 Our next speaker, Dr. Jerome Brooks, serves as the executive director of the Einrand Institute and the Einrand Center for Individual Rights. ARI is Washington's DC-based policy arm. He's a prominent advocate of objectivism, the philosophy of novelist Einrand. Dr. Brooks is a columnist at Forbes.com, contributing author to the anthology, Winning the Unwinnable War and Why Businessmen Need Philosophy. And he's co-author of A Neoconservatism, an obituary for an idea. He's also a weekly guest on front page hosted by PJTV. It's a center-right online television network broadcasting over the internet. He's also a popular speaker at universities, public forums, industry conferences, academic panels, community and professional groups. His recent talks encompass the moral foundations of capitalism and individual rights, including the right to not be your brother's health care keeper. It's great pleasure for me to welcome Dr. Brooke. Thank you, Aud. And thank you to the organizers of this event. I think what this country desperately needs is hundreds of these all over the country. It's always a pleasure for me to be on a panel and in a day full of talks of people really know what they're talking about. It's great. And people who know this industry, who know the issues so well. And what it makes so clear in my mind is the fact that what we're facing with health care today is pretty simple. You heard it today. This system is messed up, screwed up, too expensive, and so on because government intervention. And all the facts line up with this. There's no honest controversy here. And the solution is free markets. They work in computers. Why wouldn't they work in health care? And if you have any questions about the technicalities of how they work, these guys have the solution. This is easy stuff. And not only that, just add to that. The simple fact that our health care system is bankrupt. Medicaid, nobody's mentioned this yet. I'm an economist. I can say this. They're bankrupt. We cannot pay for them. There's no way you can pay for them. So by 2025, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and it's primarily Medicare, Medicaid, an interest on the debt, consume every dollar of revenue the federal government takes in. Every dollar of revenue. Most of that is Medicare, Medicaid. And those numbers are pretty optimistic. They assume the economy grows ninthly steadily at 3% plus percent for the next 14 years. They assume that revenue is steady and constant and growing nicely. And these systems are bankrupt. So government-involving in health care is driving us into bankruptcy. It doesn't work. Quality goes down. Obviously, this system is crazy. And yet, what's the solution to it? More. Let's do more of this. It's not bad enough. We need to pile on some more. And what happens to voices who say, no, there's a much easier, simpler, straightforward solution to this that actually increases quality, reduces cost, empowers individuals. There's not even a voice that nobody's interested in even listening to that. So why? And I know the number is 58% though, like Obama came. But when you actually get down into the numbers, yeah, they don't like Obama came, but they love Medicare and Medicaid. There's not 58% of Americans who don't want Medicare and Medicaid. They love those systems. And when you start actually digging and seeing what actually people like and don't like, the number of people who want free market in health care is minuscule. It's very, very small. And that's the number that's important at the end of the day. We need to appeal Obama came. But what we need is an alternative to it. And the challenge is going to be to get enough people to accept that alternative. So what's going on? This should be easy. This shouldn't be hard. Freedom works, free markets works, government controls, government spending, they don't work. And yet we want more and more of them. And my argument is that it's not about what works and what doesn't work. We won that argument a long time ago. Anybody who's an advocate for capitalism, we won the argument about free markets a long, long time ago, doesn't help us. One iota, we can consistently move towards more and more government involvement in almost every field out there. So something else is going on. Something as deeper is going on. Now I'd argue that the problem is much more fundamental. The problem is not about economics. It's not about economics of health care. It's not even about politics. We get the politicians we deserve. It's about us. And it's about something deep down in us. It's about something, essentially, that we have bought into. That we have bought into that undercuts any attempt to move in the right direction with regard to health care. And that is the issue of morality, of ethics, of what we believe is right. Because in the battle between what works and what's right, what's right will always win. People want to be good. People want to be moral. They want to do what's right, even if it costs them a few cents. It's not pocketbook issues that determine elections and policies long term. It's moral issues. It's where people believe morality lies. And I would advocate that the left has the moral high ground. We are bought into the moral agenda. We might not have bought into all the details and all the policies, but we bought them all agenda. And what is that agenda? That agenda says that need is a claim against all of us. That if somebody needs something, particularly if they need it, the perception is that they need it in order to live, then we have to provide it. And if we won't provide it voluntarily, then it's the job, it's the responsibility, it's the essential characteristic of government to have to come in and, as Art said, force us to provide that need. Because if you look a little bit differently at the history of government intervention and health care, need is everywhere. It was the poor and elderly people who needed better health care and tugged at our heart strings that got us Medicare and Medicaid. Who could say no? People supposedly were not getting the best health care they could get. And therefore, at the end of the day, were dying before they should be dying, if they hadn't gotten the best. And how can anybody stand by and say, no, that's life. That's reality. They need it. It's our moral responsibility to give it to them. After all, what were we all taught when we were this little? What is the moral purpose of life? What is our moral responsibility in life? What does it mean to be a good person? To be a good person means to, I was brought up in a good Jewish family. And I was taught from when I was very young to think of others first, put your interests last, taking care of other people. That was the essential characteristic of morality. So what my mother pounded it to be, be selfless. And the ultimate virtue is to sacrifice. Sacrifice means what? It means giving up something and expecting what in return. Nothing. And the more you give up, the better, more moral person you are. Bill Gates, when he makes his billions, is he a moral person? Is he a good person? Neutral to negative, right? But when he gives it away, is he a good person? Absolutely, he's wonderful. And you know what would guarantee sainthood to Bill Gates? Guaranteed. If he gave it all away and moved into a hut. If he could prove that he was suffering from pain. If he could prove that it was a true sacrifice. If he suffered for his fellow man, that would be virtue. That is our moral ideal. And we've almost all bought into this at some level or another. That is the moral ideal. That's what my mother taught me. She failed. And that's what your mother, I am sure, taught all of you. As long as we believe that, you know, that those children who don't quite qualify for Medicare, but their parents supposedly can't quite afford insurance, so we have to have something to fund them. And they're really not getting the kind of healthcare that is ideal. And how can you say no to children? I mean, nobody wants to say no to children, right? It's our moral responsibility. It's our moral duty. And who's on the other side of this? Well, on the other side of this, right, who are vilified and there's no accident why Obama switched from talking about healthcare to talking about insurance. Because as greedy and as wealthy as you doctors are, and you are, doing pretty well even today, right? And it's easy to vilify you because of that, right? Because you practice medicine and you make good living off of it. You're not doing it out of charity. You're not doing it out of sacrifice. You're not sacrificing. You're making a good living. And I commend you for that. But the culture doesn't. It's even easier to vilify whom? Insurance companies. What do they do? Right? They don't, doesn't seem like they give us anything. And yet they make a lot of money, right? Supposedly, they don't really, if you look at profit margins, the profit margins are not greater than anybody else's. But it seems that way, so it's easy to vilify them. And what are we vilifying there? We're vilifying the opposite in the small story, right? If the ideal is selflessness and self-sacrifice, what is vice? If virtue is selflessness, then vice is self-interest. Vice is profit. Vice is pursuing your own values. Vice is living your life for your own happiness. That is vice. That's why insurance companies are evil. They're bad. They're making money off of sick people, as are doctors. And therefore it's easy to vilify you. So I would argue that this, this what I, you know, this maw coat that presents this ideal and presents this evil, that is what drives the entire debate. That is why the fact, the fact that it doesn't work, the fact that free markets do work, the history, all of this stuff doesn't, at the end of the day, doesn't actually convince people to change their minds. But what about that group over there? What about that individual over there? What about this insurance company that treated this guy? They're interested in those extreme cases where somebody's need was not fulfilled, where they feel bad because somebody did not get the best healthcare in the world that they could get, and they're always gonna be people like that. So that's why they ignore the bankruptcy. They ignore it doesn't work because it makes them feel good, makes them, and Democrats have them all high ground here, and Republicans will not challenge them. And you could see that in Paul Ryan's latest budget, right? Here's Paul Ryan. He's gonna cut government spending. Six trillion dollars, he told us, he cut, right? You know what that means? He means he cut six trillion dollars off of Obama's budget. But really, if you look at Ryan's budget, it's an increase, it's a dramatic increase. There are no real cuts in Ryan's budget. And is there a real challenge? Now there's a challenge to the way Medicare is distributed, but is there a real challenge to the existence of Medicare? No, they're afraid to challenge that. They won't mention it because that would be considered immoral, not impractical, they're practical solutions. It would be considered immoral, unethical, to challenge the existence of Medicare, Medicaid, you can lump in Social Security there as well. And yet, what do these systems depend on? They depend on this morality, and then they depend on the fact that some of us have to pay for others. They depend on the issue of force that are related to. That since it's your responsibility, your moral duty to help those in need, all the government is doing is helping you fulfill your moral responsibility. They're taking your money and giving it to them. That's just what you should've been doing anyway. This needs, if we're gonna change the direction of this country, if we have any hope for free medicine, if we have any hope for freedom in this country, this is the moral code that needs to be abandoned, it needs to be trashed. It is an anti-American, anti-human life, anti-individualism moral code. Your life is yours. It's yours politically, but much more importantly, it is yours morally. It is yours to live for yourself, to make the most out of your life. You wanna help people? Great, help people. But it has to be your choice. It has to be consistent with your values, with your life. Morality cannot, it is unimaginable to say that morality is about the denial of your life. Morality should be about how to make your life the best life that it can be. How to make your life the most flourishing, the most successful life that it can be. You are responsible for yourself, for your own life, for your actions, for your own choices. The role of government is to protect your ability to make those choices. The role of government is to prevent people from forcing you to make choices you don't wanna make. The role of government is to protect your individual rights. And we throw around rights all the time, and the left throws around rights all the time. But what do rights mean? What did the founders mean when they talked about individual rights? They meant freedom. They meant the absence of coercion, the absence of force. Right means you have a right to act based on your own rational decisions for your own purpose in life. This country was founded not on the principle of selflessness, not on the principle of self-sacrifice, not on the principle that you are your brother's keeper. This country was founded on the principle that you all own your own life. You're not part of a collective. You don't owe it to the government. You don't owe it to king. You don't owe it to the pope. It's yours. It was founded on the principle defined in, I think, the most important political document in the history of mankind, the Declaration of Independence that sets the context for the Constitution. That each one of us has an unalienable right to what? To our own lives. To our own liberty. And in the most self-interested political statement in human history, each one of us has an unable right to pursue our own happiness. Not the groups, not the collectives, not the needies, our own. In this sense, the battle for the future of healthcare, the battle of Obamacare and a free market alternative is at the heart of the battle for the future of the United States of America. It is at the heart of the battle between individualism and collectivism. And it is the heart of a battle between a morality of self-interest and a morality that says that your life is owed by others. We are all fighting. And this is why I think that the doctors here and the other panelists to do this fight for healthcare on a day-to-day basis of such heroes. I believe that battle for healthcare is the most important battle being fought today for the future of this country. Thank you all.