Pure Capitalism would lead to Armageddon: Health Care

Health Care

This is a series of objections, starting with the common misconception that capitalism and freedom would hurt everyone, especially the poor, creating unheardof poverty for all. See the initial post here and the entire category here.

Now things get tricker. I'd advise you to listen to Walter Blocks lecture on Health Economics for the full story. Free societies would probably organise health care as insurance schemes (which, technically, is what the State is doing, although mixing it up with other expenses); you pay a premium upfront, and when you're in need of certain health care measures, the insurance company will cover the costs according to the initial agreement. 

This normally unleashes a multitude of insults, mainly regarding how such systems won't work because they're not working in the U.S. 

False. The U.S health care system is not even remotely close to what a free society probably would create. It's completely jammed with government regulations, AMA (the most powerful Union in the U.S) restricting output and pushing prices up, and inflation/low-interest-environment killing the fixed-income business model of Insurance Companies. 

Another point that Walter Block addresses is what insurances cover. The comparison is Home Insurance; you only really use it for big things, such as earthquakes, heavy damages or in case your house should burn down. If a window breaks, you'd just hire someone to fix it rather than having an insurance policy covering that. But in health care, somehow the policy covers every singly visit to your physician (party, obviously, because prices are artificially jacked up) - obviously, such schemes are gonna need higher premiums. Which is why health insurance in the U.S. is so expensive. 

Rationale here being that if you would have an insurance policy that covered every tiny damage to your house, it'd be awfully expensive - just like health care is today. Thus, in a free society, probably, people would use health insurance for big things like cancer, broken limbs, having a baby etc rather then for catching the flue or regular check-ups. This would then consistute smaller premiums, being affordable to the average person (there's a great Mises Daily that deals with how people organised Welfare before the Welfare State)