The Syllogism

clipped from mises.org "The U.S. medical system, in large part, has become a socialist enterprise," Friedman ended. Friedman also once suggested a syllogism to explain the bizarre spectacle on display today of responding to problems caused by healthcare socialism with even more healthcare socialism. The syllogism goes as follows: Socialism has been a failure everywhere it has been tried; Everyone knows this; and Therefore, we need more socialism. Layers of regulation plague every aspect of medical care and health insurance in America. In the health-insurance industry, for instance, each state imposes dozens of regulatory mandates on health insurers, requiring them to include coverage of everything from massage therapy to hair implants. The reason for mandates is that the message-therapy and hair-implant industries (and many others) hire lobbyists to bribe state legislators to require insurers to cover their particular practice if they want to sell insurance within a state.