Which is not the same as a duty to furnish "unlimited care", as you put it.

 

We are not talking about selling chocolate bars here. If those 50 patients are not treated in the order of severeness, some might die. I would expect anyone, doctors and otherwise, to help those first who would die if nobody helps them. Everyone has that obligation.

Your solution would be excellent, if we decided that life and death don't matter. But if that is so we can also disband the military and wait for someone to come and kill us all. If we have a tax-funded military that kills people who want to kill any of us, we can also have a tax-funded clinic system to provide a similar service of keeping everyone of us alive.

Anyone who needs special care beyond basic survival within the safe environment of our society can hire their own militia or their own doctor.

 

Idiots will never buy insurance because they are idiots, not because there is no incentive.

People will always think that that European holiday is more important than health insurance. Legislation that subsidises health insurance won't change that and neither will relying on the market to lower costs.

The only thing that ultimately makes some people do the right thing is force, which is why we shoot at terrorists and do not offer them cheaper targets.

If we force people to pay taxes to support the (necessary) military, we can also force people to buy health insurance and pay taxes to support a basic healthcare system of free clinics (which we need for training purposes anyway).

Without basic healthcare available for free, diseases will spread. That's something the free market simply cannot deal with.

 

 

America already fulfills that obligation.  We have laws that state no one can be refused care.  Period.  The current debate is not about that, but is 2 pronged.  One being that everyone should have "Cadilac Care" and the other being they should not have to pay for it.  Both are basically untenable and unworkable.

First, free is an illusion.  Second, the free market has dealt with it - for over 200 years in this country alone.  It is not a "necessity" or a "right", it is a luxury.  We have the basic "necessities" covered.

I was talking about that obligation. It's already being done. I just think that this is one of the few areas where throwing money at the problem actually helps.

If the existing system is paired with obligatory health insurance (provided by the market) and some regulation to make sure that nobody can be rejected for pre-existing conditions (or whatever the health insurance company can come up with), the problem is solved.

 

Which particular epidemic did the market (and not the state) deal with?

 

Which one was not dealt with?  Are you stating that free markets cannot survive with States?  Clearly then we have a definition problem.

But more so, I would turn the question back on you.  What epidemic has the state dealt with effectively?  And more to the point, how has any epidemic brought down the Free Market?

What?

You said that the free market has dealth with the problem of spreading diseases. I was asking you to give an example of a disease that spread and was stopped by the free market rather than the state.

 

Smallpox.

Eliminating smallpox was a concerted effort undertaken by states, not by agents participating in the free market.

 

Non sequitur, I didn't say it had.

 

Dealt with HEALTH CARE not epidemics.  I did not address the last point.  Clearly both state and free markets have had problems dealing with them due to the very nature of them.

Smallpox was an epidemic like Polio was - in other words a continuing disease that has since been contained, but hardly an epidemic in the veign of The Spanish Flu (or even the H1N1).  And it was not a state thing, but a combination of state and free market.  The state did not create the vaccine, it just made sure distribution was universal.  So at best a partnership (as HIV is), but hardly one outclassing the other.

The implication (perhaps misread) was there.  A logical extension of the statement that the free market failed during times of epidemics.  It has not yet. 

 

Perhaps it would help with clarity if I stated I am not an anarchist.  To have faith in the free market does not make you one.  I believe in minimal government, not no government.

A good chunk of those who do not right now do so because they are NOT idiots. They see they can be given something for free. A know a woman who has a friend who pretended to be an illegal immigrant when she gave birth to avoid paying any hospital bills for example. It wasn't stupid, it was a stroke of genious, morally dubious, but not stupid.

The rare few who still do not buy it, well too bad. The state is not their nanny and people should live with their choices (not to mention it is time we stopped paying idiots to outbreed everyone else; using everyone elses money btw). Those people can rely on private charity. And if a few more of them die, it will be offset by many more being saved by repealing such laws. And remembers, those are the people that doctors refused to see for free on their own private dime. I find it highly doubtful that doctors will just start turning away patients who would otherwise die like that (even the most mercantile doctor will see it is bad publicity... and remember that most doctors are highly compassionate). What I expect is that generally it would be people with non serious conditions who refuse to get insurance that will be denied care by doctors should doctors be ALLOWED to deny them care.

There is also the issue of basic human rights. If you force a doctor to furnish care to someone, by law, you are making him into a slave. A temporary slave who is rich and has many rights and protections... but for a short time, a salve nontheless.

Agreed.  Of the "45 million" that are not insured, about 12 million are people that are rich enough not to worry about it (so how does that make them idiots), and young people that are gambling.  Gambling they can save $300/mn in the bank and let it grow, instead of wasting it on something they will not use (and guess what?  most win that bet).

In fact, 20 years ago, I was a gambler.  And I won.

I actually included those people in "idiots".

They are not actually cleverer than others, just more unscrupulous.

I used "idiot" in the classical sense: a disconnected, private (but not necessarily stupid) person. Someone who finds himself outside the system (in this case a society which looks after itself). These people abuse the system and a society in which too many people abuse the system is a society of idiots (in the English sense of the word).

What the woman did  was not, as you probably agree, "morally dubious" but theft.



People become doctors by choice, knowing of the obligations. It's a case of voluntary servitude. There is no human right that forbids voluntary servitude.

If someone becomes a member of parliament or President he also realises (one would hope) that the job comes with certain obligations, cruel as they may seem, and while he arguably becomes, ideally, a slave to the society he is to serve, it is still voluntary servitude.

The same applies to soldiers (unless drafted), firemen, police men (except private police men, probably) and many other professions. Physician is simply regarded, by society, as one of the professions that come with automatic obligations. The only way to escape those obligations is not to become a doctor/soldier/President/fireman.

I thought idiot meant stupid

And theft is morally dubious... I might be misusing the word dubious then. Yes it is clearly theft, she stole from the rest of the population

EDIT: I think the word I meant was "unscrupulous"...

although, technically, if she is paying taxes she is just taking back what she is being forced to give... there is no moral justification to redistribution of "wealth"

and when you are forced to provide medical care without compensation against your will you are being drafted... they are forcing you to furnish such care because you have training to do so, but you are forced nonetheless...

I don't buy the "don't become a doctor if you don't want the government to force you to care for people for free" line...

Although... with it being the case, I and others like me have decided NOT to become a doctor. Go figure... I have better things to do with my life then med school for 7 years and study 16+ hours a day if it means being vilified AND the government forcing me to work for free AND the government trying to set equal wages for all doctors and other such bullcrap. My friend's ucle is a doctor in cuba... he is not allowed to ever go outside the country on "vacation" or to "visit family" (he has family out of the country) because they fear he will escape the country... We aren't there yet, but we are getting close.

To clarify, I agree that it is "moral" and "just" for a doctor to help someone even if they cannot pay, and if someone was dying and the doctor refused to help I would consider said doctor to be a bad person. However he does not commit any violence on someone by his inaction, and laws should not and must not penalize such inaction. If you have acquired the skills to help but decided not to, that is your prerogative.

Taxes are legitimate and providing services to people does not transfer wealth from individual to individual. It's only transfer payments that I object to (i.e. taxing one person and giving the money to another). I don't mind government taxing people and then using the money to provide services everybody can use.

 

And as I said, several jobs come with this force built-in: soldier, fireman, politician etc..

As a doctor you don't have to care for people for free, but you do have an obligation to help, just like everybody else does. I cannot, legally, watch an accident happen and refuse to provide whatever help I can to the victim and neither can a doctor. The fact a doctor can provide more help is incidental to the basic principle.

If I decide to learn more about first aid, my obligation to provide first aid also increases. If I study medicine, it goes through the roof.

 

I don't believe that people who have a problem with helping for free make the best doctors. Medicine is not a business, even though many people want it to be.

 

And yet this has not happened in western Europe where in most places medicine is socialised.

 

Not even. Countries that have had socialised medicine for decades (or over a hundred years in some cases) have not experienced such.

The fact that this happens in Cuba is a function of Cuba being a communist slave state. It's not a function of Cuba's socialised healthcare system.

 

And in this context, your taxes are used to provide a service (free delivery) only to those who do not pay those taxes. If she didn't pay any taxes, she wouldn't have to pay for the delivery either. Since she pays taxes, she is forced to pay for her delivery AND the delivery of those who do not pay taxes.

By pretending to be poor, a tax payer may recover some of the money that is taken from him/her to give to those who do not pay taxes. (which is a crime)

That might be the law, but in that case the law is immoral. You have a moral obligation to help, but should not have a legal obligation to help. If you do have a legal obligation to help than that law is immoral as it infringes on your rights.

You keep on pointing out that people have a legal obligation. I understood that from the start, I was always debating the morality of such laws. Saying "A is the LAW" has no relevance whatsoever on a discussion on whether or not such a law is moral.

Then you believe incorrectly; there is a reason why communist countries produce far fewer doctors.

Doctors ARE highly compassionate and want to help people (in general)... if they just wanted money they would be lawyers. But it is a matter of how much they are willing to sacrifice to help others.

sacrificing years of stressful and very hard work to help others and receive a lot of money and prestige? that is acceptable to many more people that sacrificing years of stressful and very hard work to help others and receive very little money, scorn, and mistreatment by the government.

The medicine system in western europe is bankrupt and they have a decent enough infrastructure as a leftover... Give them another 50 years to fall into further decay due to their communism and watch as they pass laws to deter leaving the country.

Its just a matter of degree, and where you can move to. Currently in the world you don't have a capitalist utopia... you have a declining into communism america, a backwards halfway communist europe, recovering ex communist nations like russia, and total crap slave states like cuba. When I say we are getting there I mean that in 50 years we could have a rich and powerful capitalist russia (if they stay on track), and dilapidated slave states in europe no better then cuba is today... and if something isn't changed, in america too. Never be sure that you are immune to danger... the jews in germany thought it would never happen to them, the average motorcyclist think he is somehow exempt, americans thought their economy is somehow immune (and yet see what is happening).

Actually, emergency services are available to everyone, and the rich benefit from them in the same way the poor do.




Anyone can go to a public hospital and receive treatment for free. You don't have to pretend to be poor.




I don't think that your personal moral system has anything to do with what society thinks is moral or immoral. I told you what the law says because the law is based on morality. It just happens not to be based on yours.

If you have a problem with the law dictating a different system of morals than yours, you can vote against the law but you cannot claim that the law is immoral as it that were an objective scientific testable fact.




You are not debating the morality of such laws, you are debating whether such laws agree with your own beliefs. They perhaps don't. But neither would laws based on your beliefs be moral according to most others' beliefs.

I don't believe in moral relativism but I do believe in competition of moral systems. A society based on the beliefs that there is no obligation to help probably wouldn't survive long. I take it such societies have long died out. Evolution applies to culture and morality as well as to animasl and plants.

Some moral systems are better than others. But yours is not proven or shown to be better than the one we currently have. Convince people that your system is better than the current system and we will see whether your system can compete and win. But don't just complain that you disagree with the current system and hence the current system is immoral. You are not a religious fundamentalist. Don't act like one.




I have no doubt that doctors are highly compassionate. I just think that doctors who believe that they don't have an obligation to help are not.

I'd rather have a doctor who feels obligated to help me than a doctor who thinks that it is good business to help me.

Incidentally, lawyer is another profession that is not a business (although lawyers treat it like one).




Why should doctors be better off than anybody else?

what a ridiculous statement. I do not need to preface every opinion statement I make with the disclaimer "this is my opinion and not an immutable fact", by virtue of being stated by me it is my opinion.

And if the law is based on morality, then I guess the debate on socialized healthcare is pointless in every country where it has been passed into law... because it is the "morality of society" and "your morality" is "irrelevant".

Are you intentionally misinterpreting what I am saying?

Arguing against bureaucrats legislating the exact measures of "compassion" is legally required has nothing to do with... you know what, there are so many wrong assumptions and out of context misinterpretations of what I said in this response I am not even going to bother.

Because their customers are willing to pay them a lot. Why should the government override the free market to decide how much they believe someone should earn?

If you argue as if your moral standards were universal and objective it wouldn't hurt if you did indeed do that.

 

I guess you can also base law on utility. But then we'd soon get into all sorts of bad trouble.

 

You and I both want some bureaucrat to legislate the exact measure of compassion. We merely disagree on what the measure is. You want it at zero, I want it at whatever is best for the survival of society.

There are no misinterpretations. You argue against a law because it disagrees with your morality and you do so by pretending that your morality is objective and hence any law that imposes a different morality than yours is immoral.

 

That's no reason to treat them differently. If I have to help people in an emergency, so do they, regardless of how much people are willing to pay them for such services.

 

Non sequitur. I didn't say anything at all about how much doctors should earn.

For all I care you, a non-doctor, could open a public transport company and charge whatever you want for transporting passengers. But if it is an emergency and somebody's life depends on your means of transport, you have the duty to help, as would anybody else who has the means to transport people.

If I made trampolines I could sell them for however much I want. But if a building burns down opposite my trampoline store and a fireman tells me he has to use one of my trampolines to allow people to escape the fire through second-floor windows (they will jump onto my trampoline), I have an obligation to let them use my trampoline and I cannot charge 2 million dollars, even though the market would certainly convince the would-be rescued to pay me whatever I demand.

The market works fine, until somebody has to choose between paying and dying. Whenever that choice happens the price for whatever it is that would save him rises to infinity (or whatever that person and all his relatives can afford). Emergency and life-saving treatment is what you might call a seller's market. You cannot shop around.

In fact, when it comes to healthcare, few people can really shop around. Do I know what procedure I need or do I rely on whatever the doctor tells me? I wouldn't even know what exactly is wrong with me.