Say a group of people unionized and formed a collective coop org.
Workers would get paid fairly who were employed by the co-op and would be members of the union.
The union would create it's own credit union and financial instruments and be a mesh of a CU and old style savings/loan.
The CU/Bank aspect would also invest in real estate (section 8 housing mostly and other but try to keep rents down wherever it has rentals and keep rent competition in check).
$$ brought in would be pooled, and as we grew to a certain size we'd launch our own health insurance company. All $$ from investments/real estate/etc would go towards the health care, premiums would basically be collective medical costs - income from investments / members of union, and members could choose to pay more for members w/ more financial burden.
Eventually we could start other businesses and encourage our union to ONLY use those businesses that we own as a co-op. ISPs, Amazon-clone, Google alternative, etc...
Eventually we gain $$ and power to start building or buying hospitals of our own. We also invest in our own generics drug company and maybe even a research company to design new drugs. Everything we do we deliver at cost or close medical wise. When we have surplus at the end of the year members vote whether we should diversify it into more investments, pay out dividends to all union members, or apply it to the medical fund, etc....
Eventually we could expand beyond our co-op and offer to be the 'benefit plan' for states' medicaid/medicare, as well as employer plans. The goal being have better quality and lower costs for employers, states, and members.
Eventually we get state $$ on top of union dues to cover the $$ needed for our m4a plan. If we're constantly in the green, we could start looking at a UBI plan.
The concept is a marriage of capitalism, unions, socialism, libertarianism. It's based on the concept of dual power. Eventually you get enough power that you weaken the healthcare lobbies (by taking their business) so that the $$ and political will to thwart you isn't there because they can no longer enrich politicians because they're cash on hand keeps dwindling, eventually we'd have more $ to lobby with than they would.
Oh, I am all in favor of unions, and you're absolutely right. It's a tragedy, yet an unsurprising one, that business co-opted government to restrain union power the way it did.
In fact, in the "small government" vein, I'd suggest repealing Taft-Hartley immediately. The biggest immediate benefit to repealing that would be that unions could once again freely conduct wildcat strikes.
But that's not what libertarians generally think about when they think "small government," they think of ending social programs -- at least, in every conversation I've ever had with them. I've never had a one-on-one conversation with a libertarian (and I've had quite a few, thanks extended family) who thinks unions are a good thing or a way to balance corporate power.
Big difference though between 'libertarian party' and libertarian socialism. I'd support M4A, I've just given up hope through gov't sanctioned socialism, so let's find a new path through unions and combining forces of the many, creating some huge collective. W/ the internet it doesn't need to be local anymore.... it'd kind of be like those religious health share programs, but no religion needed.
Unions.
Say a group of people unionized and formed a collective coop org.
Workers would get paid fairly who were employed by the co-op and would be members of the union.
The union would create it's own credit union and financial instruments and be a mesh of a CU and old style savings/loan.
The CU/Bank aspect would also invest in real estate (section 8 housing mostly and other but try to keep rents down wherever it has rentals and keep rent competition in check).
$$ brought in would be pooled, and as we grew to a certain size we'd launch our own health insurance company. All $$ from investments/real estate/etc would go towards the health care, premiums would basically be collective medical costs - income from investments / members of union, and members could choose to pay more for members w/ more financial burden.
Eventually we could start other businesses and encourage our union to ONLY use those businesses that we own as a co-op. ISPs, Amazon-clone, Google alternative, etc...
Eventually we gain $$ and power to start building or buying hospitals of our own. We also invest in our own generics drug company and maybe even a research company to design new drugs. Everything we do we deliver at cost or close medical wise. When we have surplus at the end of the year members vote whether we should diversify it into more investments, pay out dividends to all union members, or apply it to the medical fund, etc....
Eventually we could expand beyond our co-op and offer to be the 'benefit plan' for states' medicaid/medicare, as well as employer plans. The goal being have better quality and lower costs for employers, states, and members.
Eventually we get state $$ on top of union dues to cover the $$ needed for our m4a plan. If we're constantly in the green, we could start looking at a UBI plan.
The concept is a marriage of capitalism, unions, socialism, libertarianism. It's based on the concept of dual power. Eventually you get enough power that you weaken the healthcare lobbies (by taking their business) so that the $$ and political will to thwart you isn't there because they can no longer enrich politicians because they're cash on hand keeps dwindling, eventually we'd have more $ to lobby with than they would.