McMaken traces social insurance to Bismarck's 1880s scheme to bind citizens to the state, then closes with Mises' 1944 prediction that a dependent population won't vote to dismantle it.
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Ryan McMaken took aim at three persistent myths about American healthcare in a talk recorded June 27 in Windham, New Hampshire. The first myth, he said, is that the U.S. has a free market in healthcare. The second is that the system is uniquely broken. The third is that government intervention is the only fix.
McMaken traced the roots of social insurance not to progressive reformers but to Otto von Bismarck, who in the 1880s designed Germany's welfare programs to bind citizens to the state "by the chains of gratitude." The goal was political control, not public health.
He closed with a 1944 prediction from Ludwig von Mises: once half the population depends on government healthcare, no political coalition will ever vote to dismantle it. The talk was sponsored by Joe and Tracy Matarese.
The Mises Institute, which hosted the event, promotes teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, and private property order.
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