Full text of the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act

Lately it's felt like preventing the institution of socialized medicine would be as difficult as stopping an oncoming train. We might just have to suffer through a generation of waiting lists, declined care, and overseas travel for treatment in order to prove what credible healthcare economists are already telling us.

If one wants to avoid being hit by a train, the other option is to derail it before it arrives. The "Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act", a ballot initiative being advanced by Medical Choice for Arizona, would do exactly that, preventing many of the abuses associated with socialized medicine and restricting its form to either residual welfare or a voucher system.

Medical Choice for Arizona is not yet on the Web, and the Secretary of State's office has not posted the full text either. I was sent a xerox by that office, and have copied the initiative word-for-word below. Remember: you saw it here first.

Commentary to follow soon.

AN INITIATIVE MEASURE

PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA; AMENDING ARTICLE II OF THE ARIZONA CONSTITUTION BY ADDING SECTION 36 OF ARTICLE II; RELATING TO FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE.

Be it enacted by the People of Arizona:

1. Article II, Section 36: Constitution of Arizona is proposed to be added as follows if approved by the voters and on proclamation of the Governor:

ARTICLE II, SECTION 36. BECAUSE ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT THEIR HEALTH CARE, NO LAW SHALL BE PASSED THAT RESTRICTS A PERSON'S FREEDOM OF CHOICE OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS OR PRIVATE PLANS OF ANY TYPE. NO LAW SHALL INTERFERE WITH A PERSON'S OR ENTITY'S RIGHT TO PAY DIRECTLY FOR LAWFUL MEDICAL SERVICES, NOR SHALL ANY LAW IMPOSE A PENALTY OR FINE, OF ANY TYPE, FOR CHOOSING TO OBTAIN OR DECLINE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE OR FOR PARTICIPATION IN ANY PARTICULAR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM OR PLAN.

2. The Secretary of State shall submit this proposition to the voters at the next general election as provided by Article XXI, of the Constitution of Arizona.

A few more words on Arizona Libertarian Party v. Brewer

My "official" opinion as the 1st Vice Chairman of the Pima County Libertarian Party on the recent Arizona Libertarian Party v. Brewer decision is posted on the Pima County Libertarian Party weblog, however, there are a few things that I ought to say speaking for myself.

While the proximate effect of the decision is to prevent outsiders from hijacking the Libertarian ballot line, the case has much more significance as election law than it will in boosting the fortunes of the AZLP, for the simple purpose that the AZLP does not use its ballot line for anything of significance.

The AZLP does run candidates, usually underqualified ones who don't take campaigning seriously. (I was, self-consciously, one of those in 2004.) It rarely has contested primaries, and has yet to have a serious impact in a partisan race. Even moving the Overton Window, or otherwise changing the terms of debate, doesn't happen as often as it could because the Party fields candidates like Ernie Hancock or Barry Hess, clueless on the publicly relevant issues pertinent to the office sought, seemingly without reservation.

Yuri Downing was a mere gnat compared to the swarm of bees that is self-defeat. Back in 1990, Rick Tompkins, acquiring the voter list by less than ethical means, sent a mailer to every Libertarian in the state recommending they change their registrations and vote for Prescott slimeball Sam Steiger. The number of people driven off by Ernie Hancock's boorish populism is something we'll probably never know (although I've heard enough ex-Libertarians' anecdotes to put the number at more than a handful), but we do know that his war with members who merely insisted that the organizing law be followed hurt both state registrations and the the National party, causing Harry Browne to fall short of 50-state ballot access.

Libertarians have stopped suing each other, but keep shooting themselves in the foot. Mike Renzulli's motion to deny any Party support (including sales of the voter list!) to candidates who participate in Clean Elections did not receive a vote at the shambles that was the last State Convention, but the ensuing discussion was enough to drive Rick Fowlkes, our best candidate in the last two elections, over to the Republicans. Furthermore, this year, the State board made the decision for the Libertarian electorate that no Presidential primary would be held in 2008. (I'm still hoping that George Phillies or Wayne Root will have the cojones to say "we don't care".) There are better uses for my time (as a grad student working more-than-full-time) than to try to unseat the corrupt ideologues behind the decision. Hancock, for his part, is busy doing as Tompkins did, encouraging libertarians to change their registrations to vote for the paleoconservative Congressman Ron Paul in the Republican primary.

Libertarian policy solutions can succeed in Arizona, with last year's Prop. 207 being the most salient example. Libertarian candidates have no trouble getting more than their share of press when they're actually newsworthy. What's holding Libertarians back in this state is not election law, it's Libertarians. If the Party wants to advance a libertarian agenda at all--and after the 2007 State Convention, that itself is debatable--it needs to get serious about using its ballot status to run strong candidates, for appropriate offices, who threaten to take votes from the major party candidates or, even worse, get elected. Imagine that? Hold public office? How very un-Libertarian!

And how ironic it is, that the most significant policy change effected by the AZ LP is not a great advancement of liberty; it's ALP v. Brewer.

Robert McWhirter and the Pre-History of the Sixth Amendment

Maricopa County assistant legal defender (and former Federal public defender) Bob McWhirter has been making a name for himself with his irreverent, lively lectures on the historical origins of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment protections.

ACLU-AZ's Central Chapter hosted one such lecture last Saturday, and I made the drive up from Phoenix. Presenting a well-paced lecture, approachable by the audience's slouching teenagers yet satisfying to the rest of us, his reputation is deserved.

For those who won't get the chance to attend one of his lectures: a book is in the works.

Solidarity Forever, our Union Does Kids Wrong!: the Tucson Education Assocation's recipe for extortion.

Here's a recipe for extortion:

1. Set up a monopolistic public-school system. Don't provide vouchers or even tax credits to parents who take responsibility for their own childrens' education; let the double-payments trap make school choice a luxury.
   
2. Limit choice even within that system. Go out of your way to find nonsensical restrictions to place on high-performing charter schools, the better to make all options affordable to the average Joe equal.
   
3. Bundle most of a major city's schools in a single administrative district.
   
4. Although teaching is a highly individualized profession--teachers are not fungible--allow the teachers' union to impose an equal-pay-for-equal-work salary structure instead of market-oriented "merit pay", which incentivizes performance and rewards excellence.
   
5. Accept a contract without a clause preventing strikes or requiring honesty in taking of sick leave.
   

The result: Salary negotiations are handled en masse, and if the teachers' side isn't getting what it wants, it can cause massive disruption by shutting down the schools. The parents who can least accommodate having the kids home during the day--public school parents--pick up the slack, and it's only so long until the school board buckles.

I'm not about to say what sort of pay raise the TUSD teachers should get, and it's worth noting that the difference between the school board and the teachers' union is over more than just the raise.

What's clear, however, is that the current system is set up to stick it to two groups: the first being parents (largely working-class in this district), who bear the cost of these labor disputes by having to take off of work or hire sitters, and the second being the children, who lose a day of study and effectively more, once the distraction and scramble are done.

As correctly noted by the Star, last Friday was TUSD's second sickout in recent memory. If TUSD were a private school, parents would be wary. Since TUSD isn't, parents should be irate. It's high time that the stand was taken, for no more sickouts, ever. That doesn't mean to cave into every demand of the union.

The long term solution, the one that's best for parents, kids, and the community is to bust the union, gently. If the teachers are going to play hardball, with sham sick days, the district ought play right back and insist on merit pay. Moreover, and more importantly, the State should move towards full school choice--every child is in a school actively chosen by the parent--in two ways simultaneously. A goal should be set: all public schools become charters by 2015. Furthermore, a real tuition tax credit system, that gives a dollar-for-dollar tax credit with a high cap to parents, grandparents, godparents, well-meaning negihbors, and anyone else who directly pays for a kid's private education or homeschooling expenses, should be instituted, giving more families the option of free-market education.

In a market system, parent's don't have to wait for politicians to do as they ought--which rarely happens--for reform. Furthermore, they can escape schools with perennial labor problems. Most acutely, any particular school's labor problems won't disrupt a major city!

Kromko's lost his moxie.

I should probably have 'blogged about this last week, before it began being reported in bits and pieces:

After several successful alliances on local issues, the Pima County Libertarian Party asked John Kromko to run for mayor, on their ticket. This was going to happen, until the day of the deadline, when Kromko gathered his "Water Users' Bill of Rights" supporters who, for bizzare reasons, didn't like the idea. In an act of cowardice, Kromko decided against running as a Libertarian.

Someone from the Green Party supposedly told Kromko that Dave Croteau would withdraw from the race if Kromko decided to run as a Green. (What the difference is between running as a Green and running as a Libertarian, from the perspective of the Enough! crowd, is beyond me.) What a slap in the face to Dave Ewoldt and the rest who are working to put together a respectable campaign for Croteau!

What I didn't know until I picked up the paper today is that Kromko actually filed to run as a Green, and subsequently withdrew due to lack of funds. If he'd had enough moxie to run as a Libertarian, he'd be in the race--the Libertarians have had trouble finding candidates this cycle--and would have bully pulpit from which to promote his initiative. (He was also going to take Clean Elections money, so the official excuse doesn't make any sense.)

Apparently, John Kromko's courage has gone the way of his mojo. Perhaps it's time for him to retire. Perhaps this is retirement.

Your tax dollars at work.

I'm a grad student in a department at the University of Arizona that'll go unnamed for now.

In a building full of high-tech equipment, one thing stood out: the old, 1960s-vintage Western Electric model 2500 phones, in a dingy cross between tan and Pepto-Bismol pink. I took their continued presense as a sign of (much appreciated) fiscal austerity, given the department's seemingly endless budget crises.

There are still old folks out there leasing their phones, and I just found out that the department is one of them. The phones were still being rented, for over $20 per month! Assuming 50 phones in the department, this comes to $1000 per month, or $10000 per year! So much for fiscal austerity!

A young office assistant came around today with replacement phones that cost less than two months' rental on the old ones, and told me this when I asked where the old Western Electric models were going. It was so outrageous, I had to confirm it in the business office.

It would seem that a little slice of Soviet efficiency lurks wherever your tax dollars are at work!