You got us(her?) that time. Nice finishing move, Ryu!
Whatcha gonna do, if the doctor makes you that deal in today’s society?
Well, that’s a relief.
I thought you guys were giving us WAY too much credit for thwarting your plans. If only. sigh. I don’t think we’ve really thrown a wrench in the works since 1776.
I do look like evil incarnate in my x-small John Galt t-shirt.
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Sure they do - in an emergency, they travel to the closest provider. If that closest provider happens to be more than 25 miles away, that’s where they go. But no one riding in the ambulance with their family member who is having a heart attack is using an app to shop around for the best deal on emergency surgery and telling the ambulance driver where to head.
Respectfully, I’m not sure libertarianism as we know it was very present in 1776, and I think it’s an ideology that really developed later. From an old post:
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If I recall correctly, something very similar happened in Chile around 10 years ago. The injured child was bleeding in the ER waiting room, while the parents scrambled to find the funds - they maxed out their credit cards but it wasn’t enough so they had to solicit passers-by to make up the difference. As I remember, the child died.
Maybe it’s an Euro viewpoint, but I’ve always marveled how in the US healthcare is considered a “privilege” and in the discourse it’s heavily implied that illness is a personal failing. “Privilege”, “lifestyle choices”, “taking care of oneself” etc. Is every proponent of Obamacare a 500 lbs behemoth chugging liquid butter and eating Twinkies?
It almost sounds that any individual that is suffering from an illness is personally responsible, in other words that it is a moral failing on part of the individual.
I don’t know if this is the legacy of the American culture of personal independence, but the reassuring feeling that you’re in control of your personal health can be very misleading. I know several individuals who’ve had major health issues despite living a T-Nation approved lifestyle.
For me, healthcare is the product of the social contract of people living in a specific entity - the whole point of a government for me is enforcing laws that ensure respect of private property, equality of opportunity (not outcome) for individuals subject to these laws and protection from external threats and disasters both on the macro and micro scale in exchange for taxes.
And healthcare falls under the “disaster on a personal level”. So through taxes people pool funds to pay those less fortunate who have been struck by illness or disease. Sure, it might be called “socialism” but them the arch conservative German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is also a “socialist” because he advocated pretty much what I outlined above.
Also, I’ve recently had a very interested etymological discussion about how language shapes one’s attitude towards specific social and political issues. How in English one “beats cancer”, implying that those who haven’t were not up to the task, while in other languages shaped by more fatalistic cultures one “survives cancer”. Again, the reassuring empowerment of the individual vs. passive fatalism.
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In the news today - scandal. Scandal?
Right, because that’s exactly how doctors behaved before there was an AMA and government regulations of doctors and medical schools.
Hell the AMA was formed because there were too many doctors and they wanted a trade group to limit the number of new doctors and drive wages up. They actually lobbied to close medical schools.
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I’ll assume this is correct. What controls prices now? (Edit: for response to wrong individual, I think)
Remember kids, everything that precedes the word “but” is disingenuous setup and not a truly held belief.
So you paying taxes entitles you to the labor of doctors and nurses and drug manufacturers? Your need is a claim on their production?
You’re okay with the government deciding what type of care is best for you and whether keeping you alive is an efficient use of resources? So when you’re 90 and you want that pacemaker and they say “no” you just shrug and say “It’s for the common good.”
These miracle workers that can save this child who will bleed out before he can be taken out to the parking lot seem awfully callous. I’m really supposed to sacrifice freedom for a group of folks that will demand my house in exchange for helping my child? If these sacks of shit are all that stand between my child and death, I believe my child will soon be in a better place(I don’t have much faith in the ability of pieces of shit to work miracles).
You’re right on that score. The founders were willing to spill alot of blood over a tiny amount of taxes.
Most libertarians today pay 20x what the founders paid in taxes and the most violent thing they do for their beliefs is move to New Hampshire.
The issue is, healthcare requires someone else to help you. And neither you, I nor anyone has a right to force anyone to help you. Doctors provide a service, to say you have a “right” to this service is to say that they MUST do something.
Now contrary to the shitty hyperbolic garbage arguments TB & ED are trying to pass as reality, in America, before the ACA and even now, you go to a doctor, they fix you (or attempt to fix you best then can.) It’s just the way it works, and Doctors take oaths etc for such reasons.
It simply isn’t a rational argument this “negotiate price before we help your child” or “I charge 10m for bypass surgery” made up nonsense. And all it does is muddy the waters for any actual policy discussion.
Because you’re only hearing one side of the argument. And that side typically confuses compassion with using government to get people other than themselves to pay for things.
Look at the Shriners. Look at how much money Americans in general donate to charity etc. etc etc.
Yes and getting government involved in what a doctor can and cannot due doesn’t sound like a good plan to quite a few of us. I’ve had to switch doctors in order to find one that would run the blood tests I wanted run. It’s my god damn body, I should be able to (and did) pay out of pocket if the insurance won’t cover it, and my doctor should be free to do so. I’ve had more than one refuse basic blood tests because of insurance and office policies.
I’ve seen government workers, and audited government entities… I’d rather not have them involved in choosing what and when a doctor can do in any given situation.
Unless that someone wants to become a doctor or nurse I guess. Because is their labor not their property?
It’s not, and it irks the living shit out of me when people on the right label anything they dont’ like “socialism” because then people on the left start calling shit like snow plowing socialism…
It waters down the actual definition of words, and then you have people calling themselves “democratic socialists” who aren’t in fact socialist. Typically just people who want bloated welfare states paid for by someone other than themselves.
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Do you really think the comparison of health care back then to right now is valid? What type of technology were you looking at then vs. now? What kind of costs were you looking at then vs. now?
Not sure late 1800’s health care vs. 2017 makes a lot of sense to compare.
Disengenous, huh? As in “Synonyms: artful, crooked, cunning, deceitful, designing, dishonest, duplicitous, false, feigned, foxy, guileful, indirect, insidious, mendacious, oblique, shifty, sly, tricky, two-faced, uncandid, underhanded, unfair, unfrank, wily”…?
Hogwash. And accusations of bad faith aren’t a great way to kick things off.
Point is, the world isn’t a simple and reductionist as libertarians one one side and statists on the other.
You don’t treat unlike things alike. There are distinctons to be made.
Edit: although I probably qualify as “foxy”, if I’m not being disengenous.
The doctor can’t make that deal in today’s society–it would be illegal (not to mention unethical), and s/he would lose their license to practice.
Ugh. I thought I had invented the story whole-cloth. That’s horrible.
Medical ethics constitute a self-imposed set of regulations, and are antithetical to a true free market. (Used-car salesman do not, to my knowledge, take the equivalent of a Hippocratic oath.) If we’re going to go full free-market HC as some have suggested, I don’t see why that market should be distorted by self-imposed regulations anymore than it should be distorted by government-imposed regulations.
If you have had ample opportunity in your life to purchase supplemental insurance that would have paid for the pacemaker you want now, I for one would have no problem with the govt saying ‘Sorry, we ain’t paying for that.’ You knew all along that your decision to not buy supplemental insurance would limit your choices later in life.
This is why I object to true single-payer, but am an enthusiastic supporter of a govt option with the overlay of a supplemental insurance (and fee-for-service) free market.
I agree–they’re extremely callous, awful people. Scumbags. But while you’re railing against their callousness–tick tock tick tock on the child’s life.
You’re engaged in a free market, where the interplay between supply and demand dictates price. Your demand is extremely high at the moment, and the supply is extremely limited. Given these facts, it should not surprise you that the price of the service has gone up astronomically.
This makes me doubt very much that you’re a parent.
They are hypotheticals, and–apparently–you have no adequate response for them.
As pointed out above, “oaths” are de facto regulations. If you are in favor of constraining physician behavior on the basis of such oaths, you are not in favor of a free-market HC system. QED.
Your inability to respond effectively does not make them “nonsense.”
How is that different from firefighters or police officers? Do you think LEOs or firefighters should operate under market conditions? “Frequent hurricane victim loyalty card. 20% off rescue efforts”
No, I’m ok with the social contract in which in lieu of tax money the state/city/whatever entity provides basic services, including yes, access to healthcare.
Also, how did we get from access to healthcare to forced euthanasia in one paragraph?
No one has said doctors didn’t try to fix you - the issue is whether, under emergent circumstances, they can charge enough to bankrupt you. It’s an issue that’s been around for centuries - it’s the entire reason we have utilities independent of purely private providers.
Nope - the question has become does emergent health care, because of its nature and advancements in technology, need to function more like a utility because of immorailty of potential price gouging? That’s A policy wonk’s policy discussion if there ever was one.
If you know of said wonk, send him or her our way. We’re full up on libertarian bumper sticker slogans at the moment.
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Yes, that’s what I tried to convey earlier, you put it succinctly into words.
If one drives his kid to the ER at 2 am, he/she shouldn’t have to worry about costs. That’s the whole social contract thing paying for the less fortunate ones.
If one want LASIK surgery or esthetic dental work, one can revert to a fee for service professional.
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“Can’t?” How would you force this doctor to heal your child? Do tell. He’s gone rogue, brohan! Out of control. The whole hospital has gone rogue. Fuck. Your child’s dying. You can’t do anything but give up your house and hope someone can defeat his rogue army and reclaim your home at a later date!
You don’t think insurance-type agreements would exist in a free market? Huff, puff, and blow that straw all over the place.
You are very much incorrect, but I don’t place faith in pieces of shit(referring to your hypothetical doctors).