So What if it was the States that Centralized Health Care?

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So What if it was the States that Centralized Health Care?

By Russell Arben Fox 26 September 2009 5 Comments

Adding to the many discussions thus far here at FPR about the ongoing health care debate, an open question, especially directed to Messrs Stegall, Medaille, and Iliff:

How should a distributist or localist or communitarian in America feel about proposals which would attempt to provide the same sort of equalization which Democratic party reformers are squawking about, but do so solely on a state-by-state (or perhaps region-by-region) basis?

Just more of the same? No different from any other kind of centralization? Or different in degree, but not in kind? I’m not trying to make a snark; I’m honestly curious to know. Have at me, if you please.

5 Comments »

John Médaille said:

Local and regional is better than national, so long as each locality gets to issue its own standards. The advantage of a guild is that it tends to limit its own size, to prevent dilution of ownership if for no other reason. Even a giant cooperative like Mondragon is actually a collection of some 200+ cooperatives, each with the unilateral right of secession. Vermont, eat your heart out.

# 2 October 2009 at 1:54 pm

cecelia said:

My concern for what otherwise seems like a good idea is that we already have significant inequalities state to state in per capita income, funding for schools, education attainment rates, divorce rates, rates of single parenthood, and rates of “unwed” mothers etc.
Regretably, these tend to cluster together, low spending on education clusters with low educational attainment rates, higher high school drop out rates, more single parents, more divorce, and – more lacking health insurance. Obviously, states or regions with less of a income base will spend less. This could create a situation where while everyone might get health insurance – the quality and services covered would be less in the low income states and better in the more affluent states, creating yet another regional inequality.

# 2 October 2009 at 2:25 pm