Political debates (and not just political debates) tend to be chock-full of cheap tactics and assorted logical fallacies. When it comes to the health care debate, two in particular tend to stand out, and they’re often linked. Those who argue in favor of heavy government intervention in the health insurance market, and especially those who argue for socialized medicine, commonly rely on anecdotal “evidence” of the inadequacy of the free market in addressing the uniquenesses of health care. Often, these anecdotes are personal in nature, meant to play on emotions and thus suppress logic and reason. The blatant logical fallacy here is “anecdotes are not data,” but there’s a second, implied fallacy as well: the nirvana fallacy.

Consider: “The way things work today is X. I prefer Y. Here’s a story about how someone living under X got a lousy result.”

Does that mean that “Y” would produce a better result? Perhaps, perhaps not, but nothing in that argument tells us in the slightest whether it would. But, by pointing out that X is not perfect, it’s suggested and implied that Y would be better.

That’s not logic, that’s not argument, that’s just baseless handwaving. But, when it’s combined with a personal anecdote of loss and suffering, those who point this out or disagree with the “Y is better than X” implication are tagged as heartless or uncaring.

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid falling into that trap. The attached screen grab of a post and response from Facebook is a superb example, flipping the anecdotal indictment of America’s non-single-payer health insurance system on its head AND making several key points about the source of the inadequacies of our current system.

But, before we get into those inadequacies, lets reinforce the points about this logical double-fallacy.

• An anecdote is not data.
• Many anecdotes are still not data.
• There is no utopia, no perfect solution, no system where an anecdote of failure cannot be unearthed.
• Relying on anecdotes to bolster one side of an argument is playing to emotion, not presenting a logical argument.

Unfortunately, even though the first three points are the indisputable reality the last bit is often the most effective when arguing in front of third parties. Sophisticated partisans and accomplished liars recognize this. News organizations know that personal stories sell better than data crunching or well-formed logic chains. Saul Alinsky advocated personalizing attacks.

So, lets contemplate how we would address that bit, even though it’s a logical fallacy and merely noting it as such should be enough.

First, I repeat the reality. Every system that has ever been tried, and every system that will ever be conceived, will ration health care by some mechanism. This is basic economics. A scarce resource CANNOT fully satisfy human wants, which are unlimited. Therefore, it is inevitable that someone, somewhere, at some time, will not get everything he wants. And, therefore, it is inevitable that an anecdote of a system’s “failure” will arise. The anecdote won’t be false, but it will be incomplete and misleading. It won’t discuss who else might be deprived of having a want or need fulfilled if the anecdote’s subject did get what he wanted, for one thing. Opportunity cost is as real as gravity, but it is typically treated as an unpleasantness to be ignored.

Second, I suggest a rebuttal in the form of that in the screen grab. Extol, don’t equivocate. Talk about how free markets, individual choice, and the good and positive elements of human nature – the fact that we help each other – produce better results than central planning and government control do. It’s easy to do, because it’s the truth. And, when someone inevitably talks about how it won’t be perfect, you could simply whisper “Veteran’s Administration” to illustrate how government won’t be perfect either. Don’t allow the question to be which will be perfect. None of them will be. There will always be examples of less-than-ideal outcomes. This is reality, and to allow the debate to be framed otherwise is to allow someone who is either a liar or a naive fool control the narrative.

Health insurance is often falsely conflated with health care, as if it is impossible to receive the latter without having the former. This is a bunch of hooey, obviously, but that doesn’t stop people from making the false correlation as part of arguing for more government involvement in health insurance.

I’ve written a fair bit on the topic of health care, health insurance, and their relationship to liberty, and I invite you to peruse some of my past posts here.

Discussions related to the cost of socializing health care can be found here and here, and my prescription for fixing health insurance via free market mechanisms can be found here. We’ve been allowing government to entwine itself more and more into our health care and health insurance systems, with predictably bad results. Normally, when one does something, and sees negative results, one is loath to do more of that something. Unfortunately, when it comes to government, people fall prey to the “we didn’t do it right or do it enough” argument, as if the default presumption of a bad outcome is that more of what generated it will suddenly reverse the direction of results. Does that make any sense at all? Sure, it’s possible to do something wrong, then learn from that error and get it right, but when you have 8 decades of uncorrected wrong, perhaps it’s time to recognize that you need to reverse course.

It would be lovely if everyone received unlimited free health care, if every malady, affliction and injury could be managed with infinite resources. Obviously, this is an impossibility, and we should recognize it as such. What we should dream of, instead, is an approach that does the most good for the most people, given the realities of economic scarcity. This is the essence of seeking efficiency, and history makes it amply clear that efficiency is fostered by free markets, not central planning. Moving health insurance and health care in the direction of free markets will not achieve nirvana, but it will get us closer.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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