force) them into seeing what they are doing to themselves. Part of the reason for expensive healthcare is because of so many sick people. I truly believe it's mostly the food causing most illnesses we are seeing.

[osan]

Ok maybe not the first thing, but we need to wake people up (not force) them into seeing what they are doing to themselves. Part of the reason for expensive healthcare is because of so many sick people. I truly believe it's mostly the food causing most illnesses we are seeing.

Your clarification is welcomed. My only further comment is to point out how sentence structure is so important. It was too easy to infer force from the way you put your words together. This is how communications get loused up. Choose words carefully and string them together even more so.

[Brian4Liberty]

Maybe health care could be run like a church where one could join as a member and pay a tithe of 10% and others who need care could come in and be given care for a donation or for free if they did not have any money. For a 10% tithe one could be guaranteed health care while also giving to people in need and allowing them to pay what they can.

I have always since a small child saw insurance as a scam no matter who is selling it be it the mob (which I would rather pay) or the government or some industry that the government owns.

I think any industry or government that demands and takes more than 10% of my hard earned pay should not be more worthy of my money than God. This is out of balance with the laws of nature. Tithing to ones God can and usually does bring prosperity. No one power group should be entitled to more of my money than what ever God I subscribe to. I know tithing works I have done it for years. I always try to give 10% to some form of so called "charity". It has always saved me. I can attest to times being harder and breaking away from from tithing hurt me more than anything but when I got back to it things straightened out quite fast. I think tithing is one of the so called "Dynamic Laws of Prosperity" if you are into dynamics.

Anyway just something I have been kicking around in my head today. Tell me what you think try not to beat me up too bad please

Unfortunately, every "socialized" resource or cache of money is prone to theft and abuse by those who control said money. Applies to churches and charities as well as insurance companies and government. The larger the pot of money, the more that can be stolen. And with government, it can't go out of business due to incompetence and corruption.

The key is competition and freedom of choice. When you are forced to purchase (mandates and taxes) from a "select" set of providers (or a single source), you have no choice, and there is no true competition.

[Working Poor]

every "socialized" resource or cache of money is prone to theft

I know that. It just depends on who is managing the funds for sure and also how they are held accountable. I am sure the insurance industry is a prime example of legalized theft.

[P3ter_Griffin]

I think the tithe part is bad. Better would be to charge an additional 10% or whatever for your services (and let the customers know '10% of proceeds helps others receive care'). The tithe would incentivize poor people to partake in the system and decentivize weathy individuals from doing so and imo probably cause the whole shebang to fail. With this route for every 10 people you treated you could provide service to one for free.