Government

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Mr.CatholicCat' timestamp='1294815879' post='2199298']
Advocates of this version of free market medicine argue that it encourages doctors to be more competent and offer better quality of treatment. But in my opinion, it just makes doctors incompetent and lazy, because if you don't like the service your doctor gives go find another one.
[/quote]

Are you positing that a [i]monopoly[/i] on your business makes doctors (and State workers) competent and industrious?

I know that a monopoly on my business means I have absolutely no recourse to another business, and they have zero economic incentive to treat me well.

The idea behind the free market is just that: it is unrestrained by any outside force, outside of cases of force, fraud, and coercion. What you see when you look around you is not a free market. It is an interventionist market, with prices driven up and quality driven down by State interference. Medical malpractice insurance rates, for example, are extremely high in great part because of greedy individuals and the lawyers who egg them on. Doctors are overwhelmed with Medicare participants and others, who see a doctor whenever they get a sniffle, because, well, they [i]can[/i]! The existence of the AMA in its current role doesn't help things, either.

In America, we pay about $1700 more for a car made in Japan than we would if it were not for tariffs, and about $2400 more for an American-made car. The State subsidizes shoddy workmanship and poor economic stewardship on the part of American companies by inflicting monetary penalties on anyone who would dare to offer a better product.

~Sternhauser

Edited January 13, 2011 by Sternhauser

[dairygirl4u2c]

the AMA doesn't allow more doctors, despite tons of qualified people. at its most fundamental level, medical practice is just smart people, and cheap pills, but the system doesn't allow competition to drive down costs of doctors etc.

even if we had costs lower, that doesnt mean that everyone would have rasonable access to healthcare. which means we have to have systems like medicare and medicaid, or more preferably single payer. that's the way capitalism works... people get thrown to the street, sometimes literally. like the homeless guys they kick out and drop off at hte shelters with IV's still in their arm.

i could go on and on about how our system is broke, and evecn how other countries who are 'socialized' do it better, and not just because it's too socialized or to unsocialized, meaning socialism, but because it's a freaky hybrid of both, and our leaders are too incompetent to do anything that actually would make sense.

saying we need more free market, other than in terms of more doctors and some other places, is not the solution by far.

[liseski]

[quote name='MarkKurallSchuenemann' timestamp='1294890212' post='2199545']
I would prefer a two-tier healthcare system, and one that has some government regulation.

Like, would it be so bad to have paid cancer treatement hospitals, but by law, all profits are turned into research grants to come up with better cancer treatments? How about heart attack and stroke hositials.

Sure, you can have the public healthcare system right beside it, but why is it illegal in Canada to create paid hospitals, if we regulate them for speciality treatments?

I don't think it is fair, and I actually think it is unconstitutional that the government decides how I get healthcare, and I have no choice in the matter.
[/quote]


because not all of us can pay...
and because it promotes queue-jumping. I like the triage system just fine, thanks.

Edited January 13, 2011 by liseski

[MarkKurallSchuenemann]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1294946992' post='2199726']
because not all of us can pay...
and because it promotes queue-jumping. I like the triage system just fine, thanks.
[/quote]

Two-Tier health care means that we continue to have the free public health care, which would take care of all those needs, but beside it, there could be paid for speciality hospitials - also regulated by the government - that would take all the profits from the individuals who want to pay for it and put it into research for the conditions they are treating - like cancer, heart attacks, strokes, spinal injuries, and many other things that desperately need funding right now.

So, you don't have to pay for the treatment at those speciality hospitals, but wouldn't it be great if you had the option if you could afford it!

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='MarkKurallSchuenemann' timestamp='1294960697' post='2199817']
Two-Tier health care means that we continue to have the free public health care, which would take care of all those needs,
[/quote]

There is no such thing as free public healthcare. Wealth is taken from some, by force or the threat of force, and it is redistributed.

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1294933587' post='2199638']
saying we need more free market, other than in terms of more doctors and some other places, is not the solution by far.
[/quote]

We need more people with guns redistributing wealth, not voluntary cooperation and charity. That is what you are advocating, whether or not you recognize it.

~Sternhauser

[liseski]

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1294960824' post='2199818']
There is no such thing as free public healthcare. Wealth is taken from some, by force or the threat of force, and it is redistributed.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

by means of taxes - which I do not resent paying. and income tax is taken off everyone.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1294960998' post='2199822']
by means of taxes - which I do not resent paying.[/quote]

What is taxation, liseski, in its essence?

[quote]and income tax is taken off everyone.[/quote]

Does that make it . . . "free?"

~Sternhauser

[liseski]

Obviously not.
I do not mind paying for my public health care. I don't think I ever implied that is was free.

I was responding to the statement "...Wealth is taken from some, by force or the threat of force..."
Money is taken from all, by means of law.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1294961399' post='2199827']
Money is taken from all, by means of law.[/quote]

That is the essence of taxation?

~Sternhauser

[liseski]

"...A tax is a compulsory payment or contribution made by the citizens of a country to the government for the general benefit of the country..."

not mine, hence the quotes. however, I believe this is the essence of taxation

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1294968929' post='2199866']
"...A tax is a compulsory payment or contribution made by the citizens of a country to the government for the general benefit of the country..."
not mine, hence the quotes. however, I believe this is the essence of taxation
[/quote]

So it's forcing people at gunpoint to pay, (or else they're imprisoned, or killed if they resist being imprisoned) to support monopoly "services" of the State. You can't take money from your neighbor at gunpoint. Do you think it is moral for agents of the State to do it?

~Sternhauser

[liseski]

You keep circling back to the same point.

Laws are laws. To live in a civil society, you do need them. There are laws that deal with appropriate behaviour of the citizens; there are laws that deal with the appropriate behaviour of the government . AND laws that dictate what you provide to the state in order to share in the responsibility of keeping it running. These laws are decided upon, I believe, "...by the people, for the people, etc..." in your republic.

I fail to see the gunpoint analogy. You are not imprisoned. You, sir, are free to leave the society you are in and move to, say - Somalia - where there is no government to inconvenience you

[ThePenciledOne]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1295023826' post='2200056']
I fail to see the gunpoint analogy. You are not imprisoned. You, sir, are free to leave the society you are in and move to, say - Somalia - where there is no government to inconvenience you
[/quote]

This is the flaw in most people's argument concerning the 'free society'. You cannot just [b][i]leave[/i][/b]. You must fill out paper work and more paper work and a tad bit more paper work, provided you are even [b][i]approved[/i][/b] to leave the country. You must be [b][i]approved[/i][/b] by the other country to move there, and you must have the [b][i]means[/i][/b] (i.e. money) to move. And of course the means are mostly dictated by how are you doing the the 'free society'.

Of course this is just what I know of my general knowledge so if I am wrong I apologize.


So, the analogy is flawed. If society was as free as most wish it were, then we wouldn't be having all these problems here in the U.S. to begin with.

Edited January 14, 2011 by ThePenciledOne

[liseski]

you are quite correct. however, you are not imprisoned in your country, nor 'held at gunpoint' by it.
unfortunately a free ride is difficult to come by.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1295023826' post='2200056']
You keep circling back to the same point.

Laws are laws.[/quote]

I do keep circling back to the same point. It is the linchpin. An unjust law is no law at all.

[quote]These laws are decided upon, I believe, "...by the people, for the people, etc..." in your republic.[/quote]

I am not at all obliged to obey arbitrary regulations inflicted upon me by people who can't find Iran on a map, but who want to bomb it. Not obliged in the slightest. I am obliged to treat my neighbors with justice. So your millions of arbitrary statutes, which you call "laws," desired by "the people," as you call politicians, who really make the decisions, independent of the will of the populace? They're meaningless. Useless. Harmful. Destructive.

[quote]I fail to see the gunpoint analogy. You are not imprisoned. You, sir, are free to leave the society you are in and move to, say - Somalia - where there is no government to inconvenience you[/quote]

I see. If I don't want to be robbed, I don't have to travel through Oakland. Because "that's the way they do it there," right? And nobody's forcing me to go through Oakland, so robbery in Oakland is OK, right? Listen up. Taking money from people by force? It's called robbery. And it is not "social" behavior as found in a society, it is [i]anti[/i]-social behavior. Let me tell you what YOU are free to do, Liseski. You are free to back away from my liberties. You have no right to take my money by force, and therefore, you have no right to give that right to a politician, you dig? This land is freehold. Love it or leave it. I'm staying among my neighbors. Your political mental constructs can buzz off.

~Sternhauser

Edited January 14, 2011 by Sternhauser

[ThePenciledOne]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1295033726' post='2200097']
you are quite correct. however, you are not imprisoned in your country, nor 'held at gunpoint' by it.
unfortunately a free ride is difficult to come by.
[/quote]

Imprisoned was not the argument I was defending nor did I describe it as such.

Anyway, I could be held at gunpoint if I did not adhere to all the things that I listed before. I could very well be imprisoned for not going through the hoops that the government has set up, so there can be the 'illusion' of security.

I'm not asking for a free ride either, only to be left alone, so that I can live.

[MarkKurallSchuenemann]

[quote name='ThePenciledOne' timestamp='1295046810' post='2200154']
Imprisoned was not the argument I was defending nor did I describe it as such.

Anyway, I could be held at gunpoint if I did not adhere to all the things that I listed before. I could very well be imprisoned for not going through the hoops that the government has set up, so there can be the 'illusion' of security.

I'm not asking for a free ride either, only to be left alone, so that I can live.
[/quote]

Same here!

[liseski]

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1295044102' post='2200135']
I am not at all obliged to obey arbitrary regulations inflicted upon me by people who can't find Iran on a map, but who want to bomb it. Not obliged in the slightest. I am obliged to treat my neighbors with justice. So your millions of arbitrary statutes, which you call "laws," desired by "the people," as you call politicians, who really make the decisions, independent of the will of the populace? They're meaningless. Useless. Harmful. Destructive.

[/quote]

I can find Iran on a map, and I am quite glad myself and my countrymen are not there.

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1295044102' post='2200135']
I see. If I don't want to be robbed, I don't have to travel through Oakland. Because "that's the way they do it there," right? And nobody's forcing me to go through Oakland, so robbery in Oakland is OK, right? Listen up. Taking money from people by force? It's called robbery. And it is not "social" behavior as found in a society, it is [i]anti[/i]-social behavior.

[/quote]

Never been to Oakland. Don't want to. Duh. It is obviously lawlessness and anti-social behaviour - we have our own 'areas of anarchy' here.Sort of helps make one of my points. However, I think it makes no sense to go into any discussion of the social issues of marginilised people with you.

You and I are not on the same page. I started out by saying that I had no issue paying extra taxes to subsidise my health care. Period. I don't mind it; you would. Fair enough.

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1295044102' post='2200135']
Let me tell you what YOU are free to do, Liseski. You are free to back away from my liberties. You have no right to take my money by force, and therefore, you have no right to give that right to a politician, you dig? This land is freehold. Love it or leave it. I'm staying among my neighbors.

[/quote]

I am not involved in your liberties in any way, shape or form. In actual fact I am very much a libertarian, which makes me wonder just what the heck I think I am doing exploring the Catholic faith.

I cannot vote in your country, only my own. And I do. And I quite often have to bend to the will of the majority, even if it doesn't match my own.
You should be free to think and feel whatever you want. I wholeheartedly believe that. And if you don't like the way things are, you move to change it, or you decide your needs are best served elsewhere. All men should have that freedom. Fortunately, in both our countries we have that. Others in this world are not so blessed.
I do not think your viewpoints are wrong because they don't align with mine. Just sharing my opinion.

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1295044102' post='2200135']
Your political mental constructs can buzz off.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

I do not believe you have any idea of my political viewpoints.
And you have a nice day too, sir

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='liseski' timestamp='1295050053' post='2200167']
I do not believe you have any idea of my political viewpoints.
[/quote]

"If you don't like it, you can go to Somalia." I think I get the main idea. And it isn't libertarian. If you were a libertarian, you would adhere to the non-aggression principle, the keystone of libertarianism. And if you took the non-aggression principle to its logical conclusion, you would not participate in elections.

~Sternhauser