Comments on: Getting outside of the bubble: taking liberal arguments seriously

By: Bookworm Room » Watcher’s Council winners for November 16, 2012

Bookworm Room » Watcher’s Council winners for November 16, 2012 — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:37:02 +0000

[...] Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Bookworm Room-Getting outside of the bubble: taking liberal arguments seriously [...]

By: Rhymes With Right

Rhymes With Right — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 14:50:04 +0000

This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results…

Here are this weeks full results. Council Winners*First place with 3 votes! Joshuapundit Taking DC By Strategy A Battle Plan Second place with 2 1/3 votes The Razor- Invincible Third place with 1 2/3 votes The Independent Sentinel- Bengh…

By: Results, We Have Them |

Results, We Have Them | — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:42:58 +0000

[...] Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Bookworm Room-Getting outside of the bubble: taking liberal arguments seriously [...]

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 12:28:48 +0000

Those shortages are necessary since the elite in Congress need to preserve the real healthcare for themselves. They don’t want to see it fettered away on the masses.

By: The Council Has Spoken! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results! | Independent Sentinel

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:13:44 +0000

[...] Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Bookworm Room-Getting outside of the bubble: taking liberal arguments seriously [...]

By: The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results – 11/16/12 | askmarion

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 02:49:54 +0000

[...] Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Bookworm Room – Getting outside of the bubble: taking liberal arguments seriously [...]

By: Ron19

Ron19 — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:18:51 +0000

I was just reading Rush's web page "The Long Game to Recapture the Country" from Thursday, http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/11/15/the_long_game_to_recapture_the_country , where he is talking about how big business has been demonized.Specific industries that have been demonized in the near past have been big oil and big pharma.I realized that big pharma is no longer demonized since they caved in on Obamacare, even though they are still doing what they have always been doing this century.

By: The Colossus of Rhodey

The Colossus of Rhodey — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 23:27:03 +0000

Watcher’s Council results…

*First place with 3 votes! Joshuapundit Taking DC By Strategy – A Battle Plan Second place with 2 1/3 votes The Razor- Invincible Third place with 1 2/3 votes The Independent Sentinel- Benghazi Bombshell: Lies Upon Lies……

By: Danny Lemieux

Danny Lemieux — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:54:18 +0000

Actually, Ravana, this is the system we have/had. Any poor person could check into any hospital emergency room and be guaranteed care. The problem was, emergency rooms were overwhelmed by people who wanted treatments for head colds, scrapes, and other frivolous needs where simply a couple of aspirin would do.

When you drop the real or perceived price of a product to virtually nothing (as “free” healthcare does), you create overwhelming demand and shortages. Then, everybody loses. It’s simple economics.

By: Charles Martel

Charles Martel — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:58:44 +0000

Ravana, thanks for your reply. I have some problems with it:

“It is not necessary believe that access to healthcare is a right, although, I personally would prefer to live in a society that does care for the sick irrespective of their ability to pay. Government should step in to provide basic healthcare to those who cannot afford to pay for it.”

If it’s not necessary to believe that access to healthcare is a right, I still don’t understand the basis for your assertion that it should be something very much like a right. I know your justification is that it benefits “society,” in terms of everything from reducing worker absenteeism to strengthening the mystic bonds that bind us all together, etc.

But can you tell me why the government should be involved in matters of industrial efficiency and production, let alone family solidarity? How is the government qualified to assist with economic policy when the history of such involvement almost always ends in catastrophic inefficiencies or failures (the southern EU, California, Cuba, USSR, Greece, pre-Thatcher UK, Venezuela, Illinois, Massachusetts)?

Who defines “basic healthcare?” (The government, obviously.) What happens if a poor person needs more than the minimum level of healthcare you allude to? Does the government then send that person on to a for-pay facility? What if the for-pay facility does not want to treat the patient for the amount of money offered? Can the government force the facility to treat the patient? Who pays for that?

“What this would give way to is a system where a consumer has a choice between cheap or free government run hospitals (usually with longer queues and a lower quality of care) and private hospitals that offer faster access and usually a better quality of care. Consumer choice would actually be increased. The accessibility of cheap or free government hospitals provide competition for the private hospitals, which provides a disincentive against overcharging.”

This doesn’t quite make sense to me. First of all, no government on earth can provide “cheap” services without distorting the economy somewhere else. Remember, the cheapness comes thanks to the power of government coercion. Also, there is no such thing as a free government service—somebody has to pay, and I suspect that the people you want to pay are the amorphous “rich.”

Secondly, you are actually describing a one-way consumer choice. Only consumers who have means would be able to choose between the two systems. The poor would be relegated to the “cheap or free” [sic] government hospitals—hardly a choice. The so-called disincentive against overcharging posed by the existence of government hospitals actually is disproven in real life. For example, the level of care provided by the “free” Canadian and British healthcare systems is so low that it has spawned a network of internal and cross-border private medical practitioners who can charge what they want because they know their customers are desperate for something beyond veterinary-level healthcare. (Also, who defines “overcharging?” A government panel?)

You acknowledge that government-run hospitals would be inherently less efficient and qualitative than private facilities. (Doesn’t it distress you how easily you accept the inherent inability of government to provide quality healthcare?) Besides, in the United States you could probably make a legal “social justice” case that this would be unequal treatment that penalizes people simply because they are poor.