Healthcare
The way we handle healthcare in this country...well, it sucks. The current system evolved from one where everyone basically paid for the services of a physician, as you needed them.
People say that this is unworkable today, because the costs of healthcare are so high, they can only be tackled with a giant infrastructure. I have a hard time buying that one. It seems like circular reasoning to me. Costs are high because there's no competition. There's no competition because costs are so high. For example, I'm sure that your average X-ray machine doesn't cost more than the hydraulic lift that your local mechanic has installed to lift your car. He got a loan for it, which he is recouping over years of business. Why can't doctors do the same? If the MRI machine is too expensive, why can't a small group of doctors buy one, sharing the investment and the profits? It would give them an advantage if patients had to come to them to make use of it.
Wouldn't the competition bring down healthcare costs?
For those people with employer-provided healthcare, there is no accountability and little or no competition. It's because of these facts that we get $15 Tylenol. This will only get worse as the competition and accountability is reduced. Oh, you won't see it in a bill, but you will be paying it, or I should say, we will all be paying it.
Continuing with the car analogy, imagine if you didn't have to pay to have your car repaired. You'd bring it in for every little dink and dent. If you had to bring it in for some repair, wouldn't you say, "As long as you have it, you might as well repaint it." This is what socialized medicine brings. This is why we have people going to the ER for a cough or cold.
Fundemental to this problem, is "WHAT is healthcare?" There are many who feel that healthcare is driven as socialism. The idea is that we spread the burden of healthcare over everybody. "We are all in it together".
I don't share that view. I feel that Health insurance is just like other insurance. You are paying to be covered against the possibility of something happening to YOU.
Should people with no children be forced to either choose "individual coverage" or "family coverage"? Should gays be forced to pay for birth control?
The socialized medicine folks say "yes". If we are allowed to choose our coverage, like a buffet, then those that require more from the system will end up paying more for coverage.
That is how it should be.
You do not have a fundemental right to healthcare. The short reason is that you don't have the right to make someone your slave. If you had the right to healthcare, that Doctor would be your slave. But that doctor is well paid, you say. Then the people who are forced to work, to pay taxes, to pay the doctor, have become your slave. I guess that does spread the servitude around, but it's still there.
People say that this is unworkable today, because the costs of healthcare are so high, they can only be tackled with a giant infrastructure. I have a hard time buying that one. It seems like circular reasoning to me. Costs are high because there's no competition. There's no competition because costs are so high. For example, I'm sure that your average X-ray machine doesn't cost more than the hydraulic lift that your local mechanic has installed to lift your car. He got a loan for it, which he is recouping over years of business. Why can't doctors do the same? If the MRI machine is too expensive, why can't a small group of doctors buy one, sharing the investment and the profits? It would give them an advantage if patients had to come to them to make use of it.
Wouldn't the competition bring down healthcare costs?
For those people with employer-provided healthcare, there is no accountability and little or no competition. It's because of these facts that we get $15 Tylenol. This will only get worse as the competition and accountability is reduced. Oh, you won't see it in a bill, but you will be paying it, or I should say, we will all be paying it.
Continuing with the car analogy, imagine if you didn't have to pay to have your car repaired. You'd bring it in for every little dink and dent. If you had to bring it in for some repair, wouldn't you say, "As long as you have it, you might as well repaint it." This is what socialized medicine brings. This is why we have people going to the ER for a cough or cold.
Fundemental to this problem, is "WHAT is healthcare?" There are many who feel that healthcare is driven as socialism. The idea is that we spread the burden of healthcare over everybody. "We are all in it together".
I don't share that view. I feel that Health insurance is just like other insurance. You are paying to be covered against the possibility of something happening to YOU.
Should people with no children be forced to either choose "individual coverage" or "family coverage"? Should gays be forced to pay for birth control?
The socialized medicine folks say "yes". If we are allowed to choose our coverage, like a buffet, then those that require more from the system will end up paying more for coverage.
That is how it should be.
You do not have a fundemental right to healthcare. The short reason is that you don't have the right to make someone your slave. If you had the right to healthcare, that Doctor would be your slave. But that doctor is well paid, you say. Then the people who are forced to work, to pay taxes, to pay the doctor, have become your slave. I guess that does spread the servitude around, but it's still there.
posted by Exador at
10:34 AM
4 Comments:
What do you think of the whole concept of "public health"? Are you ok with the idea that we should all be on our own to grapple with a major epidemic? I don't think your ideas about virtuous preparation for adversity would mean crap to a virus like variola. I can understand why, given your other ideas about self-sufficiency as a spur to productivity, you'd think like that for routine care or even hospital stays for accidents, cancer, and the like. But I guess I'm less persuaded that the government has zero role to play in healthcare, considering that even a moderate-sized pandemic would collapse our national economy and vaccines are only one part (and maybe not the most important part) of epidemic prevention.
By
bridgett, at 12:19 PM
I agree with you. I think the federal government should manage pandemic preparation. That's what the CDC is for, and I think that's a good thing.
I don't just feel that way because of productivity. It's also about freedom. A government that controls access to health care has complete control over its people.
By
Exador, at 3:06 PM
Hmm, I'll have to think some more about that. Offhand, though, I don't think it's particularly liberating to die in a ditch somewhere because you are too busted to pay for chemotherapy.
I won't sing a big hosanna to unions because I don't want to tangle on something neither of us are likely to change our minds about, but I will point out that one useful thing that unions do is to use a voluntary dues offering from its membership to provide supplemental health insurance for workers and their dependents. Neither one of my parents ever made enough money to fully float us in the case of catastrophe (and there were some doozies), but they were forward-thinking enough to band together with other similarly situated low-wage workers to cover their own asses.
By
bridgett, at 12:36 PM
It just goes to show that we're all a product of our experiences.
I remember how terrified my mother was because my father (an independant trucker, owning his own rig, not part of any union) had to continue working while the teamsters, who had decided to go on strike, were hanging cinderblocks off the over passes, high enough for cars to go under, but not tractor trailers.
No, you won't change my mind about unions.
By
Exador, at 12:48 PM
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