Howard Phillips, founder of The Conservative Caucus (TCC) and its Chairman since 1974, has resigned, saying that recent health problems required that he “direct my energies on my health, my family life, my spiritual priorities, and my writings.” He affirmed his gratitude “for the opportunities God has given me to work with such fine people and I remain wholeheartedly supportive of the important work and mission of this organization.”

Phillips, now 70, led TCC through successful battles to block ratification of the SALT II Treaty, begin the SDI missile defense program, repeal the Catastrophic Coverage Act, prevent passage of Hillary Clinton’s socialized medicine scheme, and persuade the House of Representatives to impeach President Bill Clinton.

He visited all 50 states in campaigns against the Panama Canal treaties, SALT II, and the nuclear freeze. He also held organizational meetings in all 435 congressional districts during the early years of TCC.

His leadership in TCC’s Victory Over Communism project included support for anti-Communist freedom fighters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, repeal of the Clark Amendment, Congressional approval of the MX missile, a 600-ship navy, and even a visit to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states as the Soviet empire began to show signs of collapse.

Phillips is a graduate of the Boston Latin School and Harvard, having served as President of the Harvard Student Council. He was one of the founders of Young Americans for Freedom.

Prior to founding The Conservative Caucus, he was Republican Chairman of Boston and campaign manager for Richard Schweiker’s successful 1968 Senate campaign in Pennsylvania.

During the Nixon administration, Phillips headed the President’s Council on Youth Opportunity and the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), and won nationwide conservative acclaim when he attempted to eliminate the OEO programs.

The Constitution Party (originally named the U.S. Taxpayers Party) nominated Phillips as its candidate for President in 1992, 1996, and 2000.

TCC’s Board of Directors expects to choose a new Chairman early in 2012, with Darrell Castle serving as interim Chairman. Castle was the 2008 Vice-presidential nominee of the Constitution Party.

Wikipedia notes that Jewish by birth and a native of Boston, Massachusetts, Phillips converted to evangelical Christianity in adulthood and has been associated with Christian Reconstructionism.

Phillips first campaign for president in 1992 ended in a seventh place finish. The campaign received 43,369 votes for 0.04% of the total vote. In 1996 the Phillips campaign finished sixth with 184,656 votes for 0.19% of the total vote. In the 2000 election he received 98,020 votes for 0.1% of the total vote and a sixth place finish.

Phillips’ original intention was to have Pat Buchanan run for President; however, when Buchanan did run for President outside the Republican Party in 2000, it was as the Reform Party candidate.

The 2008 ticket that Castle vas VP on, led by Chuck Baldwin, got the party’s best result yet, 199,750 votes, and was endorsed by Ron Paul.

Wikipedia also notes

Buchanan’s 2000 Reform Party running mate Ezola B. Foster switched her membership to the Constitution Party in 2002. Buchanan stated on the September 7, 2004 edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, “There is a chance I would vote for [Michael] Peroutka.” However, he later penned an endorsement of President George W. Bush in the pages of The American Conservative.

U.S. senator Bob Smith announced his switch from Republican to the U.S. Taxpayers Party in 1999 to seek its 2000 presidential nomination. Smith later claimed that anti-New World Order ideologues within the party resisted his candidacy due to his Roman Catholicism. He continued his campaign as a non-partisan independent but ceased the campaign soon thereafter and returned to the Republican party to assume a Senate committee chairmanship. In 2008, he began writing editorials on the Constitution Party’s web page, fueling speculation that he would seek its presidential nomination again, although he had endorsed Rep. Duncan Hunter for the Republican nomination. He requested that his name be withheld from consideration in a March 2008 letter to CP supporters.
Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist ran for Congress with the American Independent Party in 2005, but has since rejoined the Republicans.

Author and WorldNetDaily columnist Jerome Corsi launched a brief campaign for the 2008 nomination but in July 2007 decided to return to writing. Former Reagan Administration official and Christian activist Alan Keyes had actively sought the Constitution nod after ending a bid for the GOP nomination.

…

In 2010, former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo ran for governor of Colorado as a Constitutionalist. He received 36.8% of the vote finishing in 2nd place. Despite losing the election, Tancredo managed to secure major party status for the Constitution Party in Colorado, as that state requires a party to surpass 10% in a gubernatorial election to qualify for such status.

In 2010, former Republican Representative Virgil Goode (VA-5) accepted an appointment to the National Executive Committee of the Constitution Party.

Back in 2008 we were supposed to believe Mitt Romney’s repeated declarations that he was pro-life and a staunch defender of the God endowed family. We were supposed to accept the notion that he was a “conservative” champion of limited government and fiscal responsibility. But the true facts of his political record utterly contradict these falsehoods. Christie, Perry, Cain and Gingrich have been trotted out, endorsed by this or that supposedly “conservative” element, pundit or apologist. But in one way or another, by their own words and the true facts of their record, all stand exposed as “made men” who have been willing in some decisive way to serve the elite faction’s effort to overthrow constitutional self-government and replace it with elitist dictatorship. One has helped the effort to subvert the republic’s moral foundations; another has openly or silently abetted the attack on its constitutional integrity; another has gone along with the elitist takeover of education; or its subversion of the people’s political and territorial sovereignty; or its suffocation of the economic freedom and consequent material strength of the nation. And finally, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum ironically epitomize the depth of the elite faction’s subversion of the republic’s principles, and its substitution of leaders committed to that subversion in place of those, like America’s founders, determined to articulate, maintain and perpetuate them.

Keyes goes on to criticize Ron Paul for his support of States Rights, which he links to the Confederacy, as well as Paul’s libertarian leanings, which he says “ignores the God revering premises of constitutional self-government.”

He also criticizes Santorum for endorsing pro-choice Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s primary bid for re-election.

On March 10, a California Superior Court Judge in Solano County tentatively dismissed the lawsuit King v Robinson on procedural issues. Here is the two-paragraph ruling. This case, or similar cases, have been pending since 2008. They concern the identity of the legitimate state officers of the American Independent Party of California. Neither the Superior Court of Sacramento County, nor the Superior Court of Solano County, has ever made a ruling on the merits of the case. The lawsuits have all been filed by the faction of the American Independent Party that is associated with the Constitution Party, after the Secretary of State recognized the faction that is associated with Alan Keyes.

On February 2, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Keyes v Bowen, 188724, the case that argued the Secretary of State must investigate whether a presidential candidate meets the qualifications to be president, before listing him or her on the ballot. The case had been brought by (America’s Independent Party Presidential Candidate) Alan Keyes in 2008. Keyes plans to ask for U.S. Supreme Court review of this case.

The California Court of Appeals decision in this case will now stand. On October 25, 2010, the Court of Appeals had ruled that if a qualified party certifies a presidential nominee, the Secretary of State must list him or her on the November ballot. The decision says, “Section 6041 gives the Secretary of State some discretion in determining whether to place a name on the primary ballot, but she has no such discretion for the general election ballot…with respect to general elections, section 6901 directs that the Secretary of State must place on the ballot the names of the several political parties’ candidates.” The word “must” is in italics.

The Court of Appeals decision acknowledges that in 1968, California Secretary of State Frank Jordan refused to list the Peace & Freedom Party’s presidential nominee on the November ballot. That candidate was Eldridge Cleaver, and he was only 33 years old at the time. The decision, in effect, says the Secretary of State in 1968 should have listed Cleaver.

On October 25, the California State Court of Appeals issued a ruling in Keyes v Bowen, C062321, holding that state elections officials are not supposed to keep presidential candidates off the general election ballot because they may not meet the constitutional qualifications to hold the office. The lawsuit had been filed in 2008 by Alan Keyes, who had sued the California Secretary of State because she allegedly did not investigate whether Barack Obama meets the constitutional qualifications to be President.

The Court said, “An investigation of eligibility is best left to each political party, which presumably will conduct the appropriate background check or risk that its nominee’s election will be derailed by an objection in Congress, which is authorized to entertain and resolve the validity of objections following the submission of the electoral votes…The Secretary of State has no such discretion for the general election ballot. With respect to general elections, section 6901 directs that the Secretary of State must (“must” is in italics in the opinion) place on the ballot the names of the several political parties’ candidates…

“In any event, the truly absurd result would be to require each state’s election official to investigate and determine whether the proffered candidate met eligibility criteria of the United States Constitution, giving each the power to override a party’s selection of a presidential candidate. The presidential nominating process is not subject to each of the 50 states’ election officials independently deciding whether a presidential nominee is qualified, as this could lead to chaotic results.”

The opinion acknowledges that in 1968, California Secretary of State Frank Jordan determined that the Peace & Freedom Party presidential nominee, Eldridge Cleaver, should be kept off the ballot because Cleaver was under age 35, but the opinion says the fact that Jordan acted this way does not demonstrate that what he did was lawful.

This opinion will be useful in the future, when certain states try to say that some particular presidential or vice-presidential candidate must not be on the ballot because he or she was registered in the wrong party. For example, in 2004, Montana said that Peter Camejo could not be on the November ballot for vice-president because he was a registered Green Party member. Camejo and his running mate, Ralph Nader, did not sue to overturn that decision, but simply substituted another vice-presidential candidate in Montana. This decision would also assist the Socialist Workers Party if it again runs Roger Calero for President, as it did in 2008 and 2004. Calero is not a natural-born citizen.

Here’s something you don’t hear very often: a prominent Republican’s policy position is too conservative for Alan Keyes. Speaking at a Tea Party Express-sponsored event in Washington this morning, Keyes said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is being irresponsible by suggesting, as he did recently, that the 14th Amendment may have been a bad idea.

Alan Keyes founded the America’s Independent Party during his 2008 run for President. Here is the bulk of Keyes’ remarks on the topic of the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.

“The 14th Amendment is not something one should play with lightly,” Keyes said in response to a question from ThinkProgress at the Tea Party Express press event today. “Lindsay Graham used the term — as people have carelessly done over the years — referring to the 14th Amendment as something that has to do with ‘birthright citizenship’ and we ought to get rid of ‘birthright citizenship.’”

“Well, let me see,” Keyes added sarcastically, “If citizenship is not a birthright then it must be a grant of the government. And if it is a grant of the government, it could curtail that grant in all the ways that fascists and totalitarians always want to.”

The other faction in the American Independent Party is aligned with the national Constitution Party and wanted to nominate Chuck Baldwin for President in 2008. This message comes from this faction’s

Greetings All !

As the properly elected State Chairman of the American Independent Party, I am pleased to announce the Convention and State Central Committee organizational meeting for the party to be held on August 14th and 15th 2010 in Ontario California.

This meeting will be open to all AIP registered voters and any interested individuals of the party. Business will be conducted to determine party officers for the next two years, along with other party business. It is thus a very important meeting to attend. I want to emphasize that EVERYONE who is a valid nominee delegate from the 2010 primary elections, whether for political office or as a county officer will be fully recognized at this convention. Additionally, their 3 appointees to the State Central Committee will also be recognized fully by this convention. This will also include any valid holdover candidates and any other valid voting participant according to the California Election Code.

We abide by the principles of law, and full proper participation. The American Independent Party is your party, and thus acts within the principles of law and democracy.

We additionally welcome the participation and vote of those who may not share our points of view, but have earned their spot as nominees and electors by virtue of the vote and petition of fellow American Independent Party voters throughout the state. Again, let me reiterate my intention… All individuals who have legally merited a right to vote in the convention and committee will be allowed to do so, and all  those willing to attend and meet in peace are welcomed as well. There will be no compromise or discrimination in regards to this.

Although plans are still tentative, and being formed, we intend to meet at the Ayres Hotel in Ontario California on Holt Avenue. It is an absolutely beautiful and stunning location. Although it is a 4 star location, we have negotiated a remarkable room rate of just $99 a night!  There are also other high quality hotels nearby where we have negotiated room rates at even lower prices.

We are intending on having a banquet on Saturday evening. Speaker for the event will be our dynamic AIP candidate for Governor , Chelene Nightingale. The opportunities for fellowship and a truly enjoyable experience, as well as the ability to meet your 2010 candidates makes this a “Can’t Miss” event.

Price for attendance of the meetings will be $60 per person. This is to offset the convention hall rental, and INCLUDES the cost of the banquet. Please review the information below my signature , and plan now to attend the meetings. Our 2010 AIP convention website for the event is

http://www.aip2010convention.blogspot.com

We must know your commitment to attend within the next 7 days for planning purposes. Please email  AIPconvention2010@yahoo.com with your contact information and the number of people that you will have attending. I am looking forward to seeing all of you!

Jim King

Properly Elected AIP State Chairman

Slums are not born, they are made. When I was a child, my father (a career Army NCO) would use most of his annual leave during the summer. On several occasions, my parents, my next older brother and I bundled into the car and spent the time making the rounds of family who lived mainly in North Carolina (my mother’s birthplace), Maryland (my father’s) and New York (where both my parents were partly raised, living with near relations).

In New York City we mainly stayed with my Aunt Jenny. I always enjoyed those visits. My aunt was a wonderful cook (I especially remember roast lamb, rice with rich lamb gravy and green beans sautéed in a bit of pork fat before steaming – thoroughly unhealthy, as I later learned, but so tasty). She was also a meticulous housekeeper, and she and my Uncle Anthony had over the years assembled some handsome furnishings. But though I enjoyed staying with them, I always dreaded arriving at the building on Grand Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y., where they had lived for over 20 years. I remember having to clamber over winos littered about the stairs that led up to the entrance. My aunt and uncle lived several floors up. We had to make our way up several flights, in sparse light and sometimes darkness, through puddles of water and unsavory smells of garbage, urine and vomit, with vermin skittering about in the shadows.

Their home hadn’t always been thus. They had photos from the late ’30s, I think, when it had been a pristine location – the streets clean, the building well-kept – much the way my aunt and uncle still kept their apartment. But as the neighborhood lost its ethnic diversity, the building probably became a cash cow for landlords with no interest in its maintenance. Lights weren’t replaced, walls and ceilings were left in disrepair and old plumbing gave out. You know the story. The people who moved in once things were in such a condition often had no more care for themselves than the landlords had for the real estate. A depressing cycle of decline produced the result that inspired my childish dread.

You can finish reading the article, penned by Keyes, here. Alan Keyes is a former Republican Presidential and Senatorial candidate. He also ran for President in 2008 as the America’s Independent Party candidate after failing to attain the Constitution Party’s nomination.

While Gov. Charlie Crist and gubernatorial candidate Bud Chiles are getting most of the attention, Florida is seeing a large number of independents taking on both the Democrats and Republicans in the 2010 elections.

“It’s exciting,” said Michael Tupper, campaign manager for independent congressional candidate Troy Stanley who has offered a conservative challenge to veteran Republican U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw.

Besides Chiles, three independent candidates as well as two minor party nominees are running for governor. Besides Crist, at least five independent candidates as well as two minor party nominees have made the ballot for the U.S. Senate race.

Thirteen independent candidates, including Stanley, and four minor party candidates have made the ballot for Florida’s 25 congressional races. While filing has not closed, independent candidates have launched bids for two state Cabinet positions — attorney general, and commissioner of agriculture and consumer services.

Leaders from third parties and independent campaigns said voters were dissatisfied with politics as usual and were looking for alternatives, including parties and candidates outside the two-party system.

You can read the rest of the article here. The end of the article erroneously called the America’s Independent Party, the America’s Independence Party.

Best known for his presidential campaigns and his contest with Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, Dr. Alan Keyes commented today on Gov. Charlie Crist and conservatism.

Asked if Gov. Crist ever fought for conservative ideals, Keyes said, “In my opinion, no he hasn’t.”

Saying Crist was a RINO — Republican In Name Only — even before he left the GOP to continue his bid for the U.S. Senate as an independent, Keyes said there was a large constituency for true conservatism, fighting for smaller government and the rights laid out in the Declaration of Independence, in Florida.

“Crist paid lip service to that conservatism,” said Keyes. “He didn’t follow through on it.”

Keyes was the Presidential candidate of the America’s Independent Party in 2008 after he failed to secure the Presidential nomination of the Constitution Party. The America’s Independent Party was founded after Keyes lost the nomination of the Constitution Party, in 2008.

Thanks to the old myth that gentlemen prefer blondes, it was all the rage in ancient times (actually the 1950’s) for brunettes and such to dye their hair. It required some upkeep to maintain the image because as their hair grew their natural color would show at the roots.

That little tidbit of social studies came to mind as I read that “Rand Paul of Kentucky labored Thursday to explain remarks suggesting businesses be allowed to deny service to blacks without fear of federal interference, declaring, “I abhor racial discrimination.”

I seriously doubt that Rand Paul favors keeping blacks away from lunch counters (though I won’t say the same for some of the Ron Paul supporters I met on the campaign trail in 2008.) But despite the changes in rhetoric he’s making to pick up votes this election season, the roots of his political views are driven deep into the soil of free will libertarianism, the kind that forgets the relationship between real liberty and the existence of God-ordained natural law.

Keyes is a former Ambassador to the United Nations (’85-’87), Senatorial candidate in both Maryland and Illinois (’88 and ’92 in the first, ’04 in the later), and presidential candidate (in ’96, ’00, and ’08)–all of those campaigns were conducted as a Republican, with ’08  being the notable exception. In ’08 he began the campaign as a Republican, later joined the Constitution Party, and after losing that party’s nomination in a convention battle with Chuck Baldwin, he formed his own party–the America’s Independent Party.

Now Baldwin and Keyes are slated to appear, and speak, at the same convention. They are listed as the two keynote speakers of the event, which is to be held in Denver, Colorado.

Former UN Ambassador Alan Keyes and Pastor Chuck Baldwin are keynote speakers for the Faith and Liberty Conference on July 24, 2010. The conference will provide an in-depth, non-partisan look into the global economic crisis that threatens the sovereignty and stability of the United States through a Biblically sound lens of truth.Other speakers include: financial publisher Don McAlvany, privacy expert Dr. Katherine Albrecht, banking whistleblower George W. Hunt, Pastor and Lawyer Tim Philibosian, Veteran Tracey Harmon and Master of Ceremonies Darrel Rundus. They’ll provide timely and useful information on how to prepare for upcoming economic, political and spiritual changes in the United States. Our speakers have a firm understanding of the complex issues our country faces and can communicate and provide a Christian perspective on those issues.

The website for the conference can be found here.

The American Independent Party of California is currently split into two factions, the one which favored Alan Keyes for president in 2008, and the one that favored Chuck Baldwin for president in 2008. The California Secretary of State recognizes the Alan Keyes faction.

The Alan Keyes faction has tentatively decided to revoke the ability of independent voters to vote in AIP primaries for public office, but the party has not made a formal notification to the California Secretary of State. State law requires such a notification to be made by January 25, 2010. Apparently the State Central Committee of the Keyes faction will meet on January 13, 2010, to formalize the decision. The location of that meeting is the home of Mark Robinson, 476 Deodora Street, Vacaville. Members of the state central committee can also participate via computer.

No California state court has ever made a ruling on the substance of the various lawsuits filed last year, or in 2008, to determine the identity of the bona fide party officers. The 2008 lawsuit filed by the Baldwin faction was dismissed for procedural reasons, and the 2009 lawsuits have been stalled because the officers in the Keyes faction have managed to avoid being served, or at least have raised unresolved questions about whether service was successful.

The Republican Party of California, and the Democratic Party of California, both let independent voters vote in their primaries for Congress and state office. The Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Peace & Freedom Party, do not let independents vote in their primaries.

As I wrote my most recent article for WND.com (the subject of my previous posting) I found myself thinking about Christianity’s unique effect on our understanding of the justice (and injustice) of human action. The last point made in the article is about the connection between arrogant elitism and the self-inflation the Pharisee derives from comparing himself with other people. In light of this connection we can better understand why the elitist forces that strenuously promote the specious doctrine of the separation of church and state are so often guilty of favoritism. They invoke the doctrine to repress Christian institutions and practices, while treating those of other religions as protected artifacts of “cultural diversity.” I think this discrimination has to do with the fact that the words and example of Christ convey an understanding of human authority that supports the sovereignty of the people even as it undermines the assertion of elite predominance (the sovereignty of the wealthy, more intelligent, more talented few.)

However we may characterize it ideologically, the ultimate effect of the present push to overturn the principal of consent as the lawful basis for government is to reestablish the rule of the few, whose assumption of power derives from their Pharisaical claim to be superior to the rest. On the convenient excuse of whatever problem or crisis happens to be handy (the jobs crisis, the health crisis, the environmental crisis, the crises of poverty, hunger, homelessness etc.) they assert the urgent need for approaches that concentrate control of more and more resources and decision-making in the hands of professional and bureaucratic elites. Against the preponderance of evidence and logical reasoning, they pretend that centralized government institutions will deal with the critical challenges we face more effectively than those that respect individual liberty. Of course, as they advocate this view they are not as open as the Pharisee about their assumption of moral superiority. They cloak their assertion of superior righteousness with a fabricated perception of scientific knowledge, global catastrophe and compassionate egalitarian intention. But once the smoke and mirrors of crisis and compassion have served their purpose, we will be left with the reconstructed edifice of unchecked elite domination. The elite promise is that people will enjoy the comfortable dependency of well cared for household pets. But once elite control is consolidated, some will suffer the brutalization and casual destruction of lab rats or noisome vermin while most experience the commingled care and misery once bestowed on work horses or pack animals, valued mainly for the work they perform for their betters.

A discussed in “The Publican’s Prayer” Christ’s insistence on the perfect standard of God’s will (“Be ye therefore perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48) undermines the claim of intrinsic superiority that gives some appearance of justice to this elite consolidation of power. But more radical still is what he says even to the Pharisees: that “the Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) In his kingdom, the word of the king is the law. Those who have direct access to the sovereign are therefore privileged to hear at first hand the content of the law. When they pass it on to others they speak with an authority derived from their direct access to the king, and their words cannot be definitively contradicted except by others with the same access. What Christ says to every person is that they have direct and exclusive access to the King of all Creation, the author whose name is the root of authority in every sense. Though common to all, this access is, even so, radically exclusive because it involves the inner being of the individual, to which only that individual has direct access. All the subjects of human kings are thus vessels of God’s authority. Made in His image, they have within themselves a model or likeness that accords with His will. The knowledge they derive from this model appears in the natural promptings of conscience, whereby they judge what they do to others in light of their own reaction to what others do to them. (“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7:12)

When discussing personal morality, it is common enough in Christian parlance to speak of every individual as a temple of God, i.e., a venue in which the will of God resides. Christ’s reference to the Kingdom of God within us also has implications for the just exercise of sovereign power, implications that bear directly on our understanding of lawful government. As a direct and exclusive form of access to the sovereign is available to all individuals, no one person or group of persons can by themselves have an unchallengeable claim to speak with sovereign authority over all the rest. Every other individual is a potential check on their claims, and may in his or her own right claim to be consulted as to the authenticity, content and meaning of the sovereign’s will. The understanding of God’s rule achieved through Christ thus becomes the basis for limiting the just claims of human rule to governments that respect the individual’s right to be consulted, i.e., those “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

This suggests that the political premise of the American Declaration of Independence draws upon and reflects the most basic Christian understanding of the meaning and political consequences of human moral equality (that is, the equality of all people before God.) Christ’s American followers face increasing pressure from elitists who seek to drive their exercise of faith from politics, and indeed from all the arenas affected by law and public policy. In dealing with this pressure, we would do well to think through the vital connection between our faith and the principle of government by consent. Christ’s teaching does not conflict with the requirements of Constitutional self-government. In truth, government by consent is based on an insight into the nature of political authority that would not have been achieved except through Christ. As Christ’s followers are driven, as such, out of the political life of our country, what will become of this insight? It has dim prospects. For some people, that’s the whole point; isn’t it?

http://loyaltoliberty.blogspot.com/

As I said in my last posting, for me to offer a health insurance proposal is rather like a weatherman offering to design a jet fighter: though he’s familiar with its operating conditions, odds are that his ideas won’t fly. That said, I suppose I have at least as much expertise on the subject as, say, leftist politicos like Barack Obama, an observation that emboldens me to share the thought experiment that follows.

I strongly believe that it’s often a good idea to start a discussion by clarifying in simple terms exactly what it is we’re talking about. Health care becomes an issue of public policy concern mainly with regard to the approach we take to paying for health services. If everyone had as much money as Bill Gates or Donald Trump, I doubt there would be much fodder for political discussion. Still, since money is so much of the issue, it might not hurt to think about how we’d handle things if we did have their resources. We’d have the freedom to do what we thought would most effectively and rationally maximize our health and longevity.

So assume for a moment that you are a person of relatively unlimited resources that you can allocate in any way you choose. Let’s also assume that, being a person of good sense and will, you want to take care of your own needs and reasonable desires, while maximizing the surplus that remains to be devoted to some good that you want to achieve. Having a sane regard for you personal comfort and safety, you want to take care of your health. What would be your most reasonable course of action?

Let’s say that you are start out in a state of good health. So your first concern is to maintain it. You would budget a certain amount of money for this purpose. It might include an allocation for a fitness regimen; for developing and maintaining a healthy diet; and for regular consultations with health professionals (fitness coach, diet specialist, personal physician) who use appropriate measures to check your overall state of health. Let’s call this the health maintenance allocation. Your budget might also include money that you may need in order to deal with emergencies (in the broadest sense) including accidents and occasional bouts of illness. Ideally this allocation would be reserved in the form of some productive investment, so that the money involved, though readily available, would be fruitful and multiply as time passed.

In addition to this basic budget, you might designate an additional amount meant to accrue value over the longer term. This would ideally provide the wherewithal to handle the anticipated inevitable effects of aging, as well as longer term care that might be for chronic, incapacitating illness or during the period of acute decline prior to natural death.

Given your relatively unlimited resources, more extreme and hard to anticipated emergencies would have to be handled by extra budgetary allocations, taken out of the surplus that would normally be devoted to such other good as you are trying to achieve.

Now, most people don’t have relatively unlimited resources. Some might be in a position to maintain a reasonable budget for ordinary health related expenses, but many would have trouble dealing with foreseeable health emergencies, much less the more extreme exigencies. Any extra budgetary allocations would probably have to be financed by borrowing. But people with relatively little surplus income beyond what’s needed to maintain their everyday life are limited in their ability to service debt, especially in the large amounts that might suddenly be needed to meet a health emergency. At any given moment, however, the risk that any given individual will face such an emergency is relatively small. Spread that risk over a sufficient number of people, and the burden of meeting it in any given case can be met by a fund replenished through small, regular contributions that each of them can afford. Thus the basic concept of emergency health insurance emerges. It’s intended to allow people who must live on a wage or other regular but limited income to provide for needed health services that they could otherwise not afford.

Though we call it insurance because of the fund’s purpose, we should keep in mind that it is actually much like a special purpose savings bank. Like any such bank, some of its income is properly generated from prudent investment of part of its available resources. Thus its gross income for any given period consists of the total amount of the regular individual contributions plus interest or dividends derived from investment. The total value of the fund at any given time includes, in addition to operational balances, the total value of the invested capital. For any given period, the bank may generate a surplus that consists of the total income for that period minus the sum of its operating costs and any outlays for health emergencies during that period.

Looked at in this way, we immediately notice one difference between the operation of the insurance savings scheme and other kinds of savings banks. At other banks, those who provide the funds the bank uses for lending and other investments receive some interest on their deposits. If they leave them untouched, the value of these deposits increases over time. Depositors therefore have a certain incentive to leave them untouched, in order to maximize their growth. In effect, the bank’s profits, in any given period, are divided between the owners of the bank and its depositors, who own the accounts that constitute the bulk of the bank’s liquid assets.

The contributors to the insurance fund do not ‘own’ or derive income from the total amount accounted for by their contributions during any given period. Their premiums pay for the right to borrow from the fund to meet any health emergencies that occur during the period.

In comparison with a savings bank, however, the insuring bank has less control over the amount the bank may be called upon to lend during any given period; they also can’t control the relationship between the amount they lend to any given individual and the total amount of the regular contributions they receive from that individual after the emergency has been handled. They can’t be sure the loan will be fully repaid (much less any interest that would otherwise accrue.) To compensate for this, they must have a stream of new income from a) new contributors signing on to the fund; b) the bank’s investments; c) sale of stock in the company. They must also find ways to manage the overall risk distributed among their contributors so that the fund continues to grow enough to prevent shortfalls on account of any individuals from gradually reducing the fund below the level needed to fulfill its obligation to pay (at any given time) for the needed health services of its contributors.

Assuming however that all this is done competently, (and that unexpectedly adverse conditions do not consume its income producing assets) the insurance savings (or fund management) scheme (what we, somewhat misleadingly, call the insurance provider) could generate a profit over time. As things stand that profit goes entirely to the owners and/or stockholders of the bank. After all, they provide the critically important initial and ongoing capitalization needed to launch and sustain the insurance scheme. But without garnering sufficient contributors to form an adequate risk pool, would the scheme work for very long? Probably not; it would become a rather expensive and short lived form of charitable giving. The money derived from individual contributions, as well as the health and behavior of the individual contributors, form an essential part of its real and ongoing capitalization.

Given this fact, as well as our overall goal of respecting individual liberty (choice and responsibility) in dealing with health matters, does it make sense to leave the whole incentive for managing risk to the banking institution? For better or worse, the individual’s behavior contributes to the success or failure of the risk management task. Under present arrangements, some efforts are made to enlist individual cooperation by offering lower contribution requirements (premiums) in exchange for certain behavior modifications. But the accrued value of this incentive is hidden, so that it is psychologically consumed almost at once, and rapidly decreases even further over time. Wouldn’t it be more effective (since an ongoing commitment is needed) to offer incentives in a form that persists and grows in perception over time, so that as individuals maintain a state of health that keeps down their withdrawals from the general fund, they see an appreciable increase in the value of the incentive?

Without such an appreciably increasing incentive, as healthy people contribute to the general insurance fund, the perceived value they derive from it decreases in direct proportion to their success in staying healthy. In effect, their good health over any given period subsidizes the outlays made for those who have less successful health maintenance records during that period. The longer their good health lasts, the greater the total amount of this subsidy. In terms of value for money, there is actually an incentive after a certain time, to become more casual about resorting to health services, less prone to reflect much on the real necessity for doing so.

Given this perverse incentive structure, why do we marvel at the present insurance system’s tendency to generate higher outlays? How can we alter this incentive structure to reward people who maintain their health, so that the longer they sustain their successful health record, the larger the reward’s value to them appears to be? The answer is simple: their good health habits must be seen to contribute to their accrued assets over time so that sustained health translates into increased wealth, thereby encouraging their commitment to healthy behavior.

By combining the wealthy individual’s common sense approach to maximizing the surplus available to do other good things, with an insurance fund incentive structure that maximizes individual contributors’ commitment to good health habits, we arrive at a health insurance approach that might have features like this:

* Coverage of all aspects of basic health maintenance including the maintenance of good fitness and diet regimens and routine check-ups.
* Premiums that, in addition to producing regular operating funds and the money needed to meet the costs of contributors’ basic health maintenance services generate the surplus needed in any given period to meet foreseeable health emergencies.
* A category of additional premiums going into a separate fund reserved for a) acute emergencies and health situations requiring longer term care; b) the increased costs associated with the inevitable health effects of aging and/or the special care required during the decline toward death.
* All regular premiums to be credited to individually denominated, interest bearing checking accounts, associated with an interest free health credit line capped at an appropriately determined quarterly limit. Individuals agree to pay for all health related expenses with funds disbursed from this account. Emergencies requiring disbursements beyond the predetermined credit cap would require a limit increase approved by the insurance fund manager according to a predetermined schedule of step increases, up to the limit set for foreseeable health emergencies. Beyond that limit, disbursements would come from funds obtained out of the acute emergency/longer term care fund.
* All acute emergency/longer term care premiums to be credited to individually denominated, interest bearing money market checking accounts, with disbursements according to the model established for the regular premium account, but with a separate schedule of disbursement caps.
* Unused balances in the individually denominated accounts, plus interest accrued, would rollover and accumulate from quarter to quarter.
* A schedule of discounts would be applied to premiums in one or the other, or both categories, related to an individual’s commitment to maintain a fitness and dietary regimen developed and supervised by health professionals and facilities chosen by the contributor, but approved and accredited by the insurance institution. The regimen would include regular evaluations and reports (based on agreed upon measures and areas of evaluation) as to the individuals’ active compliance with their regimen’s fitness and dietary provisions.
* A schedule of interest rates for the interest bearing accounts such that the rate increases in relation to the length of time a) the individual successfully maintains the commitment to an appropriate dietary and fitness regime; and b) maintains a state of health and fitness within predefined age appropriate parameters.

This list of features is obviously intended mainly for illustrative purposes. In considering them, it’s important to keep in focus the objective at which they aim, which is to eliminate third party administration of the disbursement of health funds, placing choice and responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the individuals who actually experience the provided health services. At the same time, the incentives connected with individual ownership and wealth creation are mobilized to encourage individual behavior that improves health prospects while reducing casually inconsiderate drains on overall health fund reserves. There are probably other and better features with which to achieve these objectives. The advantage of advocating freedom, rather than socialist government control, is that creative individuals and institutions are left free to think through and implement them. The key to defending their freedom, however, is to fund the individually owned accounts the incentive structure requires in a way that respects the power and prerequisites of a free market, while providing effectively for the hard cases that the socialists claim only coercively raised tax dollars can insure. In the next and final installment of this series we’ll consider where that key (or at least a serviceable impression of it) may be found.

At the end of the essay, Grundmann, who sought the Constitution Party presidential nomination in 2008 and who is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, says the website will be updated with further articles on Keyes.