^ What if your horse LITERALLY painted your barn?
That’s what she said?
[quote]squating_bear wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Well, that would be easy - fire protection and police protection are in the public interest independent of the desire to remedy perceived wealth inequality problems. [/quote]
But if poor people didnt get fire or police service, they would BE “perceived wealth inequality problems”, no?[/quote]
Got damn dude, how thick are you?
THAT IS NOT THERE PURPOSE[/quote]
I love being insulted by people who don’t understand common english words.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
But if poor people didnt get fire or police service, they would BE “perceived wealth inequality problems”, no?[/quote]
Capped, I’m not going to go around and around repeating it. These programs serve the public interest and are not designed to “level inequality”. As such, these public services - and those like them - are not “socialism”.
Poor people wouldn’t be able to pay the tolls on private highways - have all the road construction (and monies spent on them) since the birth of the republic been to alleviate perceived income inequality to redistribut the wealth among the rich who can afford to pay for riding on the highways, and the poor who cannot?
Of course not. Such policies have never had that mission. But according to your logic, the first expenditure on a national road in the 1780s would have been “socialism”.
Seriously. Just answer the question I posed to you earlier.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
But if poor people didnt get fire or police service, they would BE “perceived wealth inequality problems”, no?[/quote]
Capped, I’m not going to go around and around repeating it. These programs serve the public interest and are not designed to “level inequality”. As such, these public services - and those like them - are not “socialism”.
Poor people wouldn’t be able to pay the tolls on private highways - have all the road construction (and monies spent on them) since the birth of the republic been to alleviate perceived income inequality to redistribut the wealth among the rich who can afford to pay for riding on the highways, and the poor who cannot?
Of course not. Such policies have never had that mission. But according to your logic, the first expenditure on a national road in the 1780s would have been “socialism”.
Seriously. Just answer the question I posed to you earlier. [/quote]
No. I’m not arguing that any taxpayer funded government service is socialism.
I’m arguing that certain services, which serve the public interest, are generally accepted as taxpayer funded. I’m arguing that health care SHOULD BE one of those services.
Healthy people can work, healthy people can work better, curing infectious disease prevents (or at least retards) spread, properly treated medical problems are less likely to cause permanent damage, etc. It is in the public interest that everyone receive adequate medical care.
But you, of course, never actually made any arguments that fire service should be taxpayer funded, beyond the base claim that it “serves the public interest”. So lets do this again: We live in a world where only those who can afford it get fire and police service. I’m rich, and, as such, well protected. You’re trying to convince me that these services should be taxpayer funded. Here are my arguments:
- I shouldn’t have to pay for someone elses services. Thats robbing me to supply a service to someone els.
- Not having those services encourages people to go out and get jobs so they can afford them. If you give a man a fish, and all that.
- People need to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Any time you provide something for them (on someone elses dime, no less), you encourage them not to take personal responsibility. Why blow out all candles and make sure your cigarettes are safely snuffed if you can rest assured that MY tax dollars will save your mistake?
- Making services free encourages people to overuse them. I mean, what is “adequate” police protection, anyway? Should the police guard someone 24/7 if they want it, if that’s what they define as “adequate protection”? And who are you to say its not? Besides, you’ll have people calling the cops for everly tiny dispute or stolen stick of gum. Which leads me to my next point:
- Offering the services, for free (or, at least, funded by me so lazy bums can get a free ride off my hard earned money), reduces the quality and availability to everyone. What if there are several fires at once… do you think I deserve to be the last they get to, even though I’m the one paying for everyone to have the service? Thats just fucking unjust, and you know it.
Listen, the fact is, the world is sink-or-swim, and if some entitlement asshole thinks he deserves things like fire and police protection, on my hard earned dime, he just needs to get the fuck out of the way. In nature, the alpha lion gets all the lion p-tang and the food - trying to keep these lazy, useless, worthless human beings around by providing them protection WITH MY MONEY is harmful to the species.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
No. I’m not arguing that any taxpayer funded government service is socialism.
I’m arguing that certain services, which serve the public interest, are generally accepted as taxpayer funded. I’m arguing that health care SHOULD BE one of those services.[/quote]
That’s fine as far as it goes, but these are different kinds of services - that was the point. You originally asked why someone would object to other “socialized” services like police protection, etc. My point was, they aren’t the same. They have a different mission.
But everyone gets adequate medical care. That isn’t the problem. Coverage in this country is not the problem. Cost is. What you want is that someone else pay for coverage. That is a redistribution of wealth, effectively.
Well, sure it should be taxpayer-funded, because it’s better organized for jurisdictional purposes, and a number of other reasons. We could privatize it, but it would make things too complicated. This isn’t ground-breaking stuff.
[quote]So lets do this again: We live in a world where only those who can afford it get fire and police service. I’m rich, and, as such, well protected. You’re trying to convince me that these services should be taxpayer funded. Here are my arguments:
- I shouldn’t have to pay for someone elses services. Thats robbing me to supply a service to someone els.
- Not having those services encourages people to go out and get jobs so they can afford them. If you give a man a fish, and all that.
- People need to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Any time you provide something for them (on someone elses dime, no less), you encourage them not to take personal responsibility. Why blow out all candles and make sure your cigarettes are safely snuffed if you can rest assured that MY tax dollars will save your mistake?
- Making services free encourages people to overuse them. I mean, what is “adequate” police protection, anyway? Should the police guard someone 24/7 if they want it, if that’s what they define as “adequate protection”? And who are you to say its not? Besides, you’ll have people calling the cops for everly tiny dispute or stolen stick of gum. Which leads me to my next point:
- Offering the services, for free (or, at least, funded by me so lazy bums can get a free ride off my hard earned money), reduces the quality and availability to everyone. What if there are several fires at once… do you think I deserve to be the last they get to, even though I’m the one paying for everyone to have the service? Thats just fucking unjust, and you know it.[/quote]
You’re trying to read back the libertarian brief to me, and you’re barking up the wrong tree. But, for the sport of it, I’ll address your points:
Well, no, you aren’t being robbed - you get to vote on whether they provide for it or not. Moreover, these services provide for a very specific public interest - for example, streamlining jurisdiction. With so many jurisdictions close by (towns, cities, municipalities, etc.), you can use less resources to cover more ground more efficiently. Also, think of the right of way needed on public roads to drive really fast to the scene of an emergency that you couldn’t reliably coordinate through contract. And, of course, this is just the practicality aspect of it.
And more besides, there’d be no reason to deny someone services of police and fire protection based on ability to pay. People are entitled to be protected under the law from criminal behavior, not by the nexus of contract, so their wealth is irrelevant to police protection. Police are agents of the law because they enforce it. They have duties outside of contract.
If you had a contract for a “private” cop and you called him to come to your house because you were being held at gunpoint and he decided not to show up, what you have is noting more than a breach of contract you can sue him under after the fact. That’s dumb. And inefficient. And it does not and cannot provide coverage under the public law that protects you from criminal behavior.
And, no, making use of “free” police and fire services don’t encourage the overuse of these resources - use common sense. Who is intentionally engaging in behavior to attract criminal behavior their way so they can squeeze more out of the police protection everyone is paying for? Who? Is someone trying to get mugged more often so they can get eke out another quantum of police protection? Are people lighting fires closer and closer to their house knowing that they have “free” fire protection available?
The ethic of personal responsibility isn’t affected by the public provision of these resources either - people don’t want to be victims of crimes, and people don’t want all their possessions to go up into flames. Human beings don’t actually engage in the kinds of behavior you suggest - for example, being more careless with birthday candles on a cake because they know the fire department is close by.
These services do not encourage moral hazard. This is an unserious an argument as you can make.
Contrast all this, by the way, to health care, and you get a completely different story. The problems of moral hazard do show up in subsidized health care, and history has easily demonstrated that a government-run health care system doesn’t improve inefficiencies, it worsens them.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Contrast all this, by the way, to health care, and you get a completely different story. The problems of moral hazard do show up in subsidized health care, and history has easily demonstrated that a government-run health care system doesn’t improve inefficiencies, it worsens them.[/quote]
How so? Do people intentionally seek out infectious diseases or something?
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
How so? Do people intentionally seek out infectious diseases or something?[/quote]
Is this a serious question? Have you seen, for example, the obesity epidemic in this country? And the compouding of the problem because people think that pills or procedures will resolve all of the issues that are caused by it, as opposed to preventive health care on the front end, i.e., eating better and exercising?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
How so? Do people intentionally seek out infectious diseases or something?[/quote]
Is this a serious question? Have you seen, for example, the obesity epidemic in this country? And the compouding of the problem because people think that pills or procedures will resolve all of the issues that are caused by it, as opposed to preventive health care on the front end, i.e., eating better and exercising?
[/quote]
Yes. It’s caused mainly by the ubiquitousness of HFCS in our food as well as the low cost and convenience of low quality “fast” food (high in sugar/HFCS and calories and low in nutritive benefits), as well as other psychological, social, and economic factors.
But there you go, on the “personal responsibility” front. Your argument seems to be that providing people with medical treatment for obesity encourages them to be irresponsible (eat junk and dont exercise) because they can rely on a provided service (pills or procedures). The same argument could be made for fire safety - providing people with fire service encourages them to be irresponsible (not properly put out fires/cigarettes) because they can rely on a provided service (the fire will be put out at no cost to them).
Thing is, in both cases, people want neither problem (to be obese or to have their homes catch fire), and removing the “safety net”, in either case, has never been shown to actually reduce the incidence of obesity/housefires.
Also, the argument that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is a good argument for taxpayer funded healthcare: if people aren’t worried about copays (and the possible high cost of treatment if something is wrong), they’re more likely to get things checked out in the early stages, when they can be detected and treated/prevented - which, in the long run, is cheaper and more efficient.
Some of us don’t believe in fire or protective service in the form of a police state being paid for with our taxes either, I live in a good ol’ hick town, we do not have a police department, we have a crime watch, we do not have a taxpayer subsidized fire dept we have volunteers and the community donates, same with emergency services, all volunteer and donation driven.
Works better then the idiotic socialistic programs.
Heck most of our elected officials receive very little for their duties, they want to make a difference and help others, they see themselves as public servants, no elitist over seer’s. That is the difference between the free market system and this piece of shit socialist democratic system.
The school is an old fashioned conservative school, not having financial problems, still adding programs.
And get this, our crime rate is low, our taxes are low and people say hi and help each other out.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Also, the argument that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is a good argument for taxpayer funded healthcare: if people aren’t worried about copays (and the possible high cost of treatment if something is wrong), they’re more likely to get things checked out in the early stages, when they can be detected and treated/prevented - which, in the long run, is cheaper and more efficient.[/quote]
Yes it will, when people either change their lifestyle or die. Decisions have consequences and no one should be responsible for your decisions but you. There is so much unnecessary cost in our medical system because of YOUR idiotic programs. You endorse them, you can claim them.
But your claims have no basis, get this , because those studies have not been performed.
No it is cheaper to provide service which the patient can pay for. Unless the doctor himself wishes to donate said services.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
How so? Do people intentionally seek out infectious diseases or something?[/quote]
Is this a serious question? Have you seen, for example, the obesity epidemic in this country? And the compouding of the problem because people think that pills or procedures will resolve all of the issues that are caused by it, as opposed to preventive health care on the front end, i.e., eating better and exercising?
[/quote]
I disagree. The obesity epidemic is also not encouraged by the availability of health care, but of food. “Supersize Me” managed to convince us that everyone else is an idiot when it comes to food choices. Do you (=anyone reading this article) really think that you make stupid food choices and shouldn’t be allowed to get what you want at a restaurant?
Where health care has become effectively free, people do take casual use of it to the point that it must be rationed. My friends in the UK, e.g., bitch and moan constantly about the years-long delay for certain treatments (such as joint replacement). It is free, but you have to jump through hoops to get it and might find you are being denied treatment – precisely the galling thing that happens in this country when insurance is lacking or won’t pay. My son got injured and needed an MRI. The hospital wouldn’t even touch him until the bureaucrats chatted each other up and it was agreed they would pay for it. My thinking on national health care is simple: How is adding (and raising the taxes to pay for it) another layer of bureaucracy going to make this work better?
Worst care historically was, again, in the old Soviet Union where there were serious penalties for not filing paperwork. Since the State mandated fixed appointment durations, doctors hit on the idea of filling it all out while the patient was there, which took up most of the time. The patients were then told to make another appointment if there wasn’t time to see them. The economy was incapable of actually producing even passable medicines, so there became a two-tiered system of public health care that was just awful for the masses and not quite black market (with Western meds & treatments) for Party members, paid for on the sly by the State. Again, the idea that there was some form of equitable, national health care in operation was a complete lie. Same with Cuba today, where medical tourists get vastly better care than the Cubans.
My favorite still of all the stupidities that came out of socialized medicine was in China under Mao. Since they had purged many doctors (who, annoyingly kept finding that people were dying of starvation, hence must all be Western-paid spies), there was almost no real national health care in the mid 1960’s. Not to worry, the State could simply push traditional oriental medicine which was a lot cheaper. In particular, they touted acupuncture as an alternative to anesthesia and pain killers. Their major study, all done on loyal Party members carefully selected for their adherence to Party guidelines showed it worked just as well as Western medicine. Indeed, appendectomies were performed and deaf mute patients who were treated with acupuncture often spontaneously recovered and were reported as yelling “Long Live Chairman Mao” as their first words ever. This study, btw, is still trotted out by people who are into alternative health care.1)
I could go on (um, never get treated by a Romanian doctor who got their degree under the Communists) but will stop now.
– jj
=====
- You might not know it, but I have been a long time martial artist and part of our system includes a component of traditional oriental medicine, so yes, I am qualified to teach it, have taught and do know a bit of it quite passably. I have to deal with people who want me to be Yoda with it all the time and make it a point of quoting studies like this to help them focus on what they are actually doing,
– jj
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Yes. It’s caused mainly by the ubiquitousness of HFCS in our food as well as the low cost and convenience of low quality “fast” food (high in sugar/HFCS and calories and low in nutritive benefits), as well as other psychological, social, and economic factors.[/quote]
No, it’s not. It’s mainly caused by a lifestyle focused on overconsumption and being sedentary in both work and entertainment. Our overweight culture - predicated on simple overindulgence - isn’t a result of being “victimized” by external forces and evildoers in the fast food industry. You’re on a bodybuilding site - this shouldn’t have to be explained to you.
Not exactly - providing people with medical treatment doesn’t encourage moral hazard…removing their responsibility to pay for it is the problem primarily driving the moral hazard aspect of it, as is the case with all insurance mechanisms.
Ludicrous. There is no risk/reward scenario in which people will actually be more reckless with putting out fires or their smokes at home with the expectation that they want have to directly pay for the fire department to come put out the smoldering ashes of their house. Why? Because regardless of who pays, the catastrophe - you know, all of your stuff going up in flames - is so severe that people avoid this event regardless.
Seriously. That is terrible.
Ok, fantastic - this is an empirical claim (“never have been shown”). Great. Show me. Cite the study. Your claim with respect to both obesity and housefires. I look forward to reading it.
In any event, you misstate it - it isn’t removal of a “safety net”, it’s allocating expenses to avoid the free rider problem. No “safety net” has been removed.
And, one other thing - you say people don’t want to be obese. Well, to a certain extent they do, or they wouldn’t be. Or more precisely, they are comfortable with the trade-off of overindulgence for being overweight for the time being. The overwight are not “victims” who are suddenly overweight by some unforeseen calamity.
Last data I saw was that the average co-pay (in 2006) was just below $20. If you have different data, I’ll look at it, though it should predate ObamaCare’s passage.
And preventive medicine (and lifestyle, really) is wise policy, but it doesn’t necessarily drive costs down. From the CBO:
[i]Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.
Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness. An article published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine provides a good summary of the available evidence on how preventive care affects costs.3 After reviewing hundreds of previous studies of preventive care, the authors report that slightly fewer than 20 percent of the services that were examined save money, while the rest add to costs.[/i]
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10492/08-07-Prevention.pdf
Now, preventive care, etc. is not bad policy - in fact, it’s very wise. Just get your facts straight and don’t pretend that it categorically reduces costs.
And, just to finalize it, everything you have argued for is fine, as far as it goes - pleas for “universal” health care are common. But let’s call it what it is - a form of wealth distribution. People get care - that isn’t the problem. What you want is for other people to pay for it.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned or not but I didn’t read through all 10 pages so don’t jump my butt if it has.
The problem with taking from those who make more money to give to those who don’t make much or don’t even work at all it that eventually the ones making all the money will decided whats the point in working so hard if it’s just going to be given to someone who is doing little. They will decide they should do little and get just as much since the others are.
Or they will try to find ways to keep from having as much taken from them such as moving to another country. If they and their money leaves the country what will happen to those who are dependent on this money? It will end up much like the job situation with most factory jobs moving to other countries with cheaper labor.
If you give to those who do little it will only be a matter of time before they decide that they “deserve” more. You will not teach them the responsibility of working for what they want. They will expect it to be given to them.
This country was made great by generations working hard and fighting for the opportunity to achieve a better life for themselves and their families. It was people who took responsibility for their actions, and people who didn?t expect anything to be handed to them. It has been going down the crapper with my generation who believes everything should be handed to them for nothing. This country will only continue to decline with that type of mentality.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
The same argument could be made for fire safety - providing people with fire service encourages them to be irresponsible (not properly put out fires/cigarettes) because they can rely on a provided service (the fire will be put out at no cost to them).
[/quote]
You can’t be fucking serious with this comment?
[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
The same argument could be made for fire safety - providing people with fire service encourages them to be irresponsible (not properly put out fires/cigarettes) because they can rely on a provided service (the fire will be put out at no cost to them).
[/quote]
You can’t be fucking serious with this comment? [/quote]
I’m not. It was a tongue-in-cheek argument that someone could make if they were trying to avoid paying taxes for fire service.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
And, just to finalize it, everything you have argued for is fine, as far as it goes - pleas for “universal” health care are common. But let’s call it what it is - a form of wealth distribution. People get care - that isn’t the problem. What you want is for other people to pay for it.[/quote]
You keep saying “people aready get care, that’s not the problem”. Are you really making the case that everyone gets adequate health care? That there aren’t people out there who are sick but dont get the care or medicine they need, because they can’t afford it?
What happens when people do get the care, but can’t pay for it?
I hope this will put everything to rest.
CS
This hits the nail on the head about what we owe to others.
Let’s make this deal!!