This should be on the table: expensive medical treatments are not often better than conventional treatments; they do usually make more money for the doctor and hospital. Also, we’ve become a pill-popper society who expects a pharmaceutical to solve every medical ailment; these pills are often useless, expensive, and rife with side-effects.

Lower drug prices (regulation), cut back on unnecessary medical procedures (regulation), produce more primary physicians instead of specialists (government incentives).

Marie says “let them eat cake”.

great letter

Good letter. I have a few points.

1) WHY do people deserve medical care without doing anything to earn it? And WHY should others be forced to provide it?

2) Benjamin claims that “free-market medicine is a great system… for the rich,” and that the result of socialized medicine would merely “inconvenience my doctor visits.” This drops the meaning and justification of freedom and free-markets.

The right to one’s life means being left free to take the actions required to sustain one’s life. This means the right to be free from physical force. A “right” that entitles someone to the products of others cannot be a right because it violates the actual rights and freedom of the producers.

There is no such thing as “rights” for the rich and “rights” for the poor. A “right” is one thing and applies equality to all men. Either you are for rights and freedom or for socialized medicine. There’s no middle ground.

The principle is that freedom is a basic requirement of human life. As such, it applies to all men regardless of economic status. Medicine, like any value, cannot be produced under force. Force and medical care are opposites. This is why poor people should be the greatest champions of free-market medicine. It’s the ONLY thing that will enable better, lower-cost, and widely available treatment options. (Think computers and electronic gadgets that even the poorest people can afford thanks to the relative freedom that exists in these areas.)

Evidence of this principle can be seen everywhere. Under socialized medicine patients are not just “inconvenienced,” they often times die waiting to get treatment. The move toward socialized medicine in America has made health care LESS affordable not more. Under complete socialized systems such as Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, people die en masse. There are differing degrees of socialism and corresponding degrees of destruction, but the principle remains the same.

Jim,

I dont have kids. Why should I pay for yours if you have them? Why should I pay for roads that I do not drive on?

Jim, I invite you to look at the many examples of single payer system that do not have the long waits or the subsidy-prices of the private system to pay for those without insurance. Your fear tactics are not universal to these systems.

Jim,

Now I know you back peddaling…you brought up Nazi Germany to defend yourself. Why not throw the healthcare systems of Nero and Bonaparte too.

To the expert on rights: Do you have the “right” to pay whatever someone wants to charge? Can all the gas stations decide together to charge $10/gallon?

No, but we allow this to happen with medical insurance and pharmaceutical prices.

Why does a band-aid applied in a hospital cost $5? Because the insurance company is willing to pay it. That’s not right.

So, sir, we do have a “right” to affordable health care, whether we have insurance or not. We should have protection against price fixing and market manipulation.

Jim Allard- You comment was a perfect example of uneducated dribble that is spouted forth by “free market=freedom” morons every day. Your premise that all people are born free is correct but you and countless others fail to realize is that it matters not that we are created free but the fact that we are treated differently. True there are no different rights for the poor or rich but the reality is those who are poor have different societal interactions BECAUSE they are poor, not because they are born lesser than the rich. And to put a cherry on top of the crap sundae that is your argument, you ended it with an allusion to Nazi Germany. Yes Jim, because anything that you disagree with must belong to the totalitarian moment- this is the exact argument that diminishes the tragedies the Nazi’s carried out and robs the victims of the respect they deserve. I am deeply offended that you would take an issue such as socialized medicine vs the free market and use the historical capital of Nazi Germany to formulate an argument. -Max Power

We do not have a free market system. It is corporate “crony capitalism.” Been reading the news lately? Who owns Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? (Or who used to, and pretty much still does?)

Charity wastes far less money than government programs do. Ever think of what we can do with that money? For example, check out the AIDS Resource Center (government-run) vs. the AIDS Network and Rodney Shiel House (private, started with just one man’s life insurance). Who gives better care, the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into the issue, or the people who want to pacify voters just long enough to give them political capital?

What we need, and I don’t mean to sound like a neo-con artist here, because I’m not (I’m an agorist) is serious deregulation. I realize it’s problematic because of the inter-connected support system that the state has created to leech off society while conning them into thinking it protects it.

But think of a society in which there’s actual competition involved to drive down the price of medications. Think of what it would be to have health care providers who hadn’t sacrificed their youth and relationships to get a decade or more of rigorous training, and thus expected to be compensated in appropriately. Think of what it would be to have choice in health care again.

Enslaving doctors is not the answer. It’s easy; they’re an idealistic bunch who just wants to heal, and they’ve sacrificed a whole lot to be able to do so. They took an oath that they would never strike. But the fact is that though “those greedy rich bastards” make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, malpractice insurance often costs in the six figure range. Plus, government health programs and legally protected insurers often pay out only cents on the dollar after the fact. So, of course, they raise their prices to make up the difference, creating a system that is rapidly spiraling way out of control. This is the basic problem.

A lack of bureaucracy and dudes with guns will not cut oversight out of the picture. Do you think the AMA will cease to exist once health care is freed again?

Down with those murderers, the FDA. They permit high fructose corn syrup, but will not allow people with terminal illnesses to give a fledgling treatment a shot before they kick the bucket. Because it “might kill them.” Sure. The pharma giants they’re paid to protect have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Any mandatory and comprehensive plan will finish off quality medicine in this country—because it will finish off the medical profession. It will deliver doctors bound hands and feet to the mercies of the bureaucracy.

The only hope—for the doctors, for their patients, for all of us— is for the doctors to assert a moral principle. I mean: to assert their own personal individual rights—their real rights in this issue—their right to their lives, their liberty, their property, their pursuit of happiness. We must reject the idea that doctors are slaves destined to serve others at the behest of the state.

The battle against socialized medicine depends on the doctors speaking out against it—not only on practical grounds, but, first of all, on moral grounds. The doctors must defend themselves and their own interests as a matter of solemn justice, upholding a moral principle, the first moral principle: self-preservation.

If the doctors become slaves, so will we all.

Yeah, socialized medicine is great, except when it isn’t.

This past Tuesday night Intelligence Squared US hosted a live debate at The Rockefeller University on health care. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was among the participants and, not surprisingly he took the position that socialized medicine was awesome. Being in Manhattan, Krugman figured he probaly hwad a sympathetic audience to help prove his point. Hilarity ensued:

PAUL KRUGMAN:
Actually, can I just — I wanted to ask a question. And—

JOHN DONVAN:
Please—please do—

PAUL KRUGMAN:
—and I wanted to ask, actually two questions, to the audience. First, how many Canadians, would Canadians in the room please raise your hands. [ONE PERSON APPLAUDS, LAUGHTER]

JOHN DONVAN:
We have about seven hands going up—

PAUL KRUGMAN:
Okay, not as many as I thought. Okay, of those of you who are not on the panel who are Canadians, how many of you think you have a terrible health care system. [PAUSE] One, two—

JOHN DONVAN:
We see—almost all of the same hands going up. [LAUGHTER]

PAUL KRUGMAN:
Bad move on my part. [APPLAUSE]

Dude, your last name is cock.

‘Nuff said.

Hello, my name is Jim.

I believe that all poor people are poor because they are incompetent and lazy.

Therefore, they should have to suffer because of that.

I am also completely unaware of something called sociological sciences.

Maybe, some day, I will stop reading college newspapers from my parents basement, I will send in my app, actually ATTEND school, learn about some of the difficulties in real, present day America, and maybe I’ll develop some compassion for those less fortunate.

Until then, fuck the poor!

Funny stuff!! Attacks and no answers!

Do people have a right to another persons skill and talent? Examples: Doctors, Lawyers, Dentists, Physicists, Plumbers, Police, Fire Fighters, Contractors, Scientists, Engineers, Farmers, Mechanics, Laborers, Electricians, Drivers, etc. If you have a right to some doctor or nurse’s skill and talent, then you have a right to EVERYONE’S skill and talent.

Also: Neither party has made things better, since both have been getting donations from people who work for companies and groups that benefit from the current bloated system or those that want the full blown government controlled system. (They’ve done great with the bank system!!!)

Bring on the government system… can’t tell you how wonderful it will be to wait 18 months for knee surgery or 2 years for cancer treatment like Canada or UK. Darn it, I must have been reading the “Telegraph” (UK) and “The Daily” (Canada). Stupid knowledge and facts…

—Ken (apparently I have a RIGHT to your talents!) of Oregon

“Maybe, some day, I will stop reading college newspapers from my parents basement, I will send in my app, actually ATTEND school, learn about some of the difficulties in real, present day America, and maybe I’ll develop some compassion for those less fortunate.”

Yeah! Maybe Jim should start attending college - learn about the REAL world. You know, instead of wasting his time working, earning a living, paying a mortgage and insurance bills and taxes. Jim obviously understands nothing of what REAL life is about - thank god we have college students to tell us what it’s REALLY like.

The flaws of this entire argument are flabbergasting. If YOU want poor people to have health care, you can donate to hospitals that treat people regardless of whether they can pay for it or not. Socialized health care would destroy the very health care everyone should have. You are essentially making people who want to live for their own happiness immolate themselves for others, which flies in the very face of the right of liberty. Also, just because people have a right to life, they do not have a right to the sustenance of their life if they feed off others to get it. There’s no free lunch. If the poor aren’t providing their own health care, you are forcing the rich to sacrifice their wealth that they legally earned for people who have not. You are essentially making slaves of the producers and parasites of the people who cannot afford health care. The protection of rights coming at the removal of rights is a grotesque contradiction of terms. You cannot force people to sacrifice themselves for others because the United States government is supposed to respect people’s entitlement to the sweat of their brow.

These comments like “binding the hands of doctors,” don’t really make sense: “…59 percent of U.S. doctors support a “single payer” plan…” — The Doctors’ Revolt from The American Prospect (I don’t know if I can post a direct link, I’m not going to try, so search it) I would think that doctors would know more about the healthcare system than anyone else. If demand for doctors goes up too much Medicare, can provide the funds to train more doctors (Medicare already provides much of the funds for doctor training anyways). Also, people seem to think that poor people just sit around all day and do nothing. I, personally, know many people without insurance and money to afford doctor visits. Guess what? They all work. I don’t know how it is where you guys live, but here in Ohio, you either do manual labor (or what I call “real work”), or customer service (McDonald’s, WalMart, etc…). Customer service always pays minimum wage and doesn’t offer insurance. All the factories around here now only hire through temp-services, so they can hire and fire on demand (efficient, but not very good for the workers). You also don’t get insurance from the temp-service, and they usually pay within $2/hr of minimum wage (more and more are lowering pay to minimum wage now). Needless to say, these people cannot afford healthcare on there own, if say, they broke their arm, or became very ill. They also loose the benefits of preventive care, because their budgets are so tight, and they’d rather pay their utilities than go to the doctor for check-ups when they’re not sick. Also, don’t say Medicare provides for them, because it doesn’t. There are very stringent requirements for Medicare, being poor is only one. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to live in a society, where the people who contribute the most (real workers) are denied something as basic as healthcare, just because they don’t have the money to pay for it.