On Jul 17, 2009, at 10:14 PM, John Williams wrote:
On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 9:48 PM, Warren
Ockrassa<war...@nightwares.com> wrote:
On Jul 17, 2009, at 9:15 PM, John Williams wrote:
I guess you've never visited an "herbal" healer then, or someone
who used
"reiki" or "healing touch". You're not prevented from doing so. The
free
market lets you.
Heh, being restricted from some things but not others is hardly free.
But you're not restricted from any of them.
Again, we had the "free market" model. Again, it *did not work*.
Again, I'd like to hear about this wondrous free market in health care
that we had. I'm certainly not aware of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine
Really? There are health plans that include maintenance options?
I'd like to
know what they are.
Most of them. I think we are disagreeing over my terminology. Replace
"maintenance" with "predictable" or "mostly expected" if you wish.
Most cover routine check-ups, screenings, treatment and drugs for
minor ailments -- things that most people could budget for on a yearly
basis.
Can they? When was the last time you had to pay a full-billed price
for a routine doctor's visit? Living on minimum wage?
And to be certain, knowing what was making my eyes itch was worth a
few
bucks to me.
It was worth $250 to you. But you did not actually pay the $250.
Someone(s) else did. It may have not been worth $250 to them.
It might not have been, but under the same coverage, someone else in
my plan littered sextuplets, at a rough cost of a quarter of a million
dollars. Was that worth it to me? Absolutely not. Nevertheless I keep
the coverage, as she does, and I pay into it, as she does, to cover
healthcare costs I will never have to face -- as she does.
Now, suppose I was an indigent? Would I be worthy of the same level
of care,
or not?
Worthy of care? I would not presume to determine who is worthy of
care.
No, you'd pass off responsibility to the "free market" system,
wouldn't you?
But certainly if you think someone who is not getting care
should be getting it, you could help them to obtain it by donating
your own time or money.
Yes. And that's what insurance is all about.
You seem to have a more restrictive definition of freedom than I do.
My definition of freedom of choice is to be able to choose as I like
as long as I am not directly taking away someone else's freedom.
And you live that, every day, by every choice you make? How do you
know that? How do you know that by giving a few pennies of your
income, and turning that into government revenue for the internet,
highways and the FDA, you are not actually working either for or
against someone else's freedom?
More significantly, how can you be sure that *keeping* those pennies
will make a difference for you or anyone else?
Suppose for a moment you lived tax free. Your income would not be
sucked down by, say, 20% on each paycheck. Suppose further that your
annual income was a comfortable $50K per year. Suppose you put all of
that 20% into the bank, for twenty years. That's a cool $100 grand.
Now suppose you went to the doctor one day, and he said, "Hmm."
You could afford less than one half of one day of radiation treatment
-- on your life savings.
By paying into a semi- or demi-socialist system, you are not
sacrificing your freedom; you are helping others to live a life a
little more free of fear, or of destitution. You're not taking others'
freedom by being given a therapy you could otherwise not possibly
afford. You're just working on the cushion that everyone has paid into
anyway.
Would I be willing to help pay for that? Yes, just as much as I was
glad that "others" paid to help me learn why I was sneezing so much.
If the government takes money from me and uses it to pay for keeping
an
87-year old alive and in pain for an additional month, when I would
have spent the money to help starving or sick children in third world
countries, that is definitely not freedom of choice.
Oh, so you can't do both? Why not?
Government, by insisting on evidence-based standards before approving
treatments, is no more "interfering" than it is when it says you
have to
build highways out of tarmacadam as opposed to construction paper.
Both are interfering. The same goals could be accomplished non-
coercively.
That has never been true in ten thousand years of human history.
--
Warren Ockrassa | @waxis
Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/
Books | http://books.nightwares.com/
Web | http://www.nightwares.com/
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