Subject:
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Re: A question for my Canadian pals
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:20:07 GMT
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Viewed:
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1359 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz wrote:
> Dave Schuler wrote:
> > If he can afford to have it. Do you accept that some people, through
> > no fault of their own, truly and literally cannot afford health
> > insurance?
>
> Ok, here's a question on this one. If we truly believe that society owes
> everyone healthcare, do we include global society? Do we owe the billions of
> people in India and China the same standard of healthcare that is being
> demanded for universal health care in the US? And how much health care do we
> guarantee? If we truly owe everyone in society the same healthcare, I'm
> affraid we wouldn't have any time or money for hobbies.
Well, for millennia we've lived under a system that allocates resources to the
economically or militarily powerful, so naturally there's a huge inequity re:
who "owns" the resources. If we can fix that inequity, then we can address the
others.
I'm also of the belief that national boundaries are essentially fictions of
convenience and convention. There may be historical reasons for maintaining
them, but in an enlightened global society they should be dissolved. We're not
there yet, alas, but once we reach that level, then everyone in the society
should contribute to and benefit from the society's resources.
> And who makes the decisions? I think healthcare is an infinite sink. We
> could ALWAYS spend more for more benefit. Who makes the decisions when to
> give up? With socialized medicine without any private option, you will have
> to have cold hard bureaucracy making the decisions as to who lives and who
> dies. Do you really want that?
No, nor is that what I've been saying. I've never claimed that Person X cannot
have privatized healthcare, but I've claimed that, in a society, every person
who benefits from that society directly or indirectly is beholden to that
society. Of course the individual is free to secure his own private healthcare
(or private education, for that matter), but that doesn't free him from his
obligation to contribute to the public system.
> I think we also can NOT prevent people from spending their own money to get
> care better than whatever the common system provides. So how do we make that
> fair?
As long as the public system provides adequately for the need of its potential
beneficiaries, and as long as potential beneficiaries contribute adequately to
the system, then why would anyone stop beneficiaries from seeking additional
benefits elsewhere?
> Now I am open to being convinced that there may be room for a government run
> safety net, paid for by taxes, that covers a very tiny number of people who
> have just plain fallen through the cracks. Of course I would point out that
> no current government program succeeds in this area. Outside of that, I
> would prefer to see market forces drive the system. And I'm confident that
> charity works (look at how much money was raised after 9/11).
I've always maintained that it is invalid to hold up anecdotal catastrophes
(however severe they be) as proof that private systems will always spring up to
fulfill adequately the demand. In a discussion long, long ago, you cited the
positive community response in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran:
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=3652
I countered that, for every positive example that you can cite of people "coming
together" in this fashion, I can cite several riots that started because people
lacked a galvanizing catastrophe to bring them together. My objection still
stands.
The Market is not a factual entity; it is an emergent phenomenon based on forces
all too easily controlled by well-placed individuals and corporations. Sure, in
the fictional utopia of a Pure Free Market, this might not be the case, but we
are very far from that utopia.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: A question for my Canadian pals
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| (...) Ok, here's a question on this one. If we truly believe that society owes everyone healthcare, do we include global society? Do we owe the billions of people in India and China the same standard of healthcare that is being demanded for (...) (20 years ago, 6-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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