Drug Freeland 4 Freeing up Accident Insurance
Part 3 of Drug Freeland dealt with the replacement of state medicine with entrepeneurial medicine, the next step we should take before legalising drugs is reforming the health system.
Step Three-Freeing up the Accident Insurance Market
Currently, if you go out, have a few beers, smoke a joint, fall of your bike and break your leg, you are covered by taxpayer funded, Accident Compensation. Everybody pays for your vices, whether they like it or not.
In New Freeland, all insurance will be private and voluntary. If you want accident insurance, you will apply to a company who will assess your risk potential.
Drug use will of course be very relevant, so questions will be asked. If you are a drug user you may either be refused cover or asked to pay a higher premium. If you lie, you run the risk of prosecution or loss of cover.
Paying higher premiums than your unstoned friends or relying on the Sisters of Perpetual Pity to feed your family when you're off work, will do a lot to discourage drug use.
Drug use is rampant, partly because the "pleasures" are personal, while the risks are socialised.
In a truly libertarian society, risks can still be shared through voluntary insurance schemes. However risk takers will still pay a premium.
If certain drugs are as safe as their advocates claim, the risks and the insurance premiums will be low.
If the risks are as high as I believe they are, the premiums will be high.
This will encourage drug manufacturers to make their drugs as safe as possible, in order to maximise their market.
If they can't make "safe" drugs and consumers are forced to pay high premiums to cover the risk, those companies will go out of business. Sad one.
Step Three-Freeing up the Accident Insurance Market
Currently, if you go out, have a few beers, smoke a joint, fall of your bike and break your leg, you are covered by taxpayer funded, Accident Compensation. Everybody pays for your vices, whether they like it or not.
In New Freeland, all insurance will be private and voluntary. If you want accident insurance, you will apply to a company who will assess your risk potential.
Drug use will of course be very relevant, so questions will be asked. If you are a drug user you may either be refused cover or asked to pay a higher premium. If you lie, you run the risk of prosecution or loss of cover.
Paying higher premiums than your unstoned friends or relying on the Sisters of Perpetual Pity to feed your family when you're off work, will do a lot to discourage drug use.
Drug use is rampant, partly because the "pleasures" are personal, while the risks are socialised.
In a truly libertarian society, risks can still be shared through voluntary insurance schemes. However risk takers will still pay a premium.
If certain drugs are as safe as their advocates claim, the risks and the insurance premiums will be low.
If the risks are as high as I believe they are, the premiums will be high.
This will encourage drug manufacturers to make their drugs as safe as possible, in order to maximise their market.
If they can't make "safe" drugs and consumers are forced to pay high premiums to cover the risk, those companies will go out of business. Sad one.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
1/12/2007 09:11:00 PM
4 Comments:
Part 4 of the Drug Freeland trilogy! Bring it on!
Picking up where we left off in Part 3... MikeE says
Lets assume that Trevor does have an unnatural hatred of all things drug related. He still advocates the legalisation of drugs and personal ownership of ones body. What is wrong with that.
What's wrong is that Trevor's advocacy of drug legalisation doesn't ring true. It doesn't ring true because there are so many strings attached to the drug legalisation Trevor is advocating that it is unlikely ever to come to pass. And Trevor knows this. In the trade, we call this "disingenuity".
I'll repeat myself. The idea that we must restore parental authority over children... and reform the health system... and now free up accident insurance - and do all these things before we legalise drugs - is pernicious!
I'm in complete agreement with Trevor that we should take all these measures, but none of them constitutes a necessary condition for drug legalisation.
Suppose that I choose to cook up some "P" for my own personal use, and that some people down the road who I don't even know aren't good parents. Apparently, under these circumstances, Trevor thinks I should be sent to prison.
That's not what I call libertarianism.
I can understand your concerns Richard.
This is my view.
We live in a socialist society, with restrictions everywhere.
We want to elimininate those restrictions, but can only do that legislatively, if public opinion is at least partially on our side.
Public opinion will possibly tolerate lower taxes, school choice, less bureaucracy etc and maybe.. just maybe, marijuana legalisation.
What do we promote first?
While I immensely regret that drugs were ever prohibited, that fact is that they were and many people support that.
If we legalised all drugs, tomorrow, I think the ensuing surge in use would cause a public backlash against ALL our causes.
The other factor to consider, is many libertarians poor understanding of the consequences of libertarian policies.
In a true libertarian society there would be heaps of pressures against drug use, many of which would be more effective than state prohibition.
I didn't entitle the article "Drug Freeland" for nothing.
Thanks for the clarification. Now I see where you're coming from and this series of posts is making much more sense. :-)
Hey,
What is it with girls fighting?
BigMike
gross-videos.com
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