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It is funny that a huge chunk of these uninsured you are listing here actually qualify for medicaid. Do we have to help their parents fill the forms?
a theorem about universal healthcare.
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It is funny that a huge chunk of these uninsured you are listing here actually qualify for medicaid. Do we have to help their parents fill the forms?
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If I'm not mistaken, that demographic is able to apply for either medicare or medicaid (depending on their income). The people that I believe are worrying about are those that slip through the cracks - the people that make just enough to not qualify for gov aid yet not enough to afford the insurance offered by their employer. The poorest of the poor can apply and get aid, albeit not the best, but just enough.
And just a caveat: my aunt, who has breast cancer, is here from canada because they won't provide her with radiation therapy and PET scans. To add, my chem professor's uncle also died from cancer (in canada) because of the services that were not provided to help treat cancer. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Canadian hospitals have constant reminders that you're reaching into the taxpayers pocket - this in and of itself might pose a psychological problem in terms of whether or not one should get certain services done, ie. x-rays for a possibly broken ankle.
I dunno, just my little rant while on campus between classes.
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It might also be interesting to note that not everyone wants to purchase insurance because they feel that they are already healthy and would rather not put into a community rating.
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No, I think we should just tell the women to get pregnant so they can continue to get public aid. Atleast that's what their case worker's are going to tell them anyways. Medicaid is not a free flight ticket.You have to already be in bad shape to qualify and worse yet, you should continue to be in bad shape to receive aid. Please read.
I'd recommend two books (for the umpteenth time): 1. Uninsured in America and 2. Everybody's Children by McCarthy.
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The World Economic Forum's 2006-2007 global competitiveness report ranks America sixth in the world behind Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Sigapore. As Sachs says, the Nordic countries are kicking our assess economically while providing social safety nets, including healthcare, to all their residents.
To say universal coverage is pie-in-the-sky when every other wealth industrialized nation has it is cringe-worthy provincialism. As for the various ad homineum attacks on Canada, Europe, etc. -- notice how the only evidence the jigoists provide is anecdotal, assertion, unsourced or all three at the same time?
Some people evidently think that lassie-faire dogma constitutes a higher education in economic principles. Not so. Plenty of us have a thorough understanding of the theories, as well as the oligarchic distortions of those theories, but cannot fail to notice that the facts don't gel with the theology. Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are beating us at capitialism. Those who claim to be realists ought to be realistic about that.
To say universal coverage is pie-in-the-sky when every other wealth industrialized nation has it is cringe-worthy provincialism. As for the various ad homineum attacks on Canada, Europe, etc. -- notice how the only evidence the jigoists provide is anecdotal, assertion, unsourced or all three at the same time?
Some people evidently think that lassie-faire dogma constitutes a higher education in economic principles. Not so. Plenty of us have a thorough understanding of the theories, as well as the oligarchic distortions of those theories, but cannot fail to notice that the facts don't gel with the theology. Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are beating us at capitialism. Those who claim to be realists ought to be realistic about that.
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You keep criticizing people and attacking them in various threads. Are you actually going to add to this discussion that has viewpoints from across the spectrum, or are you going to continually act like a pompous ass that's all bark no bite?
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So a sourced reference to a relevant study doesn't contribute to the discussion, while your silly attack on me -- for attacking people, no less -- does?
These are the facts, and they should be faced and dealt with honestly. If you've done that in the past and intend to do it in the future, then there is nothing at all in my post to take offense at. What I criticized was neither a person nor a particular ideology but a biased, intellectually dishonest, and afactual manner of arguing based on anecdote, prejudice and ad hominiem. By spouting off with nothing but more of the same, you simply illustrate my point. Thank you.
These are the facts, and they should be faced and dealt with honestly. If you've done that in the past and intend to do it in the future, then there is nothing at all in my post to take offense at. What I criticized was neither a person nor a particular ideology but a biased, intellectually dishonest, and afactual manner of arguing based on anecdote, prejudice and ad hominiem. By spouting off with nothing but more of the same, you simply illustrate my point. Thank you.
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Feel free to browse this thread as I've done my share of adding to the discussion. With that, my statement isn't so much an 'attack' as it is an observation I've made in several of the threads you've posted in.
Your source merely implies that we aren't a competitive market in comparison to other nations that you've mentioned. There's more to this than saying 'we have the money.' You really haven't done anything to exemplify how the information in the 'source' will be used to alter our system - and this is what we're looking for. Furthermore, some of those 'anecdotes' weigh heavily into situations like universal healthcare, so I wouldn't be so quick to discount them. Perhaps you've never been able to experience the realistic repurcussions of other cause and effect relationships that can contribute to one's premise. To add, I'd suggest turning down the suck, or in essence, consider speaking in a more forthcoming manner rather than approaching people condescendingly. I can tell you're an intelligent person, so I'm hoping that you a) elaborate more on your source or b) elaborate in general on how you could better the system.
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please do blast me. I'm an economics major at NYU (which has one of the best programs in the country for applied math and economics i might add) and my honors thesis is on poverty and income distribution. please do blast me. I would love to hear what you have to say. Thinking about healthcare as another sector of our economy is infact, the ONLY way to think about it.
Ok look I am not going to blast you for believing in a healthcare system in a free market and thinking about this in terms of economics. That's fine. But the fact of the matter is there needs to be social responsibility somewhere in this algorithm and in today's healthcare system there is albeit almost none.
I am not going to try and summarize my position for there are much better places to get this information. I will point people to watch a video by John Kitzhaber an ex-Governor from the state of Oregon who in 45 minutes bashes our current system into little bits and pieces and then poses how we can institutionalize a better system that everyone can benefit from. I encourage everyone to watch this on either side of this debate... republican or democrat... his points need to be taken seriously.
http://www.archimedesmovement.org/watch
You can download the video or you can stream it. Either way WATCH IT. This is a great video with lots of ammunition that can be used in interviews or just in civil conversation with your friends. Think about what he says.
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I think we can fix a LOT of problems if we can determine... at what point do you withdraw therapy from a medicare/medicaid patient.
If you are admitted 20 hospitals 45 times last year.... who pays for that? The public? Is it fair? At what admission is it fair to say... sorry, we can't fund you? At the 10th? 30th? 40th??
This has yet to be addressed... the politician that actually addresses this will have his/her popularity massacred.
If you are admitted 20 hospitals 45 times last year.... who pays for that? The public? Is it fair? At what admission is it fair to say... sorry, we can't fund you? At the 10th? 30th? 40th??
This has yet to be addressed... the politician that actually addresses this will have his/her popularity massacred.
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I'm also not a premed
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Nothing is purely inelastic. People argue on one side that free access to primary care would increase use (something they see as good). They then argue that healthcare is inelastic. That is a BLATANT contradiction.
Not many are arguing that the current mess is good. However, the current mess has the government paying 50% of the bill and is the most regulated private industry in the world, so I'm not sure we could call it a free market either.
With regards to being lightyears behind on thinking, I'll happily refer you to the entire European continent as an example of why this isn't true. When the French get unemployment under 10% or the British figure out how to not bankrupt NHS, then we can talk again.
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I have supported a family of three in a high cost urban metro with a combined income of -33k a year, with total spending cash of less than 40k a year for the last multiple years. I have two cars, one with payments, a house in a decent neighborhood that I rent, and a cat as well. I commute 40 miles a day, have full coverage auto and health insurance, and I can break even without ever going to McDonald's. I'll also point out that anyone without a job can freely come down here, where unemployment is about 0 and everyone is begging for employees. Two people working minimum wage jobs will earn over 25k/year, which is plenty for a small apartment and reasonable food.
Face it, the only reason a person can't afford food in the US is being unwilling to work or unwilling to move. I know people down here with disabilities, "questionable IQs," and no job skills who are supporting themselves without McDonald's.
I'd even put out that if people worked 3/4 of the hours that medical residents are supposed to work, that the minimum wage people would actually make more money than I live off of. Just some food for thought.
Face it, in the United States, 90% of these people that we are supposed to support do it to themselves, and the other 10% elicit so much charity, that they often don't need help. NO ONE STARVES HERE. People with diabetes and CV disease who eat McDonald's every day obviously have enough money for WAY too much McDonald's. Think about it before you berate me for being crass or hateful, and use logic instead of a gut emotional response..
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I am not going to try and summarize my position for there are much better places to get this information. I will point people to watch a video by John Kitzhaber an ex-Governor from the state of Oregon who in 45 minutes bashes our current system into little bits and pieces and then poses how we can institutionalize a better system that everyone can benefit from. I encourage everyone to watch this on either side of this debate... republican or democrat... his points need to be taken seriously.
http://www.archimedesmovement.org/watch
You can download the video or you can stream it. Either way WATCH IT. This is a great video with lots of ammunition that can be used in interviews or just in civil conversation with your friends. Think about what he says.
Why is social responsibility only stated in the context of justification for taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who don't? Where is the social responsibility on the part of the individuals who leach off of the system. You see, I believe that social responsibility applies to everyone, and it is not the place of government to remove the rightfully earned reward of one person in order to give it to someone who hasn't. That actually seems pretty irresponsible to me.
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The world economic forum wouldn't happen to consist of Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Sigapore would it? I might also note that these countries do have unemployment problems, Singapore doesn't have the level of socialism found in the nordic countries, and most of these countries have a heterogenous population and an average annual income less than their average US counterpart of which 50+% goes to taxes.
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When you have been here a little longer, you will find that threads usually get sidetracked fast enough without trying to bring up what someone said or did in another thread. If you feel you have an issue with me, PM me or take it up with a moderator. And, yes, yours was a personal attack.
Actually, it doesn't imply anything of the kind. It says that -- in the opinion of several thousand business leaders and analysts -- that we are less competitive than these other economies, all of which without exception provide universal health care to their populations, in addition to many other elements of a social safety net.
That in turn suggests that the argument that these things are impossible to provide and maintain a dynamic economy is in conflict with the facts, to put it politely.
You now speak for everyone reading the thread? With a grand total of 32 posts, 6% of which were pointless screeds against me? You can look for whatever you want wherever you want. I don't have to give it to you. And lose the royal "we."
So you're suggesting I've never experienced an interesting anecdote and therefore I don't know their value? How amusing. Actually, I have stories that would curl your hair for you. My father died of a heart attack in December. He had chest pain for two weeks, no health insurance, and didn't go to a doctor. That's one story I could tell you. But anecdotal evidence isn't a good way to argue, especially in a system in which there are millions of people cycling through it at a time. Such a system generates anecdotes in support of any position. Selectively culled, they can be used to justify anything. Just as when evaluating a medication or a treatment we do not rely on a few testimonials or a few horror stories, the same is true when looking at the reform of the healthcare system.
You're joking, right? You've been here less than a month, have said nothing of any substance, are vomiting out lectures and complaints at me, and you are telling me not to be condescending? Just like you attacked me, supposedly because I attacked someone? Tell me, do all your moral lectures embody the behavior you're trying to denounce?
a) Read the link; b) It is not incumbent on everyone in a discussion to enumerate a program. I made my point, which is that it is perfectly possible to have a successful capitalist economy and universal health care, and that the arguments made here that it cannot work fail to be serious.
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No, it wouldn't. What other rationalizations you got?
Any sources on any of this? Nice to have some numbers. According to this source (http://www.finfacts.com/biz10/globalworldincomepercapita.htm) Switzerland and Denmark were weathlier than the US in 2005, Swenden and Finland were in the top ten; and today's dollar is a lot weaker. And I think you mean a "homogenous" population.
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The assumption here is that income is a "rightfully earned reward" that is "taken" from the hard-working people who "earn it." This is one way of looking at taxes, and there is some truth to it, but not a great deal, in my opinion. Peoples' rewards in our economy do not corrolate well with either their work ethic or their value to their fellow citizens. For example, since 1980, the median wage adjusted for inflation has fallen, while the top 0.1% of earners have increased their incomes by a factor of four (Ibid.). To believe the "just reward" theory in a strict sense, one has to believe that a few people at the top have gotten much, much more worthy of reward, while the population as a whole is less worthy. Seems implausible.
Money, too, is not just something "earned" by a person. It is something that exists within the social contract. Without society, money literally would not exist. Hence, to take some of the money produced as the result of many transactions within society to keep that society functioning and healthy is not a violation of the "earners" rights. Or as one of our more enlightened business tycoons put it: "Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took all of it from them."
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You're right, maybe I haven't been here long enough to see threads get derailed. In any case, obviously we can't see eye to eye, so I'll leave it at that.
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I like this post. I'm going to pretend that this was addressed to me, instead of the path we went down. Here's my thought:
All countries treat their healthcare systems as a work in progress. They argue over them and they tweak them and they try to make them more efficient and effective. If we accept that it is both necessary and possible to cover everyone, even if they can't afford to pay for private insurance, then, I think, we have the philosophical basis to start figuring out how to do it. The nice thing is, the current system is so dysfunctional and unsustainable that virtually anything would be an improvement.
Without getting into the politics of what one could sell to the electorate, my blue-sky program would basically be:
1. A list of the most effective and useful procedures and medications, a la the Oregon Health Plan. All persons would have these services available to them, with small co-pays set by law, waivable in hardship cases.
2. A drug formulary, as used by the VA. Participants would purchase drugs from the government, which would bargain with the drug manufactures.
3. Generous reimbursements for primary care and preventative medicine.
4. In order to be eligible for reimbursements, health care providers would be required to implement proven methods for reducing costs and errors, such as electronic prescriptions, electronic medical records (standardized and available to all providers), and screening tests for the appropriate demographics.
5. As in the airline industry, they would be no-fault error reporting if a report is made within 10 days of the error. Those insured under the plan, if they need to sue, will be asked to submit to binding arbitration, guaranteeing a settlement in six months with no legal costs. All compensation will be paid by the government. Error management will be directed first of all at identifying and correcting systematic sources of error (there is a good discussion of this idea, and how it has been applied in anesthesia, in "Complications" by Gawande), and secondly at remediation or removal, based the nature and pattern of mistakes, and not on the harm that the mistakes caused.
As in most healthcare systems, those who could afford to pay out of pocket would be free to get whatever care they wanted from whomever they wanted. Any person in the United States would be eligible for services, and the only paperwork would be what would be necessary to minimize fraud (ie, billing imaginary people). The system would replace Medicare and Medicaid, and would be comparable to the VA, without the hellish struggle to qualify for coverage.
With the money saved by collective bargaining and the use of an evidence-based formulary, I would expand grant research, especially for "orphan" drugs and unpatentable compounds. In general, research dollars be increased and would be awarded on the basis of potential gain in mortality and morbidity from a given therapy.
At the moment, we have to use the healthcare infrastructure that exists, and that means an adjusted reimbursement model. In the medium term, one thing society should consider is whether to cut out the middle man and have a national health service. Another possibility would be to expand the use of longitudinal providers like Kaiser. That would address the negative incentive that exists in the reimbursement model to provide as many services as possible, needed or not. Another potentially good idea would be free medical education, as they have in some countries. Personally, I think specialists are overpaid and would like to see those reimbursements held to inflation while the generalists catch up. Family practice is one of the highest value-added physician positions out there, and it's ridiculous to maintain huge incentives for smart, talented people to avoid the field. But these are, as it were, tweaks. Insure everybody, push prevention, ration aggressively based on EBM, play hardball with drug companies, and let insurance companies and their 20% rake-offs go fly a kite. That would be my care plan.
If you are going to refer to the "entire European Continent" then you really have to consider all of North America as a whole. Actually, given the levels of intra-continent trade this is probably more justified than the EU, which features several distinct trade blocks. Combining Mexico and Canada with the US gives you some very interesting macro statistics, just as comparing France (high unemployment, amazingly high productivity, high GDP) with Romania (very high unemployment, low productivity, amazingly low GDP) leads to novel conclusions. However, USians are often unable to understand exactly what the EU means for Europeans. In fact, this is often a problem even for Europeans, because the EU is without precedent in history. Consider this. Over the last 30 years, the EU has expanded its territory incredibly cheaply, and without raising huge standing armies. In historical terms, the growth of an Empire so quickly without drastic military expenditures is a new thing. Countries bordering the EU spend *decades* harmonising their social and political systems to align themselves with the EU norm (the "acquis") and plead for accession... much as all of Eastern Europe is busy doing, and several countries in the Caucasus and Middle East. This is because the EU stands out as a beacon of prosperity and hope to these countries. By contrast, the US's territorial expansion within North America stalled a century ago, and there is no real prospect of Mexico or Canada joining the US in some sort of political federation. As a result, the US is is not really in any position to dictate or control political developments within Mexico or Canada. And we have seen recently how limited and expensive is its ability to project political or social influence beyond its territories.
Picking out individual EU states is facile. One could easily select, say, Alabama or MS and use these to prove many derogatory economic points. Equally, I could cherry pick Ireland or Sweden as examples of how heavily regulated economies can deliver impressive results.
wrt the NHS, Britain (along with a few, though not all, EU states) has one of the most centralised health systems. As a result, health funding is controlled and budgeted directly from a single source... politicians. Social services are always the first thing to be cut (or in this case, not increased to keep pace with cost inflation). I am told that the US federally and several states regularly feature "government shutdowns" where expenses have exceeded budgets or politicians are unable to agree on forward funding. I am unaware of a single EU state that has had to shut down its government and services, including its health service. Perhaps you are?
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I don't know enough about the forum to have a rationalization. This was really a joke. Of course, I could get a forum together and say anything, so I usually question everything that comes from these sorts of things. You'd have to tell me more for me to formulate a specific opinion.
You are correct, I meant homogenous. I was typing late. With regards to your "wealth" facts, I really don't buy it. Take home pay in the US is higher than it is in any other country of size in the world.
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I don't know enough about the forum to have a rationalization. This was really a joke. Of course, I could get a forum together and say anything, so I usually question everything that comes from these sorts of things. You'd have to tell me more for me to formulate a specific opinion.
You are correct, I meant homogenous. I was typing late. With regards to your "wealth" facts, I really don't buy it. Take home pay in the US is higher than it is in any other country of size in the world.
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Rewards almost always correlate with value in a non-controlled economy, as the only way to get money is to give people something that they want. In the last 50 years, the average family went from a 1400 square foot house with no AC, spending 1/3 of income on food, and 0-1 family cars to a 2100 sqaure foot house, AC, low food expenditures and 2 cars. By all objective standards, everyone is richer. Everyone has a PC, a cell phone, and most of us can even afford access to the internet. These things didn't even exist 20 years ago. Life is better. I've read many articles that contradict the one that you've posted. We can argue about that later. Inflation is calculated in such a flawed fashion anyway, that I think objective indicators tell a better story.
By and large the people at the top are a) genuinely more worthy or b) involved in some portion of the command economy where they are given direct or indirect perks by law. However, one subset getting richer faster than other subsets doesn't prove that income attainment is in anyway flawed.
Money exists as a means of exchange. It is a way for two people to compare the value of their work and trade fairly. It is also a method for a person to pass the value of his work down to his offspring. Paper money may be part of a particular society, but money itself is just advanced barter. Even you acknowledge that money has to be produced. I know nothing about this individual you are quoting, but I could quote a hundred other business people who say the opposite, so it's all moot subjectivism anyway.
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Hey, I'm not saying that we're perfect in the US. Far from it. You are correct that no one has "shut down" health services, but I can find defacto failures resulting in waits and dislocations all over the continent. You are correct that the parts of our medical system run by the government have the same problems at times and also "fail." I am not arguing about the superiorty of our leaders who are generally worthless if you ask me. I'm also not a proponent of "spreading democracy," or other things that those in power here have found so palatable in the last few years.
Really, the whole point of my original post was to point out that the European Economic model isn't always delivering the "superior" results that many people here think it does. That's all.
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So understood.
Since there are only three countries in the world our size or larger (us by definition, China, and India) you've taken a n=200 and reduced it to n=3, not good for p values. Do you have any evidence to support the claim that large populations are incomparable with smaller ones? There are desperately poor and very rich countries of all shapes and sizes, so I don't see, intuitively, any reason to exclude the 98% of the world's nations that have smaller populations than we do.
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Not so. You can also inherit money, threaten or intimidate people into surrendering money, steal money, deceive people to get money, etc. You can also get lucky. Once you have money, however you got it, you can turn it into more money by using it as capital -- the rewards of which are proportional to the amount of money you start with, and only secondarly to your skill or luck in investing it.
We do not have, nor have we ever had, a non-controlled economy in the sense that you mean it. We have a semi-free, semi-controlled economy. Money does not corrolate well with value added here, in the world as it exists today.
Again, I'd like to see your source. Hard to comment on this information without more details of the study method, detailed results, etc. For now, I'll just make two comments; averages do not reflect what "everyone" has, and; the fifty-year period you are talking about included the Great Society Reforms, Medicare, Medicaid, and periods where the top marginal tax rate was 92%. From 1957 to 2007 the government tried a lot of radically different strategies, and so whatever increased prosperity one can find over that period cannot easily be attributed to lassie-faire economics.
This may be true of the people you know, but it isn't true of the population as a whole.
Then please, post a link.
That is what certain forms of lassie-faire economics suggest should happen. But as with many theories in medicine, while the model reflects aspects of reality, reality is more complex, and not necessarily grossly similar, to the model. I don't believe your assertion that the people at the top are more worthy to a degree commeasurate with the rewards they reap. As for "perks" from the "command economy," those effect everyone and they can be unfair. Since we aren't going to be without these distortions, let's limit the benifits people can derive, or the penalties they can suffer, by taxing the weathy and providing support to the poor.
Did the top 0.1% become four times as worthy between 1980 and the present, while the population as a whole became less worthy? It isn't just that the rich get richer, but that they get so much richer so quickly. It's hard to attribute that to increased worth.
Barter exists as a way for two people to trade their work fairly. No two people ever sat down together a came up with a currency. Governments produce currencies. It's one of their defining characteristics.
Again, money is not a representation of the value added by labor. That, you may be dismayed to learn, is the essence of the fallacy know as Marx's labor theory of value.
Money and barter are fundementally different things. Money and property make possible fundamentally different kinds of relationships between people. They cannot exist without the laws that define them, and those laws cannot exist without a government to create and enforce them. What could be more natural than the government which recognizes and enforces your patent, for example, requiring you to contribute some of your gains to its treasury?
For anybody to get really rich, you have to have money and the various kinds of property law that go with it. I'm not sure what you are suggesting follows from that. Taxes are also necessary. You can't do without taxes. What follows from that? Not much.
Since you don't cite any sources, how is your own opinion not "moot subjectivism"? The quote was a way of summarizing the idea that wealth is produced within the social contract and the individual's rights to it are limited. It was pithy, if I do say so myself. It's not intended to stand on its own as a proof.
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The last time I looked (admittedly been a couple of years), the only countries with higher per capita income (not take home which is generally higher here) were Luxembourg and Brunei. I do believe that being one of the highest three populous countries on earth does have its own unqiue benefits and challanges, but I was reallt referring to a country that is large enough to be comparable in any way. I'll give you 30 million +, or atleast 1/10 our size. That number is arbitrary, but it'll work for me.
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Again, I know far too many people here in Miami who showed up with nothing and checked out with a lot. Sure, some have an advantage at the beginning. Some of it is social, some of it is economic, and some of it is genetic. That doesn't change the fact that in a free society (one in which the government does its one legitimate function of defense), anyone can make it. I believe that stealing and deceit are wrong. By and large, that is what the government does now, which might make one wonder why they should take over anything, let alone something as important as healthcare. I'll grant you inheritance. I'll say it again, in TRUE capitalism, the only ways to make money are to earn it or inherit it. The inheritance is really a reward for the parents, as opposed to the child, allowing them to do with their money whatever they see fit.
Again, simply not true. Even the concept of minimum wage was found to be unconstitutional until the FDR era. The income tax was found unconstitutional, and it took an amendment to the constitution to change that. The economy of the late 1800s, early 1900s was very close to free. There was virtually zero regulation. Nothing's perfect, but it was the closest the world ever got.
http://www.nahb.org/news_details.aspx?newsID=2847
I was wrong. The 1400 square foot house was 1970, and the average house is up to over 2300. My bad. Unless you are arguing that Carter and Stagflation was a good thing, this pretty much leaves leaves the modern era, starting with Reagan era tax reform.
Can't find good statistics on this one off the bad, but I can't tell you how many "indigents" with Medicaid or an indigent care card I see standing outside the ED here at Jackson talking on those phones that they don't have.
Yes, and how much? Should you decide. The idea of democracy deciding how much is right to steal is bogus. As Ben Franklin said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." The current system gives those in politics the most power. This inevitably (EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH EVER) leads to special favors to friends and all sorts of economic distortions.
Some yes, but many no. I'll refer you to "b" in my initial assesment (getting special priveleges). This is not an appropriate forum to discuss how the central bank uses the power of government to control the economy through the money supply and doles out all sorts of gifts to friends, but I'll give you a link with a good case study:
http://www.mises.org/story/2532
Currency used to be linked to a hard item (such as gold), thus making the currency a proxy for gold. Governments didn't produce currency independent of gold until the last 500 years or so.
You are correct, money is a reflection of what someone thinks another person's services are worth. Value of added labor is irrelevant. However, an individual trades his services for what other people think they are worth and then buys another good or service at a value that is proportional to a percentage of what his services brought. Thus, it is an indirect barter when no one turns on the printing presses and causes distortions.
Property exists without government. This argument is totally flawed. If the US government shut down tomorrow, my house would still be here. Admittedly I'd have to find a new way to defend it, but it would still exist. I've also said that the one role of government is defense, and patent enforcement is defense of my property. I've never advocated a truly tax free world, though I don't pretend that taxes are something their not, which is wealth confiscated by force. I don't want a world with no government, because there is no such thing. Whoever has the guns IS the government. However, I don't advocate happily turning over both my income and my career to this entity that can't survive without using coercion (a trait that you so humbly implied at the begininng of your post as being quite negative in people).
Much does. What is the role of government? What are the taxes used for? Is there a fair tax? If not, how can we minimize the damage to the economy by taxation? I advocate money and property law, preferably property law where the owner actually has a right to his property before every thief and low life in the nation.
And here is our fundamental disagreement. The first time someone carved a spear wealth was created, and there was no social contract in the sense that you say. Wealth creation exists independently of government coercion and has existed in this country since its inception without Universal Healthcare.
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There is a lot said here, so I'm going to have pick and chose what I'm responding to. Basically, you're making the government-as-theft argument, which presupposes a natural law of property. I don't accept that, neither do most Americans, neither do most philosophers or economists. I understand that you believe it, but although you have stated the theory, you haven't made the argument.
If we go back to your original question, which was, "Why do some people feel that it is socially responsible to provide universal healthcare, while I feel that it is irresponsible?" the answer is clear. The answer is that you have a concept of society that is rejected by almost everyone. Many more people believe that God created the world in seven days than believe that taxes are stealing and the only proper function of the government is to enforce property rights and maintain a monopoly of force. You could be right, you could be wrong (there was a time I agreed with you). But that is why most people see social responsibility in a different way than you. You are working with a different set of beliefs about the world.
So, just a couple of factual things:
You made a claim about the size of the average home. Your link, however, cited the average size of new construction. In order to use that as a measure of prosperity, we would have to know who can afford those new homes, and the characteristics of where the rest of the population is living. How many live in apartments? What is the average size of existing homes?
There are several countries of 30 million people or more at, near or above our per capita income; someone posted a link above. It has changed quite a bit in the last few years, as the dollar has weakened drastically.
Also:
This is a common misconception. In fact, this was called the "robber baron era" for a reason. Seldom in human history has there been such a corrupt, kleptocratic system as the United States in the latter half of the 19th century. You'd have to go to Africa today to find something similiar. Throughout the period you cite there were state-granted monopolies, ubiquitious and often heavy tarriffs on imports, massive theft of land from native Americans, land which was often then gifted to corporations or individuals.
Not to mention the sharecropper system, the inferior legal status of women, anti-union violence, etc. All distortions of the noninterference, individual rights ideal.
You make a lot of assertions about what a "free" system would be like, but the fact is that neither you nor anyone else has ever seen one. You don't know what it would be like. The system we have is rife with distortions and injustices. Even if it could be made perfect today, you would face the difficult problem that a huge advantage lies in the possession of capital, almost all of which, if one goes back far enough, was stolen from somebody, thus negating the supposed justice of the allocation of capital as it exists today.
You can make the argument to your fellow citizens that we should create an interference-free state, but as long as were stuck with the unpalatable reality, it makes sense to limit the damage created by situations of dire poverty. Part of that is making sure everyone has access to healthcare, which most people have come to regard as a moral imperative.
If we go back to your original question, which was, "Why do some people feel that it is socially responsible to provide universal healthcare, while I feel that it is irresponsible?" the answer is clear. The answer is that you have a concept of society that is rejected by almost everyone. Many more people believe that God created the world in seven days than believe that taxes are stealing and the only proper function of the government is to enforce property rights and maintain a monopoly of force. You could be right, you could be wrong (there was a time I agreed with you). But that is why most people see social responsibility in a different way than you. You are working with a different set of beliefs about the world.
So, just a couple of factual things:
You made a claim about the size of the average home. Your link, however, cited the average size of new construction. In order to use that as a measure of prosperity, we would have to know who can afford those new homes, and the characteristics of where the rest of the population is living. How many live in apartments? What is the average size of existing homes?
There are several countries of 30 million people or more at, near or above our per capita income; someone posted a link above. It has changed quite a bit in the last few years, as the dollar has weakened drastically.
Also:
This is a common misconception. In fact, this was called the "robber baron era" for a reason. Seldom in human history has there been such a corrupt, kleptocratic system as the United States in the latter half of the 19th century. You'd have to go to Africa today to find something similiar. Throughout the period you cite there were state-granted monopolies, ubiquitious and often heavy tarriffs on imports, massive theft of land from native Americans, land which was often then gifted to corporations or individuals.
Not to mention the sharecropper system, the inferior legal status of women, anti-union violence, etc. All distortions of the noninterference, individual rights ideal.
You make a lot of assertions about what a "free" system would be like, but the fact is that neither you nor anyone else has ever seen one. You don't know what it would be like. The system we have is rife with distortions and injustices. Even if it could be made perfect today, you would face the difficult problem that a huge advantage lies in the possession of capital, almost all of which, if one goes back far enough, was stolen from somebody, thus negating the supposed justice of the allocation of capital as it exists today.
You can make the argument to your fellow citizens that we should create an interference-free state, but as long as were stuck with the unpalatable reality, it makes sense to limit the damage created by situations of dire poverty. Part of that is making sure everyone has access to healthcare, which most people have come to regard as a moral imperative.
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Ok, I'll make the argument. There is a natural law of property, and in fact, just as I pointed out about the spear, I own what I create or trade for unless someone takes it away.
To be honest with you, I suspect that most people have never considered whether it is socially responsible or not, with most simply being worried about having to pay for it. This is a medical forum, and the fact that many people here have thought about it is probably not reflective of society as a whole. In terms of people seeing things differently, I already gave you my analogy of democracy. My view is relatively similar to those expressed by the founders of this country and is still consistent with what our constitution actually says (for the most part). There are more in this country that agree with me than you think. That being said, I'm pretty unpopular worldwide. It's okay, I'm used to it.
You're right. I misquoted the article. oops. I'll find a new statistic when I have time. I'll even point out that the lax printing standards at the Fed over the last seven years may be responsible for some this growth (with more money chasing housing) and also for the decline in the US dollar worldwide.
Some near, with few above. Some research that I tried to do last night found that Sweden is higher (though not higher than some individual US states) in total per capita income. The US has the highest take home income, as Sweden has some of the highest taxes in the world.
Some of this went on and some of it didn't. Nothing is perfect. It was worse in the west than in the east. However, many eastern states operated with relatively few restrictions at this time. In fact, the exceptions that you noted were actually favorable to business. Now, import tariffs I agree can be a significant problem, but we are talking about a time that most peope weren't buying imports.
There is nothing inherintly wrong with sharecropping. And I maintain that the economy was still more free. This doesn't mean I condone things that were inappropriate (violence or withdrawl of legal rights). However, many inappropriate things are still done today. At that time, no one thought that it was the job of the government to walk into a private business or home and tell people what they could and could not do there. This was almost universally true.
And you make assertions as to what Universal Healthcare would look like in the US, though it also has never been done. A truly free system by definition wouldn't have distortions. You are really arguing that a free system will never happen. Maybe that's true, but intentionally creating more distortions doesn't make it better.
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This article states that people are unhappy with how Bush handles healthcare. It shows support of less than 40% for Hillary and Universal Healthcare and exresses a barely 60% support amongst Democrats for Universal Healthcare with no actual evidence to support it. Really, from a purely democratic standpoint, this nation has no idea what it wants. If support is so universal, why don't you all get together and make a private charity to cover the uninsured? Or is this simply a case of I think it's a good idea that someone else should pay for something? Some people expressing a willingness to pay higher taxes to the NYT doesn't prove that they actually want to.
Average take home pay in the US is quite high, but median take-home pay is middle-of-the-road for developed countries. This is because wealth distribution in the US is quite skewed. Additionally, the US is somewhat unusual in that when controlled for inflation, median wages have remained pretty static for almost a generation, and have in fact declined over the current economic cycle.
You're obviously not actually reading this thread itself. Earlier I posted a list of countries with higher GDP. Even so, Google gets you the answer is around 10 seconds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdp#Lists_of_countries_by_their_GDP
GDP (nominal), the US is 8th. The sequence is:
Luxembourg ($87,955)
Norway ($72,306)
Qatar ($62,914)
Iceland ($54,858)
Ireland ($52,440)
Switzerland ($51,771)
Denmark ($50,965)
United States ($44,190)
GDP (PPP), the US is 4th. The sequence is:
Luxembourg ($80,471)
Ireland ($44,087)
Norway ($43,574)
United States ($43,444)
GDP (per hour productivity), the US is 4th. The sequence is:
Norway ($39.66)
Luxembourg ($36.56)
France ($35.72)
United States ($35.29)
Ireland ($35.04)
Your arguments that "people" in the US are better off because of their high consumption has some merit, but is flawed in other ways. The current US consumer boom has been fueled by cheap inflows of borrowed capital from China, which now holds over a trillion dollars of US debt. Only by continuing to buy US notes at low rates has China provided such an extreme flood of liquidity into the US that it has enabled consumers to borrow at very low rates. Apparently even China has a limit to how much debt it is willing to carry from a single country and the current contraction of the property equity market in the US owes a lot to this. If you take out debt-financed construction from the economic picture since 20001, then there has been a net loss of jobs in the United States.
The capital outflows from the US over the past decade or so have been astonishing. I am aware of only one other empire in recent history that allowed so much outflow for so long. That was the British Empire in the years between 1870 and 1914, when during some years (especially 1900-1910) capital outlofws amounted to 5% of its GDP (a figure that current US outflows mirror). The reason for those outflows was that the Brits erected what they thought was an impenetrable trade system that profitably linked their home islands and their colonies. Locked outside that system, both the US and Germany had no option but to improve their technologies and industries. Inside that shield, British technology and economic/industrial structures stagnated. Within that system, capital began to flee the British system and seek investments in the US and Germany, where new industries were emerging that soon eclipsed the backward-looking British technologies.
The current US government strategy of favouring mid-20th cenury technologies and approaches is sub-optimal. Germany leads the world in ocean, solar, and wind generation. If you've overflown the North Sea recently, you can't have failed to notice some of the *vast* turbines that have been erected in the ocean - these are some of the largest machines in the world. Japan leads the world in advanced autmobile technologies and hybrid systems. China leads the world in electronics manufacturing. Meanwhile, the US is increasing corporate welfare subsidies for coal and steel production, and funding schemes to burn corn to fuel cars, while at the same time blocking the import or growth of cheap sugarcane ethanol.
Thank you for the best laugh I've had all week. I'm off to whip some shoeshine boys now.
Swedish taxes are pretty high. However, as a result many Swedes do not have to pay for extra health insurance, education, local property taxes, and so on. One interestign thing about the US system is that if you trace an "average" family over a couple of generations, they have a much, much higher probability of effectively reachnig a zero income level and declarnig bankruptcy than in, for example, Sweden. Generally, this arises as a result of medical expenses. Thus, social mobility is higher in Sweden, traced over several generations, than the US. Simply put, if you take two populations of immigrants and start them at the bottom in both Sweden and the US, then come and check on them every decade or so, you'll find a higher proportion of the Swedes entering the middle classes, staying there, and seeing their children reach the upper classes.
I find it most amusing, also, that some of the heaviest campaigning and lobbying for universal healthcare in the US now is beginning to come from the larger companies like the auto, airline, and manufacturing sectors. Because their sales have to pay for the health care costs of their workers (due to the peculiar US vocational health care system instigated during WW2 to quell worker unrest), as a result their prices are simply not competitive globally where similar non-US companies do not have to "roll in" those health care costs into the unit prices of their goods.
Basically, universal health care acts as an invisible export subsidy that enhances global competition and promotes social mobility. Because pretty much all developed nations use it, and the US does not, this is yet another reason why the US's share of the global economy conintues to shrink. Everyone else is playing a different game and the US is stuck outside, looking in.
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So you support food stamps? They didn't have those when the Robber Barons were stepping out in top hats you know. They form a social barrier between "food insecurity" and starvation for many people.
http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_the_us/hunger_index.html
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/
http://www.results.org/website/article.asp?id=350
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I don't believe that skewed wealth distribution is a problem, unless that wealth is achieved through force. You are correct that real wages have declined over the current cycle. Feel free to read the article I sent to Quikclot a couple of posts ago about how the Fed in the US drives down real wages by printing money that goes to cronies first.
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Let's look a little closer at the Parable of the Sharpened Stick, and see if it really does get us to an absolute right of ownership.
The first problem is that if ownership belongs to the person who created the object, then it obviously doesn't belong to you. You didn't create the stick; you merely whittled some pieces off of it. Sticks are created by trees, and trees aren't created by spear-carvers: "Poems are made by fools like me/ But only God can make a tree." So unless we are going to turn all ownership rights over to the representatives of whatever God we believe in, property rights do not have anything to do with creation.
You might say – and what we are heading for, incidentally, is something resembling Locke's theory of a natural right of property – is that while you didn't create the stick, you improved it, and therefore it belongs to you. The problems with that logic, however, are many.
For one thing, suppose I wait until you are asleep and take your sharpened spear and cut off the sharp part and attach a edged piece of stone. I've improved it. Now it belongs to me. Clearly this is not how we get to your account of property. So we now have to add the stipulation that only the first person to improve an object is the owner.
This problem contains subproblems. It depends on the existence of a large pool of stuff unclaimed by anybody – what Locke calls the "state of plenty," which he argues we used to live in. The trouble with that is that we have no experience of a time when virtually anything of value anywhere on the globe wasn't claimed by somebody. We have no historical record of such a time, either. So the theory doesn't apply to the world we live in. It's much like Gödel's theory of time travel. Gödel showed that time travel was possible in a rotating universe. Except, as far as we can tell, our universe doesn't rotate. So the theory is interesting, but it doesn't apply to anything we know of.
I can see I could go on in this vein indefinitely, and I don't know how interested you (or anyone else) actually are (or is). Let me recommend Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government, and for another natural rights position (what is closer to what I support) Hobbes' Leviathan. If you're interested in really delving into the philosophical basis of property, I'll be happy to write a sequel.
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For fear of getting way out of control with the number of replies, and having a limited amount of time due to looming Step I, I'm not going to reply to everything you said.
Salient Points:
1. I will concede that it appears that some of the homogenous nations of Nordic Europe have a higher pre-tax income mean.
2. None of this proves that Universal Healthcare is good.
3. A higher poverty rate doesn't equal a worse economy, as every nation defines poverty differently. In a free market, there will probably be more people in poverty, as the government pays less to people who don't bother to work. Their support does little for the economy in and of itself.
4. The US does spend less on social services, and as a one of those evil libertarian free market capitalists, I think that it's good.
5. I still think that stealing is inherintly wrong, regardless of economic indicators in any way showing that someone else will benefit from the loot.
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Though I completely disagree with almost everything that you say, I will give you credit for best thought out contrarian argument along with most likely to drop out of medicine and go into creative writing. You have a very elite writing style.
I've read Locke's Second Treatise of Government, so no need to do so again. I am relatively Lockean in my views of the role of government and the right of property, and you probably know that as someone who appears to be reasonably well read on the subject. Of course, you'd probably know that I generally have a more libertarian approach than classic Locke, and I have a tendency to revert to the more modern Jeffersonian takeoffs of Lockean philosophy.
Now the problem with Hobbes, is that he gets stuck in an ideaology that paints man as this crazy beast who would openly destroy everything he could for his own gain were it not for the sovereign defeating his primal urges. I think that's a touch contrived, and I think Hobbes does a terrible job of explaining why the sovereign wouldn't proceed to fall victim to these same urges. However, if you leave that out, I agree with the basic premise that man should be left alone unless his actions impact the rights of another man. Now, it should seem obvious that universal healthcare is diametrically opposed to this doctrine, as it is nothing but impacting the rights of one man for the basic survival gain of another. Thus, the primal urge of self-sustanance is brought out on the part of the sick as they freely rob others. In this case, we just use the sovereign (who I noted was poorly controlled) as part of the game.
I actually love this sort of debate, but we are getting away from the points on this thread. I think a basic theory on the role of government in society is far more relevant to this debate than most of the superficial nitpicking that we do, but I probably shouldn't carry this one further. However, if you want to keep going, feel free to PM and we can argue the role of government in society for as long as you care to.
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The assumption that we have a 'right' to free healthcare is often expressed in these discussions but rarely examined. Who is granting this right, exactly? Certainly not the natural world, and definitely not our government, which doesn't even guarantee us the right to food, water, or happiness. We are only granted the right to find these things for ourselves with minimal interference.
