Voluntaryism Sample Chapter - Without "Government" What Would We Do About Healthcare?
A Sample Chapter from My Upcoming Book: Voluntaryism - How the Only "ISM" Fair for Everyone Would Lead to Harmony, Prosperity and Good Karma for All!
Etienne Note: With our IndieGoGo campaign for Voluntaryism ending in Five (5) days, I am releasing a sample chapter and a progress report on how the book is progressing. My goal is to finish up by late January. I am behind because I have kept up publishing the Daily News and Five Meme Friday but I am contemplating taking a break to devote myself 100% to the book. In our weekly Five Meme Friday newsletter, I am going to drop a few of the dozens of memes and visualizations that we have either created from scratch, pro-modified, or recreated to get the high resolution we need for the book.
In the chapter below, you can get a feel for a series of chapters where we deal with the specific “hard questions” of how the free market and REAL freedom would deliver better outcomes than monopoly “government” in Healthcare, Roads and Highways, Policing, Primary Education, and National Defense in some specific examples of chapters that have already been completed.
Each of these chapters follow the same format: Introduction to the issue, How the “Government” Ruins It, The Voluntaryist and Free Market Alternatives, Voluntaryism in Action (how the free market is already providing better alternatives), Transition Strategies, FAQs, and Resources for a Deeper Dive
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The book is backed up by both a dedicated video channel on Odysee AND the upcoming upgraded version of our Liberator Flash Drive which will be expanded to 128GBs to include the companion material from the book.
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Without “Government” What Would We Do About Healthcare?
A sample chapter from Etienne de la Boetie2’s upcoming book: Voluntaryism - How the Only “ISM” Fair for Everyone Leads to Harmony, Prosperity, and Good Karma for All!
At the risk of making an absolutist statement, everyone wants good health and some assurance that when they come down with some sort of imbalance or dis-ease, they (or their loved ones) will have access to the care they need. Unfortunately, much like every other area of the human experience, our desire for survival has been co-opted by the State, supposedly for our own protection, but in ways that ultimately harm the population as a whole and make health care more expensive than it should be.
Instead of an open, competitive, free market in healthcare where competition between providers and multiple schools of medical thought compete to see who can produce the best outcomes for patients, we have a strictly controlled market of endless regulations that favor established players. Instead of competing schools of medical thought, we have a government-granted monopoly for allopathic drug-based medicine and mandatory vaccines that have been linked to neurological issues and life-long negative health outcomes.
Health Care
In our book "Government" - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! we make the case that "government" is best considered a technique for robbing and controlling populations. Whether you believe that or not, join in a little thought experiment: If that is the case, then, of course, the "government" would have little incentive to have their tax-slave populations be healthy and have clear thinking.
If the population at large feels like crap and is unhealthy, they are less likely to revolt and are more likely to be immobile on the couch and easily swayed by political propaganda.
Etienne Note: In the physical book, you can click on the QR code with your phone to open supporting multimedia. In the ePub and PDF you can click on the play button, which, in this case, screen-pops a short 5:25 video on the death of lodge practice from our video channel of companion media. Everything works, so give it a try!
Regardless of your opinion on why the government is specifically adopting policies that promote dis-ease, the government's policies are definitely increasing the cost of healthcare, reducing availability, stifling market innovations, and producing negative health outcomes. Here are some specific examples:
Monopoly "Government" Medicine
Many people are surprised to learn that there are many different schools of medical thought vs. the monopoly AMA system that has been enshrined by law into American medicine. These include:
• Functional Medicine - A medical practice or treatments that focus on optimal functioning of the body and its organs, usually involving systems of holistic or alternative medicine.
• Naturopathic Medicine - A system of medicine that emphasizes natural remedies and the elimination of toxins and optimum nutrition to help the body heal itself.
• Orthomolecular Medicine - When the body is in dis-ease, eliminate toxins, optimize nutrition through vitamin supplementation and let the body heal itself.
These systems compete with the AMA's monopoly flavor:
Allopathic Medicine - A school of medical thought attempting to rebrand itself as "Evidence-Based Medicine" but also known as Western Medicine, Modern Medicine, and Rockefeller Medicine. Allopathic Medicine is essentially focused on treating patients with vaccines, chemotherapy, surgeries, and patented drugs vs. treating the root cause of disease, which is frequently the result of poor nutrition, sugar, and toxins in the food supply, and the harmful effects of allopathic medicine's chemotherapy, vaccines, and drugs.
As a matter of fact, under our current allopathic medicine monopoly, the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer, is Iatrogenesis, or death by medical error.
In a free market, we would have a competition between these schools of medical thought to see which one produces better health outcomes for patients, but crony interests behind patented drug-based medicine, led by the Rockefeller family, lobbied, and likely bribed, the "government" to give the American Medical Association (AMA) a monopoly on the licensure of physicians, the accreditation of medical schools, the ability to prescribe, and the ability to be reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance.
In addition to pushing aside what this author believes to be less-harmful and better ways of treating dis-ease, the monopoly drives costs through the roof by artificially limiting the number of doctors, mandating doctor visits and prescriptions for commonly used drugs and antibiotics, imposing a myriad of regulations on building and running hospitals, and dozens of other "government" interventions that drive up the cost of healthcare.
According to a 2007 study by McKinsey & Company, physician compensation bumps up healthcare spending in America by $58 billion annually, on average, because U.S. doctors make twice as much as their OECD peers.
Making matters worse, the government's ridiculous court system throws out the notion of "Buyer Beware" with unbelievable judgments against physicians, many of them deserving of blame, but the judgments raise insurance costs for all doctors, and costs are passed on to consumers. This has spawned a dynamic known as "defensive medicine" where doctors order the maximum number of tests and procedures in an attempt to insulate themselves from malpractice claims.
One final example of government policy ruining healthcare: In the 1970s, when the government imposed wage and price controls to combat the inflation caused by their own monopoly government money, businesses that couldn't raise wages began competing with non-cash benefits like healthcare, and "first dollar" health insurance plans became the norm. While this benefit is great for those individuals whose companies still provide that level of coverage, it has somewhat crippled customer scrutiny of the doctor's and hospital's charges since customers aren't actually paying the bill.
Government Food - Another “weapon of war” in this battle for good health and nutrition is diet – you really are what you eat. For a large part of human evolution, humans only had access to real foods found in nature. This has changed entirely within the past 100 years with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which has brought forth a tidal wave of processed, refined carbohydrates, meat and dairy adulterated with antibiotics and hormones, toxic herbicides like glyphosate and atrazine, and foods engineered with chemicals like glutamates and/or sugar/salt – the combination of which hacks the brain's satiety signals, leading to overeating and metabolic issues, and setting the stage for all sorts of dis-ease.
Of course, this radical shift in the human diet was heavily influenced by the U.S. federal government. First off, Big Agriculture ("Big Ag") is a product of government intervention, notably corn, meat, dairy and soybean subsidies that favored and subsidized largescale corporate farmers over family farms. The U.S government spends $38 billion each year to subsidize the meat and dairy industries, but only 0.04 percent of that (i.e., $17 million) each year to subsidize fruits and vegetables. It has been estimated that a $5 Big Mac would cost $12 if the retail price included hidden expenses that meat producers offload onto society, including the socialization of the healthcare costs of people who choose to eat poorly at the expense of those who eat healthy diets in moderation. These subsidies enabled politically-connected food producers willing to suck off the tit of the taxpayer, to overtake the food supply with genetically-modified crops that are resistant to the chemical poisons they are using in agriculture; this corruption also tarnished the entire food supply with toxic vegetable seed oils -- think canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, etc. Until 100 or so years ago, we consumed about 3% of our diet in these polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), but today, that number is closer to 20%.
Government Water - Most counties in the U.S. suffer under regulations that mandate that fluoridation chemicals be added to the water supply ostensibly to prevent cavities even though 98% of Western Europe has rejected the practice. The substance used the most is a toxic slurry of chemicals known as fluorosilicic acid, which is usually the unfiltered toxic waste byproduct of the aluminum and phosphate fertilizer industries. The Fluoride Action Network has organized thousands of doctors, scientists, chemists, and environmental toxicologists into a campaign to end the practice because it lowers IQ in children by around 7 IQ points and causes other health issues ranging from kidney disease to gastrointestinal effects.
Here is a brief summary from the organization’s website on just the neurological impact:
“As of June 18th 2022, a total of 85 human studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence. Of these investigations, 76 studies have reported that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ in humans. The studies which reported an association of reduced IQ with exposure to fluoride, are based on IQ/cognitive examinations of 28,234 children (73 studies) and 689 adults (3 studies).”
These are the results for public tap water in Quincy, Illinois, near Chicago. But enter ANY zip code in the Environmental Working Group's Tap Water Database and the results are horrifying.
Mandatory Vaccines - The U.S. Government currently recommends a total of 76-80 doses of 18 vaccines for kids 0-18, which State health departments then mandate into law. These vaccines are legally classified as "unavoidably unsafe." A study done for the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care System from 2007-2010 estimated that the government's reporting system for deaths and adverse events from vaccines only captures 1% of all vaccine injuries.
Note: This Slide References This Study and This Study.
There have been a few studies that compared unvaccinated vs. vaccinated populations, notable the 2007 Generation Rescue survey of 11,000+ households in Cal-Oregon and the 2019-2020 Pilot Survey of Unvaccinated Americans by The Control Group Project.
The Generation Rescue survey found:
Vaccinated boys were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder (RR 2.55) -Vaccinated boys were 224% more likely to have ADHD (RR 3.24) -Vaccinated boys were 61% more likely to have autism (RR 1.61)
The Control Group Survey found that certain chronic health conditions such as asthma and diabetes, that affect roughly 10% of the vaccinated population, are virtually non-existent in the unvaccinated population. Summary Slides Here.
Regulations and Cost - The U.S. government intervenes in the healthcare economy on almost every front from regulations around the construction of hospitals to which Doctors can prescribe and be reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid and insurance. As a result, healthcare is more inefficient and more expensive than ever before, leading to the clamoring by some for the U.S. “government” to adopt a single-payer healthcare system, modeled after some socialist European “states” which we cover below in the FAQ section
Licensure, Prescriptions and Intellectual Property - At an institutional level, in concert with the scam of higher level indoctrination (“college”), the “government” artificially limits the supply of doctors by requiring them to complete expensive, mandatory programs at “licensed” and “approved” medical schools. And naturally, the number of individuals able and willing to jump through the monopoly AMA hoops to become a doctor, as well as the exorbitant cost and time required, all but ensures doctor shortages and higher prices. Of course, we aren’t arguing that doctors shouldn’t get training, but rather that the free market (the sum of all voluntary human interaction) is far better suited to deliver beneficial (and cost-effective) results than an inflexible “State” mandated monopoly. Another scam that raises costs for everyone is prescription medicine. The requirement of prescriptions is another way for drug companies to charge higher prices by artificially limiting the supply and requiring prescriptions for innocuous things, like diabetes test strips or insulin syringes and supplies. These requirements force individuals to pay for a doctor's visit, driving costs higher for everyone.
The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective pioneered DIY Pharmaceuticals with their EpiPencil Recipe, where anyone can make their own EpiPencil for around $30 vs. $300
The final government intervention is intellectual property, which we cover in more detail in another chapter, but suffice to say that intellectual property drives up the cost of routine medicines.
A couple of well-known examples: The manufacturer of EpiPens, Mylan, led by the daughter of a US Senator, raised the price from $57 to $300 in 2016, a 500% increase since 2009. In 2015, a former hedge fund manager bought Daraprim, a 62-year old malaria drug, and raised the price by 5,000% from $13.50 a pill to $750. Eli Lilly's Humalog insulin first entered the market at $20/vial in 1996; a single vial rose to $332 in 2019, a 1000% increase, despite the formula remaining exactly the same. The price came down in 2023 to $66 when insulin makers fell under a Medicaid rebate scheme enforced by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and would have had to pay hundreds of millions.
Government Sponsored Euthanasia - Because organized crime "governments" over-promise what can reasonably be delivered, they frequently face shortfalls in what they have allocated for healthcare and are forced to ration care or even promote euthanasia as the socialist governments of the UK and Canada are openly doing.
When Euthanasia Becomes Public Policy - Euthanasia in Socialist Canada has Expanded from 1,018 Cases Per Year to 13,241 per Year in 2022 A recent example of this would be the case of Alfie Evans from the United Kingdom. Alfie was an infant boy with a rare neurodegenerative disorder, requiring him to be on life support. At the end of 2017, however, the High Court in London ruled to remove the parental rights of Alfie’s parents and required the hospital to remove the infant’s ventilator, quickly leading to his death. Reasonable people can disagree on what they would do in such a situation or on the quality of Alfie's life, but one point remains clear: the free market provides choice, whereas the “State” provides dictates. Another example from the UK, during "The Covid," the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) issued a directive requiring them to discharge all patients deemed to not require a hospital bed, forcing thousands of patients into care homes. Essentially, simultaneously, the NHS buys a two-year supply of Midazolam, a commonly used sedative drug in palliative care for dying patients in the United Kingdom and for euthanasia. The drug is also used in the United States for lethal injections. The NHS will also buy additional stocks of Midazolam from the French. Over the previous five years, about 15,000 prescriptions for Midazolam to be used outside of hospital had been written each month in England. In April of 2020, 38,582 prescriptions were made – more than twice the February figure leading to widespread deaths that were then blamed on "Covid".
The Voluntaryist & Free Market Alternatives
One of the attributes that define voluntaryist solutions vs. the top-down authoritarian plans of socialism and "government" is that voluntaryists are not promising or seeking to achieve utopia. Rather, we are cognizant of the market forces that allow the best and most creative and innovative solutions to bubble to the surface.
A Free Market in Medicine - The easiest solution is a free market in medicine where different schools of medical thought could compete to see which school produced better health outcomes. Without accreditation, we could eliminate the physician shortage and lower both medical school costs and physician salaries. Without Intellectual Property, we could reduce drug costs and without FDA regulations we could reduce the cost that is required to develop new drugs and bring them to market. Without mandatory vaccines, we could reduce the neurological issues and illnesses associated with vaccines while simultaneously reducing the costs associated with the mandatory vaccines themselves and the payments made to damaged children and grieving parents through the government's secret vaccine court.
Mutual Aid Societies - Covered in more detail in the chapter Social Security, Charity and Helping the Poor but deserving of a mention here, Mutual Aid Societies, called friendly societies in the UK and Fraternal orders or lodges in the US, have been providing health insurance and death benefits prior to the revolutionary war. Participants pay a monthly contribution similar to the government's mandatory workers compensation insurance today, but the workers have a competitive market of mutual aid societies to choose from. These flourished in the early 20th century and still exist today in various flavors. Famous examples include Masons, Knights of Columbus, Foresters, Odd Fellows, Woodmen, Workmen, Sons of Italy, Scots’ Charitable Society, Rebekahs, Moose, Elks, Mosaic Templars of America, Eagles, and Hibernians. Briefly defined, mutual aid societies were voluntary, community organizations formed to provide mutual aid, health care, insurance, and otherwise assistance to individuals in their respective communities. The mutual aid societies frequently employed a full-time doctor to care for their members, known as lodge practice.
In David Beito's article Lodge Doctors and the Poor, he gives some examples of the system:
In 1915, for example, Dr. S.S. Goldwater, Health Commissioner of New York City, went so far as to assert that in many communities it had become “the chosen or established method of dealing with sickness among the relatively poor.” In the Lower East Side of New York City, he noted, 500 physicians catered to Jewish societies alone. Among blacks in New Orleans there were over 600 fraternal societies with lodge practice during the 1920s. Nationally, the two leading providers of lodge practice among native whites were the Foresters and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. By 1910, both organizations had over 2,000 doctors under contract to look after the medical needs of about 600,000 members.
Lodge doctors flourished until the 1910s, when non-lodge doctors launched an all-out war against lodge practice which was hurting their business. Throughout the country, medical associations imposed a range of sanctions against lodge doctors, including expulsion from the association and denial of hospital facilities. In certain instances, campaigns were organized to deny patient care, even in emergencies, to members of offending lodges. Mutual aid societies could flourish again today, and using computers, software, internet connectivity, and payment processing would be even easier to set up and manage at a greater scale than in the past.
Genuine Charity - Individuals tend to be giving in nature, and many strongly dislike seeing their fellow man hurting, impoverished, or homeless -- as an item of proof, in 2019 alone, "Americans" donated ~$427 billion to charity even after the theft of inflation and confiscatory taxation. So, when the welfare state didn’t exist and people were in need, communities, individuals and religious organizations often stepped in to fill the gap, and without the coercion inherent in state-sponsored schemes. In the modern day, many voluntaryists have their own “mutual aid societies,” coordinated mostly by the Internet and social media including both co-authors of this article who are in separate mutual aid societies (Caledonia and P.A.Z.NIA) where we have both provided aid to members in need.
Wealthy = Healthy - There are a lot of reasons why wealthier people live longer and have higher quality of life. A study on cardiovascular disease published in JAMA found: "Altogether, an increase in wealth was associated with protection against cardiovascular diseases and a decrease in wealth was associated with cardiovascular risk." “Decreases in wealth are associated with more stress, fewer healthy behaviors, and less leisure time, all of which are associated with poorer cardiovascular health,” said Andrew Sumarsono at the University of Texas Southwestern’s Division of Hospital Medicine.
By getting rid of the government's confiscatory taxation and inflationary money system while simultaneously freeing the economy from monopoly privileges, the malinvestment of government spending, and bureaucratic regulations to name but a few policies that stifle economic growth, we could unleash an economic renaissance that would lift all boats. A wealthier population would be less stressed, have more leisure time, and could afford healthier, organic food and better health care from a greater universe of providers. Finally, a competitive job market where employers would have to compete with new market entrants would drive up wages and cover more people with better health insurance while higher disposable income would make more money available for charity that would be better targeted by individual donors "on-the-ground" in their communities vs. the inefficient criminal middleman of Washington DC.
Voluntaryism In Action
One huge benefit of the Information Age is the proliferation of information. No matter what the subject, the motivated, self-directed learner can take their education into their own hands. And, just as bitcoin enables the individual to be his/her own bank, technology and information today enable the individual to be their own doctor/ pharmacist! While that is certainly a positive, these solutions were, of course, necessitated by “government” intervention in the first place.
Etienne Note: This QR code and clickable image play a 32-minute video on the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which has all-inclusive, transparent pricing on every surgery they provide.
Free Market Medical Services - The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is the best-known example of free market medical services in the United States. In business since 1997, the 35,000+ square foot, physician-owned surgical center has become a national model for posting transparent all-inclusive prices for surgeries on-line where prospective clients can find the total cost of a procedure including the surgeon, anesthesiology, follow up costs and facility fee. The center has raised prices only one-time since 1997 to reflect inflation and boasts the lowest infection rate in the nation 0.00% vs. a national average of 2.6%.
DIY Pharmaceuticals and DIY Dental Care - The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective (FTVC) was founded as a response to the fascist, socialist nature of the current American healthcare system. They gained notoriety in 2016 when they released the plans to their $30, do-it-yourself, EpiPencil, after the EpiPen’s manufacturer Mylan raised the price from $50 to $318, virtually overnight. The FTVC’s current projects include the Apothecary Microlab, a 3D-printed lab that is capable of synthesizing specific medications, such as Naloxone (used to reverse opiate overdoses) and pyrimethamine (an HIV/AIDS medication). They also provide the instructions for creating a nano silver fluoride tooth seal.
All type 1 diabetics require insulin to live, and thankfully, the Open Insulin Project, a group of Bay Area biohackers, is aiming to provide them with a potential option: make your own. At the time this book goes to press, they have figured out the process to produce small amounts of insulin, but it’s still early on. Sydney, Australia, grammar students under University guidance have shown how simple it is to make a version of the life-saving medicine Daraprim, mentioned above, for $2 a pill after it rose 5000 percent in a single year from $13.50 to $750 a pill.
Direct Primary Care - Due to the sheer difficulty of complying with suffocating regulations, many doctors are ridding their clinics of health insurance altogether by switching over to Direct Primary Care. That is, they charge a monthly fee, rather than accepting health insurance, and patients just come in when they need to be seen.
Health Sharing Cooperatives - Another similar market alternative that’s seen popularity is “health sharing” "insurance" cooperatives; these not-for-profit, often religious organizations are sometimes the only affordable option for individuals, as health insurance premiums continue to skyrocket. One way to understand health sharing is as a legal loophole; these organizations use different verbiage and terminology (i.e. deductible vs. personal responsibility) to avoid the regulatory burdens associated with traditional health insurance.
Crowdhealth has both fiat and bitcoin options -- probably one of the only ways you can pay your health "insurance" with bitcoin. Members pay a monthly fee, and then when in need, members work with Crowdhealth to negotiate cheaper prices than what would be offered through traditional health insurance. Then, Crowdhealth puts out a donation request for the member-in-need. Crowdhealth, as of this writing, has a 4.7 star (out of 5) rating on Trustpilot with 176 reviews as another example of how the market provides a way of evaluating healthcare options.
Health Savings Accounts - Health savings accounts (HSA) are a market-based solution to the "first-dollar" third-payer insurance where the customer, the patient, has no incentive to scrutinize the costs. With an HSA, an employer purchases a lower cost policy, albeit with a higher deductible and then gives the employee part of the savings as a cash contribution into a tax-free health savings account that can be used to pay for qualified medical expenses including the higher-cost deductible, glasses, contact lenses, prescriptions, etc. The patient is now a customer again with an incentive to get the best price as the employer's yearly contribution, and any contributions that the employee makes, rolls over and continues to build in the tax-deferred account. You can even pay for non-qualified expenses, but you will need to pay regular income taxes on those withdrawals - the 20% federal tax penalty will not apply if you are at least age 65. You can also use an HSA to pay with pre-tax dollars for qualified long-term care insurance premiums.
Transition Strategies
Daniel Dennett famously said: "There's simply no polite way to tell people they have dedicated their lives to an illusion" and it is truly tragic that so many people have become reliant on Medicare and Medicaid for their healthcare. Unfortunately, as knowledge of the illegitimacy and criminality of "government" become widely understood, and more and more people quit paying their "taxes" (theft), these systems are going to collapse. On a personal level, your strongest strategy is to get yourself into the best possible physical health by eliminating the toxins in processed foods and "public" water. Begin exercising regularly, getting plenty of sunshine and fresh air, meditating, and developing a positive outlook on life so you aren't reliant on the monopoly healthcare system. Do-it-yourself. Be your own expert. Don’t trust, verify.
On the national and State level, our strongest strategy is to deregulate healthcare as widely as possible.
Suffice it to say, if a market demand for a good/service exists in society, some entrepreneur (or multiple entrepreneurs!) will rise to the occasion and fill the need in the market, especially if it’s something as important and fundamental as human health. With deregulation and de-monopolization of the healthcare system we could bring back mutual aid societies and lodge practice, see lower-cost, free-market hospitals and surgeries similar to the Surgery Center of Oklahoma flourish, reduce the costs of medications by eliminating prescription requirements and intellectual property, and have more cost-effective medical education available by eliminating accreditation requirements which would produce more doctors without the allopathic medical biases of the monopoly system. Finally, getting rid of vaccine mandates would reduce the long-term health and neurological issues associated with vaccines.
Healthcare FAQs
Without "Government" How Could We Guarantee That Everyone Would Be Taken Care Of? Wouldn't Universal Healthcare Be Better?
One of the biggest differences between voluntaryists and socialists is that voluntaryists aren't promising utopia. We are simply advocating freedom and explaining how the free market delivers better outcomes than centrally-planned "government" schemes based on extortion. Yes, "governments" have created a variety of healthcare systems in a variety of countries that are, in some cases, providing universal healthcare to all of their citizens, BUT all of these systems are built on indoctrination and extortion, and many, like the U.S. system, have long-term insolvency issues. Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal are examples where the "government" was forced to cut and/or ration care dramatically and/or raise copayments. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it best: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Health, biology, and physiology are huge, complex subjects that people study for their entire lives. How on earth could I find truth in these areas, and begin to come up with my own solutions without AMA-accredited "Doctors"? First, you aren't going to be on the journey alone! The U.S is replete with private, third-party groups that evaluate and certify professionals, products, and even foodstuffs. Some of these include: The Non-GMO Project - Certifying products as non-GMO after the government's agencies refused to Underwriters Laboratories - Certifying electrical equipment for the insurance industry and Consumer Reports that tests and reviews various products. There is no reason to assume that because the AMA loses its monopoly that new organizations wouldn't pop up to rate individual physicians and schools of medical thought. There are already eight websites that rate physicians and four that rate hospitals which are probably providing more valuable information than whether a particular Doctor earned a degree from a monopoly AMA medical school.
Resources for a Deeper Dive
Articles: Lodge Doctors and the Poor by David Beito From Fraternal Mutual Aid to Welfare State - A Review of David Beito’s From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-19674 by James C. Wilson
Audio: Sheldon Richman discusses the history of Mutual Aid Societies and their impact on 19th century society The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective with Dr. Michael Laufer - The Vonu Podcast
Videos: The Surgery Center of Oklahoma - Free Market Provider with Transparent All-Inclusive Pricing and How Government "Solved" the Health Care Crisis - The Death of Lodge Practice
Books: From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 by David T. Beito (In the Liberator)
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