I can’t speak for anyone else, but for myself, I believe in socialized healthcare because when compared to the wealthier Americans with whom we share our order, we Canadians live longer, live healthily longer, pay less individually for health care, pay less through our taxes for health care, and overall devote less of our GDP for health care.
Some folks stand on ideology. I stand on better health for less cost. I don’t give a fig for libertarianism, socialism, neo conservatism, liberalism, communism, facism, or whatever other -ism is out there in the wings. What I care about is better health for less cost, which has been proven to be had through socalized health care.
If someone can show me a better system for providing better health for less cost, then sign me up. No one has been able to do this. Until someone can come up with a better system, I’ll quite thankfully stick with socalized health care.
Americans are welcome to stand on ideology. As long as they have the system they desire, even if it costs more out of their pockets and through their taxes, and does not help them live as long or as healthily, then more power to them. None of my business.
I keep saying this over and over again: Libertarians are not suggesting that no one need make sacrifices–life itself enforces this. In the same way, I have not at any point said that I have no moral obligation to offer help where it is needed–I have said someone else should not be in charge of determining what MY moral obligations should be. If you actually DO see the moral argument, then all I can say is that if you check the archives, there exists thread after thread of people with far more expertise in economics than I have explaining why markets are a better way for people to achieve their desires (moral or otherwise) than governments.
You will also see that the discussion almost always devolves into the pro-socialist side saying that they do not “trust” the market to solve the problems they want solved (which is sort of like not trusting the highway to make sure that I get to work) OR concluding that libertarians are magical thinkers because we cannot predict exactly HOW various issues would be addressed in a purely libertarian society. I also cannot predict what new inventions will continue to make computers better and more useful, but I am confident that they will happen, because people want them to happen. I am also confident that people wil find ways to help those in need, because in real life, people are not “rational agents”; they are moral agents.
You are correct. At the same time, a vast majority of Americans will acknowledge that public education is not producing the desired results–particularly for those who are most in need of help from the rest of society. Those that do not favor removal of government involvement do not recognize that it is this government involvement that is causing the problem. Even so, most of them would rather have their children in private schools, and a great many are clamoring for access to more “marketish” options like charter schools. Sadly, they are being stymied by political resistance from politicians and teachers unions.
To me, education is an excellent example of the problems of government control because it is SO controlled from above and produces results so close to what I would predict. Government control leads to rising costs, falling productivity, and technological stagnation. Surely, it is obvious that we continue to pay more and more for it and to get less and less for our money. A shockingly high percentage of high school graduates cannot even speak or write their native tongue correctly. Maybe this system is better than nothing, but it isn’t much better.
Also, when was the last time you heard of a new discovery in education? Or a revolutionary technique that increases learning while decreasing effort? (Actually, there are some, but they aren’t being implemented) At the same time as car makers are finding ways to make more cars with less people, educators are insisting that we need to have more teachers for the same number of students. The “production” of teaching is actually going backwards.
With healthcare, it is a little harder to see the pattern. As many have pointed out, the gov’t is already heavily involved in US healthcare, and I would say that the continuous rise in costs is the result. At the same time, there is enough “market” left in place that there are still discoveries and inventions happening. And it seems pretty clear that there are more advances being made in this “market” than there are in those countries where the government is more heavily involved, and that they are being made more easily available to more people.
Is everyone getting as much healthcare as they would like? Of course not–and this “equality of outcomes” will never be achieved except by lowering them for everyone. To my way of thinking, the fact that market-based solutions are not perfect is not a good reason to switch to solutions that are worse.
And I find it really annoying that so many people insist that the only way their goals can be achieved is by government fiat. If there really is a majority of people that want to provide help to those in need, they are perfectly able to do this without government intervention–they just can’t force everyone to participate. In fact, I would say that not having as much funding as they think they need will actually make them better.
I was reading a few weeks ago that Toyota often deliberately underfunds and understaffs operations as a way of “forcing” people to find ways to increase productivity. Since most of my work takes place in the automotive industry, I can assure you that this works.
If what you are hearing is “the individual not wanting to pay for xyz”, then I would say that you are listening to your assumptions and prejudices and not to the arguments being made. Can you honestly not see the difference between “I don’t want to pay for xyz” and “I don’t want to be forced to buy xyz for you”?
Clearly, you are convinced of these things. If you are so convinced that you are not even going to acknowledge the arguments of those who disagree, why bother participating?
I don’t have a problem with you standing for this or pursuing it. Why do you insist that everyone else stand for the same things? If I stand for avoiding sin and achieving heaven, how would it be any different if I were to force you to attent my church?
And I suppose it doesn’t matter that other people DO give a fig for freedom and care about other things that aren’t healthcare.
This has not been proven to me. The fact that you are satisfied with the proof means that my doubts don’t matter?
I would submit that while you continue to hold your hands over your eyes, no one can show you anything. Why do I have to prove to you that “my” approach is better, but you don’t have to prove to me that yours is? My approach doesn’t require your participation, but yours would require mine.
And your fellow citizens will as well, even the ones who don’t want to and are not thankful for it.
Thank you. I am very happy that I don’t actually need your permission in order to “stand on ideology”. I am not quite so happy that I need a doctor’s permission in order to buy medicine that I need–but that’s a different discussion.
Clearly, you are not one of those liberals who is disturbed by appearing condescending.
Errrrrrrrrr…the field of education is full of them. Especially when dealing with kids who have been offered least from education in the past - those with autism, dyslexia, hearing problems or other learning difficulties or disabilities.
And really, picking education as a metaphor is setting yourself up for a fall - as with healthcare, America lags behind most of the western world in the proportion of provision which is state-providided, and also lags behind in quality.
Then again this article says only 4% of the highly educated brain drain that is leaving Europe to come to the US are physicians. About 80% are businessmen, who would be expected to be motivated solely by money. Many of the scientists who leave the EU do it just as much for new opportunities to do research as well as higher pay.
Even so, I don’t see why it matters if a physician in the UK, UK or Japan invents a new surgery. In the end he/she has invented a new surgery and sooner or later most people will have access to it.
What I meant, essentially, was that, given this thread was mostly comparing the advantages/disvantages of a US model of healthcare vs, say, an European model, your arguments, coming from a libertarian perspective that implies that you’re opposed, on principle, to a publically funded healthcare system (which would rule out both the US and European model) would better fit in an entirely separate thread.
People were debatting from the perspective that publicly funded healthcare (like, say, Medicaid) was legitimate. Your position is a little like stating “anyway God doesn’t exist” in a thread where people are discussing whether Genesis should be taken litterally or in a symbolic way.
This statement seems completely arbitrary to me. Our countries are strikingly similar when compared to other societies, current (say, Bengladesh) or past (say, Soviet Union or 19th century UK). Besides, since nobody agrees about what exactly, or even roughly, a “socialist” or “libertarian” society would be, I’m not sure how you could make comparisons with these undefined concepts.
I agree with this.
Absolutely not. I would even add it’s pretty arrogant to believe that only your views are principled.
My take is that both views are based on a set of principles, and that both sets of principles are ultimately arbitrary. Honestly, your belief that your principles are the only valid ones, and even apparently the only existing ones makes any further discussion essentially pointless.
I would add also that I noticed in your answer in the other thread about rights that you seem to admit that rights are social constructs and not something that exist independantly, and can be objectively determined. So, I’m not sure what we’re disagreeing about exactly.
I’m going to begin to respond to the rest of your post, but I won’t answer to all of it, because, besides it being long, it’s also a major pain to argue about fundamental principles and issues in a foreign language in which I can’t accurately express my mind (as opposed to, for instance arguing about facts or figures).
Nope. I’m arguing that your arguments would equally apply to the US system, hence are rather irrelevant when comparing the US system (partially public healthcare system) and an European one (mostly universal public healthcare system).
My point, to sum up, was that the cornerstone of society is solidarity, and that if we remove this cornerstone, there’s no society to speak of left.
From my point of view, you’re accepting some elements of this solidarity (say, defense budget/fending off the tribe’s ennemy) but are refusing others (in this case, healthcare/taking care of the ill and wounded tribesmen). And I state that this choice is arbitrary.
The documents you’re refering to didn’t create this society. They just modified the rules under which it was operating. I would tend to leave to other american people the constitutionnal debate. I would nevertheless point out that your society’s organization isn’t based solely on a litteral reading of your constitution or bill of rights. It encompasses way more than that. Besides, I would note that the existence of amendments proves that even this reference isn’t unchanging.
Also : there’s no right lo life, in your constitution?
In mine too. But you’re still obligated to abide by the rules collectively defined, whether you agree with them or not. Your choice is limited to accepting these rules or becoming an outcast. That was my point.
You might disagree with paying taxes to fund the firefighters, or roads, or public healthcare, but once the collective will has been made clear, there’s not much you can do. And the collective agreement to fund healthcare isn’t any less legitimate than the agreement to fund the firefighters just because, on the basis of your principles or self-interest, you really, really don’t like paying taxes to fund other people’s medical care but don’t mind paying taxes to fund the firefighters department.
I perfectly get that, thank you very much. Except for the part about any need you might have. For instance, do people who barely have enough money to feed themselves pay taxes in the USA?
Apart from this point, yes, I’m advocating to place a particular goal above your individual wishes or “needs” (it’s not exactly the same). I do that to provide a public lawyer to an accused person who can’t afford to pay one, and to provide healthcare to a crippled person who can’t afford to pay for it. No difference. After all, both could save monay to afford a lawyer/ doctor, or else could rely on donations, or lacking that also could try to cure themselves/defend themselves in a court of law.
Maybe. But maybe you would hold a different position had you lived in different circumstances. 180° turn on this issue when people found themselves bankrupted and fighting teeth and nails against private insurers unwilling to reimburse/insure them after they got a serious medical conditions are not unheard off. Such U-turns have been described on this very board.
Besides, maybe you could extend to me the same courtesy instead of stating that my stance isn’t based on any principle. If fire came to stove, I could afford a private insurance. Actually, I get one for the medical expenses not covered by the public healthcare system, income loss in case of serious medical problem, etc…
We’re in a serious disagreement about that. You’re including in the “provided by the collective” only elements that are directly provided by a governmental institution. What you fail to take into account is that essentially all the services directly provided by private individuals or companies couldn’t be provided at all lacking the services that are provided or paid for by the collective, like public research, education, international trade agreements, infrastructure, education…and, yes…healthcare.
To take an extreme example regarding solely healthcare, lacking international and national health organizations, publically funded, last year’s SARS would most probably have spread all over the world. Once it would have hit the USA, lacking tax-funded public hospitals, organizations like the NIH, CDC, etc…, it would also have spread all over the place, and a lot of people would have died, maybe including you, whether or not you were able and willing to pay for your healthcare.
And the social structure would also have been disrupted as a result of this epidemic.
I’m going to stop here, since I think most of the points have already been made and I’m a little fed up with this post.
The subject was “Why no free healthcare in the US”. In other words, for those who are against it, why are you against it? The fact that I argue from a different perspective does not make me off-topic. The fact that I am also against Social Security does not make my objections to universal healthcare any less valid.
A better analogy would be if it were a thread that asked, why shouldn’t we teach Genesis in science class and I said “because not everyone believes in God”. And then you would be the Christian telling me that I should not be posting there.
This is absurd. It is not difficult at all to distinguish between a libertarian society and a socialist one. It is also quite simple to say that Germany is more socialist than the US. All the Germans that I know are quite proud of this fact. Also, in the documents that created the United States as an independent country, the founders stated that the government was being formed based on the principle that all men are equally entitled life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This principle is a core libertarian principle.
I did not say that. I said that your views are not based on a consistent set of principles. If they are, please let me know what these principles are, and I will show you how you are not adhering to them.
My principles are easy to elucidate: Each person is equally entitled live his life, make his own choices, and enjoy control over his property. The purpose of government is to ensure that these rights are protected and defended, with no one person, group, or entity’s rights being placed above another individual’s rights.
You are treating treating morals–and the underlying principles–interchangeably. My moral stance is that my principles are the most fair ones for everybody. I have been INSISTING that everyone’s moral positions are equally valid. I have been insisting that your moral beliefs are NO MORE VALID than mine, not that they are invalid. The principles I described are rooted in the belief that EVERYONE’S MORAL POSITIONS ARE EQUALLY VALID.
Your entire argument is based on establishing instances where your moral positions are more valid than mine and, therefore, mine should be ignored.
We are disagreeing about the circumstances under which it is acceptable for the state to violate the fundamental rights of a citizen. My position is that the citizen should not have his rights violated and that the only restriction is that he not violate another citizen’s rights in exercising them.
Your position is that a citizen’s rights should be violated for the “good of the collective” and you are explaining to me why you are sure that universal health care is, in fact, good for the collective. I keep trying to tell you that the citizens ARE the collective and the notion that violating citizens for the good of the collective is oxymoronic.
You are correct that my arguments apply equally to the US system. That does not make them invalid as reasons for not making the US system worse (in my opinion) by making it more like a European one.
And my point is that the cornerstone of society is to protect the rights of citizens to live their lives as they want to, protected from those who would enslave them to varying degrees. Both of us are describing societies that value freedom differently. What I can’t figure is why you insist that the society I describe is not a society.
It is not aribitrary. If the purpose of government is to protect the rights of its citizens, then it follows that “fending off the tribe’s enemy” is appropriate and providing “free” services is not. Once again, there is an underlying principle. I’ll ask again, if it is not okay for me to force you to worship Satan (because I believe that it is better for society or “for your own good”), why then is it okay for you to force me to pay for someone else’s healthcare, even if you believe it is better for society? You are making arbitrary distinctions; I am not.
You’re going to have to settle on just one definition of society. In the sense that US society is a separate society from Great Britain–with a different approach to providing healthcare–they most certainly DID create it.
No, they create a government to establish, maintain, and protect it.
Yes, there is. There is no right to free healthcare. In fact, there are no “rights” to free services. My right to life does not require anything from you other than that you not harm me. It does not require that you help me. In the same way, my right to liberty only requires that you not imprison or enslave me. To me, it seems like a reasonable requirement. Apparently, you find it unreasonable.
Why do you keep saying this? I am not advocating civil disobedience. I AM advocating elimination of rules that violate the principles upon which the US was founded and, in this thread, I am advocating NOT creating new rules that are in more egregious violation of these principles.
Thanks for clearing that up. How come you get to complain about rules you don’t like, but I’m just supposed to accept them or become an outcast?
It is legitimate in that I am required to go along. It is illegitimate in that it violates constitutional principles. What is your point?
I really, really don’t like it when citizens’ rights are violated. I am no more or less offended by this than I would be by a requirement that we all attend the Church Of Satan. It is not about my personal distast for paying taxes. It is about my understanding that it is the same set of principles that both of these violate, and if the collective does not adhere to the principles in one case, then there is no reason to adhere to them in another.
In this country, Democrats support universal health care and are offended by Republican effort to legislate their religious beliefs. The simple fact is, while Dems support making exceptions to the protection of rights, they have no moral standing to object to the exceptions that Reps make. It becomes a situation where the majority rules and individual rights don’t matter. And if the majority is in favor of slavery, there is no underlying principle to protect the enslaved.
Yes, on almost every item they purchase.
Be honest: You are advocating to place a particular goal above every single person’s individual wishes or needs–and you want to make me seem selfish for speaking up for the rest of us.
Yes difference. Protecting rights is different from providing services. One is appropriate for government; the other is not.
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Insisting that insurers live up to the agreements they have made is not contrary to my beliefs. It is why libertarians are not in favor of abolishing the legal system.
I am stating the truth; I am sorry if you feel it is a discourtesy. To my way of thinking, it is a kindness.
I don’t fail to take them into account. I just don’t try to confuse you by implying that private actions are government actions or that three individuals buying a TV are a “collective” in the same sense that a government is. You are convinced that all of these things cannot happen without government action. I disagree. You conceal this belief by saying that they cannot happen without “society”, with which you know most anyone would agree.
Take out the words “publically funded [sic]”, and I will agree with your statement.
I’m getting a little tired of it, too. Tell you what, feel free to ignore everything else and just respond to this, which you previously ignored:
There will always be someone who has a “plan” for making society better. FDR had a plan. Stalin had a plan. Hitler had a plan. George W. Bush has a plan. You have a plan. Some are based on truly noble aims; some are not. The thing that they have in common is that they are plans in the minds of people–and none of these people is God, and none of them actually know what is best for society. In the US, we have agreed that for every person, the best plan is the plan that they have for themselves and government should protect this idea.
Either freedom is our key principle or it is not. If it is not, then everything else is just a question of whose plan get implemented. Right now, we are democratically choosing between a Dem plan and a Rep plan. The Dems are horrified by the Reps plan to apparently make us all into devout Christians. The Reps are horrified by the Dems plan to make us slaves to the “common good”. I believe that both are equally distasteful. It is not because I am against “family values” or that I am against “helping those in need”. It is because I am against one person or group forcing another person or group to do what they think is right. The same reason I am against slavery. The idea that universal healthcare is good for the collective is an evasion. Would it be okay to round up a bunch of citizens, place them in chains, and force them to work in hospitals? Why not?
Individual freedom matters. If I help you, it should be because I choose to, not because Uncle Sam forces me to. If our morality is dependent on government control, then what sort of people are we?
And if you have a plan that is truly wonderful, then you will not need government force to get everyone to go along.
Smartass:If I help you, it should be because I choose to, not because Uncle Sam forces me to.
It always sounds odd to me to hear this argument used specifically against social-services programs, by people who are perfectly willing to let the government dictate, say, which side of the road we drive on and whether “red” means “stop” or “go”.
After all, we should drive safely because we choose to, right? What sort of people are we if our prudence and judgement are dependent on government control and regulations?
Well, the rational people respond, we all want to drive safely but it’s very inefficient for us to make up our own individual road rules as we go along. We can’t communicate our individual decisions fast enough, and the confusion and misunderstandings will slow everything down and create needless damage. So the government makes a set of universally applicable rules that we all use, to standardize the process.
Same thing applies here. We all want to help others get the medical care they need, and to be helped when necessary in getting the medical care we need. But dealing with this solely through independent individual charitable interactions is hideously inefficient: nobody has all the information required to know how much help is needed by whom at what time, and by the time the situation is figured out, the person who needs the help could be dying or dead. This inefficiency causes untold amounts of unnecessary suffering and waste.
It’s far more efficient to use our statistical knowledge of our aggregate health care needs as a society to create a budget for health care at the national level (at least for basic and catastrophic health care). Then the funds are provided by a universal pool of contributions, and used as needed for individual expenses.
Saying “I want to help those in need, but I don’t want anybody else to have any control over how or when I do it” is ultimately as silly as saying “I want to drive safely, but I want to make up my own traffic laws and not have to follow anybody else’s.” That works great for a society of one, darlin’, but it’s not really practical for the population of an entire nation.
And saying “I don’t want to help those in need, and nobody should be able to make me” is no more acceptable than saying “I don’t want to drive safely, and nobody should be able to make me.” In both cases, it’s passionate individualism falling over the edge into selfish recklessness. Defenders of such positions belong in an anarchy, not a civil society.
It sounds like you are not clear on the difference between a libertarian and anarchist.
In an effort to be brief, I will just say that there is a difference between choosing to drive safely and agreeing on whose turn it is to go. Driving on the left side of the road is just as acceptable as driving on the right and is what they do in England.
Remember also, that the government owns the roads and is thus empowered to establish rules for driving on them. Libertarians aren’t crazy about having the government own them, but we don’t disagree that whoever owns them should be able to enforce rules for their use.
Sounds like something I would say.
Not necesarily, but it would be inefficient and dangerous not to have any. Once again, you are confusing libertarians with anarchists.
The point is that this sort of “standardizing of processes” does not require government intervention. I can buy a stereo from one company and plug in speakers from another company and it will work. The interface has been standardized–and not because the government has declared that it be so.
It’s not a question of what we want; it is a question of how badly we want it. Markets work extremely well because of the way we are each able to set our priorities: I want a DVD player, but I want a vacuum cleaner more. Social programs take one “want” and place it above all others. They add insult to injury by implementing them in a top-down way and exempting the “operators” from the competitive forces that would make them strive to work better and improve the “product”.
Replace “independent individual charitable interactions” with “centralized government bureaucracies” and it would be a paragraph that any libertarian could have written.
If the charities that you see are not getting the job done, libertarians would be perfectly okay with trying other approaches–as long as they don’t depend on using government power to force everyone to participate. A free market is all about trying different things and discovering which ones work best. Churches often get members to agree (or “contract”) to donate a certain amount every month, and it seems to work very well for them. Insurance companies allow customers to “pool” their money for healthcare. You could create such a company that charged based on income rather than risk. You only rile libertarians when you force us to join.
No, it isn’t, any more than it was more efficient for the Soviets to use their statistical knowledge to create a budget for washing machines.
Libertarians insist on existence of free choice, not chaos. Please see the above discussion.
And saying that one man should be able to marry another man is no more acceptable than saying that a man should be able to marry a goat. In both cases, it is someone who selfishly wants to enjoy their sins with no regard for the importance of family values to society. Defenders of such positions belong in hell, not in a civil society.
Tell me how your moral declarations are different from mine.
The true beauty of libertarianism, nay its elegance, is that in an exercise of its free choice the peoples of the earth have uniformly and by large majorities rejected it at every opportunity.
Nor do they show the slightest signs of changing that proclivity.
Smartass:Libertarians insist on existence of free choice, not chaos.
A vague and theoretical distinction. If you have more than a certain amount of free choice, you’re gonna get chaos, whether you’re insisting on its existence or not.
Smartass:Tell me how your moral declarations are different from mine.
Well, for one thing, mine reflect the moral choices of a secular society, while yours reflect the moral choices of a particular version of a particular religion.
All societies (except the anarchy we were speaking of) legislate morality. But legislating socialized healthcare, as in my analogy, is more similar to legislating traffic regulations than to banning same-sex marriage. After all, everybody wants a healthy population, just as everybody wants safe roads.
Smartass: * Markets work extremely well because of the way we are each able to set our priorities: I want a DVD player, but I want a vacuum cleaner more.*
Which is why markets work so well for this sort of consumer commodity, where people can play around with their choices without seriously impacting their quality of life and without destroying their economic solvency. Bigger needs, such as education and health care, are much harder to serve successfully in a purely market structure, because little distortions have such disastrous impacts.
Smartass:No, it isn’t, any more than it was more efficient for the Soviets to use their statistical knowledge to create a budget for washing machines.
Again, you’re changing the subject to expendable consumer commodities. I’m skeptical about the glib libertarian hypothesis that things like washing machines and health care are interchangeable.
Smartass:. Social programs take one “want” and place it above all others.
Sure, just like traffic regulations take the “want” of road safety and place it above the individuals’ various desires to drive really fast, to make a sudden turn across lanes of oncoming traffic to catch a missed exit, etc. All that’s saying is that society considers the higher-priority “want” more fundamentally important than the others, which is perfectly reasonable.
I don’t recall choosing to have my taxes going to give corporations federal tax breaks so they can downsize more employees and move their operations to foreign sweatshops. Where do I opt out of that, Smartass?
Your prediction is not borne out by the evidence of actual events. There are a great many areas of human life where we have free choice, and they are not devolving into chaos. In fact, they are moving toward order.
In the early days of stereo equipment, components from different manufacturers were not interchangeable. They hae become interchangeable over time because we want them to be that way. Freedom only leads to chaos for people who want chaos.
And you accuse me of a vague and theoretical distinction?
The fact that it happens does not mean that we should be in favor of it. Since we all have different notions of morality, I favor legislating as little morality as possible. In particular, the only morality that I want to see legislated is the notion that every human has a right to life, liberty, and ownership of property.
If everybody wants them, there is no need to legislate them. If the slaves wanted to pick the cotton, there would be no reason to use the whip.
As far as I can tell, you are doing nothing more than pontificating. Bigger needs make us willing to trade more to fulfill them. Filling a person’s “big needs” at the cost of another is about as serious of a distortion as I can imagine.
Reminds me of a joke: Why is divorce so expensive? Because it’s worth it.
And I am skeptical about the way the glib liberal hypothesis that things that are important may only be achieved through government fiat.
Why do you insist that nothing is ever organized unless there is a government agency to organize it? Surely you see difference in requiring me not to hit you with my car and requiring me to buy you a car.
That’s like pointing out the lousy work that an incompetent contractor has done, and suggesting that we let him fix things by having him do our whole house.