Effectively weaving policy analysis, personal anecdotes, American history, and political polemic, FOR THE HURT OF MY PEOPLE (Original Conservatism and Better, Simpler Healthcare) by physician and Mormon lay preacher Joseph Q. Jarvis is an impassioned argument that healthcare reform is the most important issue facing America today. So convinced is Dr. Jarvis of his Bible-based conservative position that he argues that Americans should vote for political candidates, whether Republican or Democrat, solely on the basis of their position on health policy—specifically, on whether they support a single-pay system run by the states and financed entirely through taxes.
To support his case, Dr. Jarvis cites some disturbing statistics: that healthcare in America costs more than in any other developed nation; that the most common cause of personal bankruptcy is debt related to illness or injury; and that about 250,000 deaths in the United States every year are due to preventable injury of hospitalized patients. Unfortunately, Dr. Jarvis’s diagnosis of the causes of US healthcare failure is often wrong-headed. For instance, he writes, “We need to drop the pretense of markets in health care…and adopt a different model of healthcare in which cooperation and the needs of patients come first.” But, as he himself notes, a core problem in American healthcare is the role of insurance companies, which most Americans depend on to pay their medical bills. The issue, as many economists have noted, is that American insurance companies do not compete with one another to offer healthcare packages to patients because the relevant legislation allows them to, often literally, get away with murder. This is a textbook example of crony capitalism, but that term appears nowhere in this book, with Jarvis instead using the phrase “corporate welfare.” But, whatever the label, businesses lobbying for State protection to maximize profits is the very antithesis of a free market.
Dr. Jarvis thus sets up a straw-man to argue against throughout his book. Moreover, despite reiterating that America’s healthcare system compares badly to other developed countries, he appears to have done little research about top-ranked healthcare in nations such as Japan, Singapore, or Sweden. This would have shown that the free market actually supplies more efficient health services than the government. (The Healing of America by T.R. Reid, The Welfare of Nations by James Bartholomew, and Affordable Excellence by William Heseltine offer much more detailed insights on this issue.) Nonetheless, Dr. Jarvis, who has been lobbying for healthcare reform for over 30 years, has usefully highlighted the political corruption in both parties that needlessly takes thousands of American lives every year.
In his FOR THE HURT OF MY PEOPLE (Original Conservatism and Better, Simpler Healthcare), Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis–who has been lobbying for healthcare reform for over 30 years–has usefully highlighted the political corruption in both parties that needlessly takes thousands of American lives every year.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader