"Medicine" in America
- Thread starter Paragon Fury
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This guy has some very good points, but drops the ball on banking on government-imposed system.BlackStar42 said:
The only government-imposed rule I'd like to see in health care is a requirement for all medical practitioners to post their prices, so consumers can make the same informed choices they can make in every other market.
This enables competition, which keeps costs down.
As far as governmental systems go, scrap all of them and replace them with a Negative Income Tax as Milton Friedman suggested.
Just go to YouTube and type in 'Milton Friedman' and you'll see how complex systems orbit around economic fundamentals, not government programs.
You never said "incentive always equals competition", you said this:amartin_109 said:
1. i -> r
2. ~c -> ~i
3. ~c
C. ~r
I.E
1. If incentive, then response
2. If no competition, then no incentive.
3. No competition.
C: No response.
This example fails in principal there are other motivators to action besides competition , such as:
1. Duty.
2. Personal Ethics.
3. Religion.
4. Emotion.
6. Family pressure.
And why does it have to exclude the use of violence? Violence-- physical, symbolic, and structural- is part of the fabric of this world. To ignore its effects on human behaviour would be grossly oversimplifying reality.
And it also fails because it is logically invalid.
Because that's how science works, and economics is a science.
They differ in such a degree on such a fundamental level that they can no longer be regarded as the same thing. Or, to put it in language that might be more appropriate to your taste: treating government as if it is corporation is like treating gravity as if it is the electromagnetic force.
I thought we were comparing the single-payer model to the American model, as per the title of the thread?
Err... the Government does allow the collection and publication of these data. I don't know where you get the conspiracy from that anything involving the NHS is somehow magically excluded from the Death Record or the Government budget-- both of which are publicly available:
http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/
http://www.nhsconfed.org/priorities/political-engagement/Pages/NHS-statistics.aspx
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/searchcatalogue
http://www.oecd.org/statistics/
No, because the contracts are put up for auction. The business who can fulfil the contract the cheapest whilst still meeting quality standards will be rewarded the contract.
For what? Stating that healthcare costs are lower here than in the USA?
This stuff is common knowledge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_(PPP)_per_capita]
For state provision and against charity?
Because charity is unreliable, and a plurality of charities lacks bargaining power.
And, as private organisations, charities are not subject to oversight.
Your argument is purely ideological. You might think that this makes it immune from criticism, but that is not so, because we can and are engaging in thought experiments and analogising it to aspects of reality that we can observe.
And it just doesn't hold much water.
Your quote shouldnt say "many reasons" if you cant state many reasons. Its like me saying "Healthcare would provide better care if we handed control of our planet over to the baby eating space aliens from Omicron Persei 8 and there are many reasons for this but i cant name any because i havnt done it yet". Thats not how reasoning works. For people to want and like my idea you need to, at least using hypothetical arguments, convince me its better than what we have now. Otherwise its a blind stab in the dark.amartin_109 said:
Actually you DO have a choice. You are perfectly entitled to become Amish. Or form a commune that uses a currency not minted by the US government by producing 100% of your own goods or even use the barter system to trade with the outside world if you can. Or become a hermit! All valid choices that would never see you pay taxes ever again.
The reason this is reasonable is because frankly you were born. When you were born you were born in a hospital. You were delivered by a doctor who was educated by tax funded education. He travelled to work on a road built by tax money. The barrista at starbucks yesterday? She wasnt an illiterate idiot because the state paid for her to do english to at LEAST a 10nth grade level.
You're born into a society that has been paid for by the people before you to be a place thats nice for you to live in. The common people are educated and do jobs that help you because of this. Roads, electricity and public transport help others and when they help or serve you this is only possible because the aforementioned things exist. You cant control where you are born. But up until the moment you realised what taxes are and thought about paying them you have been racking up a debt. This might be unfair since you MIGHT have been born in somalia where you dont get taxed at all and been far happier for it but the generation before you shouldered this unfairness to create a society for YOU that you enjoy and appreciate. You owe them. But they dont want your money. They want you to pass it on. Help this very same society continue by doing what they did for you for others. You live better in an educated society.
School has been lying to you for the longest time. School isnt for YOU. Its for taxpayers. I want you to invent me cool shit i appreciate that makes my life better. Unless you spend your entire life until youre like 14 avoiding ALL benefit from a government funded system youre in debt son and you do that even by enjoying the newest Iphone since the inventor was publicly schooled. You dont owe the government. You owe EVERYONE in society who made those things that improved your upbringing possible. The government is just a middle man for the transition of money. If you exploit a system someone has paid for to improve your life youre expected to do the same for others. Personally i think thats extremely valid.
As far as I know the bill you get from your doctor is very negotiable. They are more likely to let you pay only a fraction of the cost with a reasonable payment plan then attempt to bankrupt you with no gain whatsoever.Danny Ocean said:
The quote wasnt mine, it was from a book. I just didnt edit it. There is no statistic i can give you that you could not come back with a counter example. There is no situation i can give you that you would accept. I can scream to high heaven that every instance of a real free market has resulted in efficiency, it would be pointless for me to do so.BiscuitTrouser said:
Do you perchance know what a catechism is? Your argument breaks down to: If you do not wish to participate in a system that you disagree with, then go live in the woods. Even if that wasnt abhorrent, every commercial transmission of value is taxable. Meaning that if i say, made furniture and traded for cloth, gas, whatever, that exchange is taxable.
What you describe is the "Social Contract." In what other area of your life are you born into a contract? How can it be reasonable that until you are 18 in the states, you are unable to choose whether or not you consume government programs, in fact not even exposed to alternatives, taught that the system we have now is the very height of virtue, but are still bound by this contract? There are no competing roads to drive on, there are no completely government free schools or hospitals. You never had a choice.
I think you are misinformed about where tax money, at least in the states, goes. How all of our taxes are paying for the interest on debt. That no matter how much money gets passed along, there is simply not enough for everything. How the pensions and welfare of the last generation were payed for with debt at my expense, before i was even conceived! How i was born with national debt attached to me the second i spurted out. (i loled at that image) That every dollar i earn is worth less and less with each passing year.
Thats not even the thing i hate the most. The use of debt to pay for all these wars. War on terror, war on drugs, war for the petrodollar, war on poverty. That even at the extremely conservative number of 110,000 dead in iraq, thats still 27 times over the deaths that can reasonably attributed to terrorism, clearly not self-defense anymore.
I really dont care if my system works, or if it fails horribly. I am against the initiation of force. How is it that you can perfectly accept that theft, murder, and imprisonment are really bad things in your own personal life, but as soon as 51% of people get together and say "its ok because we wrote a law" it becomes acceptable? Why is this fundamental contradiction so well hidden? Maybe it is because i believe that if a principal is not universal, it is invalid.
What this really comes down to is; Are you willing to initiate the use of force against me for following my principals? If yes then i feel we cannot have a reasonable debate, as you have literally threatened my person. We are fundamentally morally incompatible.
I concede to everything you say.Danny Ocean said:
I dont want stats, although if you even tried id appreciate it, i want you to show me that hypothetically your idea would work. Saying something has MANY reasons then refusing to even bother showing me a single one because i "Wont believe you" sounds a lot like the guys who think the president is an alien. Just saying.amartin_109 said:
You can secede as well? Every form of government is a catachism. If you live in the UK and wish you could live in a communistic society thats too bad. Same with anarchy, i would NEVER want to live in an anarchy. So my option would be to secede and form a state or live in the woods to avoid it.
I dont see why its relevant that in no other area are you born into a contract. All that says is this is a unique situation. And it is. Before youre 18 you really dont have a choice in most things. Youre not even a consumer before youre 18, in a free market youre forced to buy from and consume goods that your parents choose anyway. You were never taught about other systems of government? Are you serious? And the "Democracy!" worship is purely an american thing i think. In the UK i was taught about lots of different economic ideas.
The thrust of my argument is this. Its immoral to be born and exploit a society others paid to build for you but refuse to contribute yourself. Its true you didnt choose to exploit it. But you did. And why should you be the special generation that gets to take it all and give nothing back? Thats pretty unfair to the generation before you. Funding your schools and getting nothing in return for their efforts. Its not fair to those who paid taxes that YOU benefited from. If they knew you would reject the system they would be idiots to pay the taxes to begin with. Who wants to be the last tax paying generation? Giving to a system that is immediately destroyed by those who it helped. Sounds kinda shitty. They paid their taxes on the basis that the children it helped raise in a positive social environment would pay their taxes in turn. If youre not going through with that you should at least give their money back to them personally or else youve basically stolen it.
Cant comment really. I cant pretend to be informed about american society to a significant degree, im discussing a hypothetical england.
I care if the people in society live or die. I care about having the least amount of possible suffering. So i care VERY much if your system fails horribly. Building a "Moral" society on a river of baby corpses really isnt my cup of tea.
It depends what your principle is. If your principle harms others i think im perfectly within my rights to want to imprison you or use force to prevent you following it. Since i believe not paying taxes is the same as stealing from the generation before you who entered into the social contract (and thus taxes) on the basis you would take part after leeching their money I think its ok to use some measure of force to make sure they get their money back. So maybe taxation is stealing. But so is not paying taxes to make up for the generation above you that paid theirs. Either way someone gets a raw deal and i think if you dont pay taxes the one above you gets the worst deal, having wasted their money entirely educating you for you to turn around and say "Thanks but fuck you". Seems like the lesser evil.
[/quote]
That's a horrible argument.Verigan said:
Taxation is written into the laws of a country. The company refrains from doing anything illegal. Therefor, any employees in this company will have to pay taxes. You then apply for a job in this company, knowing you will have to pay taxes. The company offers you a job, and you accept it - Voila, in this instance, you give consent to taxation. Taxation is so to speak a part of the job package, and since you've accepted the job, you've accepted all which it entails including taxation.
If you do not want to pay taxes, you're free to not work, or you can break the law and get an illegal job where you don't have to pay taxes (and thereby not giving your consent to pay taxes, since it's not a part of the job package).
BUT! This is actually pointless, because you've already given your consent before that. The state says 'so and so is the law, and if you want to live here, you'll have to be lawful, or else we'll punish you' - You, by living in the country, then give your consent to be 'lawful or get punished for breaking the law'.
If you find this deal unacceptable, you can move out of the country.
Therefor, taxation is not theft since you've already given your consent.
Let's take your bank teller example. The bank have decided that whenever someone cashes a check, they'll have to pay a fee of 1%. You go into the bank and hands over a check of 100$, while knowing that the fee exists. You're handed back 99$. "What is this, where is the last dollar?" you say. The bank teller informs you that there's a fee of 1% whenever you cash in a check, and points to a sign where you can read that very thing. "I didn't consent to that!" you tell the bank teller, but she replies "You did, by making use of our service". Clearly, she's in the right.
Besides, the whole notion that you have to consent to every single law is ridiculous. Using your logic, imprisoning a murderer would be illegal imprisonment if he hadn't given consent to the law that state murder is illegal. You can't run a country that way - citizens don't get to pick and choose which laws applies to them, as that would undermine the entire legal system.
Because the violence of the past is unchangeable. Im sorry the past generation was stolen from. Thats awful. Its not my fault. I cannot be held responsible for stupid people voting for stupid laws. My parents were 'ok' with getting stolen from to pay things for other people, im not.BiscuitTrouser said:
This isnt a special situation. There is nothing that differentiates it from any other interaction between people other than right now it is forced.
No you wernt taught anything in school. Well maybe YOU were. You are the minority. I am absolutely certain that nobody teaches an-cap tho. Or Austrian Economics. Or fractional reserve banking. Or morality. Or ethics. Hell how about, "How to be productive and competitive in the market." That isnt taught. The difference between a consumer good, and a capital good. How to accounting. First principals.
You know that under UN law it is illegal to be stateless? That it is illegal to not be a citizen of some UN recognized country?
I come up to you and give you 100 whatever local currency and dont say a word. You are confused, but soon spend this money on whatever. whether you personally would actually spend it is entirely irrelevant. 25 years later i come to you and say "remember that 100 monies i gave you? yeah that was a loan and now you owe me 2500 because interest."
Im not going to see the society i want... probably not even my kids or grandchildren. I dont want a free society for myself, thats impossible, I want it for humanity. When government is looked at for what it is.
Take that sign off the wall. There is nobody that comes to you before you are born and tells you what you are about to be born into. What you described is fraud by any definition.Niflhel said:
Of course you're not told what you're born in to. Luckily, minors cannot give consent - Their legal guardian, on the other hand, can, on behalf of the minor.amartin_109 said:
Once you come of age, you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to give consent. And by then, you have a good idea of what giving consent actually entails.
I thought I'd revive this thread for one thing:
You know how that guy said an ambulance isn't a taxi? He is right; I've never been mugged for $326.58 by a taxi before.
You read that correctly.
$326.58 for a trip that lasted less than 15 miles and I wasn't given any choice in the matter.And that is after insurance.
You know how that guy said an ambulance isn't a taxi? He is right; I've never been mugged for $326.58 by a taxi before.
You read that correctly.
$326.58 for a trip that lasted less than 15 miles and I wasn't given any choice in the matter.And that is after insurance.
I hate the way Americans treat health as a commodity. It's outrageous. Same goes for education. They're the 2 things people shouldn't have to fight for.