The problem with government funded health care is what you can't see. True market based competition leads to lower prices and greater innovation in all observable areas over time. That would mean more access for more people in the case of health care, but instead with deep government intrusion for decades, we have seen ever increasing prices and sluggish innovation.
Libertarian philosophy has a lot to do with a belief in sound market principles. Why should all that go out the window for health care?
The problems facing health care today, in my view, are largely a result of the free market being trampled on. People who don't really understand market principles will tell you the exact opposite, that health care has been nothing but a free for all, totally unregulated. Do you believe that?
It sounds like you might generally agree with libertarian ideas and some research on scholars like F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises might help focus your libertarian perspective.
Hayek doesn't fit in well with most Libertarians nowadays. From his "The Road to Serfdom":
There is no reason why, in a society which has
reached the general level of wealth ours has, the
first kind of security should not be guaranteed to
all without endangering general freedom; that is:
some minimum of food, shelter and clothing,
sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any
reason why the state should not help to organize a
comprehensive system of social insurance in
providing for those common hazards of life against
which few can make adequate provision.
and
Where, as in the case of sickness and accident,
neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the
efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule
weakened by the provision of assistance – where,
in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks –
the case for the state’s helping to organize a
comprehensive system of social insurance is very
strong. There are many points of detail where those
wishing to preserve the competitive system and those
wishing to super-cede it by something different will
disagree on the details of such schemes; and it is
possible under the name of social insurance to
introduce measures which tend to make competition
more or less ineffective. But there is no
incompatability in principle between the state’s
providing greater security in this way and the
preservation of individual freedom.
To the same category belongs also the increase of
security through the state’s rendering assistance
to the victims of such ‘acts of God’ as
earthquakes and floods. Wherever communal action can
mitigate disasters against which the individual can
neither attempt to guard himself nor make provision
for the consequences, such communal action should
undoubtedly be taken.
Post that in many Libertarian forums nowadays and you'll be called a leftist or statist.
I won't debate whether healthcare is better via the market model or socialized.
I try to pick my battles. In order to affect change, I personally want to focus on the what is clearly and rationally broken in our current economic model (which are plentiful in our society).
I'm yet to be convinced that a pushing for a market-based model is ideal for healthcare in the USA given almost everything I've read about how healthcare is operating in other countries.
But these analogies in Europe, Canada and the USA are all in the context of a mixed economy and not pure-state or pure-markets.
Therefore, what I would debate between given the option of having center-left healthcare (Canada/Europe) vs center-right healthcare (USA), I would most certainly support center-left; while simultaneously fighting to reduce government in most other areas.
The problem with government funded health care is what you can't see. True market based competition leads to lower prices and greater innovation in all observable areas over time. That would mean more access for more people in the case of health care, but instead with deep government intrusion for decades, we have seen ever increasing prices and sluggish innovation.
Libertarian philosophy has a lot to do with a belief in sound market principles. Why should all that go out the window for health care?
The problems facing health care today, in my view, are largely a result of the free market being trampled on. People who don't really understand market principles will tell you the exact opposite, that health care has been nothing but a free for all, totally unregulated. Do you believe that?
It sounds like you might generally agree with libertarian ideas and some research on scholars like F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises might help focus your libertarian perspective.