Healthcare before government intervention.

[DrSammyD]

So I was responded to by this in another forum.

But that’s just it! Yes, you pay cash for food, and yes competition drives the price of food down but it still costs money! I don’t know if this comes as a revelation to you, but some people don’t have any money. They live off soup kitchens as well as they can, till eventually they keel over from malnutrition. And better yet, if they do it in America, they can’t even go to the hospital for it, because they don’t have any money.

Certain things are essential in order for a society to function. Police, healthcare. The basic needs of a people just to survive. Putting a price on these services by the very nature of economics cuts people off from them. I mean christ, just look at how many people in America are without health insurance. This is supposedly your plan of action so why are millions of people in what is certainly one of the most powerful nations on earth terrified of getting any major health problems because they know if they do there’s no one there to help them.

I am not interested in the plight of people with the money to afford health insurance. I am interested in the plight of people who don’t.

Ron Paul mentioned in one of his interviews that hospitals used to accept anybody into the institution and even ones who couldn’t pay. Is there any sort of good resources on healthcare before government intervention? Also if you have any good ideas on how to respond, that’d be great too.

[Cal0]

I would respond by arguing that the reason people don’t have money is either 1. an inability/unwillingness to work. 2. Government force preventing people from working. (minimum wage law’s, etc) Both are probably true. In the case of number 1, why should people willing/able to work be forced at gunpoint to support those who cannot/will not? How can an individual morally claim the fruit of another’s labor? Does the fact that you exist and are unable/unwilling to provide for yourself give you the right to enslave others?

For number 2, I would argue that such barriers to entry and government introvention should be removed.

Health insurance is expensive because healthcare is expensive. Healthcare is expensive because of government intervention in the market. (The AMA, FDA, etc.) I’m actually going to make a thread that will hopefully explore more the effects and mechanism of the AMA.

As far as pre-government healthcare, I don’t know much of anything about it. I can tell you that there are current religiously affiliated hospitals which provide charity care for the poor. Recently, my friend’s husband didn’t have health insurance and wasn’t able to afford to pay for a problem that he was having with his stomach. The hospital that he went to had a charity system set up for such patients who couldn’t pay. Charity still exists even in a heavily regulated market with artificially high prices, and government intervention. Imagine what it would be like in a truly free market with much lower costs.

[Mtn_Dew]

Sounds like the poster was implying that you have an obligation to pay for other people’s healthcare AND food.

You may have a moral obligation, but it’s much harder to prove you have a legal obligation to provide them with anything at all.

[DrSammyD]

I think he would say that the charity of those hospitals is caused by the regulation of the market. I don’t know how to respond to that.

[limitgov]

He could have summed up all that dribble by just saying, he believes taxpayers should pay for healthcare for those who can’t afford it.

Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time with someone like that. He is justifying theft. And he is ignoring alot of things:

society doesn’t need police to function…in fact, in many cases,

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/54314.html

we are much better off if the police were not there…

you want protection…arm yourself and train yourself…

he’s also ignoring the fact that the government forced HMOs on us which drove up the cost of healthcare to crazy levels…

also, at over 132,000 pages of medicare regulations and goodness knows how many hundreds of thousands of medicaid regulations there are, healthcare professionals must waste probably over 50% of their resources to keep up with these regulations and comply with them…

[macsnafu]

There are so many things one could say, it’s hard to tell what would be most effective for this person. But I would argue that the health care problems we have now that the new bill is supposed to fix were caused by previous government interventions in healthcare, which were supposed to fix problems in healthcare at that time. Those previous interventions are the reason so many people can’t afford health care NOW, not some alleged private, free market healthcare system.

Ultimately, government can only use force, causing unintended consequences. That’s no way to provide for other people.

[DrSammyD]

If you guy’s want more context, here’s the argument, though I’d ask you not to comment in that thread because it’d be conspicuous if a bunch of brand new anarchists showed up. I’m sure you can figure out who I am. I’m arguing this from a consequential point of view, which is a harder case to make than the moral argument. I’m trying to show through economics that more people will live without some sort of public option. And while the theft arguments are good, it’s not the approach I’d like to take.

[Cal0]

@Sam Armstrong

I think he would say that the charity of those hospitals is caused by the regulation of the market. I don’t know how to respond to that.

I’m not sure how he could argue that. I’m not aware of any legislation that requires hospitals to provide for the poor. Yes, I realize that hospital’s can’t turn away people in an emergency room, but the example I provided wasn’t an emergency situation. I don’t think the hospital would call it charity if it were required by the government.

[MatthewF]

@Sam Armstrong

Ron Paul mentioned in one of his interviews that hospitals used to accept anybody into the institution and even ones who couldn’t pay. Is there any sort of good resources on healthcare before government intervention?

Have you seen the HealthCare Reader? http://mises.org/daily/3737

@Sam Armstrong

Also if you have any good ideas on how to respond, that’d be great too.

Those are interesting ideas. I think I agree with you. Tell me, do you think we should shoot people who disagree?

[Reasoning]

I think the following article by a Roderick T Long may be helpful.

http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html

[DrSammyD]

That’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for. THANK YOU!!!

[Smiling_Dave]

@Cal

I’m actually going to make a thread that will hopefully explore more the effects and mechanism of the AMA.

Can’t wait!

[Cal0]

@Smiling Dave

@Cal

I’m actually going to make a thread that will hopefully explore more the effects and mechanism of the AMA.

Can’t wait!

It’s already up. Sorry if I mislead you to thinking that I would be providing any information. [;)]

[Cal0]

@Sam Armstrong

That’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for. THANK YOU!!!

Let us know what he or she responds with. My guess is that their position won’t change.

“I’m just planting seeds. I hope one day they’ll take root.” -Bill Hicks

[Reasoning]

Is that a reply to me? If so I am glad I could be helpful.

Kevin Carson recently made the following pdf document if you would like to dig deeper in the subject.

http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/C4SS-The-Healthcare-Crisis-A-Crisis-of-Artificial-Scarcity-by-Kevin-A.-Carson.pdf

[Bert_B]

When I talk to people with opposing views they believe the reasons that health insurance and health care are high is from deregulation (yet they never cite any less regulation than before). It’s sometimes hard for me to process why they can’t process government intervention in the market (and the problems it causes).

[DrSammyD]

Yeah that was thanks to you .

Here’s my response

But that’s just it! Yes, you pay cash for food, and yes competition drives the price of food down but it still costs money! I don’t know if this comes as a revelation to you, but some people don’t have any money. They live off soup kitchens as well as they can, till eventually they keel over from malnutrition. And better yet, if they do it in America, they can’t even go to the hospital for it, because they don’t have any money.

Then that’s a problem with poverty not our medical system. As you could probably guess, my explanations of poverty also rest in government. But I digress. We do have charitable hospitals and free clinics for the worst off in the US. And while I understand that this doesn’t solve the problem, it’s not that all of them have zero options. And imagine if there were no regulation agencies like the AMA artificially lowering the amount of doctors. It’d be even easier to receive medical care. Granted it wouldn’t necessarily be the best care, but neither is the free care provided by the government.

As for paying the police for cases, that’s an even worse idea. Crime happens most in places where there is no money and there is no work. So all of those people, what, they just have to get used to it? Oh I know, maybe they can start their own vigilante force, and then they can charge money as well so they can use the real cops.

This is for another discussion. If you’d like me to answer, we can start another thread.

Certain things are essential in order for a society to function. Police, healthcare. The basic needs of a people just to survive. Putting a price on these services by the very nature of economics cuts people off from them. I mean christ, just look at how many people in America are without health insurance. This is supposedly your plan of action so why are millions of people in what is certainly one of the most powerful nations on earth terrified of getting any major health problems because they know if they do there’s no one there to help them.

So is food. In fact, food is more essential for society to function than police or healthcare. And yet we don’t see millions of people starving in the streets. And Jesus Christ with the straw-men. My plan has practically nothing to do with the current state of affairs. It the pricing mechanism to push down costs so that millions of people can access health care, including myself. That is not what is happening now, and it’s not what would happen with the public option.

Serously, could you imagine what would happen if we had “Grocery insurance”?

when your insurer only requires a small deductible for each trip to the supermarket, you’ll probably buy a lot more T-bones. Unfortunately, what we have now is a system where the government, Big Pharma, the license cartels, and bureaucratic high-overhead hospitals act in collusion to criminalize hamburger and make sure that only T-bones are available, and the uninsured wind up bankrupting themselves to eat. A lot of uninsured people would probably like access to less than premium service that they could actually afford.

I am not interested in the plight of people with the money to afford health insurance. I am interested in the plight of people who don’t.

Well I’m interested in both, and not just the people who can’t afford it now, but the people in the future who won’t be able to afford it then.

But you see - that’s the point (which is why to argue that compassion doesn’t factor into the equation doesn’t make sense).

The other option, to actually introduce a public insurance option, was shot down. In a way this new option is worse for everyone than the old one was, but without this new option nothing would have passed.

Overall, I see this as a failure of privately-funded health care.

How did you turn a point about how government involvement being the cause of price inflation, into a point where you add more government as the solution to price inflation?

And I’m not arguing that compassion doesn’t factor into the equation, I’m saying don’t let “DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT” be your justification for more government involvement. It can equally be your justification for less government. And in fact if it is part of your justification, it should be towards less government.

---

In other news, I’d suggest you read this hilarious column by some physician back in 1910 just before Government tried to “Fix” healthcare. Seriously, back in 1910, people were able to easily afford health care for their families and they were arguing that it was Too Cheap. Something seems to have gone awry since then (or right if you are this physician). I wonder what it was?

[Smiling_Dave]

@Sam Armstrong

I’d suggest you read this hilarious column by some physician back in 1910 just before Government tried to “Fix” healthcare.

What a find!

THX!

[DrSammyD]

And I have a reply.

When left to their own devices, do private companies reduce price inflation?

You will list ‘competition’, invariably, as one way prices are reduced. Public insurance would be a competitor, would it not?

The other technique of course is regulation by fixing rates or somehow limiting overtreatment - and yes, a large reason why the US care costs so much is that you overtreat people, you get more money as a result.

You’re right though that this bill doesn’t address a lot of the underlying reasons for why health care costs so much in the USA.

I know it has something to do with the public option not being competition so much as being subsidized by the government, and thus being able to undercut everybody else. Can anybody give me the reason why this doesn’t actually drive costs lower?

[Smiling_Dave]

@Sam Armstrong

I know it has something to do with the public option not being competition so much as being subsidized by the government, and thus being able to undercut everybody else. Can anybody give me the reason why this doesn’t actually drive costs lower?

Say you have a front door and a back door to your house. While the govt salesman is selling you insurance at a cheaper price than the pvt companies, his pal the IRS man is going in by the back door to collect taxes to be able to finance the great deal he is giving you So you only have the illusion of it being cheaper.

But that illusion is enough. The pvt companys cannot compete under those conditions. They will go under. The govt will be the lone provider.

Of course, like any govt organization, the primary goal of govt health care will not be to provide a service, but to provide JOBS to those it favors. Meaning they won’t be fired, no matter how incompetent they get. [Witness the Army Corps of Engineers who brought us the Katrina disaster]. And those jobs have to be well paying, thank you very much [as indeed right now a govt worker gets double what the same position gets in the pvt sector]. So what you pay will not be related to the quality of medical service you get. It will be to provide a well paying job for someone.

And of course, once they have a monopoly, and you HAVE to buy insurance, will prices go down or up, do ya think? As proof, look at England, that train wreck of a medical system.