Disclosure: By education I am an engineer. I took no classes in Political Science. Therefore, my thoughts may be quite wrong...
Our metmike has repeatedly expressed his views about having socialized medicine in the US. I agree with him. Too many people here in the US lose their life-savings, when a major illness hits them.
In general terms, the term “socialism” has a benevolent ring to it. Helping those in need is the human thing to do.
However, in political term, there is a dark side to it. I am thinking of countries where a socialist ran for office and won.
Italy, in the 1920s…. Mussolini (the original "fascist") was a socialist. Once in office, he became a dictator.
Germany, in the early 1930s…. Hitler was an extreme socialist. Once in office, he became a dictator.
Venezuela…. Maduro was a socialist, then he became a dictator.
North Korea calls itself a socialist country, yet its rulers were and are dictators.
Cuba…. Fidel Castro was more of a Marxist…. then he became a dictator.
Most of these countries have some kind of a parliament, and they do hold elections…. but they are one-party systems and the elections’ outcome is already fixed.
The US election, this year, has come very close to becoming a one-party system.
Add to this the growing number of extreme socialists in Congress, and the anarchists fueled by Marxism, and I am becoming slightly alarmed.
Thanks Gunter!
There are so many problems inherent/intrinsic to the idea of socialism.
First, it requires a strong centralized government which is the 1st step leading to totalitarianism. While it may not get there, it will create an errosion of rights. But thats far from the biggest problem in a long list.
One of the biggest. You'll have people who produce nothing in charge of the distribution of goods and services. This will always result in corruption and inefficiency. History proves that.
As far as health care.. Socialized medicine is a solution in the US. But it's not the only solution. It's not even the best. The ONLY problem with healthcare in the US is cost. Socialism will not fix that. It will make it worse. The only way Socialism can reduce cost is through rationing. And this, after it raises costs. Read over the UK's NIH hierarchy of needs in allocating money. It will give you chills.
It amazes, living in a world, a country, surrounded by the miracles of free market capitalism, where socilaism would be considered a solution to anything. It provides the lowest common denominator. An equal level of misery.
there are lots of aspects of society that may fall under the "socialist' category. for example...
if you look at your property taxes, and see a line for fire protection. that is a govt tax that funds the fire department. that is a form of socialism. in our area of arizona, the local govt gives a contract to a private company. so the fire fighters work for a private company, rather than being public employees. this means our local govt is Not on the hook for long term pension and healthcare benefits.
yes, i voted for that as a bond on the local election (about 20 years ago). otherwise you have a volunteer fire dept.
in some cities the fire fighters are public employees. either way, the fire district has to stick to the budget based on the taxes collected from the public. if the firefighters are public employees, then the taxpayer is on the hook for the long term pension problems.
no matter whether it is the fire dept, or the city bus system. at some point, it hurts the economy if too much tax money is taken from the citizen.
europe is about to go down the drain financially. (and america is not that far behind them). because they have... too much debt, too much taxation, too much bureaucracy, too much socialism. etc.
here is the discussion i give to students about govt involvement in healthcare. it sound good short term , but creates a very big inefficiency long term.
for example...
before the ACA, my daughters birth control pills (if you did Not have insurance) cost 30 bucks a month.
today, after the ACA, the same pills (if you do Not have insurance) cost 140 bucks a month.
if you could get them at a pharmacy, with No insurance, and No ACA, and NO prescription... then the same pills would cost only 10 bucks a month (not much more than a bottle of tylenol).
more govt involvement, and the cost is higher.
less govt involvement, and the cost is lower.
the cost is higher when you have more govt involvement. i have never met a liberal who understands this. they all want more govt involvement to make things "fair".
a lower price benefits everyone long term. free markets give you a better product at a better price.
too much govt involvement gives you a worse product or a worse price. (most the time).
health insurance premiums are up 400%.
many drug costs are up 400%, etc. because of the ACA.
Bear,
I feel confident you've taken an economics course or 2. Where the supply curve meets the demand curve for a given product, the free market is the most efficient way to distribute that product to people who can afford it. (that is why I am a capitalist) And of course, if you can't afford a given product, like say a brand new Tesla or a trip to Hawaii for your family, well... that's too bad. It is also true for a product like health care. It is the most efficient way to distribute health care to people who can afford it. But if you are advocating distributing health care via the free market then you must acknowledge that not everyone gets to have health care. It's economics 101.
But I have yet to meet a conservative who will say out loud "healthcare is not a right".
I happen to think that the richest country in the history of the world can afford to provide a basic level of healthcare. If we agree to disagree on that I'm ok with it. But don't assert that the free market will take care of everyone. It will not.
I've said several times that Healthcare is not a right, because it's not. Making healthcare a right gives you the right to someone elses time and talent. Do you advocate slavery? If not, then you can't say healthcare is a right. There are reams of writings on that very subject and a simple search will give you much more eloquent arguments than mine. Suffice to say, we have a political party who's main objective is to create fictional rights out of thin air while eliminating actual ones. And apparently, a majority votes for them. Historians will surely chuckle as they sift through the ashes of what was once the most successful experiment in self governing in human history.
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public's money".
As far as capitalism, if you look, any region, area, country that has reduced or eliminated poverty has done so through capitalism. Nothing else has ever worked anywhere. If you can't buy a Tesla and a trip to Hawaii, too bad. You'll have to settle for a chevy and a trip to Florida. If you can't do that, you probably didn't finish high school, live in a single parent home and probably have a crappy work ethic to boot as that criteria matches 98% of what we call poverty, which ironically, includes a better life style than about 80% of the middle class in other contries.
That being said, we as a society have an obligation to provide healthcare. With true free market capitalism, the vast majority of the population will be able to afford to provide their own. The remaining small fraction can have access to Medicaid. It's not rocket science. A shame so many want to pretend it is.
Great discussion.
Tim has been saying for years that he thinks that healthcare is not a right(I disagree).
Previous discussions:
Corruption causing our health care system to collapse
13 responses |
Oct. 16, 2019, 12:05 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41122/
Fixing the health care system
16 responses |
- Aug. 23, 2019, 10:44 p.m.
My wife's endoscopy bill finally came in the mail yesterday.
The procedure lasted around 15 minutes and the bill was over $7,000!
Of course there was prep and other costs but this is nuts. She was in and out of there in just over an hour.
We have insurance at the moment, which is why we had it done but the deductible is $8,000. We got the provider discount for having insurance and that took off almost $5,000 and the final bill is just under $2,700.........which goes towards our deductible.
This is what makes health insurance unaffordable. Hospitals and doctors charging stratospheric rates. Insurance companies must pay those rates and pass them on.
We have crummy insurance and still paid a lot of money.
The main way that our insurance will pay off is if we have a catastrophic event or extremely expensive procedure that cost way up in the double digit thousands.
After the deductible is met, then we have the max out of pocket, which I think is around 12,000. So after that, the insurance covers everything.
The policy is from her work and part of the agreement is that they provide health insurance, so they got us a crummy policy.
Once again, if you are opposed to slavery, you can't support healthcare as a right. Insisting it's a right means you don't understand the definition of a "right".
A good article on the subject if you care to take the time.
https://fee.org/articles/is-health-care-a-human-right/
Thanks Tim,
That was an interesting read.
Sort of reminds me of when Bill Clinton was on the stand and he said "it depends on what your definition is for the word is"
From the article:
"Negative rights can be enjoyed absolutely in a way positive rights cannot. Assuming no one is killing you (I hope), currently, you, the reader, are fully and absolutely enjoying your negative right to life"Similarly, if no one is stealing from you, assaulting you, or otherwise violating your body or your property then you are absolutely enjoying your negative rights to not be stolen from, assaulted, etc., and everyone else is absolutely fulfilling their negative duties."
If this includes the right to not be assaulted or have their bodies violated, one can expand that definition to mean having their bodies violated by virus's and sickness. We have medicine and science to treat and protect people from these body violations that are actually more harmful to most of us than human violations.
The person in this article is applying "their" belief of what a right is. In my example, I am just using their way of defining things, to define them in order to justify "my" belief.
I believe that rights in a moral society, are in part based on what society is capable of providing. People starving in Africa or dying from disease with no treatment available don't have a right to something that doesn't exist.
If the crime rate is off the charts and there is no police protection, they still have the right to live but society is unable to provide additional rights of protection/safety.
For me, rights include providing basic needs to the poor in societies that have the ability to do so. If a person has the right to live................we can define living. A healthy person enjoying life is clearly living. A very sick person, suffering greatly is not enjoying life. By some definitions, that is not living.
In the article, he defined rights as an agreement/definition of human interaction. Caruso had no right to life from the trees and tigers on the island, but once Friday showed up, he had a right to not be killed by him. So, your argument for a virus, etc, does not apply. DO I have a right to not have a heart attack?
I agree that this is how he defined rights.
I am just not accepting his definition.
My definition might be wrong but that’s why we disagree.
You and him agree though.
Having a right to a heart attack has nothing to do with it based on my definition.
It’s what happens after the heart attack ......how you get treated based on humanity and societal norms using definitions of ethics/ morality that I think give you rights as a human being.
Ignoring this, tells us that we have no obligation to help anybody at any time. Just don’t kill them or hurt them and we are good.
Compassion involves recognizing humanity at a basic needs level and applying it in a uniform manner that assumes certain things that go beyond just not killing or hurting them.
Even if you want to say they don’t have a right to this, it doesn’t get us off the hook from our obligation to care for the less fortunate........if we are able.
My wife and I are not poor or less fortunate but like everyone else, we shouldn’t have to pay numerous times the fair price for medicine in this country.
joj, i never said that capitalism give everyone everything they want all the time. and a tesla has nothing to do with my argument.
capitalism gives us a better product at a better price most of the time for most things.
and YES, anyone can afford 10 bucks a month for birth control if they are willing to work a job. the average person is better off because of free markets.
if you want to bring cars into the discussion... for the most part we had free markets with autos. when it began... a car in 1929 was a better car at a better price than a car in 1905. that is what happens in a free market. if you want to see what happens in a govt controlled market, go buy a russian car from 1955, and compare it to a chevy from 1955
From my earlier post.
That being said, we as a society have an obligation to provide healthcare.
Our obligation does not imply a right. I can be charitable. You have no right to demand I be charitable.
The irony in all this. The less government intrusion we have in healthcare, the less we'll need.
Ok Tim, you win.
Appears that you believe in our obligation though.
Of course I believe in our obligation.
The true measure of any society is in how it treats it's weakest members.
I recall an article where an anthropologist was asked "what was the earliest sign of civilization". The expected answer was some sort of tool. Her answer was "healed broken bones".
Before we became civilized, when you broke a leg, you laid down and died. Once we became civilized, the other members of the tribe would care for you, feed you, until you were well.
That is the basis of civilization.
Not to beat a dead horse, but felt I should provide a reference for the healed broken bone. It was Margaret Mead BTW.
"Anthropologist Margaret Meadwas asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture.
Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die."