Whenever discussing the issue of healthcare with someone who supports a socialized or regulated model, I always seem to face the same points. I am just wondering how some of you guys might respond to some of these points.
Healthcare is a right, so it should be provided to everyone. (Same point comes up when discussing education as well).
The largest single entity providing money for medical research in the US is the government, so getting the government out of it would harm medical advancement and the US would “fall off the map” when it comes to healthcare if the state left research.
Helping poor people helps wealthy people in the end, so wealthy people should subsidize the poors healthcare.
A free market healthcare system, even if it was possible in america will not work because healthcare is far more massive than advocates of free market healthcare give it credit for.
These are just a few, I am sure there are more that I am not thinking of at the moment. Will probably add more later.
Then they’ll do so out of their own pockets if given the choice. Or do the profit-oriented “wealthy” not know how to best benefit themselves?
What is this nonsense even meant to mean? The market coordinates a huge number of exchanges. Size is an argument for, not against, the market. It deals wonderfully with increasing complexity, compared to the lumbering state. Calculation argument, anyone?
I agree, but this is what I always end up facing. I’ll play devil’s advocate here and present some of the counter responses of these.
This is where they usually point to it being in the UN’s declaration of human rights, etc. usually followed by some comment of how if I can’t see the “obvious” benefits of giving everyone access to healthcare I’m either a heartless bastard/an idiot/some other silly ad hominem. Obviously pointing out that it isn’t a human right isn’t good enough for them, you have dispute the UN’s claim because god knows THAT is a true source of logical authority…
Well, this would be where they point to the the NIH for research funding and whatnot and/or “the free market will go where the money will be and important medical research is almost never where the real money will be” or some other such line.
Very well put.
Apparently the free market inherently has no interest in the poor…[8-)]
That is basically what I always say, and then it is usually met with the typical reactionary “well poor people wouldn’t be able to afford it and would be without coverage omg how are they gonna get treated at hospitals do you want them to die!?!?”
It is amazing some of the crap that comes out of these state apologists. I have run out of new ways to say the same things in the (probably futile) attempt to get them to clearly see the argument.
Fallacies do not an argument make. Ad hominem/ad verecundiam are, unfortunately for the benighted idiots you’re dealing with, fallacies.
Ugh. The money lies where there is unsatisfied demand. Research takes place within the free market if it is profitable. If it is not, it is an unjustified expense. One nation’s idiocy does not justify other nation’s descending into it too.
Just say fewer poor people would mean lower strain on the environment. I’m sure that’ll placate them. [:P]
Then what? Either it will have to get the funds voluntarily or go without. If people do not consider it important enough to devote their money to it, who the hell is the state to override their preferences and coerce funds out of them?
No. I wouldn’t. Other than betraying an utter lack of principle and self-restraint, and an expectation that others be enslaved to provide for my existence, there is no way the state can know that it has not deprived funds from more urgent needs, perhaps even research for other diseases, perhaps something else. It can channel huge amounts of funds to particular goals it has, but at whose or what’s expense? And that is where the calculation argument comes in…
I agree with you. Unfortunately getting them to acknowledge that their arguments are rife with fallacies is a lot like talking to a brick wall. Thanks though.
Here’s another one (and one that I am incidentally curious about too) the countries with nationalized health care have lower mortality. I heard that in this case the statistic is biased due to some countries having greater warfare, crime, and diseases but if health care is of use at all, then won’t these intervening circumstances be dealth with better under the better system? I can’t fathom how a statistic like mortality is not directly proportional to healthcare quality.
National health care means that I’ll have to wait in long line. Instead of affordable wal-mart health clinics, I am forced to wait in long lines.
Why the state have to get involved at all? Ever heard of private charities and entrepneural activites? If it is actually a big giantic problem, why don’t you donate to charity or start one? If you’re greedy, maybe you could undercut the competition by inventing cheap medical tools?
Does the government provide life, liberty, or property? No, because it cannot provide rights. The government’s role is to prevent men from infringing these rights.
Essentially, arguing the right to health care is arguing that the government must protect us from nature. Applied to other rights, such an interpretation makes no sense. Can the government provide us with immortality, absolute freedom, or whatever wealth our imagination desires? No. Even to pursue such an endevour would instantly require 100% of the world’s resources. And if you can only save 19 year old Adam or 91 year old Bob’s life, who do you choose? Should we hire police at all, or require everyone to become medical professionals…in which case, is the right to life more important than the right to freedom? Should we tax away all gains to fund such endevours…making life more important than property rights? Should the government enforce diet and excercise regimes and regular drug tests? Should the government prevent those genetically predisposed to diseases from reproducing?
And what is “health care”? If I have a cough, am I entitled to see a doctor? Why not a specialist? Or why not just buy me my some common cold medicine? Who makes these decisions? How are resources allocated? There is no way to tell how much health care one needs because ultimately everyone dies. Often people say that health-care is self-limiting; that nobody wants more than they need. That’s not a valid point. Everyone needs infinite. And if something is free, you are more likely to decide you “need” it.
A real interpretation of the right to health care would mean that one would be protected in purchasing whatever form of medical attention he wanted at any price that the market produced. Currently, this is forbidden by licensing and other red tape, and indirectly by taxation. Thus, we should conclude that government has already violated one’s right to health care.
Faulty cause and effect, for quite a few reasons. For one, America spends just as much public money on healthcare as many countries with UHC. In addition, there’s WAY more factors that go into mortality than just health care. The United States is siginificantly more obese than any European country, and obesity is inextricably linked with shorter life spans, which is obviously going to have a huge impact on the average life span/mortality rates(people who support UHC often point to the WHO report, showing that those with UHC have a higher average life span than the U.S.)
American’s have this fascination with “American Excellence” that basically says Americans are more excellent than everyone else. And thus, spending money to stay #1 is justified, because being #1 is more important than the costs. Like throwing away 4,000 lives and more than 25,000 healthy bodies to serious injury in Iraq.
I think it comes from big headed arrogance tied to the ability to print money at will since WWII, and thus the false prosperity creating the perception of excellence by virtue of breathing.
At the same time, this isn’t a wholly American phenomenon. There are many nations that are still stuck on their own sense of self worth. One only has to look at several European nations that are still suffering from the hangover of their former “glory.”
Yeah. LS beat me to it. This idea that national excellence somehow demands some state-run healthcare system to keep up the “good” image of the nation. It puts some silly reified abstraction above the well-being of the populace.
You’re right about that. There are some British who still think anyone gives a damn about their days as an empire. The Marxist George Galloway tells this joke, “The sun never set on the British empire, because God didn’t trust them in the dark.”