Health Care

Libertarian Party - We favor a free market health care system.

Libertarian Party of Minnesota - we advocate the deregulation of the health care industry. Government intervention, restriction, and protectionism in the health care industry has driven up costs and decreased the supply of doctors, nurses, technicians, hospitals, and medical insurance.

Libertarian Party - oppose occupational and other licensing laws.

Libertarian Party of Minnesota - elimination of protectionist occupation licensing and mandatory certification laws

We support pilot demonstrations that can provide models for licensing-free medical marketplaces. We recognize the total elimination of medical licensing laws throughout the U.S. may not be politically feasible at this time because there are currently no countries, states or regions that can serve as a model for eliminating licensing. Perceived market imperfections may include consumers requiring some licensure laws to assure medical professionals have been adequately trained.

Meanwhile, we support other steps that can provide economic freedom, increase supply, satisfy demand and create competition among health care professionals. These include relaxing licensing restrictions against foreign-trained physicians, physicians from other states, telemedicine, and mid-level clinicians, and increasing medical school enrollments, internships and residencies. As long as medical licensing exists, competition is essential, especially since the FDA often limits treatments if not prescribed by a physician (e.g, HBOT). There are also many other regulations that limit competition in the health care industry. We also support repealing state regulation of medical facilities, and insurance and drugs.

The two major parties caused America’s health care “crisis” by creating monopolies (and oligopolies). Republicans support private monopolies, while seeking to cut costs by promoting private insurance with less coverage and limiting malpractice awards. Democrats support public monopolies or nationalization (e.g., insurance), while seeking increased government coverage with price controls that will further erode quality.

We disagree with the economic policies of the two major parties that create monopolies by restricting supply to meet only perceived need and shortages of physicians and medical facilities. There is no evidence to support their prevailing economic theory that “physician supply can create its own demand” (i.e., which means increasing the supply of doctors and hospitals will just motivate them to convince “ignorant” consumers to order more unnecessary and expensive health care).

Restricting supply has inflated costs and ballooned debt. It has also increased unmet demand in rural and poor urban areas, preventive care, geriatrics, house calls, cost management, computerized medicine, entrepreneurism, medical supply, environmental protection, public-health services, mental institutions, drug programs, military and foreign service, and pandemic control.

We recognize the model for increasing supply to meet demand as Europe, especially Germany. Continental Western Europe has 40% more physicians and hospital beds per population size relative to the U.S. Meanwhile, European countries typically receive health care at prices that are less than one-half of those in the U.S. and they spend less than one-half as much per person on health care overall.

We support the removal of federal entry barriers to foreign-trained physicians. The integration of the European Union allowed high numbers of doctors to emigrate from former communist countries in Eastern Europe into continental Western Europe. The U.S. also used a high percentage of foreign-trained physicians to meet the increased need created by Medicare and Medicaid since 1965.

We support current efforts to increase workforce mobility by recognizing licenses issued by other states. We support the ability of comparably-licensed health care professionals to practice across state lines, including telemedicine.

We support current efforts by organizations representing mid-level clinicians — such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives, physical therapists, podiatrists, and optometrists — to continue to achieve broader scopes of practice for their members, including performing many of the duties performed by physicians. However, we oppose efforts by these same groups to limit the scopes of practice of other clinicians, and raise education requirements for new entrants into their professions.

We support the education of all qualified medical school applicants. Even if medical licensing could be ended, preferential subsidies for training only students favored by medical schools will limit the supply of trained doctors. We support the free flow of qualified students into medical colleges. Germany is now relaxing entrance requirements for domestic students. We encourage medical colleges to complete the education of all qualified medical school students. We would oppose any efforts to unnecessarily flunk students out of medical colleges, like now currently occurring in France. We would also oppose any efforts to increase the failure rate of medical graduates on licensing tests.

We oppose the current U.S. system that allows the American Medical Association and other professional associations to accredit and limit the number of U.S. medical schools and students. If government accreditation is deemed necessary, it should not be conducted by medical special interests, and the government should approve all schools that meet standards. The medical schools themselves should determine the number of students, specific educational needs and costs for training.

So as to not discourage new students from pursuing the health care professions, subsidies (e.g. vouchers) may be needed to maintain a level playing field with past graduates who have already had their currently very expensive education subsidized. But subsidies should no longer be granted directly to medical schools, but rather follow only students, to promote admissions and competition at medical schools. Subsidies should be phased down or even out on a per student basis, especially as medical education becomes more competitive.

We oppose the current system that allows the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), comprised of the American Medical Association and other professional associations, to accredit and limit the number of graduate medical training programs (i.e., internships, residencies, and fellowships, a.k.a. subspecialty programs). If government accreditation is deemed necessary, it should not be conducted by the medical industry, and government should approve all programs that meet standards. Subsidies provided by Medicare should be phased down or even out. The programs themselves should determine the specific needs and costs and benefits for physician training.

We support the repeal of certificate-of-need laws in the two-thirds of the states that are still using them to limit the supply of hospitals and other medical facilities. Such laws have already been repealed in about a third of the states. We oppose similar policies restricting supply, such as those requiring approval for the building of additional hospital beds in Minnesota.

We support the elimination of laws in 30 states (not including Minnesota) that limit damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Libertarian Party - People should be free to purchase health insurance across state lines.

Libertarian Party of Minnesota - We advocate replacing compulsory or tax supported plans to supply health services or insurance with voluntarily supported efforts.

Jo Jorgensen wanted to eliminate employer insurance and have insurance companies cover only unexpected costs.

Gary Johnson wanted to slash Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

We oppose state regulation of health insurance. The net cost of health insurance is about 7 percent of total health costs (compared to doctors and hospitals that account for most of health care costs). The insurance industry has been concentrated and even monopolized in many states and some insurance companies claim the complexity of multi-state regulations has prevented them from entering new markets. A perceived market imperfection is consumers need some protection, especially regulations requiring insurance companies to have adequate capitalization to cover losses. If elimination of state regulation of health insurance is politically infeasible, we support the elimination of laws preventing people from purchasing health insurance across state lines, which prevents consumers from seeking coverage from states with less regulation. We would oppose national regulation of health insurance.

We oppose compulsory insurance plans, including Obamacare. We oppose national and state mandates requiring coverage of government-selected health conditions. We oppose regulations of health insurance that limit factors that can be used to set rates. Insurance companies should be able to raise rates for pre-existing conditions. Rates for some consumers (e.g., older people) should not be subsidized by other consumers (e.g., younger people). Rates increased by pre-existing conditions are often not large and, when they are, could be more fairly subsidized by government.

We oppose tax supported plans supplying insurance and health services, including Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. However, a perceived market imperfection is the elderly and poor require subsidies due to the high costs of medical care and their limited incomes. Subsidies should be reduced and eliminated as competition reduces prices for health care services and wealth disparity is alleviated through free markets in all industries.

We oppose the use of buyer monopoly power by Medicare, Medicaid and large companies (e.g., HMOs) to effectively set price and quality controls on providers, shift costs onto others, and promote insurance and provider monopolies. We support repeal of the ERISA Act, which exempts employee health benefit plans offered by large employers from lawsuits brought by people denied coverage. We oppose tax-deductibility for group premiums. Other insurance and provider companies are forced to merge to improve market power for negotiation of prices. The primary barrier for an insurer looking to enter a new market is the cost of building up a provider network at discounted prices and developing enough business to spread risk.

Jo Jorgensen wanted to remove regulations enforced by the CDC and FDA, including getting rid of the efficacy requirement of the FDA, if not the FDA entirely.

We support reducing the lifetime of drug patents and eliminating extensions. We recognize that new drugs require expensive research and development, and the possibility of the market imperfection that new drugs may need to be awarded temporary patent monopolies to recoup their investment. However, the drug industry is reaping excessive profits from extreme prohibition of competition. Moreover, competition between medical practitioners and facilities can reduce the cost of drug development. Expensive clinical trials should probably receive some monopoly patent rights. Appropriate government patent ownership of drugs discovered and developed with taxpayer money should be retained.

We oppose non-patent drug monopolies. We oppose the five-year exclusivity for small molecules, 12-year exclusivity for biologics, and six-month pediatric exclusivity. When there are no patents, Federal law should not prohibit the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from approving a copy of a new drug. We oppose Federal law that prohibits the FDA from approving a generic drug anytime a claim of patent infringement is alleged. We oppose laws that require the use of a specific medication once it has been prescribed by a physician.

We support empowering all Americans to be able to protect themselves from pandemics through economic prosperity attained from free markets. While relatively affluent populations are able to contain diseases through social distancing and quarantining (when sick), many marginalized people, including those who lack adequate housing, and those who are unable to work from home, are disproportionately impacted. When the government fails to free market opportunity for the vulnerable like they did leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, it has an obligation to protect them rather than ordering others to take actions like shutting down the economy. 

Education

Libertarian Party - Education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability, and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Recognizing that the education of children is a parental responsibility, we would restore authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. Parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children’s education.

Libertarian Party of Minnesota – 1. Education - In order to achieve the best possible opportunity of education we advocate bringing the positive benefits of competition to the monopolistic government schools. Therefore, we call for the privatization and deregulation of schools. Also, we call for the repeal of compulsory education laws, truancy laws, school and teacher certification and licensing laws, and taxpayer financing of education.

As an interim measure we advocate tax credits for any individual or business sponsoring a person’s education, equal to the amount of that assistance. We also support open enrollment and the expansion of Minnesota’s charter school program which allows parents, students and educators to independently set up semi-autonomous schools operating under reduced public authority.

On principle, Libertarians call for the eventual complete separation of government and education, and call for an immediate end to state mandated curricula, including but not limited to: the Profile of Learning, Goals 2000, and School to Work.

Jo Jorgensen wanted to eliminate the Department of Education.

Gary Johnson favored the privatization of public K-12 education, and school vouchers of $3,500 per student. Gary Johnson wanted to eliminate federal student loan guarantees for higher education.

We recognize that competition between schools can provide higher quality at lower prices. The two major parties caused America’s education cost “crisis” by creating oligopolies of non-profit schools with preferential subsidies. The socialist left prefers public schools, while the corporatist right often favors private non-profit schools, especially those serving religions and the wealthy.

We support competition by eliminating all government subsidies to non-profit schools. Public schools should not receive direct government appropriations, including those for K-12 from state and local property taxes (which favors the wealthy). Non-profit public and private schools and their donors should not receive tax exemptions. The government should retain taxpayer intellectual property rights for government research grants awarded to colleges.

We recognize the market imperfection that children cannot rely on education financing from their parents, goodwill or tax credits. The Federal government should provide vouchers or other subsidies that follow students totaling $7,000 to $14,000 per year for K-12 students, and $10,000 to $20,000 for college students. Subsidies should be awarded systematically and indiscriminately to all students. The value of vouchers should start on the high end and be reduced as competition between schools develop.

Other subsidies awarded to students, including current Federal grants and loans, much smaller state grants and loans, the college tax credit, and any other grants or scholarships made using tax credits, should be eliminated or counted against total subsidies received. Students attending for-profit schools could be granted temporary larger vouchers to level the playing field for past subsidies converted to long-term assets like buildings at non-profits. Special-needs students could be granted greater amounts of subsidies.

ENERGY

Libertarian Party - 2.3 Energy and Resources - government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.  - 2.2 Environment - Where damages can be proven and quantified in a court of law, restitution to the injured parties must be required.

Libertarian Party of Minnesota - we oppose all government subsidies, special interest laws, tariffs or quotas - 1. Public Utilities and Energy - we call for privatization and deregulation of all government monopolies, such as garbage collection, electric, gas, or communication utilities, the Public Utilities Commission, fire departments, water and sewer departments, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Price Anderson Act, the Minnesota Energy Agency, and all similar regulatory agencies. Strict liability, not government agencies and arbitrary standards, should regulate pollution. We advocate repeal of the laws that prevent full ownership of the air and water above and below land, thus denying individuals protection under the law against polluters. Private property rights must replace public property.

Jo Jorgensen wanted competition and innovation to help create cleaner energy, end all subsidies, create a level playing field, and not pick winners and losers. (But she also wanted to replace coal and oil burning power plants with nuclear and off-grid solar power, and streamline NRC regulations to allow for more nuclear power plants.)

Gary Johnson picked winners and losers for energy monopolies by supporting fossil and nuclear fuels, even while acknowledging the possibility that humans cause climate change and that government has a role to protect Americans against businesses harming the environment.

We oppose government creation of energy monopolies and oligopolies, and picking winners and losers among fuel types, including policies currently favoring mainly only oil, natural gas, wind and solar. Preferential policies block competition, innovation and diversification, and increase the risks of economic and environmental crises, and war.

We oppose national oil and natural gas monopolies that have led to wealth disparity, economic crises and war, especially in the unstable Middle East. The U.S. should pass NOPEC law to repeal immunity from antitrust lawsuits currently granted to OPEC and state oil monopolies. OPEC countries and Russia should be encouraged to privatize and break-up their nationalized oil monopolies, and open lands to competing domestic developers.

We oppose the granting of preferential policies to the U.S. oil and natural gas industry (e.g., Big Oil), even as they become less competitive, including access to government-owned natural resources land at no charge or below fair market rate, tax subsidies and shelters, and environmental exemptions. Exemptions from environmental regulation must be granted indiscriminately to all energy sources, including coal.

We oppose mandates and subsidies favoring wind and solar energy, including over other more dispatchable renewable energy sources like bio-energy, hydropower and geothermal. We oppose Renewable Energy Credits. We oppose subsidies for nuclear power, including the proposed Zero Emissions Credit. We oppose government insurance exemptions for nuclear power against radiation disasters. We oppose mandates and subsidies for electric vehicles.

We oppose government grants and loan guarantees to private companies, especially in recognition of the lack of due diligence and favoritism occurring under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (e.g., Solyndra).

Energy policies should be based on environmental goals, consider the entire life cycle of energy production, and not pick winners and losers among technologies like done by politicians. We believe the courts should discourage environmental damage, including any possible climate change and radiation disasters.

We oppose the granting of monopolies to U.S. natural gas and electricity utilities. We oppose state regulations favoring utility power projects, including a recent Minnesota law ordaining the construction of a natural gas plant on property owned by the utility monopoly. We oppose so-called “competitive bidding” for natural gas and electricity supplies, which allows utility monopolies to select bids from themselves and cronies even when offering higher prices.

We recognize that free markets require granting all competitors with the right to build necessary natural gas pipelines and electricity transmission and distribution grids. We support the construction of competing gas pipelines and lines, including allowing competitors to use of utility right of ways. However, a possible market imperfection is multiple pipelines and grids could be more expensive, dangerous, environmentally-destructive, and difficult to secure easements for without the use of eminent domain.

Meanwhile, we support consumer choice including hastening the deregulation of wholesale and retail natural gas and electricity markets by requiring the sharing of regulated utility pipelines and grids with competitors. Deregulation of natural gas and electricity in 24 and 18 states, respectively, and at the Federal level, has suffered by allowing bargain sales of utility assets to affiliates, pipeline and grid constraints, and rigged trading schemes. Utilities can no longer be allowed to write the deregulation rules

We support removal of all conflicts of interest by starting with the sale of all assets owned by the utility transmission and distribution monopolies that are to be deregulated, such as generation plants. Assets must be sold by the utility monopoly on the open market to the highest-bidding non-affiliate. Any stranded benefits from sales must be returned to ratepayers, especially from sales of aging and amortized coal and nuclear plants receiving grandfather exemptions from environmental and safety laws.

We support the upgrading of regulated utility pipelines and grids. The California energy crisis resulted from the withholding of electricity by suppliers protected from competition by transmission constraints (not accounting practices at Enron). Constraints are still encouraging excessive regulation by Regional Transmission Operators for controlling traffic and congestion and preventing shortages, excess supply including capacity markets, preferential access to the grid, and cost-shifting including transmission and load-following costs from wind energy.

We support deregulation that creates level and competitive playing fields. Regulators must write the rules without undue influence from market participants and other stakeholders. We oppose rigged trading schemes like those used in California during the 1990s including allowing overscheduling of lines, favoring out-of-state electricity with higher prices, and capping retail electricity prices. Texas and Ohio can serve as better models for electricity deregulation.

We support the transition to smart metering and grids that directly connects generators with users operating under bilateral contracts. The market should be allowed to make the major decisions (not regulators).

TECH

Libertarian Party of Minnesota - Public Utilities…..we call for ….  deregulation of all government monopolies, such as ……communication utilities.

We support requirements that prohibit current telephone, cable and internet franchise monopolies from making the building of new networks by competitors unnecessarily difficult and expensive for: (i) placing wires above and below public and private property (rights of way), and (ii) renting space for wires on utility poles or ducts (pole attachment contracts with public utilities). We support the requirement that current franchise monopolies be required to provide access to their networks to competitors at cost.

We support reform of government spectrum auctions, that sell rights (licenses) to transmit over specific bands (e.g. mobile phones), to minimize collusion. 

The lifetimes of intellectual property (IP), both copyright and patents, of tech companies (like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon) should be shortened to somewhere between five to 10 years.

DEBT AND MONETARY POLICY

Libertarian Party (2018) – “Government should not incur debt, which burdens future generations without their consent. We support the passage of a “Balanced Budget Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, provided that the budget is balanced exclusively by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes.”

Libertarian Party of Minnesota – “We recognize that government control over money and banking is the major cause of inflation, depression and distortion of relative prices and production. In order to have a free market and its relative stability, we advocate replacing legal tender laws, the Federal Reserve central bank, and the maze of banking, monetary, and securities regulations, with standards set in the free market.”

We oppose the manipulation of interest rates and accumulation of debt as solutions to economic problems, particularly slow economic growth and inflation, caused by preferential government policies and recently the coronavirus response. Government policymakers favoring moneyed special interests (especially in the health care, education, energy and tech sectors) are temporarily propping up the unsustainable economy by lowering interest rates and accumulating debt, while falsely claiming that there are minimal problems. These actions lead to an increased risk of causing, and a decreased ability of responding to, financial and/or fiscal crises (e.g., the Great Recession of 2008). Even more significantly, these actions will likely lead to higher costs of capital for the private sector, which will stifle innovation and productivity, and reduce the future growth potential of the economy.

We oppose the lowering and raising of interest rates by the Federal Reserve (i.e., by buying and selling Treasury notes and mortgage-backed securities from and to its member banks, while adding credit to or subtracting credit from the banks' reserves, respectively). The lowering of interest rates leads to lower national savings and income, speculative investments and asset price inflation, especially in stocks and real estate. Asset price inflation favors the wealthy, and results in a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy and growing wealth inequality. It favors those who already own housing assets over first-time homebuyers. The raising of interest rates to fight inflation can slow economic growth and lead to market crashes, recessions and depressions.

In addition, the lowering of interest rates can lead to consumer price inflation when the demand for goods or services increases. Lower interest rates can also lead to liquidity traps, where almost everyone prefers holding cash rather than holding a debt with a low rate of interest, which undermines the effectiveness of low rates. We also oppose the Fed’s purchase of government and corporate bonds to finance their long-term spending needs (debt monetization), which can lead to an increase in the total money supply as new money is created to purchase the bonds, and inflation.

We oppose actions by politicians that accumulate excessive debt. Higher debt levels require lower interest rates to minimize interest payments and even higher debts. If the govern­ment’s debt keeps rising, investors may question the govern­ment’s ability to repay debt and may demand higher interest rates. Over time, debt can crowd out private investment, and coupled with higher rates of interest, can drive down business confidence and investment, which drags productivity and growth down even further. Increased government borrowing can also crowd out public investment as growing interest payments consume a larger portion of the federal budget, and eventually require large spending cuts and/or tax hikes. 

The national debt is already too large at $27 trillion, even at today’s low interest rates, and is growing unsustainably, while suppressing increasing amounts of economic growth. The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal debt held by the public to equal 98 percent of GDP by the end of 2020. The national debt doesn’t even include many commitments for future spending that are not on the books, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The CBO projects the federal debt to reach 107 percent of GDP (the highest amount in the nation’s history) in 2023, and 195 percent of GDP by 2050. Numerous studies* have found that, above a national debt of about 90 percent of GDP, each 10-percentage point increase results in a decrease of about 0.2% in the annual real per capita GDP growth rate. We project the national debt could subtract 2% from the 2050 growth rate, which is nearly comparable to the average U.S. growth rate since 1948 of 3.12%.

In conclusion, preferential government policies, the lowering of interest rates and the accumulation of debt have already resulted in wealth inequality with the potential to lead to authoritarianism (fascism or socialism), and possibly revolution along the way. In the future, the government is expected to add even more debt to stay ahead of possible fiscal and/or financial crises, especially since interest rates are already about as low as they can realistically go. If a policy mistake is made with either keeping interest rates low enough and/or deficits high enough, there could be inflation, stock market and/or housing crashes, recessions and/or depressions. Possible demands by investors for higher interest rates, and the need for large tax hikes and/or spending cuts, could increase the chance of crises. Assuming straight-line accumulation and effects from debt, economic growth is expected to slow by about 0.66% per decade over the next three decades to only about 1.12%, as other nations pass by the U.S. and poverty spreads.

* In 2020, two economists at George Mason University conducted a literature review of 24 worldwide economic studies on the relationship between debt and growth.