Taken from the article American Healthcare Fascialism, from last week...
In 1992, the Hoover Institution published an essay by Milton Friedman titled "Input and Output in Medical Care," in which Friedman documented how, at the beginning of the 20th century, about 90% of all American hospitals were private, for-profit enterprises.
Has anyone, other then Friedman, ever written about private hospitals in the early 19th century and compared them to what we have today?
Well, given that the technology back then was waaayyy inferior and medical care relies heavily on that, of course it wasnt better, but we can say that they did better than "we" do now proportionaly to the resources they had back then.
Vitor: Well, given that the technology back then was waaayyy inferior and medical care relies heavily on that, of course it wasnt better, but we can say that they did better than "we" do now proportionaly to the resources they had back then.
That is exactly what I am interested in. The only thing is, I'd really like to read something that was heavily studied with citations and sources.
jmorris84:Has anyone, other then Friedman, ever written about private hospitals in the early 19th century and compared them to what we have today?
This may be of interest to you:
http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html
While, I do like to point out that a year's worth of medical care cost $2 at the turn of the century, such an argument might come back to bite you in the ass.
In 1900, a hospital was a place that you went to to die, not to be treated. So what if they were all private...their function wasn't to keep people alive but to provide a peaceful place to pass away.
Irish Liberty Forum
Contact Tom DiLorenzo and ask him for sources. He may be willing to help you if you ask nicely.
Le Master: jmorris84:Has anyone, other then Friedman, ever written about private hospitals in the early 19th century and compared them to what we have today? This may be of interest to you: http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html
That was a very good read. Thanks!
liberty student: Contact Tom DiLorenzo and ask him for sources. He may be willing to help you if you ask nicely.
Related, but not perfectly:
We had Tom G Palmer at the Oxford Libertarian Society last week, and he did a brilliant 2h 20min lecture/questions, where he articulated a "modest" case for sacking the state based on sociology and history. It was really really good, he spoke fluently and was easy on the ears, he had innumerable interesting case studies to point to, and he advanced such an optimistic and friendly libertarianism I truly believe that many commies would have come out half-convinced, were they to have attended.
Anyway, we got to talking afterwards, principally about two things, fractional reserve banking in a free society (he is firmly on the Selgin/White free banking side calling the FRBs un-libertarian) and his description of mises.org and Austrian Economists as a "cult" (he brought up the case of Hoppe and Coase's law, and Rothbard's denunciation of everyone).
Anyway, I get onto my point which makes this vaguely relevant to your post -- he "slagged off" DiLorenzo a great deal, saying that he'd now decided he was barely worth reading, due to the level of inaccuracy he alleged him to have in his books. I was wondering to what degree this is believed to be true by people here?
I hope I don't start a Cato vs. mises.org war, we could really do without one of those.
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.