Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wonk who wrote (51708)	3/5/2008 7:27:47 AM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540885

Excellent post ww. The experience of all other advanced countries has shown that health care, like a lot of public utilities, can only be provided efficiently by a well regulated, well run monopoly, either private or public. And it has the huge additional advantage of promoting general welfare.

To: wonk who wrote (51708)	3/5/2008 7:39:23 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540885

Yes, and pretty much everybody hates public education, although for many there is no choice. And everybody knows that in general, private education is superior. Having utilized both public and private education myself, I concur with the general opinion. Lowest common denominator is for proles, and I am not a prole. You may want to force me into being a prole but I will resist.

To: wonk who wrote (51708)	3/5/2008 7:58:05 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540885

They ARE typically provided by the Government because they promote the general welfare. So anything that promotes the general welfare should be provided by the government? You make a case that anything the promotes the general welfare may be provided by the government but not that it should or must be. Surely you know how long thelist of potential candidates would be if the government provided everything promoting of the general welfare. I'm scheduled to get replacement windows on Friday. Maybe I should hold off until the government starts paying for them. And today's trip to the grocery store, as well. Needs some work, wonk. BTW, if it looks like I don't appreciate all the input because I've not accepted any of it, that's not so. This is the way we analyze things in a group. Someone offers a suggestion, others critique it and send it back to the drawing board, and sooner or later you get a viable product, assuming the product is feasible.

To: wonk who wrote (51708)	3/5/2008 9:51:32 AM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 540885

Let’s start with first principles. As usual, ww, a terrifically helpful post. One point worth elaborating on under the rubric of general welfare. One of the problems with this kind of conversation on these boards is conflicting assumptions. Much that drives these is atomistic individualism. As I'm certain you know. Thus, the only argument I can find that reaches into that bundle of assumptions is that the health of the many is crucial to one's own health. You do it on economic grounds. I like that. But you can also do it on health grounds. Protect everyone against aggressively contagious diseases through universal health care and the loneliest individual in the crowd is protected. Thanks again, for the post. And don't go back to lurking. Keep posting.

To: wonk who wrote (51708)	3/5/2008 2:35:33 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 540885

On a personal level, 6 months worth of unemployment can easily wipe out 3 years of sacrifice and saving. That’s the Country we’ve become That's always been true, in fact often much less than 6 months worth of unemployment was enough. prostrated on the altar of free market capitalism We haven't prostrated before that altar, at least since the New Deal, and arguably ever. That means that in 10 years time, you’ve wiped out the savings and wealth of 34% of the US households. (Simply – 1.03^10 or 1 plus 3% raised to the power of 10.) You can run the calculation any way you want, but first you have to show that it reflects the real world. We don't have 34% of US households becoming bankrupt or otherwise wiped out every 10 years. You have created the perfect conditions for permanent poverty of the lower class and destruction over time of the middle class. Except the lower class (at least the bottom quintile) isn't getting poorer, and in fact has slowly been getting more wealthy. Also many people move out of the bottom quintile. If we want to be South America, all we need to do is stay on this same road. The average person in the bottom quintile in the US, is much wealthier than the average person in South Africa, and a person at the edge of that quintile (someone at the 20th percent in terms of income) is wealthier, probably much wealthier, than someone at the edge of the top quintile (80th percentile) in South Africa. That combined with the fact that the bottom quintile is getting wealthier (even if only slowly, slower than the rest of the US) and I don't see how "the US becoming South Africa" is a realistic possibility. How many of our fellow citizen’s economic lives are destroyed annually by lack of affordable health care. Even if its only 1% that is 3,000,000 people. 1% is hardly the lowest possible boundary, so an argument that "even 1% is" isn't very meaningful. Now if you have the actual data that would be interesting.