THINKING
“W hen ideas are neglected by those who ought to attend to them-that is to say, those who have been trained to think critically about ideas-they sometimes acquire an unchecked momentum and an irresistible power over the multitudes of men that may become too violent to be affected by rational criticism.” Isaiah Berlin We must change how we think about our governing institutions, our laws, and regulations. Who does what to who must take a back seat to the quest for improvements in our quality of life. The key point is not whether those who run our public services are elected, but whether they are producer-responsive or consumer-responsive. Services are not necessarily made to respond to the public by giving our citizens a democratic voice, and a distant and diffuse one at that, in their running; but by giving them choices, or by instituting mechanisms for publicly-approved standards and for redress when they are not attained. Government must stop inserting itself where it is not needed. People can make perfectly good choices about how to spend their health care dollars if, given a chance. Most people won’t scrimp on maintaining their health and certainly won’t on their children’s but they will be careful to get their money’s worth. Yet most health insurance experts and politicians cling to the notion that people are too dumb to make the free market work for med- ical care. Individuals should be given a real choice. In other words if you
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