Hacking Virtual Sovereignty through Indian Sovereignty

Sean Tevis, Congressional Candidate and website designer, suggests a clever hack: using the precedent of American Indian sovereignty – a unique category between states and federal government – to attempt to create virtual sovereignty in the US, and the first target would be health care:

The movement hinges on Congress’ ability to make separate law for separate nations within the United States — American Indian nations. On the same principle, Tevis means to construct a virtual health-care nation to allow those wanting a public option access to it without mandating insurance for those who’d rather stick with the status quo.

Sounds much like Arnold’s Virtual Federalism, a more flexible version of Robin Hanson’s Municipalizing Medicine. While ideas like this are still relatively fringe, they are getting less and less so every year as the existing system shows its brittleness and inability to deal with changes in demographics, health technology, and the ever decreasing ratio of net producers to those on the dole. I believe that it is far too early for the state to have decayed to the point where it will allow this kind of flexibility – it has too much power to be willing to cede any – but the number of these kinds of movements and the degree of backlash they create will be important barometers over the coming years.

And, hell, maybe US FEDGOV will actually allow something like this to happen, restoring competition for government services, and breaking up the sclerosis. I’d be very surprised, but also very delighted.

The comic explaining the movement is great: