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

To: Cogito who wrote (51924)	3/5/2008 8:41:27 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 542201

What is it about healthcare that makes it different from, say, the building of roads, the maintenance of police forces or armies, providing schools for our children? Schools? Maybe not a lot. Not sure. Maybe someone else will have an idea. Roads? Well roads are one of the classic public goods, in the sense that when you provide them you provide them for everyone (yes I recognize their are toll roads, and privately owned roads, but they are a very small minority of roads). With health care you can treat Mary without treating Bob, or if you treat both of them the treatments are separate services. But you don't have a section of road that is Mary's and only she gets to use it, and then next to that a section of road for Bob. Police and armies - Well here you also have the public good issue. And also that keeping the peace and providing security is an inherent part of any government. If the government can't do that it just doesn't stay "the government" for long.