My response to the United Healthcare CEO situation from a libertarian perspective

First I want to say that while I don’t condone violence I think that the people reacting as if the CEO is not a bad guy are a little misguided.

But let’s step back, my core belief and why I’m in favor of a free market is that most people in power are narcissists and borderline evil. But that when those people are forced to compete with one another and competition is allowed to flourish we end up with a result that is better than the sum of its parts.

The problem with socialist societies is broadly that they have no ability to check the overreach of their most narcissistic elements. Sure they aren’t billionaires but they are government functionaries with a huge amount of power to help themselves and their friends and families at the expense of everyone else.

Basically in a socialist system the CEO of United Healthcare would still exist just not with money but with power. And he would actually be able to harm more people.

The problem we have with healthcare and the thing that enabled the United Healthcare system to be so bad is lack of competition first and foremost.

The purpose of markets is to compete away excess profits.

So to those who are saying the UHC CEO is a good guy who didn’t deserve what happened I think you are wrong the people who are attracted to power are generally narcissistic sociopaths who would be doing bad things in any system, it’s just that a competitive free market system forces them to provide more value than they extract.

At the same time the people who are saying we need to nationalize healthcare don’t understand that the nationalized systems have a lot of the same problems. Sure you won’t get a procedure denied but you will end up on an 18-24 month waiting list during which your tiny polyp metastasizes and you die just the same as UHC denying your claim.

The way to make this system better is with more competition.

Evil sociopathic people exist in every system it’s just that a competitive free market is the best way to keep them in check.