quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I really am interested in the question of why what appears to be (but that's simply my opinion) a reflexive irritation with this situation leads to 'we need to give them less power, less ability, less resources-this would be better if they were smaller'. That is what Geraine appeared to me to be getting at, but it's quite possible I'm wrong-I'm operating from a position of irritation too.
Related to the topic, 'small government' just seems to be such a double-standard. Social services, taxation, infrastructure, regulation-it appears to me more often than not the answer either starts with or includes 'it would all be better if it were gone or smaller'. They cannot be trusted-they'll be either inefficient or wicked in their use of what power we give them.
But then if we mosey on down to military, law enforcement, a few key social and religious issues, and intelligence services...we mustn't pry. They know what they're doing. Trust the leaders on the ground. We're a Christian nation. Ticking time bomb.
If we cannot be trusting government to effectively manage something as straightforward as infrastructure, why in heaven are we to then say government needs to legislate which adults can sleep with which, and we need to trust our generals with power over life and death of our soldiers and others and trillions of dollars?
I can certainly see why Geraine wouldn't want to talk about that here-not exactly a friendly audience, or even a neutral one. But this contradiction seems very real to me, and it's both troubling and interesting
The argument I usually hear isn't so much an issue of large or small government, but federalism. It's up to the states to take care of stuff like this, not the federal government. Though I can't ever remember reading about conservatives bashing the CDC, I guess it wouldn't surprise me, they've bashed the NIH before.
But I think the conservative argument would be that this is the way Florida wants it, and if they want to pour gasoline all over their state and light it on fire, it's not really our business until the fire starts jumping state lines. Then it's Georgia's problem.
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Do you know who loves State powers and States rights? The corrupt and the interstate corporations. Its so much easier to bribe a state legislator than a federal one.
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Youre not saying that congressional Reublicans would try to retard the federal government's ability to regulate so that they could OH MY GOD!
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I don't understand why everyone needs to buy health care or pay a tax if you don't. The argument I've heard is that people who don't buy hc insurance and then become ill end up costing every other taxpayer more money since their bills end up getting sent to the government anyways. The way I see it, if someone chooses not to buy hc insurance and can afford it, then they should be allowed to live with the consequences of their own choice, i.e. the government doesn't need to cover their bills. I know it's considered heartless, but they made a decision to spend their money on something else other then hc, so why should the rest of society be responsible for their poor priorities?
If they can't afford it and qualify for medicaid, then it's a different story. But for people that aren't low income and choose not to buy insurance, then I don't see why the government needs to baby them and protect them from their own decisions. If people want individual liberty to make their own decisions then they should live with the individual responsibility for their decisions.
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quote: then they should be allowed to live with the consequences of their own choice, i.e. the government doesn't need to cover their bills. I know it's considered heartless, but they made a decision to spend their money on something else other then hc
I'd like to see the 'decisions' many of my friends have made not to be able to afford healthcare. Have it explained to them that it is 'poor priorities' like making rent or having formula that, yanno, means that they should be left outside a hospital to die in an emergency event if the hospital is able to figure out that they make more than X dollars a year individually or as a family unit.
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I addressed that when I said that if a person can't afford it, it's a different story. If that's the case, then they should be given government aid.
Also, if your friends can't afford it, is the government mandating everyone needs to buy insurance or face an extra tax a better solution? They still can't afford it but now they have to buy it anyways.
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quote:Also, if your friends can't afford it, is the government mandating everyone needs to buy insurance or face an extra tax a better solution? They still can't afford it but now they have to buy it anyways.
The mechanism by which this whole slew of new systems and regulations and laws operates isn't, in fact, "Everyone who can't afford it must still buy it, or face an additional tax/penalty/assessment/fee/hastheRomneycampaigndecidedyet?." That you describe it that way points to a pretty thorough ignorance as to what has actually changed, or rather will change.
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: I addressed that when I said that if a person can't afford it, it's a different story. If that's the case, then they should be given government aid.
Also, if your friends can't afford it, is the government mandating everyone needs to buy insurance or face an extra tax a better solution? They still can't afford it but now they have to buy it anyways.
How are the hospitals supposed to know who to leave out on the street to die? Is there some sort of armband you can wear to let the paramedics know you didn't get a raise last year and haven't 'decided' to not have 150 grand ready for when you got plowed by a drunk driver?
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Sure. Because there's no such thing as a health care insurance card. What are you even talking about? 150 grand ready? That's the purpose of health care insurance.
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So, no bothering to check on what these laws actually do, Gaal? Alright, then, back to silliness: what happens to the person who is injured without ID on them? Do we wait until they come to to gife us their numbers? Or maybe treat them to barely-alive until they cough up the money? Or...what, exactly, shall we do in the name of 'individuaul responsibility' which is so often doublespeak for 'eff the poor'
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: Also, if your friends can't afford it, is the government mandating everyone needs to buy insurance or face an extra tax a better solution? They still can't afford it but now they have to buy it anyways.
Yes. The mandate and the consumer protections lock both the individuals and the insurers into a systemic deal that cannot be wriggled out of for enhanced profits. That being the current system, where you can welch on 5 or 6 digit medics bills if you need to, and the insurance companies can do basically the same thing. Oh, but since you're an individual, before you declare bankruptcy, we'll just need to zero out everything you have ever saved in your life.
Forcing everyone to buy insurance is the key to stabilizing and regulating the market. Without the mandate, the Feds have no skin in the regulation game. With it, they will be on the ball, making sure standards re kept.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: I don't understand why everyone needs to buy health care or pay a tax if you don't. The argument I've heard is that people who don't buy hc insurance and then become ill end up costing every other taxpayer more money since their bills end up getting sent to the government anyways. The way I see it, if someone chooses not to buy hc insurance and can afford it, then they should be allowed to live with the consequences of their own choice, i.e. the government doesn't need to cover their bills. I know it's considered heartless, but they made a decision to spend their money on something else other then hc, so why should the rest of society be responsible for their poor priorities?
If they can't afford it and qualify for medicaid, then it's a different story. But for people that aren't low income and choose not to buy insurance, then I don't see why the government needs to baby them and protect them from their own decisions. If people want individual liberty to make their own decisions then they should live with the individual responsibility for their decisions.
If you are not presumably a shill, than it should be sufficient enough, as others have already explained to explain to you that this is about economics of scale. Prices can only effectively be kept down if everyone contributes, the only way to do so in a private system is to get everyone to buy insurance, and then expand medicaid to cover the ones who can't afford insurence (up to 133% of the poverty line iirc).
The :bootstraps: neocalvinist mentality of FYIGM of where everyone has a moral obligation to lie in the bed they made is utter absurdity as it completely ignores the extant that both luck and circumstance beyond the control of the individual plays in people's lives.
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Ah yes the if you don't agree with me you must be a shill, or at the very least hate babies/poor bit. I'm quite fond of that line of argument.
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BlackBlade, when someone is suggesting letting people die on the ER steps, assuming they are a shill is the least offensive conclusion one can reach.
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Blayne makes the appeal to fairness, but that line of argument isn't even necessary here. The economic argument is sound. Whether you do believe in the fallacy of absolute personal agency in success or not, the facts of the situation are that the system will function more effectively and with better efficiency this way.
The mistake of calling what we currently have a "free market" approach is common enough. But the market is not actually free if actors within it are endowed with the power to exclude undesireable participants. The mandate and consumer protections, in reality, create a freer market, where more actors can participate without exclusion. There's nothing free about a market where the producers set the rules for participation, and then actively exclude competition by cornering the market on care.
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I don't see where Gaal suggested keeping people without health insurance out of hospitals. From what I read, he is saying that they should be held liable for the cost of their care and that this should not be passed on to other parties, here specifically the government. I think that you are being extremely unfair to him.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I don't see where Gaal suggested keeping people without health insurance out of hospitals. From what I read, he is saying that they should be held liable for the cost of their care and that this should not be passed on to other parties, here specifically the government. I think that you are being extremely unfair to him.
Here is what Gaal wrote:
quote: The argument I've heard is that people who don't buy hc insurance and then become ill end up costing every other taxpayer more money since their bills end up getting sent to the government anyways. The way I see it, if someone chooses not to buy hc insurance and can afford it, then they should be allowed to live with the consequences of their own choice, i.e. the government doesn't need to cover their bills.
It isn't like people who can't pay their hospital bill now aren't being held liable for them. Of course they are. If expensive treatment is provided, they are on the hook for it whether they end up paying for it or not. If they can't pay, not only are they liable, the costs get passed on to us. They only way to not end up with costs is to not provide the service.
If this isn't what Gaal meant, I would think he had an opportunity to clarify after Samprimary's post.
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On the one hand, Gaal didn't explicitly say 'keep the sick out of hospitals'-though that is not an uncommon accompaniment to the 'let them suffer the consequences' rhetoric at all. On the other hand, he did speak as though it were somehow unjust that when we do let the unpaying sick into hospitals, we let them have services without paying which isn't true either but rather the status quo.
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: Sure. Because there's no such thing as a health care insurance card.
And so if you're robbed and shot, and the paramedics who haul you in have frisked you but didn't find a wallet, you're just S.O.L, right?
quote:What are you even talking about? 150 grand ready? That's the purpose of health care insurance.
I am assuming you don't know either how many people are really insured enough that it would bear the brunt of the real costs of livesaving surgery, nor do you really know what real medical costs really in general tend to be when you are cut open by surgeons.
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: Sure. Because there's no such thing as a health care insurance card. What are you even talking about? 150 grand ready? That's the purpose of health care insurance.
The ER can't always get verification of everyones identity before taking them on as an expense. It would be monumentally retarded if we put in that kind of a roadblock to vital care just to satisfy the tiny quantity of people who just want to say "bootstraps, buddy"! And throw everyone out who made the "decision" to be unable to shoulder rapidly rising healthcare costs.
And yes, 150 g's... can we anecdote yet?
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ER is different than long-term medical treatment. Emergency Room is immediately saving someone's life. Like I said, if someone can't afford healthcare insurance, then they should be given government help. All others, it's your choice whether to buy insurance or not, but don't expect others to subsidize your risk if you choose not to.
Here's an anecdote: My father is a taxi driver and my mother is a paralegal. I have three siblings, one of whom suffers from Crohn's disease and I have been seeing a gastroenterologist for three years now. We have never once been told we can't see a doctor because we can't afford it. All four of us have either attended or are attending college. From my experience, it's not as difficult as people complain about to make a comfortable living with limited money. I live in Miami and I know people that complain about healthcare costs but managed to afford tickets to all three Miami Heat NBA Finals games here. I don't think the rest of society needs to cover their healthcare costs.
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My main point is that I think people feel too entitled now to that point that they should be able to do what they want and society still owes them a living. The government only needs to do for the people what they can't do for themselves. Regulation against corruption is one of them , so yes the government needs to be involved in healthcare to a certain extent but we are far beyond that now.
If we don't want Obamacare to force us to buy healthcare insurance, then accept the consequences if you don't buy healthcare insurance. If people want individual liberty then they need to accept individual responsibility.
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Well, your anecdote proves it! To hell with, for example, what the law does or doesn't actually say-you know a guy who spends money on basketball games instead of health care.
If that is actually a compelling foundation for national policy for you, then there's simply no discussing the matter. Nothing will ever be able to trump that burning sense of righteous indignation.
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I didn't say my anecdote proves anything. Parkour asked if we can anecdote yet and I supplied one.
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For the record, I think Obamacare is better than what we had before. But I think a libertarian policy would be more effective than either.
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: For the record, I think Obamacare is better than what we had before. But I think a libertarian policy would be more effective than either.
What would that look like, and what basic criteria do you believe need to be met?
Often in the health care debate people argue over the best way to provide health care, but never have the discussion on what they think health care should actually do, so they argue past each other. So what do you think it should do, and how does libertarian health care do it better?
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The government should set the safety net for those that can't afford health care insurance and provide enough funds for emergency services. Also, regulate the healthcare providers and insurance companies to the extent that it keeps prices fair (the specifics of how to do this are above my experience/knowledge). Beyond that, you are on your own.
I know this is considered a cruel solution, but I think our current policy of paying for things we can't afford is even more cruel since it will eventually have worse results. The population is becoming too large for the government to try to help everyone. A government that tries to help everyone will end up helping no one, as evidenced by the majority of world governments in large amounts of debt.
With a system like this, there will of course be people who fall through the cracks and need extra help. I think the willing generosity of society will be able to cover most of these cracks. On top of that, I think people would be more generous if they didn't believe that the government was always behind everyone for them to fall back on. Also, a policy like this would be far less expensive, requiring far less money from taxpayers, leading to further generosity. No one feels generous after April 15.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: The government should set the safety net for those that can't afford health care insurance and provide enough funds for emergency services. Also, regulate the healthcare providers and insurance companies to the extent that it keeps prices fair (the specifics of how to do this are above my experience/knowledge). Beyond that, you are on your own.
I know this is considered a cruel solution, but I think our current policy of paying for things we can't afford is even more cruel since it will eventually have worse results. The population is becoming too large for the government to try to help everyone. A government that tries to help everyone will end up helping no one, as evidenced by the majority of world governments in large amounts of debt.
With a system like this, there will of course be people who fall through the cracks and need extra help. I think the willing generosity of society will be able to cover most of these cracks. On top of that, I think people would be more generous if they didn't believe that the government was always behind everyone for them to fall back on. Also, a policy like this would be far less expensive, requiring far less money from taxpayers, leading to further generosity. No one feels generous after April 15.
This isn't true, again it's fyigm.
Also, pssst, since you didn't get the memo, but libertarianism is even more discredited than communism.
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Politically, in this country? Not by a long shot, for better or worse.
I remain deeply skeptical of the oft-claimed generosity of society among libertarians, if only the tax rate did this and the government did that and charitable groups did the other thing. We're a species that has some demonstrated pretty bad problems giving a crap what happens to strangers, and it's been tested and observed in many different ways. Especially when libertarians start in with the talk about bootstraps and letting people deal with their own mistakes, so and so forth. That's a constant refrain among libertarians, but one thing it isn't is the language of charity. It's simply not what people say when they have a serious priority of helping others, and there simply isn't any evidence, past or present, that human beings just behave more charitably if left alone.
Doesn't stop libertarians from speaking as though it were a given, though.
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Gaal, I greatly appreciate that you have a solution instead of the throng who say, "Just kill Obamacare is all I care about."
However, there are shortcomings in your solution.
quote: The government should set the safety net for those that can't afford health care insurance and provide enough funds for emergency services.
With the cost of insurance and healthcare far outstripping the cost of inflation the question quickly becomes, "Who can afford insurance." Right now insurance for my family every month is 50% higher than the cost of the mortgage on our house. We are not in the upper middle class, more close to the lower middle class, would we qualify?
Would all emergency room visits be covered under your "emergency services"? If Joe gets rushed to the hospital without his wallet he might need not only the emergency room doctor sewing up cuts and setting bones, but specialists to take care of brain injuries, burns, or cardiac problems for example. You are suggesting that the bill on these services will wait until after the emergency. Then the hospital would bill his insurance if he has any, or him if he doesn't have insurance.
quote: Also, regulate the healthcare providers and insurance companies to the extent that it keeps prices fair (the specifics of how to do this are above my experience/knowledge).
This is actually what a lot of "Obamacare" does. Every bit of regulations to help keep companies fair is fought as being "Anti-business" though.
quote: Beyond that, you are on your own.
This is how healthcare was for most of our history. It is why so many 18th and 19th century dramas and stories have people sacrificing their own safety, productivity, and morality to "make enough money so Mama could get her operation." It is why Tiny Tim had a crutch. The doctors could fix him, but it took money. Bob Cratchet was not poor, but because he couldn't afford a doctor bill then, Tiny Tim was doomed to die.
Tiny Tim had a pre-existing condition, so no insurance company would cover him.
Only Scrooge's money could allow for his healthcare.
Enough real instances of similar circumstances led to the people demanding change.
quote: I know this is considered a cruel solution, but I think our current policy of paying for things we can't afford is even more cruel since it will eventually have worse results. [/cruel]
What could be worse results than people dieing who could be healed? For you there may be worse results than other people who can not get, or are in between health care dieing for lack of help. For them, there isn't.
[cruel] The population is becoming too large for the government to try to help everyone. A government that tries to help everyone will end up helping no one, as evidenced by the majority of world governments in large amounts of debt. [/cruel]
Who decides whom to help? Your solution is "Survival of the richest, pity for the poor, the rest fight it out for yourself". If we can't help everyone, are we then a government of the people, or only of the special people?
Lots of countries are in debt. The debt is not caused by health care costs, but by other broader problems. In Greece paying taxes for the wealthy became almost an option, cheating on it was the standard. In Spain and Iceland it was the banks that goofed on greed and cost billions.
[quote] With a system like this, there will of course be people who fall through the cracks and need extra help. I think the willing generosity of society will be able to cover most of these cracks. On top of that, I think people would be more generous if they didn't believe that the government was always behind everyone for them to fall back on.
History, alas, proves you wrong. We would not have gone to the system we have if the local community could and would afford to help those who fall between the cracks.
Sure everyone loves to donate to the little kid with the bad disease. What they don't donate too is the drug addict who catches Lukemia. I've seen those fund raisers as well. They gather $5 or $6,000 to help pay medical bills. The medicine for the
quote: Also, a policy like this would be far less expensive, requiring far less money from taxpayers, leading to further generosity. No one feels generous after April 15.
My tax bill is far less than my health insurance bill. Cutting the Medicare part out of my tax bill will not make me more generous, since it will just disappear into ever growing insurance bills.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Doesn't stop libertarians from speaking as though it were a given, though.
The shortfall in generosity needed to cover the uninsured and underinsured here, even WITH essentially free ER care for indigent people and with medical bankruptcy as a frequently used outcome, is much too extraordinarily high to expect to be covered even if we halved tax rates (which would, well, implode the country). The savings of such a plan would be dwarfed by the additional generosity we would have to expect to be put back into the system to cover the uninsured, so it would only make the problem worse. 40,000 people in this country die due to a lack of access to proper health coverage, yearly. There is nothing to suggest that the shortfall in coverage would be covered up for, especially when it comes to individuals with critical care issues like wreck surgery or blood cancer or god knows what else.
quote:The population is becoming too large for the government to try to help everyone
This kinds of reeks of a made-up idea that I think you've been fed. What makes this true? What data is it based on? Why does total population matter more than GDP per capita? Does this idea take into consideration the fact that dense populations are easier to provide effective care to, and cheaper?
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What exactly do you think isn't true? I had no idea what fyigm is until I googled it, but I said nothing like that in any way.
"We're a species that has some demonstrated pretty bad problems giving a crap what happens to strangers, and it's been tested and observed in many different ways."
I agree. We're also a society that has shown remarkable altruism and charitable actions in many different ways.
"Especially when libertarians start in with the talk about bootstraps and letting people deal with their own mistakes, so and so forth. That's a constant refrain among libertarians, but one thing it isn't is the language of charity."
If you're debating with me, can you address me and not libertarians? I'm not claiming to speak for others and having other libertarian ideas assigned to me. I have no idea what talking about bootstraps means, nor how it applies to what I proposed.
Also, I noticed that this post was less condescending and dismissive of my ideas than your previous posts. Is this because you decided to give up refuting my perspective because it's not worth it or that you have a little bit more respect for them after I clarified what I meant? I wanted to write out my opinion on this issue because it's something I have been thinking about for awhile, but none of my friends IRL care enough about issues like these to have discussions about them, so I wanted to write them here to test them out, so to speak.
Darth Mauve, thank you for writing that out. I'm still reading/thinking about it and I'll respond to it if I have a rebuttal.
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: The government should set the safety net for those that can't afford health care insurance and provide enough funds for emergency services. Also, regulate the healthcare providers and insurance companies to the extent that it keeps prices fair (the specifics of how to do this are above my experience/knowledge). Beyond that, you are on your own.
I know this is considered a cruel solution, but I think our current policy of paying for things we can't afford is even more cruel since it will eventually have worse results. The population is becoming too large for the government to try to help everyone. A government that tries to help everyone will end up helping no one, as evidenced by the majority of world governments in large amounts of debt.
With a system like this, there will of course be people who fall through the cracks and need extra help. I think the willing generosity of society will be able to cover most of these cracks. On top of that, I think people would be more generous if they didn't believe that the government was always behind everyone for them to fall back on. Also, a policy like this would be far less expensive, requiring far less money from taxpayers, leading to further generosity. No one feels generous after April 15.
What would happen to Medicare and Medicaid? Gone?
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Blayne Bradley
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The assertion that there's some magical point where healthcare is unaffordable to provide for all citizens I feel is completely untrue. The whole point of programs like Social Security is that people pay into it, with healthcare if everyone has access to it, prices go down. Prices going up right now is due to the broken semiclosed market environment that conspires to keep prices up.
The status quo, even with Obamacare is unsustainable in the long run, true singlepayer is significantly more sustainable.
You know what happens when the population increases? The economy also tends to grow as well, growth in GDP outpacing costs is the foundation of modern economics.
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In a very essential way, the status quo system conspires, through various convolutions, to provide the lowest standard of care for the higher cost. Essentially the opposite how a free-market system usually works. A lot of that has to do with regulation: particularly regulation puppateered by the neuter itself to the point where it is providing a demonstrably substandard service at a cost of easily 200% of the average.
It's rather elegant proof that medical care doesn't follow the rules of a free market, for many reasons. For one thing, medical care as a product is not fungible. Imagine Americans today walking around with giant crappy cell-phones with technology 15 years out of date, while the rest of the world had smartphones, and we were paying 1000 dollars for the equivalent of a Nokia 5150. It would never happen. But it happens with health care. It is happening right now.
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quote:In a very essential way, the status quo system conspires, through various convolutions, to provide the lowest standard of care for the higher cost. Essentially the opposite how a free-market system usually works. A lot of that has to do with regulation: particularly regulation puppateered by the neuter itself to the point where it is providing a demonstrably substandard service at a cost of easily 200% of the average.
It seems to me that this is the way a free market system works-if it can. The intent on the part of whoever is providing the goods or services isn't, common rhetoric notwithstanding, to provide the most or the best for the least. The very idea that they would runs contrary to one of the primary principles of capitalism, self interest.
So when they can get away with offering less or worse for more, they will, over the long run. It's not the March of Dimes, and helping others is not the first reason nearly anyone becomes a big businessperson. It turns a profit.
The reason things work differently for most other free market systems is, as you say, because they're different. Competition exists in ways for other goods and services that it doesn't for health care. You can price shop for TVs, landscapers, designers, cars, and nectarines in ways you can't for medical care. Very often there you have to take what you are offered by your health insurance, and those decisions aren't made by consumers very often it seems to me.
But, yknow, just say socialism enough and it's bad, I guess.
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Every time I use that argument against someone who wants a "government-free free market health care system" they're flummoxed to find a response. It's like they don't actually understand what sort of system they propose and what it entails. Insurance companies make money by DENYING care. Hospitals make money by charging as much as humanly possible, and so much of the cost is so amorphous and shrouded in mystery that a customer couldn't possibly begin to guess how to figure it out, to say nothing of the fact that it's hard to price shop and compare when you're lying on a gurney.
Health care is a fundamentally different service than any other on the market, and shouldn't be treated by the same rules, nor should we expect the same outcomes, as other areas of the market.
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quote:Hospitals make money by charging as much as humanly possible, and so much of the cost is so amorphous and shrouded in mystery that a customer couldn't possibly begin to guess how to figure it out, to say nothing of the fact that it's hard to price shop and compare when you're lying on a gurney.
I wouldn't say health care providera are in the business of denying or minimizing care (nor did you, I know), but that's where the money is. As long as people like to make more money, the impulse to offer less quality and quantity will always be there.
If it were the kind of thing people could compare in very straightforward ways, it would be one thing. You can, without needing much in the way of training or expertise, make a pretty informed decision about which car you want to buy. The dozens of factors influencing that decision are easily compared to one another, and there's a single dollar amount attached to each choice, and the only complication there is the length and type of payments. Plus, there are plenty of used cars around as well, and a lot of flexibility overall as far as getting that money together.
Contrast that with health care. Even if someone goes to the trouble of becoming well informed in their regional ins and outs of the system-and that knowledge will be very regional-there will still be so very much they don't know. Perhaps their health care doesn't cover the doctors they know are reliable, or perhaps it does but only if you know to ask-you've got to know the ins and outs of health insurance, and it's not as though 'easy to understand' is a first-tier priority for any provider I've ever seen.
In the quite likely event that your otherwise good or even excellent job doesn't provide adequate care in your eyes, well, what are you to do exactly? Upend careers? Ask a prospective employer to let you know what their benefits will be in ten years when you're having children of your spouse is getting sick?
The single thing that others have pointed out that makes the free market system so compelling simply doesn't exist in health care. If I found out I got screwed on that car, I can simply avoid that dealer or brand in the future, and in the meantime as unhappy as I might be my car will probably drive. If it turns out I got screwed on that major surgery I needed after a car accident, well, what can I do really? Spend the next few years minimum wrangling in court? Switch health care (somehow) for the next time I need major surgery? Customers don't have the kind of quick, easily used power they need for the free market to work.
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Gaal,
quote:I agree. We're also a society that has shown remarkable altruism and charitable actions in many different ways.
I really don't think so. Look, I love my country, and I'm proud of it, particularly many of its founding principles. But altruism must be measured by capacity to determine just how large and impressive it is, and I don't think you could acurately say that charity is one of our hallmarks. Especially not in our tax code. Remember, if you intend to provide examples: you cannot simply cherry pick the good and hold them up to stand alone, and 'better than other nations' is a poor measurement indeed for altruism.
quote:If you're debating with me, can you address me and not libertarians? I'm not claiming to speak for others and having other libertarian ideas assigned to me. I have no idea what talking about bootstraps means, nor how it applies to what I proposed.
Well you did use the word yourself, Gaal, and along with your rhetoric it really seemed to fit. As for bootstraps, I was referring to the idealized notion that society is best served when government helps them as little as possible, and they are forced to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
quote:Also, I noticed that this post was less condescending and dismissive of my ideas than your previous posts. Is this because you decided to give up refuting my perspective because it's not worth it or that you have a little bit more respect for them after I clarified what I meant?
I'm afraid you gave up defending your own perspective. It was pointed out to you that the objections you were raising about these laws were strange, either because the laws simply didn't do what you claimed, or that the system as it is contained the flaws you were criticizing. This seemed to make no impact, and you offered your points in traditional conservative talking point format, no less. So I took those things to mean you weren't serious, so I shouldn't take your remarks as seriously-which I was initially.
I'll try again: it is an article of faith that our society would, from the private sector, provide an equal or better safety net than what we currently have among conservatives. Can you provide any reason that doesn't rebound back to that faith as to why we should think this is true? Can you point to a society that has done so, charitable output increasing in proportion to tax decrease, a regular outpouring of the importance of charity and community support among the middle and upper class and business community?
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