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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (11798)	11/24/2009 6:04:46 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

that would most likely eliminate the option for self payment. Generally I'd wait for the person to answer themselves, but this is one thing that Lane has posted multiple times that she wouldn't support. I don't think she believes such an option will be eliminated. I know she doesn't support eliminating it, and perhaps most important at all, rationing/cost control in the government programs that we do have is an entirely separate issue than eliminating self pay, or private insurance. Furthermore even if we do eliminate private insurance and self pay (which would indeed be a diaster), and had the government pay for it all, we would still need some way to control costs. Those cost controls would be harsher since we couldn't get around them as easily, but they would be no less necessary. The only way to totally avoid them is to keep the government out of the business of paying for health care. So only rationing is left. Only if you assume that healthcare is a right and that the government is obligated to pay for it. Only if you assume government is going to pay for health care. That doesn't require you to think its a right, or even to think the government should pay for it. You could be an anarcho-capitalist and think that there should be no government as we would use the term, and that there are no "positive rights" of any sort, and still think if the government is going to pay for health care it should impose some limits as to what or how much it will pay. Personally I think there should be some limit as well. I might argue against some of the proposed limits, I'd certainly argue against expansion of the government role, but until we eliminate all government health care programs some attempt at cost control within those programs is needed. ---- Rationing in the broadest sense of the word will happen if you assume health care is an economically scarce good (which doesn't mean its scarce in the more normal sense of the word, drinkable water is an economically scarce good. Something is scarce when it can't be had in nearly unlimited quantities for free. Basically if you can put a price on it, and it would have some market it scarce) Rationing in a narrower sense of explicit government limits on what you can pay for or obtain, can and should be avoided whether or not the government expands its role (or eliminates its role) in paying for health care.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (11798)	11/24/2009 6:19:12 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

So you admire people like Stalin, Hitler, Lenin because they were fiscal conservatives willing to impose rationing after they destroyed efficient delivery mechanisms? They say you can tell when a discussion has passed the silly threshold when someone brings up Hitler. If you can't stay on point, I can't help you. Where have I proposed to force Medicare and Medicare into bankruptcy? You haven't propose to do that directly. By disallowing rationing you have effectively proposed a course that would inevitably lead to bankruptcy. It's indirect, but the effect is the same. Proposing disallowing rationing is effectively proposing forcing the public programs into bankruptcy. Now explain why this means all Americans should be forced into a rationed system that would most likely eliminate the option for self payment. (If not at first then soon after.) I can't possibly explain that. You'd have to ask someone who advocates forcing all Americans into a public system. That's not me. I only support rationing for extant public systems. Right now that includes several. If the public option prevails, there will be one more. While you are at it you can explain when belief in personal responsibility ceased to be mainstream and in your opinion became fringe. I'm not sure just what the status of that is. It's in flux, for sure, but where it will land, dunno. I think we're a ways away, though, from personal responsibility being fringe. In the minority, perhaps, but not fringe. Only if you assume that healthcare is a right and that the government is obligated to pay for it. I can't explain that any better than I have. Tim took a good crack at it, I thought, differentiating between the reality of the extant public systems and one's preference for a private system. If neither of those explanations works for you, I guess your cognitive dissonance has won out. You will find some way of tricking yourself so that you can maintain two incompatible positions--your opposition to rationing and your self-image as a fiscal conservative. It's human nature. Rationing only affects people who won't accept personal responsibility until it is outlawed. Failing to ration in our public systems affects all of us who have to pay into the treasury for that shortfall.