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The Whole Foods Plan for Health Care Reform
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who is a donor to the Reason Foundation, takes to the Wall Street Journal to sketch out his eight-point plan for health care reform. Excerpt:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
Many of Mackey's recommendations will be familiar to readers of Reason's past health care coverage, including Science Correspondent Ron Bailey's most recent manifesto.
As someone who h-a-t-e-s the health care system, I've never understood why de-linking insurance from employment isn't a central part of every serious crack at reform, given that a preponderance of analysts on all sides of the debate agree that the post-war linkage of health benefits to the workplace is one of the system's Original Sins.
To relate one of those "personal stories" Team Obama seems to value so highly, I left my previous job on a Friday, and started the new one on a Monday, with yards of paperwork filed in advance, in a desperate attempt to maintain my health coverage and not get sucked into a Cobra nightmare. The result? Something like six or seven weeks of...a Cobra nightmare! One that coincided with A) my wife discovering she was pregnant, and B) us moving across the country. I am still sorting through the paperwork and quintuply-filed bills on that fiasco, and the cost difference between what I paid for and what I would have paid fr had we maintained a portable, individualized plan (keep in mind that my current and previous employer use the same health care provider), was at least in the high four figures. Is that the "status quo" I want protected? Hell no, it's not.
And for those of you wiseacres who tell me it's my own damned fault for not shelling out coin for my own insurance, know this: California isn't exactly crawling with insurance companies offering people deals. Though I'm healthy, during my long-suffering freelance journalism career I was turned down for health insurance by both Kaiser and Blue Cross, and the one company that finally let me give them money refused to cover any childbirthin', then jacked up my premiums by more than 50 percent after Year 1. How much of that lack of competition is a result of individual state regulation and an inability to cross state lines? I don't know. But common sense suggests that such restrictions certainly don't produce more choice.
I would be open to supporting a reform package that treats individual existence on equal footing as full-time employment, while removing barriers to competition for those individual consumers. Health care security, and general availability, after all, are part of the core problems we're trying to solve here, right? Unfortunately, things don't seem to be headed in that direction.
|8.12.09 @ 10:20AM|#
The fact that deregulation isn't on the table in DC shows that the goal is control, not creating the best possible healthcare for the U.S.
|8.12.09 @ 10:22AM|#
As incremental reform, Mackey's plan is far superior to any being bandied about by Our Masters. Who, as PL, notes, cannot conceive of doing anything that doesn't increase their control over us.
|8.12.09 @ 10:27AM|#
I, unfortunately, had the health care argument with coworkers at
lunch yesterday. Big O was on the telly and that set it off.
Evidently, health care is a right, the republicans do it too and
since there are douchebags on the right, their entire argument is
null and void. How can I be suspicious of end-of-life counseling.
The gummint is only offering an "option." Oh, and all the
protesters are astroturfers from an organization. Good thing those
anti-war protests weren't organized....
I REALLY need to stop talking politics at work.
|8.12.09 @ 10:31AM|#
I wish he had defined "tort reform" a little bit better. Punitive damages should be capped pretty low unless malicious intent can be proven. I think it would also help if juries no longer decided damages. Maybe a panel of judges and medical professions.
Tricky Prickears |8.12.09 @ 10:32AM|#
...all our team members...
Damn, I fucking hate that. They are
employees! You are Whole Foods Market, not Da
Bears.
Now, back to RTFA.
Xeones|8.12.09 @ 10:33AM|#
But... libertarians oppose single-payer, therefore we MUST be for the status quo! Right? 'Cause there's only ever two options, right?
Xeones|8.12.09 @ 10:34AM|#
JW, i've run into a similar issue with my relatives. The other day i got called a right-winger at a family dinner for daring to criticize Big O and his shitty, shitty administration.
|8.12.09 @ 10:34AM|#
I used to know somebody who was "trapped" in a job she hated by
her employer's health insurance. She was convinced (no doubt
rightly) that if she switched jobs, nobody would cover her, because
of pre-existing conditions.
Even discounting heavily for melodrama, it sucks.
Kyle Jordan|8.12.09 @ 10:37AM|#
"JW, i've run into a similar issue with my relatives. The other
day i got called a right-winger at a family dinner for daring to
criticize Big O and his shitty, shitty administration."
Welcome to my world X. Welcome to my world...
Tomcat1066|8.12.09 @ 10:39AM|#
But... libertarians oppose single-payer, therefore we MUST
be for the status quo! Right? 'Cause there's only ever two options,
right?
I've had this same conversation with my mother, the borderline
socialist. She had the hardest time grasping that being against
Obama's plan isn't the same thing as supporting the "status quo"
(who's frankly sick of the term as much as Obama's folks keep using
it).
|8.12.09 @ 10:39AM|#
If this were about real reform, which, in part, would include
major deregulation, then I'd support it. But it isn't. Even Obama
knows that the government system will be much more inefficient than
the private sector options, will not be self-sustaining
(and efforts to make it so will involve attempting to hamstring the
private sector), and will make the bad customer service of insurers
today look like nude women peeling grapes.
Rationing and the other negative aspects of socializing most (if
not all, in the end) of medicine will come, regardless of what
bullshit we hear today. We already suffer drastically reduced
competition and petty bureaucratic nonsense from the existing, more
limited involvement of the government. Just imagine what we'll get
with it calling most or all of the shots!
|8.12.09 @ 10:41AM|#
"JW, i've run into a similar issue with my relatives. The other
day i got called a right-winger at a family dinner for daring to
criticize Big O and his shitty, shitty administration."
I get the same thing. I get called a Rushbot. The fact that I
haven't listened to a single Rush Limbaugh show since the first
Clinton Administration never seems to matter. I have critized
Obama, therefore all of my views must come from Rush Limbaugh. I am
just parioting what I hear on Rush. It is just fucking bizzare.
robc|8.12.09 @ 10:42AM|#
The comments on the story on the WSJ site were awful. "This a a bad plan because Whole Foods charges too much for milk". What the fuck!
Xeones|8.12.09 @ 10:44AM|#
Kyle, what's worse is one of my brothers is dabbling in Objectivism, and did he jump in on my side? Nooooo.
|8.12.09 @ 10:45AM|#
I think tort reform is largely a canard. People assure me, over
and over, that doctors order a vast array of largely pointless
tests strictly as "self-defense" against evil
ambulance-chasers.
This conveniently ignores the substantial income they derive from
the "referral fees" which are a genteel professional's term for
"kickback". They're just running up the score, because they
can.
Warty|8.12.09 @ 10:45AM|#
hurr hurr Whole Paycheck hurr hurr
A temple where guilty white liberals can absolve themselves of
their sins by spending too much on groceries. Mackey is completely
brilliant.
Their pies are pretty tasty, though.
Kyle Jordan|8.12.09 @ 10:48AM|#
Dude, at least you have someone who may back you. I'm alone is a family a lazy democrats thru full on socialists. That's my extended family too. My mom's starting to really get fed up with a lot of the shit coming from both sides in Washington but she still defaults to the left. I'm working on her and getting some headway though.
|8.12.09 @ 10:49AM|#
"A temple where guilty white liberals can absolve themselves of
their sins by spending too much on groceries. Mackey is completely
brilliant."
No shit. What a brilliant idea. You have to respect a guy like that
for no other reason than the audacity of running such a scheme. And
their sushi is good to.
D.D. Driver|8.12.09 @ 10:50AM|#
@JW
Take a look at these two pictures:
http://hesgotallkindsoftime.blogspot.com/2009/08/astroturf.html
Which one looks like "astroturf"?
robc|8.12.09 @ 10:53AM|#
I *do* believe the current jackpot-based legal system should
be fixed.
Which is why my suggested tort reform keeps punitive damages
uncapped but doesnt allow the plaintiff or his lawyer(s) to receive
any of the punitive award.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 10:53AM|#
I thought you guys burned this guy at the stake a few years ago for having the temerity to suggest that there is such a thing as corporate responsibility to people other than shareholders?
MNG|8.12.09 @ 10:56AM|#
If you could make a buck selling something that would make
liberals feel better about themselves would you? Yes many liberals
are absolutely silly about health/organic etc., foods. Taking of
advantage of that is what Whole Foods does, while making themselves
very rich, and who can blame them?
And the soup there is worth the overcharge imo...
|8.12.09 @ 10:57AM|#
1. Tell the states to stay out of the insurance business. Have a
single set of insurance regulations and let any company market
itself in all 50 states.
2. Tell the AMA and the states to go get bent. Have a single
national medical licensing system and expand the areas of practice
available to nurses and PAs. And open up the entire country to
inovative low cost, high volume pay for service healthcare
providers.
3. Fund the construction and expansion of medical and nursing
schools and create incentives for people to pursue those careers.
If there are not enough qualified Americans, import people from
overseas on the condition that they stay in the country after they
get their training.
4. Turn medicaide and medicare into a voucher system where people
are given subsidies to buy insurance and maybe have the government
set up a system to pool vouchers to get better rates.
If you just did those four things, you would go a long way to
solving the problem such as it is.
Xeones|8.12.09 @ 10:59AM|#
Kyle, my mom's side of the family is a mix -- i've got a Marxist
grandmother, some hardcore Constitutionalist cousins, a Green
uncle, a random crunchy-con or two, and my mom wrote in McCain in
2004 and then stopped talking about politics altogether. My dad's
side of the family campaigned for Obama in lockstep and won't stop
talking about it.
MNG, it's always seemed obvious to me that the surest way to make
bank is to sell something that makes well-to-do folks feel good
about themselves, be it carbon credits, organic groceries, or
Barack Obama. Reality has yet to prove me wrong.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:00AM|#
"Tell the states to stay out of the insurance business."
"Have a single national medical licensing system and expand the
areas of practice available to nurses and PAs."
Federalism, BAD!
|8.12.09 @ 11:01AM|#
Jesus Xeones,
Your family reunions must be interesting. I frankly don't blame
your mom for refusing to talk about politics.
Warty|8.12.09 @ 11:01AM|#
No one blames Mackey for getting rich off your tribe, MNG. And I think it was a small minority here that hated him when he did that interview with Milton Friedman and some other guy who was a big asshole.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:02AM|#
Xeones
That's a great idea with the carbon credits. I should just make a
website where I invite people to send me money and in return I
agree to "offset" their carbon footprint by not flying places (I
hate flying) or whatever...
|8.12.09 @ 11:03AM|#
One thing that I never hear mentioned is that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to involve themselves with health care unless it is being sold or used across state lines, and even then, all they need to do is enforce the friggin' contract and prosecute fraud that occurs across state lines.
|8.12.09 @ 11:03AM|#
"Tell the states to stay out of the insurance business."
"Have a single national medical licensing system and expand the
areas of practice available to nurses and PAs."
Federalism, BAD!"
Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It is not "Federalism
BAD". It is "enforcing the dormant commerce clause good". The
insurance business is interstate commerce. Yet, we allow the States
to completely fuck it up and featherbed for their local insurance
agents and doctors.
Xeones|8.12.09 @ 11:07AM|#
I should just make a website where I invite people to send
me money and in return I agree to "offset" their carbon footprint
by not flying places (I hate flying) or whatever...
Too late, holmes, i've already incorporated that one in
Delaware.
Kyle Jordan|8.12.09 @ 11:08AM|#
Picking up on John's line of thinking, I'd love to observe one of your family reunions X. Especially if they're like my family where an hour in, most every is pretty drunk and some are high.
|8.12.09 @ 11:09AM|#
This conveniently ignores the substantial income they derive
from the "referral fees" which are a genteel professional's term
for "kickback".
WTF? I have worked exclusively in healthcare for over a dozen
years, and I have never once run into a physician getting a
referral fee for ordering a test.
Mostly, I suspect, because its illegal as hell.
Xeones|8.12.09 @ 11:12AM|#
Those occasions are few and far between since my parents split, Kyle. When they do happen, i'm usually the only one trying to talk (read: ranting) about politics while everybody else makes polite chitchat. It's way civil and boring.
Spoonman|8.12.09 @ 11:12AM|#
My immediate family defaults right, but one of my sisters
refuses to vote out of disgust and I've convinced my parents to
mainly vote Libertarian.
My girlfriend's family is congenitally Democrat, but she decided
guns are good last night after seeing a PBS program about rape
during war in Africa.
|8.12.09 @ 11:14AM|#
RC, it's astonishing what people don't know about their health insurance or how their providers are paid. It's less astonishing that the media plays up the worst myths about insurance companies.
WWJGD|8.12.09 @ 11:14AM|#
After Wickard v. Filburn (I think that's it), what ISN'T interstate commerce?
Warty|8.12.09 @ 11:20AM|#
Spoonman, my girlfriends' family is a bunch of stereotypical liberal Jews. They got quite uncomfortable when I told them that Jews should be the most heavily armed people on the planet.
Kyle Jordan|8.12.09 @ 11:20AM|#
"My girlfriend's family is congenitally Democrat, but she
decided guns are good last night after seeing a PBS program about
rape during war in Africa."
Buy her a Glock 19, put XS Big Dot sights and Crimson Trace
Lasergrips on it, buy a bunch of ammo, and get her shooting.
Eventually get her in a class or two and she'll be good to
go.
And try to get her shooting a rifle. You accomplish this, and
she'll be hooked for life.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 11:22AM|#
WWJGD - causes of action for gender-based violence and gun
control laws.
(US v. Morrison and US v. Lopez)
Warty|8.12.09 @ 11:22AM|#
Oh, she quite enjoyed shooting my Glock. Pretty soon she'll be shooting Mosin-Nagants with me like a champ.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:22AM|#
Kyle Jordan
A few weeks ago you gave me some titles of GL TPB's worth checking
out. I lost it, can you resupply the titles? Many thanks!
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 11:23AM|#
The reason this reform package is not up for consideration is
that almost everything spoken aloud in the health care debate is
lies.
The bottom line is that the left doesn't want there to be any
relationship between the health care you receive and your ability
to pay. They also don't want there to be any relationship between
the amount of health care services you consume and the amount that
you pay.
There is no way to accomplish this without forcing the wealthy to
pay for the poor and the healthy to pay for the sick.
There is also no way to accomplish this without utterly removing
any discipline to contain costs from within the system, other than
by fiat rationing.
Every other word spoken in the health care reform debate is
designed to obscure these facts and always has been.
Mackey's plan would favor the healthy and savers, and that's enough
right there to take it out of consideration.
|8.12.09 @ 11:23AM|#
"I've never understood why de-linking insurance from
employment isn't a central part of every serious crack at
reform"
Because the "evil giant corporation" mentality is now firmly
entrenched in the public consciousness, to the point that most
people would see such a suggestion as a form of corporate
welfare.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 11:24AM|#
It is just fucking bizzare.
It seems to be a coming together of an utter lack of argument on
the part of statists and welfare whores, at which point it often
turns to insults, and an active antagonism from on high, where
"never waste a good crisis" meets "punch back twice as hard" in a
little place I like to call Stalingrad.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:25AM|#
As I read the cases as long as the activity is cannot be classified as economic it can't be regulated under the Commerce Clause. Any economic activity, even that which is intrastate, which would, when taken in the aggregate, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, is fair game.
|8.12.09 @ 11:26AM|#
I have never once run into a physician getting a referral
fee for ordering a test.
That comment was based on a conversation I had recently with
someone in a position to know. It's entirely possible the structure
of the deal is more complex than a simple kickback, while the
effect is substantially the same.
Spoonman|8.12.09 @ 11:26AM|#
Buy her a Glock 19, put XS Big Dot sights and Crimson Trace Lasergrips on it, buy a bunch of ammo, and get her shooting. Eventually get her in a class or two and she'll be good to go.
And try to get her shooting a rifle. You accomplish this, and she'll be hooked for life.
Have yet to convince her to actually learn to use one, but she's now in favor of me owning lots.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:27AM|#
"The bottom line is that the left doesn't want there to be any
relationship between the health care you receive and your ability
to pay."
I think in regards to some floor or minimum level of care, this is
not so unfair. We kind of want it to be like police protection*:
everybody gets a certain minimum regardless of ability to pay, but
if you can afford security guards, knock yourself out...
WWJGD|8.12.09 @ 11:28AM|#
WWJGD - causes of action for gender-based violence and gun
control laws.
(US v. Morrison and US v. Lopez)
Ok, so the commerce clause doesn't apply against non-commerce.
SCOTUS hasn't completely gone insane. They still do overreach with
the ICC.
Tricky Prickears |8.12.09 @ 11:29AM|#
John,
I have a problem with #4. This has only recently been bothering me.
That is Medicare. How realistic is it that the elderly will be able
to get any type of insurance at any price in a free market system,
even with individual subsidies and a voucher pool? Dangerous
drivers are dangerous drivers, regardless of how many of them you
pool. Ultimately, the government would need to subsidize the
insurance companies that provide for the elderly.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 11:31AM|#
Hey, WWJGD, you're not going to get any argument from me.
Wickard badly needs overruled.
MNG - the problem with the "floor" is that folks on your side are
going to keep parading around people who aren't living as long as
medically possible in an effort to tearjerk us all into "raising"
the floor.
Think about this: an average course of chemo is like, 25,000 (one
time!). What does the "floor" include? As much chemo until Stage
IV-ers are cured?
|8.12.09 @ 11:31AM|#
Oh, yes. I can't wait for the teardown of state-level consumer
protections in health insurance to do for patients what the
Delaware regime on credit cards did for this country's borrowers
(and the global economy).
I wonder which state will become the corporate default for allowing
the meanest, dirtiest, most underhanded fine-print contract tricks
in our policies. Georgia? Alabama? Mississippi? Or will it be
Delaware again?
Once the health insurers manage to beggar and destroy a critical
mass of their customers, Congress will step in with another
bankruptcy "reform" to keep them in perpetual debtors' hell.
Welcome to the New Libertard Freedom, sponsored by Whole Foods.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 11:33AM|#
oh now it's the credit-card companies fault for the economy. Man, people really like their whipping boys, I guess.
robc|8.12.09 @ 11:34AM|#
Insurance purchasing across state lines is one of those areas that is clearly interstate commerce even without the a bogusly-expanded ICC.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:35AM|#
"What does the "floor" include?"
I don't pretend that's an easy question TAO.
More than nothing and less than everything ;)
Jordan|8.12.09 @ 11:36AM|#
I can't wait for the teardown of state-level consumer protections in health insurance to do for patients what the Delaware regime on credit cards did for this country's borrowers (and the global economy).
I guess I missed it the last time the Visa slavers came around.
Nobody is forced to use a credit card. Don't sign contracts you
can't understand.
robc|8.12.09 @ 11:36AM|#
I wonder which state will become the corporate default for
allowing the meanest, dirtiest, most underhanded fine-print
contract tricks in our policies.
I think New York might be winning right now. Are they one of the
states mandating pregnancy coverage, even if you are a single male?
And alcohol abuse treatment for teetotalers?
robc|8.12.09 @ 11:37AM|#
Visa slavers
I believe they are a branch of The Crimson Permanent Insurance.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 11:38AM|#
"Don't sign contracts you can't understand."
Jordan, I'd bet my bottom dollar that you are currently a party to
at least one contract which you have not read in full/do not fully
understand every provision.
I hate that line.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 11:39AM|#
MNG - yeah, yeah, details, details. Why decide the hard stuff like "cost"? Broad, vacuous philosophical pronouncements about new, definitionally-impossible "rights" and two dollars will get you a cup of coffee at Panera.
Tomcat1066|8.12.09 @ 11:39AM|#
It's funny. I keep hearing about this "debtor's hell" regarding
credit cards. I honestly have no clue what they're talking about
(you know, people like Dan here) because I just paid the things
off. There's tons of information in books and on the internet on
how to do it.
Healthcare, on the other hand, is a whole different animal that
doesn't extend credit. You pay them X money per month, and they
take care of Y percentage of medical expenses incurred. How in the
hell could an insurance company put you in debtor's hell?
Or, is this a case where facts just fuck up the whole argument?
robc|8.12.09 @ 11:39AM|#
I'd bet my bottom dollar that you are currently a party to
at least one contract which you have not read in full/do not fully
understand every provision.
Hypocrisy makes the advice no less valid.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 11:41AM|#
yeah, here's a good idea: let's destroy all of contract law
because some people sign stuff they don't understand.
Awesome idea.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 11:41AM|#
That is Medicare. How realistic is it that the elderly will
be able to get any type of insurance at any price in a free market
system, even with individual subsidies and a voucher
pool?
What I would propose as a modest first step towards reforming
Medicare would be raising the premiums for subscribers who have
high incomes.
We would know that we had raised the premiums high enough when
private insurers started to compete for those customers.
If the Medicare premium is less than what a private premium would
cost, then the subscriber is receiving a subsidy. I don't see any
reason to give subsidies to millionaires.
WWJGD|8.12.09 @ 11:45AM|#
yeah, here's a good idea: let's destroy all of contract law
because some people sign stuff they don't understand.
Awesome idea.
According to my Surgical Technician friend, that's the reason
there's so many medical lawsuits. Every patient is briefed on the
surgery, the possible complications, and the post-surgery recovery
effects. If they want to sue, the judge just throws out that
form.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 11:46AM|#
Tomcat, that's not the type of contract abuse that these guys
are talking about.
They're talking about "contract abuse" like offering a homeowner's
insurance contract that doesn't cover floods, and then not paying
for flood damage.
They're talking about "contract abuse" like offering health
insurance that doesn't cover experimental drugs, and then not
paying for experimental drugs.
Basically offering any contract that limits coverage in any way
whatsoever is declared contract abuse as soon as any subscriber
wants coverage for something not in the contract.
|8.12.09 @ 11:48AM|#
"I have a problem with #4. This has only recently been bothering
me. That is Medicare. How realistic is it that the elderly will be
able to get any type of insurance at any price in a free market
system, even with individual subsidies and a voucher pool?
Dangerous drivers are dangerous drivers, regardless of how many of
them you pool. Ultimately, the government would need to subsidize
the insurance companies that provide for the elderly."
You are right. They would. And as Fluffy points out, you could get
some of that by raising the premiums for people with more ability
to pay. I think MNG is right. I see no problem with providing basic
health care to people regardless of their income. But there has got
to be a better way to do it than by a bunch of government
bureaucrats setting prices.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 11:51AM|#
I see no problem with providing basic health care to people regardless of their income
Then why don't you just do that, John? Please leave the rest of us
out of it.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 11:54AM|#
I see no problem with providing basic health care to people
regardless of their income. But there has got to be a better way to
do it than by a bunch of government bureaucrats setting
prices.
Perhaps the non-libertopia intermediate position would be to
deregulate the insurance market, but maintain a program to provide
coverage for truly uninsurable people.
We could define "uninsurable" to be people who can't find a private
sector premium available to them that is less than X% of their
available income and assets.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 11:58AM|#
Then why don't you just do that, John? Please leave the rest
of us out of it.
Well, if we're being realistic, the public simply won't permit the
correct solution. So we need a solution that gets as close
to the correct solution as possible while indulging the public's
sentiment.
Because right now in order to accomplish what should be a fairly
minor goal of providing health care assistance to people who either
can't pay or think the amount being demanded is too high, the
mainstream political parties are about to try to destroy the health
care system utterly.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:00PM|#
Just because something doesn't have the preciseness of
definition you might demand or because some the meeting of some
concept hasn't been totally worked out doesn't make it meaningless
TAO, we've gone over this before.
As a law student that has to come up against concepts like "due
process", "reasonable" etc., you should know that by now.
Just like we want people to have equal access to certain base
levels of police protection, we want people to have equal access to
certain base levels of health care access. Neither can be defined
with mathematical precision. But politically and pracitically these
things can be worked out.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:01PM|#
Fluffy - recognizing the political context, as you do, and
saying that you "have no problem with 'providing' health care", as
John does, are two different animals.
MNG - I forgot, we're just going to punch those doctors until they
are forced to care for those for whom they aren't responsible.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:02PM|#
"I see no problem with providing basic health care to people
regardless of their income
Then why don't you just do that, John? Please leave the rest of us
out of it."
OK, TAO, can you please leave me out of your wacky scheme to
provide basic police protection, national defense, etc., to people
regardless of their income?
Oh...
|8.12.09 @ 12:02PM|#
Why don't we conquer some country--say, India--and enslave all of their medical personnel? Then we could use these medislaves to provide healthcare to those in America who can't afford insurance.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:02PM|#
MNG, for what it's worth, I didn't appeal to mathematical certainty. I am telling you that I am damn tired of the "Government Good-Idea Fairy" coming around without any consideration of the nature of government or what the implications are of stripping people of choice.
|8.12.09 @ 12:03PM|#
"I see no problem with providing basic health care to people
regardless of their income
Then why don't you just do that, John? Please leave the rest of us
out of it."
If I had a few hundred billion laying around I would. Sadly, the
government is the only entity capable of doing that. I see nothing
wrong with taxing people and using that money to provide help to
people who are sick or old or can not for whatever reason take care
of themselves. We are a rich country and there is nothing wrong
with doing that up to a point.
Statements like yours are where libertarians go off the rails and
get accused of having no values beyond selfishness. I don't think
freedom and capitalism has to mean that we never as a collective
society do anything to help anyone in need.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:03PM|#
OK, TAO, can you please leave me out of your wacky scheme to provide basic police protection, national defense, etc., to people regardless of their income?
Fine. Granted. Done.
Kyle Jordan|8.12.09 @ 12:03PM|#
"A few weeks ago you gave me some titles of GL TPB's worth
checking out. I lost it, can you resupply the titles? Many
thanks!"
Yeah no problem.
Green Lantern:Rebirth
Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War 1&2
Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps
And if you want to, go to your local comic place and pick up a copy
of Blackest Night 1 and 2. 2 comes out today and Blackest Night is
the thrird in the Trilogy that of Rebirth and Sinestro Corps
War.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:04PM|#
So you oppose taxation to fund basic levels of police protection and military defense for all?
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:05PM|#
Statements like yours are where libertarians go off the rails and get accused of having no values beyond selfishness. I don't think freedom and capitalism has to mean that we never as a collective society do anything to help anyone in need.
In other words, you're more than glad to force other people to live
up to your values. No wonder you hate liberals so much - you guys
are twins.
|8.12.09 @ 12:06PM|#
Slavery is legal in the United States, provided that the enslaved are convicts. Besides, we have a gray area when we're talking about enemy noncombatants, right?
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:07PM|#
MNG - is it somehow possible for you to wrap your mind around
the fact that the argument that it is good and proper for a
government to do one thing does not mean it is good and proper for
a government to do another?
Anyway, make the social contract explicit and stop analogizing
things that aren't analogous.
Tricky Prickears |8.12.09 @ 12:07PM|#
But there has got to be a better way to do it than by a
bunch of government bureaucrats setting prices
I hate to say it, but I am seriously having doubts. If
the government doesn't set prices, then the market will. But the
market can't set prices with such a large percentage of
"uninsurable". So, it falls back on the government. And round and
round we go. Unless maybe you restrict private insurance to a
"moderate risk" group, and derive prices from that group for the
high risk. But whose task will that be? And whatever happened to
the idea of the government picking up "catastrophic illness"?
Kyle Jordan|8.12.09 @ 12:11PM|#
"Have yet to convince her to actually learn to use one, but
she's now in favor of me owning lots."
Baby steps mang. You're already doing well.
"Oh, she quite enjoyed shooting my Glock. Pretty soon she'll be
shooting Mosin-Nagants with me like a champ."
Excellent.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:16PM|#
"you're more than glad to force other people to live up to your
values"
Please stop with this nonsense. You are more than willing to
advocate the use of force, and government force, to coerce people
to live up to your values too (stopping robbers, murderers,
squatters, etc). Get off the high horse.
"wrap your mind around the fact that the argument that it is good
and proper for a government to do one thing does not mean it is
good and proper for a government to do another"
Like police protection I think the government can and should
provide basic health care to everyone because people morally
deserve such care and the government is in the best position to
guarantee it to all.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 12:16PM|#
Just like we want people to have equal access to certain
base levels of police protection, we want people to have equal
access to certain base levels of health care access.
Well, in the delegatory model of the state we discussed that other
time, this is not really a sensible statement.
If TAO and I agree in principle that we're morally entitled as
individuals to directly employ violence to prevent the violation of
certain rights, we become a "state" at the moment we agree to
cooperate. Our "state" becomes larger and larger as more people
agree.
But by definition we don't accept that you have the right to opt
out of our arrangement. If you stroll by and say, "I am not going
to acknowledge your agreement [i.e. the laws] and am just going to
do what I want," you're one of the people we're conducting violence
against. You are literally an outlaw - outside the
law.
But your opt-in moment isn't when you pay taxes. It's when you
delegate your approval to our state to conduct violence on your
behalf. In other words, you participate in the police system by
obeying. Not by paying taxes.
|8.12.09 @ 12:16PM|#
But that makes too much sense and is contradictory to the Beloved Leader's Glorious Plan to save us all from the evil, corrupt and Republican supported private sector of health insurance.
|8.12.09 @ 12:18PM|#
"In other words, you're more than glad to force other people to
live up to your values. No wonder you hate liberals so much - you
guys are twins."
No. I am just not a crazy fanatic. It is possible to think that
maybe we should use tax money to help out people who really need
it, but at the same time object to bankrupting the government and
confiscate 50% of people's income to do it. If you think that the
use of any tax money for the collective good (i.e. defense, police,
basic public services, some forms of welfare) can only mean the
government we have today and that the only alternative is to
eliminate all of these things entirely, then you are just as much
of a nut as the biggest socialist liberal. There is such a thing as
a middle position.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:19PM|#
"stop analogizing things that aren't analogous."
Well, that's the point. We find them to be analogous in the ways
that are important to us in determining whether government should
play a role in providing them. We don't fetishize the
"negative/affirmative" rights distinction as you do nor do we see
it as being the crucial dividing line between what government can
or should do.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 12:25PM|#
We don't fetishize the "negative/affirmative" rights
distinction as you do nor do we see it as being the crucial
dividing line between what government can or should do.
I think that it's more accurate to say that many people don't look
at the enforcement of "rights" the same way when it's done by a
government as when it's done by an individual.
You were brutally honest in the other thread we had on this when
you admitted that you would be perfectly happy to personalize
enforce positive rights.
That's actually pretty rare.
Most people are, for whatever reason, comfortable with the
government undertaking forcible redistributions that they would not
be willing to undertake personally, with the club in their own
hand.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:28PM|#
Thanks, John - I always knew you were a statist of a different stripe. Think about the fact that you and MNG are in agreement here.
Tomcat1066|8.12.09 @ 12:31PM|#
"Like police protection I think the government can and should
provide basic health care to everyone because people morally
deserve such care and the government is in the best position to
guarantee it to all."
Morally, I think people deserve such care as well. However, I
morally oppose any system that requires me to pay into a system
like that. Now, if this plan were self supporting, I'd tolerate
it...but if it's subsidized in the least little bit with tax money,
then clearly I am being required to pay into that system.
I've been the guy who was dirt poor and couldn't pay my medical
bills outright. So I worked out payment plans and got them taken
care of that way...and this was all without insurance. I didn't
believe other people were responsible for my health, and I still
don't.
Instead, non-profit hospitals and clinics that are funded through
charitable means is my idea of how to provide it. Frankly, I'd
donate more if I wasn't taxed like I currently am ;)
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:31PM|#
Positive "Rights" are logically impossible. To say that there is a positive "right" to money necessitates that someone else has to give it up. If I have a "right" to your dollar, that is a violation of your rights. Therefore, it is not a right. Rights do not contradict.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:32PM|#
"You were brutally honest in the other thread we had on this
when you admitted that you would be perfectly happy to personalize
enforce positive rights."
The only reason most people would not use physical force to make a
doctor treat someone who was dying at their feet would be
cowardice. Morally most people would approve. Hell, most people
clapped when the Adam Sandler character in Big Daddy made that
scrooge give shit to the kid on Halloween.
Harming someone through callous withholding of something you know
they need and will be seriously harmed if they go without is really
no different than callously harming them yourself (well, at least
not different enough to not make both situations warrant coercion
as a possible response).
|8.12.09 @ 12:33PM|#
Fluffy,
I don't think that saying something ought to be done means that it
is a right. I think we ought to help those in need. But ultimately
if say we get the great Obamaflation or are hit by an asteroid, we
might not be able to do that. Healthcare paid for by the government
is not a right in the same way due process is a right. I don't care
how tight things get; we can't and shouldn't repeal due process.
But, if we have the money, and we do, we should at least try to
provide some kind of safety net for people. Unfortunately, liberals
have taken that idea and made it into a right and used it as a way
to bankrupt the country. But I don't think the original idea is a
bad one.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:36PM|#
Harming someone through callous withholding of something you know they need and will be seriously harmed if they go without is really no different than callously harming them yourself
You're withholding your surplus food and money from children in
Africa. According to you, that's the same thing as starving them
yourself.
|8.12.09 @ 12:36PM|#
"Thanks, John - I always knew you were a statist of a different
stripe. Think about the fact that you and MNG are in agreement
here."
God fobid anyone think that perhaps the other side has a point.
Nope,everyone on the other side is completely irrational and evil.
I don't agree with MNG about much. I think he is whacked about the
idea of positive rights. But, I do understand why he would think
that way. And I can see the appeal and the need to try to provide
some kind of basic safety net for people.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:36PM|#
John, if it's not a right, it's a privilege, and I don't see where you get off telling me that I should be forced to provide privileges to other people.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:38PM|#
"However, I morally oppose any system that requires me to pay
into a system like that."
Do you morally oppose any system that requires you to pay into a
system that provides equal access police protection?
TAO
What's "right" to be done with that dollar depends on the
circumstances. If I need that dollar to put it into a vending
machine to give a dying fellow water, then it's wrong for you to
withold it and right for me to take it from you and do that.
Consider the absurdity of any other view: that a human being should
suffer and die for the sake of what, the sancitity of "property
rights?" Any system of morality that demands such a result is one
not worthy of respect or adherence. It's inhumane in the truest
sense in that it does not put human welfare as the over-riding
criteria in determining right and wrong.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:39PM|#
So, yes, the existence of a hungry mouth, somewhere, somehow, is
a mortgage on my life.
I know you believe it, MNG, but that makes you pretty fucking
evil.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 12:39PM|#
Positive "Rights" are logically impossible. To say that
there is a positive "right" to money necessitates that someone else
has to give it up. If I have a "right" to your dollar, that is a
violation of your rights. Therefore, it is not a right. Rights do
not contradict.
Well, MNG also went along with me when I said that I had the moral
right to go around killing people who were trying to capture and
enslave people.
So basically MNG is saying that he has the right to capture and
enslave doctors, but that I have the right to kill him if I catch
him doing it. Which seems a bit off.
The only reason most people would not use physical force to
make a doctor treat someone who was dying at their feet would be
cowardice. Morally most people would approve. Hell, most people
clapped when the Adam Sandler character in Big Daddy made that
scrooge give shit to the kid on Halloween.
Harming someone through callous withholding of something you know
they need and will be seriously harmed if they go without is really
no different than callously harming them yourself
So basically you're saying that the only reason you don't break
down rich peoples' doors, beat them with a tire iron, take their
valuables, and send them to starving people in Africa is because of
cowardice?
Wow, good thing you're a coward.
If allowing someone to die when you could have saved them is the
same as murder, then you are a fucking mass murderer thousands of
times over for not buying mosquito netting and sending it to
Africa. Since we agreed that it's OK to use violence to stop
murderers, why haven't you killed yourself?
|8.12.09 @ 12:39PM|#
"John, if it's not a right, it's a privilege, and I don't see
where you get off telling me that I should be forced to provide
privileges to other people."
So if you lose your job and get really sick, it is a privelege to
get any help? Helping you pay your doctor bills is no different
than buying you other privileges like beer, cigs and Yankees'
tickets. That is nuts.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:40PM|#
In other words, MNG, I earned that dollar - the mere fact that someone is dying does not instantly grant him a claim check on my efforts. This is not about whether I should give the dollar; it's about whether I have the right to withhold what I earned.
Tomcat1066|8.12.09 @ 12:41PM|#
"However, I morally oppose any system that requires me to pay
into a system like that."
Do you morally oppose any system that requires you to pay into
a system that provides equal access police protection?
Well, since the Supreme Court has ruled that the police aren't
obligated to "protect" anyone, I'm not. Instead, I'm paying for a
service that arrests criminals after they have committed crimes
and, on occasion, lucks up and catches people in the middle of
committing them.
|8.12.09 @ 12:42PM|#
TAO,
Perhaps "need" would be a better term. Again, it is a gray area. It
is a "should do" not a have to do. Should the government, if it can
try to help the sick and people who can't help themselves? Yes.
Does it have to to the exclusion of all other priorities? No. If
something is a "right" that means they are entitled to it
regardless of competing interestes.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:42PM|#
" the mere fact that someone is dying does not instantly grant
him a claim check on my efforts"
In any moral system that has human well being as the criteria for
sorting out right from wrong actions it most certainly would.
|8.12.09 @ 12:42PM|#
If I had it in for Whole Foods for some reason and wanted to create a parody of its name, I'd go with Whore Foods.
freeforall232|8.12.09 @ 12:43PM|#
@John - "Statements like yours are where libertarians go off the
rails and get accused of having no values beyond selfishness. I
don't think freedom and capitalism has to mean that we never as a
collective society do anything to help anyone in need."
Libertarians NEVER say you shouldn't help people in need. The
libertarian philosophy is if you want to help, then help, just
don't force me to do the same. Why is that such a hard concept for
people to accept?
Do you force people to buy your lunch? Do you force people to pay
your rent? Do you force people to put gas in your tank?
Sheesh, it's like you're actually trying to NOT understand...
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:43PM|#
Do you know what system it is that provides the best advancement for human wellbeing? It is not your communist beliefs.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:44PM|#
"I'm paying for a service that arrests criminals after they have
committed crimes"
Yeah, but let's say I don't want to pay my dollar towards that
service. I'm a big guy, I own a gun, hell if I have any interest in
catching someone who victimizes you. Can I opt out? Or are you
going to coerce me into supporting it? And in doing so I guess you
have "enslaved" me, eh?
|8.12.09 @ 12:44PM|#
I understand perfectly well free for all. But there is such a thing as the government and the collective "you". And I am sorry, to say that collective forms of civil society like governments should never help anyone in need under any conditions is nuts.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:45PM|#
TAO
I know it's not communism, in fact any serious liberal post-Rawls
knows that.
It's not Libertopia either.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:45PM|#
It's slavery. Plain and simple slavery. And John is nodding along in agreement, much to no one's surprise.
|8.12.09 @ 12:45PM|#
"Do you know what system it is that provides the best
advancement for human wellbeing? It is not your communist
beliefs."
So the fact that I think that maybe the government should try to
help people who are sick and really in need sometimes, makes me a
Communist? Come on.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 12:46PM|#
Consider the absurdity of any other view: that a human being
should suffer and die for the sake of what, the sancitity of
"property rights?"
No, for the sake of the principle that no man can make another his
slave.
It's not merely a matter of property, since you were also willing
to specify that you would force a doctor to labor.
|8.12.09 @ 12:47PM|#
"It's slavery. Plain and simple slavery. And John is nodding
along in agreement, much to no one's surprise."
By that standard any form of government that takes taxes from you
and uses it for things that don't directly benefit you, is slavery.
That makes you an anarchist not a libertarian.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:47PM|#
I wasn't talking to you on that one, John. MNG seems to think that slavery is the best track to wellbeing, and that a hungry mouth creates a claim check on everyone else's effort. Why he hasn't killed the rich and shipped their dollars to Africa (or, even better, sacrificed himself to send his own dollars), he won't say.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:48PM|#
By that standard any form of government that takes taxes from you and uses it for things that don't directly benefit you, is slavery. That makes you an anarchist not a libertarian.
Wrong. And you call yourself educated.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:48PM|#
To say that someone has a moral duty to provide immediate help
to one imminently in need of what you can provide, and that that
duty is so strong that it justifies coercion to mke you obey it is
not necessarily to say that the duty exists or at the same strength
to justify coercion for every situation which exists in the world
of someone in need who could use something you my have.
In On Liberty Mill talks of how it would be OK to use coercion on a
person who knows the bridge is out and could reasonably flag down
car approaching the bridge-less chasm. That seems right to me. Like
imposing a duty on that guy to share his information with the
driver I can see imposing duty on a doctor to share his skills on
the dying guy at his feet...
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 12:49PM|#
John, a minimal government could raise money without taxes and defend its territory with volunteers, like the AoC set up (minus excises).
Tomcat1066|8.12.09 @ 12:50PM|#
"I'm paying for a service that arrests criminals after they have
committed crimes"
Yeah, but let's say I don't want to pay my dollar towards that
service. I'm a big guy, I own a gun, hell if I have any interest in
catching someone who victimizes you. Can I opt out? Or are you
going to coerce me into supporting it? And in doing so I guess you
have "enslaved" me, eh?
Different animal. It arrests people who break laws, regardless of
who they victimize (or whether it was a person or not).
Healthcare, on the other hand, as described by Obama and his
supporters, requires me to pay into a system regardless of whether
I have health insurance or not. Meaning, if I have insurance, I am
being forced to pay into a system that only benefits certain people
as it's direct beneficiary where as law enforcement has the
community as it's direct beneficiary.
You can try and argue that health care does the same thing, but how
does robbing me of money to pay for insurance for someone benefit
society as a whole when the vast majority under the current system
is already insured? Easy. It doesn't.
|8.12.09 @ 12:50PM|#
"I wasn't talking to you on that one, John. MNG seems to think
that slavery is the best track to wellbeing, and that a hungry
mouth creates a claim check on everyone else's effort. Why he
hasn't killed the rich and shipped their dollars to Africa (or,
even better, sacrificed himself to send his own dollars), he won't
say."
My apologies then. Yes, MNG is whacked about that. Just because we
don't do something for someone doesn't make us responsible. I think
perhaps the people Africa are responsible for their plight not us.
But, that doesn't mean that it is a bad thing or an undesireable
thing for government to try to help people, as long doing so
actually does any good and doesn't crowd out other priorities.
freeforall232|8.12.09 @ 12:51PM|#
@HeadTater - If the Republicans' health plan is so superior, why
the crap didn't they implement it in the SIX YEARS they had control
of Congress and the Presidency?
Oh, I see, when they're out of power THEN they want less
government...
*shakes head* foolish, foolish Republicans
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 12:51PM|#
Like imposing a duty on that guy to share his information
with the driver I can see imposing duty on a doctor to share his
skills on the dying guy at his feet...
Then you're willing to risk imprisonment for this indentured
service? Seems equitable, then.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:51PM|#
fluffy
But of course a man may make another person "his slave" if the
contrary course would cause a person to die or suffer serious harm.
There are worse things morally than slavery for goodness
sake!
Like I said, if a person steals an apple from a stand and a cop
pulls his club and says "put that apple back or else" and he does I
guess you could say we all just supported an act of "enslavement",
but I'm betting you are not only cool with that, you would
cheer...
|8.12.09 @ 12:51PM|#
Really, MNG? The dying person can claim someone else's efforts for no reason other than he's dying? I don't think TAO is saying he wouldn't help that dying person. He's saying you may not force him to. The force you inflict IS a violation of TAO's rights whether the dying man is thirsty or not.
|8.12.09 @ 12:52PM|#
"So the fact that I think that maybe the government should try
to help people who are sick and really in need sometimes, makes me
a Communist? Come on."
Welcome to 2009. You're lucky he didn't call you a Nazi.
|8.12.09 @ 12:52PM|#
"John, a minimal government could raise money without taxes and
defend its territory with volunteers, like the AoC set up (minus
excises)."
How would it raise money without taxes? Further, the authoritarian
govenrment next door will draft and enslave its people, build a
huge army and come kick your ass and enslave you. It wouldn't be
fair. But that is how it would happen.
|8.12.09 @ 12:52PM|#
What impediments are in place?
I can easily go open a savings account, call it my health savings
account, and deposit into it regularly.
I can go get a high-deductible policy right now if I want and it
won't cost me much.
What are the impediments?
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:53PM|#
how is making someone return stolen goods "slavery"? As a matter of fact, if the police officer just let him go, that makes the proper owner of the apple a slave to the thief.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:53PM|#
"you were also willing to specify that you would force a doctor
to labor"
A much better way would be to take property from some people and
use that property to induce the doctor to tend to the person. But
it's all going to be enslavement to you I imagine...
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 12:54PM|#
How would it raise money without taxes?
Donations and bake sales. We're not talking about a police state,
we're talking about a Constitution.
Further, the authoritarian govenrment next door will draft and
enslave its people, build a huge army and come kick your ass and
enslave you.
Volunteer military forces have worked pretty well here so far. Some
would say even now there's too much (voluntary) military.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:55PM|#
Why it's certainly slaver TAO. He doesn't want to walk over and put the goods down. He wants to keep walking. He's been made, via force, to do it. You've enslaved him my man! Goodness, you're worse than the guy from Roots...
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 12:56PM|#
He doesn't want to walk over and put the goods down. He
wants to keep walking. He's been made, via force, to do it. You've
enslaved him my man!
Yes, we're all slaves to property, and the sooner it's erased from
the language the sooner we can forget about it. If only I could get
this dead rat out of my dreds...
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:56PM|#
you're an idiot. The thief relinquished his rights to keep the apple and not return it the second he stole it from the rightful owner.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:56PM|#
"The force you inflict IS a violation of TAO's rights whether
the dying man is thirsty or not."
"rights" divorced from the consequences of actions on human well
being are absurd, inhumane and immoral.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:58PM|#
Who cares about what is right? We are just talking enslavement, right? Forcing people to do what you want. And you just did it! It's like the Ivory Coast all over again!
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 12:58PM|#
"Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are
considered to be, or treated as, the property of others"
By not enforcing property rights, you are making the owner of the
apple the property of the thief.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 12:58PM|#
MNG, what you mean is that you're not willing to risk the consequences of supposedly violating a right to provide a privilege, and you want the state to protect you. In which case, I question the "morality" of what you want to do.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 12:58PM|#
Yeah, but let's say I don't want to pay my dollar towards
that service. I'm a big guy, I own a gun, hell if I have any
interest in catching someone who victimizes you. Can I opt out? Or
are you going to coerce me into supporting it? And in doing so I
guess you have "enslaved" me, eh?
Well, Rand came up with a relatively easy way to allow you to opt
out that doesn't require Rothbardian foolishness like competing
police forces:
Tax all contracts and sales. No contract on which no tax was paid
will be enforceable in the courts. No property on which no tax was
paid can be claimed as property before the courts.
That would allow you to participate as much or as little as you
wanted. If you opted out entirely, you might find the going a bit
rough.
You could potentially free ride on physical protection for
your person, because it would behoove those of us who are
maintaining the system to prevent criminal murderers and rapists
from having free reign in our territory. But hey, we can tolerate a
little free riding.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 12:59PM|#
SO TAO what you are saying is that it is OK to enslave someone
when they are not in the right, or when they violate someone's
rights?
Which is of course what I've said all along. The doctor is doing
something wrong, is violating the rights of the dying man.
Thanks for playing!
|8.12.09 @ 1:00PM|#
The thief stealing the apple has violated the apple stand owner's rights and someone told him to put it back and he complied. I don't see how the thief's rights have been violated? No one was enslaved. Someone was convinced to change their ways. That is all. And if the cop had arrested him for theft, it was a punishment for a crime, not enslavement.
MNG|8.12.09 @ 1:00PM|#
"Bad faith argumentation. Fuck off."
Oh my, don't have your moral philosophy quite as worked out as you
need to considering your arrogance, now do you?
lol
MNG|8.12.09 @ 1:02PM|#
Nick
Of course he was enslaved. He was forced to do something he didn't
want via force/threat of force.
Unless you only want to reserve the concept of enslavement for when
someone is forcing people to do something when it's not morally
warranted. You do?
Well guess what, so do I.
You see, it all comes back to the positive/negative rights
thing...
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:07PM|#
Unless you only want to reserve the concept of enslavement
for when someone is forcing people to do something when it's not
morally warranted.
You seem to be confused. You're talking about achieving egalitarian
results and calling the means "rights." Instead, rights are
egalitarian conditions which are used as each individual desires,
to varying results. And if somebody wants to risk their hide in the
doctor scenario, then they ought to be prepared for moral
reprisal.
|8.12.09 @ 1:07PM|#
A temple where guilty white liberals can absolve themselves of
their sins by spending too much on groceries. Mackey is completely
brilliant.
I saw ground beef for more than $20 per pound at the one in Atlanta
a few years ago.
I am all for Whole Foods existing and catering to whomever can
afford to shop there, but I can invariably find better deals
elsewhere (Publix sells very tasty buffalo meat for about six
dollars per pound, for example).
The comments on the story on the WSJ site were awful. "This a a
bad plan because Whole Foods charges too much for milk". What the
fuck!
I'm always amazed at how readily people will attack something about
the messenger and then act as if they have refuted the message.
There's gotta be a word or phrase for that sort of thing...
In On Liberty Mill talks of how it would be OK to use coercion
on a person who knows the bridge is out and could reasonably flag
down car approaching the bridge-less chasm.
In the world I imagine, no one would need to compelled to do that
sort of thing. Maybe it's a pipe dream, I dunno.
Like imposing a duty on that guy to share his information with
the driver I can see imposing duty on a doctor to share his skills
on the dying guy at his feet...
It may vary by state, but I think in that sort of situation, a
physician is compelled under force of law to assist an injured
person as much as he is able.
|8.12.09 @ 1:07PM|#
Which is of course what I've said all along. The doctor is
doing something wrong, is violating the rights of the dying
man.
In a long line of stupid things you've said on this board, this may
be the stupidest.
I know you have the typical leftist inability to understand the
difference between involuntary and voluntary, but this is right off
the rails.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 1:08PM|#
To say that someone has a moral duty to provide immediate
help to one imminently in need of what you can provide, and that
that duty is so strong that it justifies coercion to mke you obey
it is not necessarily to say that the duty exists or at the same
strength to justify coercion for every situation which exists in
the world of someone in need who could use something you my
have.
This, and the Mill example, are even more absurd than the other
things you are arguing.
Basically you are saying that the man who can contrive matters so
that he does not see the poor has no obligation to them, and that's
it's the proximity, and not the poverty, that creates the
obligation.
Good, then all I need to do to avoid being obligated is stand over
here with my fingers in my ears saying "La la la la, I am not
listening to MNG".
This counterargument is a cop out designed to avoid the moral and
practical consequences of an ethical system that combines altruism
and the idea of sins of omission. If altruism is true, and if sins
of omission are possible, then we are all slaves to need until the
last hungry person anywhere in the universe is fed. "Oh, well, not
if the poor people aren't actually right near you right now!" Give
me a break. Then you committed a sin of omission by not busting
your ass to be near the poor people.
Like I said, if a person steals an apple from a stand and a cop
pulls his club and says "put that apple back or else" and he does I
guess you could say we all just supported an act of "enslavement",
but I'm betting you are not only cool with that, you would
cheer...
The apple cart guy had to labor to get that apple and labor to
transport it to the place where he was trying to sell it. The thief
has taken that labor from the apple cart guy and forced him to
contribute it without compensating him or trading him something in
exchange. To me, this is morally indistinguishable from forcing the
apple cart guy to labor to bring you apples. So yes, when someone
stops you, I will cheer.
|8.12.09 @ 1:09PM|#
The doctor must then reserve his right to shoot MNG in the face so he's not forced to give medical care to the dying man against his will. Seems fair.
|8.12.09 @ 1:10PM|#
Certain hardcore libertarian beliefs are nice to believe in in a
vacuum, but are useless in the real world. You will never ever ever
get any more than a tiny minority of this country to believe that
critically injured peopled shouldn't receive immediate medical
treatment regardless of ability to pay. The same goes for treatment
of chronically ill people. Now, it is possible that you may sway
public opinion for less critical needs such as regular checkups and
minor non-life threatening injuries, but there will always been
subsegments of the population for which the overwhelming majority
believes that a government assistance program is an absolute
must.
Given that, I find it hard to even debate about pushing for
libertopia. The TAOs of the world need to accept political reality
unless they're willing to accept a lifetime of futile
argumentation.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:13PM|#
You will never ever ever get any more than a tiny minority
of this country to believe that critically injured peopled
shouldn't receive immediate medical treatment regardless of ability
to pay
Too bad ERs don't operate that way now voluntarily and by law with
donated funds. If only society were compassionate enough!
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 1:17PM|#
MNG, my philosophy is fine. Yours is complete nonsense, and you know it. And that makes you dishonest and therefore, a bad faith arguer.
|8.12.09 @ 1:18PM|#
Too bad ERs don't operate that way now voluntarily and by
law with donated funds. If only society were compassionate
enough!
NSS. My point was there's always going to be a minimum social
assistance level when it comes to healthcare. Things like free ER
care and Medicaid (in some form) are not going away, ever. If you
can frame your debate around that, then you're simply not a useful
participant in the reform process.
|8.12.09 @ 1:20PM|#
"Too bad ERs don't operate that way now voluntarily and by law
with donated funds. If only society were compassionate
enough!"
The key phrase is "by law". If they are being forced to do so buy
law, they might as well be taxed to do it.
|8.12.09 @ 1:20PM|#
It's entirely possible the structure of the deal is more
complex than a simple kickback, while the effect is substantially
the same.
Then in all likelihood its illegal. The federal government has been
on a physician witchhunt for more than a dozen years.
MNG is struggling with the distinction between morality and
legality. He seems to be arguing that a certain moral vision should
be enforced by the law.
The first difficulty, of course, is in deciding whose moral vision
should be legally enforced. I doubt MNG would agree that the
pro-life moral vision should be legally enforced.
History is replete with moralities that took up the sword and
committed atrocities. The realization that a claim to morality
should not automatically entail a claim to legal enforcement is the
bedrock of old-school liberalism and limited government.
The question of which moral injunctions should be enforced with the
billy club and the jackboot is the hard one. Some (thou shalt not
kill) we all agree on. Others (thou shalt have this or that good or
service, regardless of ability to obtain it via voluntary
transation), not so much.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:22PM|#
MP, that's voluntary. There are ways to be a doctor without
being in the ER treating indigents. There are ways to pay for other
people's medicine without paying for abortions. There are ways to
solicit funds without going through socialist insurance. People are
somewhat free to use their capital as they see fit, and though
there aren't much more ways it could get worse than are being
currently proposed, it could also be a lot better.
By nationalizing health care, the government sets all
conditions.
|8.12.09 @ 1:23PM|#
MP is exactly right. Furhter, as bad things go, I am not too concerned about that one. OMG we tax people to pay for the care of the critically injured, handicapped and chonrically ill. Say it isn't so. That is no different than communism or slavery.
|8.12.09 @ 1:24PM|#
"By nationalizing health care, the government sets all
conditions."
True. But since when does helping out people at the low end of the
spectrum require nationalizing all healthcare?
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:28PM|#
John, it doesn't. Like I said, hospitals already do it (by law and sometimes beyond what the law requires). And they'd do it if there were no wealth-redistribution entities, because that's what its shareholders want it to do. But convince MNG of that.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 1:31PM|#
But since when does helping out people at the low end of the spectrum require nationalizing all healthcare?
Because if they are entitled to it, why aren't I?
|8.12.09 @ 1:32PM|#
Because if they are entitled to it, why aren't I?
A fine elucidation of what's wrong with Social Security.
PantsFan|8.12.09 @ 1:33PM|#
But since when does helping out people at the low end of the spectrum require nationalizing all healthcare?
because everyone should have access to any doctor, procedure and
treatment regardless of ability to pay.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:35PM|#
"because everyone should have access to any doctor, procedure
and treatment regardless of ability to pay."
I think that's where I came in. But the floor's all sticky now.
|8.12.09 @ 1:36PM|#
"Because if they are entitled to it, why aren't I?"
Because we are making the decision to help people when they need
it. You are entitled to it in the sense that if you ever get poor
and down on your luck, we will help you to.
As Anonymous points out above, the government doesn't have to do
everything. Private entities do a lot of charity. But as long as
you don't go overboard and crowd out charities, there is no reason
why the government can't do some things other than some pigheaded
idea that the government should never do anything. As MP rightly
points out, most are not and will not buy that. So rather than
standing around pissing in the wind bemoaning how any form of
transfer payment is slavery, maybe people would be better off
thinking of ways to help people without bankrupting the government
or having it take over the entire economy.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:38PM|#
maybe people would be better off thinking of ways to help
people without bankrupting the government or having it take over
the entire economy.
We could call it "The Salvation Cavalry."
But we'll need horses.
|8.12.09 @ 1:38PM|#
"because everyone should have access to any doctor, procedure
and treatment regardless of ability to pay."
Now that is bullshit. To say we should help you stay alive doesn't
mean we owe you every treatment you ever dreamed of.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 1:39PM|#
Because we are making the decision to help people when they need it. You are entitled to it in the sense that if you ever get poor and down on your luck, we will help you to.
So, in other words, other people's misfortunes means they have a
claim check against my labor.
This isn't hard, John. Just admit you want to force people to work
for other people.
But don't call it "slavery", kids! That's HYPERBOLE!
|8.12.09 @ 1:44PM|#
"So, in other words, other people's misfortunes means they have
a claim check against my labor."
Yes and in return you get a claim check against their labor if
something rotten happens to you. It is not slavery because you get
something out of the deal to.
TAO, this whole thread is why people who don't know any better
think Libertarians are whack jobs. I can see you at one of Xeones'
family reunion screaming "I don't care if that fucking kid's
parents died and he got hit by a car. Let him fucking die. You
can't put a claim on my money to pay for his misfortune. That is
slavery."
If this is what the small government position has come to, it is
little wonder both parties are now run by big government types.
|8.12.09 @ 1:45PM|#
Our thinking around these types of issues is increasingly
binary. Altruism isn't a question of the government or nothing.
However, when the government takes over a charitable area, it seems
to reduce private activities (or forestall them) and even to take
the very idea of a private, charitable option off the table.
In other words, why can't civil society handle healthcare for those
who can't get it? Why must it be the government? In the past,
mutual aid societies and other private means were used. Most of us
do have medical insurance or access to healthcare, after all, so
we're really talking about a relatively small number of people.
We're certainly a generous people, with no serious limit on our
willingness and our financial ability to help those in need. Why
government and compulsion are viewed as necessary is beyond me.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 1:48PM|#
John, the question isn't whether I care: the question is whether
you can make me sign over my life to that kid.
Now you're being a fuckface arguer.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 1:48PM|#
Or, Shorter John: IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!
Thanks, Barack Obama John.
|8.12.09 @ 1:52PM|#
"In other words, why can't civil society handle healthcare for
those who can't get it? "
I think it can to a large degree. But I think there is still some
roll for government to fill in the gaps. Further, the government's
roll in helping could be to help and empower civil society to do
this things and then perhaps catch those cases that fill in the
gaps.
Civil society is great. But, back in the days when there was only
civil society, people who didn't have families and couldn't take
care of themselves were truely fucked. 19th Century America may not
have been some Dickens' nightmare. But, the idea that "civil
society" took care every need is a myth.
debil\'s adbocate|8.12.09 @ 1:53PM|#
"Why must it be the government?"
1. You gain great economies of scale. It's practical, ignoring
bureaucracy, which will exist anyway, so we can ignore it.
2. If it were to pass a referendum, that would make it moral to
impose on the rest, because imposing the majority's will is the
path of least resistence when compromising between opinions of
social organization, which are inherently and necessarily arbitrary
in any case.
|8.12.09 @ 1:53PM|#
I don't care if that fucking kid's parents died and he got
hit by a car. Let him fucking die.
You could pay for his medical bills if you care that much.
|8.12.09 @ 1:54PM|#
TAO,
You are funny. Pro makes a good point. We are totally binary on
this. It is either libertopia or Obamatopia with nothing in the
middle. Everyone is either for you or against you. That is crazy.
There ought to be a place for limited government to help those who
most need it.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:55PM|#
There ought to be a place for limited government to help
those who most need it.
"When in the course of human events..." has a ring to it.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 1:55PM|#
Again, John, why is it that you get to determine what people's
"needs" are, and why does the existence of those needs, just
because they happen to exist, impose an obligation on me?
So, John, when are you going to support increased global aid for
the world's truly needy? Surely "America" can spare a
trillion dollars for the poor.
|8.12.09 @ 1:56PM|#
"I don't care if that fucking kid's parents died and he got hit
by a car. Let him fucking die.
You could pay for his medical bills if you care that much."
Yes because we could never do anything reasonably. We can't have a
government that does a few things for people who really need it.
Nope. If we have that, we have socialism and what we have
today.
|8.12.09 @ 1:57PM|#
In other words, why can't civil society handle healthcare
for those who can't get it? Why must it be the
government?
I think it's a question of dispersion of access in addition to
volume of caseload. Just consider the size of the Medicaid program.
Even if it was better optimized, do you really think that this
could be wholly subsumed by "civil society". Also, "civil society"
would likely end up centralizing those resources in core areas.
What about those who aren't near enough to the core to survive
transport?
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 1:57PM|#
Why is government intervention "reasonable"? Is that an efficiency argument?
|8.12.09 @ 2:02PM|#
Well, I imagine private charities--if acting alone--would come
down to two major options: (1) providing insurance funding or
support to people or (2) mutual aid societies, where the people in
need combine their resources to either obtain coverage or to buy
medical attention directly.
I'm just taking shots in the dark, though. I'm not an expert on any
of this. R C Dean is in the healthcare industry and might have some
better ideas about what a purely private healthcare charity would
look like. Let's not forget, too, that we're not talking about one
gigantic charity.
|8.12.09 @ 2:03PM|#
"Again, John, why is it that you get to determine what people's
"needs" are, and why does the existence of those needs, just
because they happen to exist, impose an obligation on me?"
Because it sucks to be you. Ultimately, in a civil society the
majority make the rules and obligations. Most societies, including
this one, have decided that everyone has at least some small
obligation to help those in need. Society functions better if
people don't drop out of the bottom of it. Maybe someday we will
have a society and a government that decides differently. I would
rather live in a society where everyone has some obligation, be it
a small one, to help those in need. I am lucky enough to live in a
society that does.
So, John, when are you going to support increased global aid for
the world's truly needy? Surely "America" can spare a trillion
dollars for the poor."
I never said we have an obligation to go bankrupt to help the poor.
I have frequently said that our obligation varies directly to our
situation. It is a "need" and a "good" not a right. Rights are
things you grant regardless of competing needs.
|8.12.09 @ 2:05PM|#
"Why is government intervention "reasonable"? Is that an
efficiency argument?"
It is not a question of why it is reasonable. It is a question of
when it is reasonable. Like anything else, it can and does get out
of hand.
|8.12.09 @ 2:07PM|#
"Well, I imagine private charities--if acting alone--would come
down to two major options: (1) providing insurance funding or
support to people or (2) mutual aid societies, where the people in
need combine their resources to either obtain coverage or to buy
medical attention directly."
We have a lot of those things now. We certainly have tons of
charitable hospitals. We require that people get care by law.
Perhaps the sollution is to say that every hospital must provide a
given amount of care regardless of ability to pay. Then leave it up
to the hospitals to either pass the cost on to their customers or
get charity to make up the difference. That is kind of what we do
now.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 2:08PM|#
Helping should not be forced, John. The end. Any quibbling you do with the Democrats is just that: quibbling. You have already signed over a dollar, so when they come to take two, you have no cause to complain.
|8.12.09 @ 2:10PM|#
John:
"Because it sucks to be you. Ultimately, in a civil society the
majority make the rules and obligations."
wtf is civil about majority rule?
|8.12.09 @ 2:11PM|#
"Helping should not be forced, John. The end. Any quibbling you
do with the Democrats is just that: quibbling. You have already
signed over a dollar, so when they come to take two, you have no
cause to complain."
That is blindingly ignorant. You are just being a troll. Anyone who
thinks there is any roll for government at all has no right to
complain no matter what the government does. After all, they gave
the dollar.
That is just self evidently stupid.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 2:12PM|#
"It is not a question of why it is reasonable. It is a question
of when it is reasonable."
I'm dense, but if a time comes when something's attained a
property, there's usually a reason for that property. In other
words, regardless of when it becomes reasonable, why is government
intervention reasonable?
|8.12.09 @ 2:14PM|#
I rather suspect that massive government intervention in healthcare has limited the growth of any possible private charitable options.
The Angry Optimist|8.12.09 @ 2:15PM|#
whatever, John. you're doing to define need at X amount of income, and they are going to say "nooo, we have to do 2X income". And what are you going to say? "That's too high"? On what grounds are you complaining?
|8.12.09 @ 2:17PM|#
"In other words, regardless of when it becomes reasonable, why
is government intervention reasonable?"
Because civil society, while it does a lot, doesn't do everything.
There is nothing unreasonable about the idea that government can
tax and take that money to fill in the gaps of civil society and
make things a bit less brutal. I am sorry I don't find anything
wrong or unreasonable with that idea in principle. I certainly find
a lot unreasonable about its execution.
It might be that I am naive. That no matter how well intentioned,
government invariably goes berserk and if you try and do anything
you end up with a Byzantine welfare state like we have today. I am
willing to admit that possibility. But I am not willing to rant and
rave a bunch of nonsense that any taxing of me to help anyone else
is immoral slavery.
|8.12.09 @ 2:18PM|#
"That is blindingly ignorant. You are just being a troll. Anyone
who thinks there is any roll for government at all has no right to
complain no matter what the government does. After all, they gave
the dollar.
That is just self evidently stupid."
actually what's stupid is failing to see that was his defense for
not giving the first dollar.
and it's role not roll
roll is what you obviously take to keep so blearily ignorant about
the nature of freedom.
|8.12.09 @ 2:19PM|#
"I rather suspect that massive government intervention in
healthcare has limited the growth of any possible private
charitable options."
I am sure it has. But that doesn't mean that private charities
would grow enough to replace government. Nor does it mean that
there isn't a smaller roll for government that wouldn't drown out
private charities.
|8.12.09 @ 2:25PM|#
Okay, that amused me.
Here's another one: Ad Houyhnhnm--an attack on the horse you rode
in on.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 2:26PM|#
There is nothing unreasonable about the idea that government
can tax and take that money to fill in the gaps of civil society
and make things a bit less brutal.
So what you're saying is that massive, forced wealth redistribution
provides a less "brutal" environment than doing nothing but
protecting property rights? See, that's a misconception we can work
to overcome, and it's quite a different statement than saying that
people should be taken care of (which is simple individual action
and wish fulfillment, not a judgement on economic impacts).
|8.12.09 @ 2:29PM|#
You people are fanatics. That is why there is like 1% of the country who calls themselves Libertarians. Unless and until you can come up with a vision of limited government that recognizes some role for government to help people who really need it, you are not going to go anywhere. Further, it does no good to lump anyone who doesn't buy into the most radical view with everyone on the Left up to and including communists and advocates of a command and control economy. People will just tune you out at that point. That is no different than being a Bircher.
|8.12.09 @ 2:31PM|#
It's a cheap joke, because I don't think it's supposed to be
pronounced the way it looks.
I was going to say "Google is my friend", but I think a little
artistic license is in order (for those who recall their Swift):
"Yahoo is my friend."
|8.12.09 @ 2:32PM|#
"So what you're saying is that massive, forced wealth
redistribution provides a less "brutal" environment than doing
nothing but protecting property rights? See, that's a misconception
we can work to overcome, and it's quite a different statement than
saying that people should be taken care of (which is simple
individual action and wish fulfillment, not a judgement on economic
impacts)."
Yes, because any wealth distribution must be "massive". It is
communism or freedom and nothing in between. Why don't you just
start looking into fluoridation as a plot of the welfare state? You
are not that far away.
|8.12.09 @ 2:33PM|#
john:
didja think this was the wedge issue that was going to allow you to
convince a bunch of libertarians they were mistaken?
|8.12.09 @ 2:33PM|#
It is a wealth redistribution to take away your purity of essence TAO. You are finally onto us.
|8.12.09 @ 2:35PM|#
"john:
didja think this was the wedge issue that was going to allow you to
convince a bunch of libertarians they were mistaken?"
No. I would just like to think that there is something in between
MNG demanding my American Express Card and TAO talking about the
communist plot through fluoridation.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 2:40PM|#
Yes, because any wealth distribution must be
"massive".
Well, it is massive and the proposed nationalized
medicine bill takes massive to elephantine levels. Now, you might
argue that it doesn't need to be so massive. But I'd argue that
government has no business in this business. And you might argue
that as a tool of democracy it has business in any business the
majority vote it for. But I'd argue that the Constitution sets up a
distributed republic with specific prohibitions of power to counter
that very notion.
Obviously the Constitution is designed for limited government.
Obviously, government is not being properly limited right now, eg
because of the reliance on absurdities like incorporation (where
"Congress" suddenly refers to any entity of government, Executive
or State or local). So we're basically sitting here trying to pin
down where it could be if we were following the rules written
down.
Which suggests that the rules weren't good enough, and if we're
going to do it again we're not going to make it any less limited
than the first time around.
|8.12.09 @ 2:41PM|#
John,
I'm a libertarian for utilitarian reasons as much as anything else,
and I'm also a minarchist. That said, I don't see where the federal
government has the legal authority to do this in the first place. I
know that's a losing argument, since we already have Medicare,
etc., but I do believe that's a correct reading of the
Constitution.
I honestly believe--not from fanatical devotion to the free market
or from anything other than my interpretation of the facts--that a
freer market in healthcare would benefit all of us. Including the
very large percentage of us who have healthcare but are tired of
the bureaucratic nonsense and those who have limited access to
healthcare. But I'm unlikely to get a chance to prove my
hypothesis.
The free market when allowed to operate does great things.
Virtually every home has a TV, and a very large percentage of homes
have cable or satellite. Not subsidized, not legally required. And,
of course, there are thousands of other examples. Medical service
is a commodity, like everything else in the marketplace.
|8.12.09 @ 2:42PM|#
"No. I would just like to think that there is something in
between MNG demanding my American Express Card and TAO talking
about the communist plot through fluoridation."
guess i missed that. i thought we were talking about theft from one
group of individuals in the interest of another group of
individuals.
|8.12.09 @ 2:44PM|#
Ad Mahna Mahna--an argumentative fallacy involving an attack on someone for being a Muppet.
|8.12.09 @ 2:45PM|#
"I honestly believe--not from fanatical devotion to the free
market or from anything other than my interpretation of the
facts--that a freer market in healthcare would benefit all of us.
Including the very large percentage of us who have healthcare but
are tired of the bureaucratic nonsense and those who have limited
access to healthcare. But I'm unlikely to get a chance to prove my
hypothesis."
I agree completely. The fact that the government helps people
doesn't mean we have to have a government controlled market. I
think Friedman's idea of a negative income tax is probably the best
idea. Give everyone a floor income and the ability to buy their own
insurance. And then let charities do the rest. But according to
many on this thread, any redistribution of wealth is communism. I
am sure if Friedman were alive today; it would be news to him that
he was part of the international communist conspiracy.
|8.12.09 @ 2:51PM|#
john:
did you not expect to find that there are varying views among the
libt. crowd? i think milt's ideas on reverse taxation are
horrible.
i think ayn rand had fantastic points about greed and value, but
i'm not an athiest.
so what's the big surprise?
|8.12.09 @ 3:00PM|#
"did you not expect to find that there are varying views among
the libt. crowd? i think milt's ideas on reverse taxation are
horrible.
i think ayn rand had fantastic points about greed and value, but
i'm not an athiest.
so what's the big surprise?"
Of course it varies. I think Milt's ideas on reverse taxation are
great. But, that doesn't make me a liberal or any sort of a
collectivist.
I understand the points about the government not doing anything. I
am sympathetic to them. I admit above, that it may be that human
beings are incapable of sipping from the government well. And that
once you start they wont' stop and you will always end up where we
are now. But saying that is different than saying any government
intervention or redistribution is wrong.
|8.12.09 @ 3:04PM|#
Good now I will never buy at Whole Foods, it's a very rich peoples store anyways and I was buying some meat
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 3:09PM|#
But saying that is different than saying any government
intervention or redistribution is wrong.
Not necessarily. Maybe you think it's wrong because it will be
abused because government will always be used as a tool for the
whims of whoever can control it, and therefore its grip increases
monotonically. Thus, the point is to minimize its power and
minimize its ability to be centralized while retaining the
protection of property rights feature which acts as a self-defense
contract between citizens and between nations.
Which is to say, if the thing we call "government" is the thing we
can't get rid of without having to deal with true anarchy, let's
divest it of threats to property. Then come up with institutions to
do the rest, which are simply voluntary associations that can and
will adjust to our needs without the frictions and moral
impositions associated with taxes and regulations.
Of course, in terms of society's benefits, this assumes that -- if
it's the case that charity isn't enough, so to speak -- resentment
from being overtaxed has a greater social cost than the social
benefit of a "safety net". But then, if we wanted it to abstract it
in that way for purposes other than recordkeeping, we'd be
approaching collectivist-ville.
|8.12.09 @ 3:14PM|#
"Of course, in terms of society's benefits, this assumes that --
if it's the case that charity isn't enough, so to speak --
resentment from being overtaxed has a greater social cost than the
social benefit of a "safety net"."
That depends on the nature of the safety net and the amount of over
taxation. Honestly, we can have a lot of safety net before people
revolt over taxes. But, the government seems more intent on
stealing the money for their chronies rather than providing a
safety net.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 3:21PM|#
But, the government seems more intent on stealing the money
for their chronies rather than providing a safety net.
That's because socializing parts of an economy usually entail
freezing current conditions in legislation, and only adjusting
according to an inadequate algorithm or when something breaks. The
result is a huge deadweight loss and tons of rent-seeking.
It's like balls rolling down an incline, taken by hand to slide
down instead. Friction results; maybe somebody gets wise and
rotates it to reduce friction, but then they hurt their finger
because they can't spin it fast enough. The other guy laughs at the
first guy in his isolation until his ball melts helplessly while
the other ball, chunks missing, falls off the side.
|8.12.09 @ 3:30PM|#
"I understand the points about the government not doing
anything. I am sympathetic to them. I admit above, that it may be
that human beings are incapable of sipping from the government
well. And that once you start they wont' stop and you will always
end up where we are now. But saying that is different than saying
any government intervention or redistribution is wrong."
well, that's more reasonable than some, i'll give you that
but i disagree. i do believe it is wrong, and i do believe that
charity would not be AS effective as govt. in providing a safety
net. i believe it would be MORE effective.
i'm confounded by the notion that govt., the most inefficient thing
going, is somehow magically greater than the sum of it's parts.
that makes zero sense.
Mike Laursen|8.12.09 @ 3:34PM|#
re: Balls, inclines
Gotta say that's a darned odd analogy to come up with. Not wrong,
just oh so random.
Anonymous|8.12.09 @ 3:37PM|#
Thank you. I try.
I'm always interested in analogies to simplify such situations to
the kernel of importance. They're the lime juice to my muddy
idiotfish fillet.
Fluffy|8.12.09 @ 4:48PM|#
Further, it does no good to lump anyone who doesn't buy into
the most radical view with everyone on the Left up to and including
communists and advocates of a command and control
economy.
John, if you accept the principle that need trumps self-autonomy,
then if you aren't a communist it's only out of either cowardice or
a refusal to follow your principles to their necessary and obvious
conclusions.
I realize that you're trying to argue that you're not saying that
need creates a right, but that you still want the state to
do "something" to help - but think about that for a minute. The
resources the state uses are acquired by compulsory taxation. The
state will use whatever level of force is required to make sure
citizens comply with its tax laws. If I don't pay my taxes, the
state will seize my property and put me in jail. If I resist their
attempt to do either of these things, the state will kill me if
need be. So basically you're saying that the state should take the
money it must be willing to kill to get and apply it to
activities you yourself admit aren't either defending or advancing
any actual right. Once you're willing to say that, why
shouldn't go the full Lenin?
People on the left are complaining about how "uncivil" the tea
baggers are, but as far as I am concerned they aren't uncivil
enough. There are people being held in jails today on tax charges
so that millionaires can get subsidized Medicare. There are people
being held in jails today so that some asshole can get a grant for
his shitty art. There are people being held in jails today so that
Obama can get new pictures taken of Air Force One. People should be
full of much more rage about these things than anyone is
demonstrating right now. And when you buy into that system even
just a little, because "health care is important", it's
disappointing.
I can understand a tactical concession that some kind of
health care has to be provided for the indigent, to prevent some
worse and more expensive total nationalization from taking place,
but that's different from thinking it's good.
Bill Hartigan|8.12.09 @ 5:01PM|#
A Crazy (Health Care) Idea
The Obama Administration's plan will not work. Taxing private
health insurers to pay for a public health plan will raise private
insurers' costs, therefore premiums, driving people to the public
plan. This will reduce the tax base that supports the public
option, doom private insurers, and leave the public plan unfunded
except for taxes … but there is a better way:
Our goal is to give everyone health insurance, so let's just do it
- eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, all Government Employee Health
Insurance, (including Congress), Military and VA domestic
facilities, (except combat injury rehabilitation), and Workers
Compensation medical benefits.
Let's provide every taxpayer, (citizen or not), with a voucher to
obtain basic coverage from any health insurance company. Insurers
who redeem vouchers for premium dollars must insure anyone who
presents a voucher so everyone will be insured. Insurers will
compete for the healthiest people by providing good service and
extra benefits. Insurers cannot decline anyone, so they will focus
on attracting healthy people and making their people as healthy as
possible.
Let's pass legislation to prohibit litigation to recover medical
expenses - no matter who causes injury or illness, everyone is
covered by their own insurer and no one can sue to recover.
We can pay for this with the savings from eliminating all other
health programs and imposing a 2% sales tax, (including internet
and service transactions). Businesses will save from no longer
paying health benefits and Workers Compensation, which will cause
employment to rise and help the economy. Health care for all will
be about $3trillion in 2011 and savings from eliminating these 6
programs will cover about $2trillion. A 2% tax on a $50 trillion
GDP will cover the other $1trillion. Is this a crazy idea, or
what?
Bill Hartigan, CIC, ARM, AAI
Littleton, Colorado
(PS, I'm not a health insurance agent)
Mike Laursen|8.12.09 @ 5:50PM|#
Our goal is to give everyone health insurance...
The goal is to make sure everybody has a decent level of health
care, which is not the same as having health insurance.
Hopefully, I'm not being pedantic. It makes a big difference in how
one thinks about solutions.
Charity, health savings accounts, mutual aid organizations, simply
having the government help pay health care bills for the truly
need, are all ways of providing health care that won't be
adequately considered if policy makers are too focused on the idea
that everyone has to have health insurance.
And putting a bunch of restrictions on insurance companies' ability
to charge the rates they see fit and to screen based on
pre-existing conditions subverts the basic concept of
insurance.
|8.12.09 @ 5:52PM|#
And putting a bunch of restrictions on insurance companies' ability to charge the rates they see fit and to screen based on pre-existing conditions subverts the basic concept of insurance.
You mean it subverts the basic concept of for-profit insurance.
That's why we need a public insurance plan. Social security doesn't
get to exclude people who might live too long, as that would
subvert the basic concept of social insurance.
|8.12.09 @ 5:59PM|#
If I were president, I'd spend the trillion on making humans invulnerable to aging, disease, or injury. Robot bodies, genetic engineering, some combination of the two.
Mike Laursen|8.12.09 @ 7:10PM|#
You mean it subverts the basic concept of for-profit
insurance. That's why we need a public insurance plan. Social
security doesn't get to exclude people who might live too long, as
that would subvert the basic concept of social
insurance.
Yes, I meant for-profit insurance. One could have public,
non-profit or for-profit insurance, or the mutual aid societies
that I mentioned could also offer non-profit or for-profit
insurance.
Government-provided healthcare could also be provided through other
means than insurance, profitable or not.
So why the fixation, the zooming-in-on the solution that "we need a
public insurance plan" without considering other possibilities?
|8.12.09 @ 11:50PM|#
I can't wait for the teardown of state-level consumer protections in health insurance to do for patients what the Delaware regime on credit cards did for this country's borrowers (and the global economy).
I guess I missed it the last time the Visa slavers came around. Nobody is forced to use a credit card. Don't sign contracts you can't understand.
Amen to that. If you didn't like the terms being offered by Chase,
MBNA, or BoA, there was absolutely nothing keeping you from
applying to Amalgamated Bank of Chicago or Pulaski Bank &
Trust, for example, for a credit card.
What's that? You say they wouldn't give you a line of credit bigger
than a few Benjamins, or that maybe your credit wasn't good enough
for you to get a card from them at all? Gee, I wonder why it works
that way?
Patriot Henry|8.14.09 @ 9:30PM|#
Dear MNG,
"Harming someone through callous withholding of something you
know they need and will be seriously harmed if they go without is
really no different than callously harming them yourself (well, at
least not different enough to not make both situations warrant
coercion as a possible response)."
Really? So my callous withholding of my food and money from the
starving people in my nation and world is the same thing as my
starving them? And so they are justified in forcing me to give up
all of my food and money so that I am one of the starving people?
And then I can claim anything from those who have more and use
force to obtain it?
What a vicious short sighted barbaric approach to reality.
"
Just like we want people to have equal access to certain base
levels of police protection, we want people to have equal access to
certain base levels of health care access. Neither can be defined
with mathematical precision. But politically and pracitically these
things can be worked out."
True, but only because there is no "we". However, if individuals
and groups of individuals don't try to decide what "we" want, then
the answers can be defined with mathematical precision: zero.
That's how much money should be extorted from people for anything.
It is the only moral and legal option, for the one common law, the
one common law, is thus: NO STEALING.
No stealing for crack, no stealing for police, no stealing for
medicine, no stealing for food, no stealing for education. No
stealing, not by anyone or for anything.
Please stop with this nonsense. You are more than willing to
advocate the use of force, and government force, to coerce people
to live up to your values too (stopping robbers, murderers,
squatters, etc). Get off the high horse.
There is a major and fundamental difference there. Offensive force,
used to steal, is wrong. Defensive force, used to stop the
stealing, is right. So what you are saying by "get off the high
horse" is "abandon your morals, principles, and the law and join
the insatiable maw of the mob and start whining for your piece of
other peoples property". While you and the vast majority of people
may and do choose to steal, it is not right or necessary.
"Like police protection I think the government can and should
provide basic health care to everyone because people morally
deserve such care and the government is in the best position to
guarantee it to all.
The only way to morally deserve something is to earn it.
"To each their own." Radical concept, eh?
Regards,
Patriot Henry
Patriot Henry|8.14.09 @ 9:36PM|#
Dear John,
Statements like yours are where libertarians go off the rails
and get accused of having no values beyond selfishness. I don't
think freedom and capitalism has to mean that we never as a
collective society do anything to help anyone in need.
So when one is free one can be forced to pay for the needs of other
people? And capitalism, based upon the mutual voluntary trade,
consists in part of forced non-voluntary seizure and redistribution
of property?
"Why don't you just start looking into fluoridation as a plot of
the welfare state? You are not that far away."
Fluoridation is a plot of the flip-side of the welfare state, that
is to say, the warfare state. WWII ended in 1945 and by 1947 our
nation was giving poisonous waste materials left over from war
production to infants.
But of course, we can trust the government, because they are here
to help us.
Regards,
Patriot Henry
Patriot Henry|8.14.09 @ 9:44PM|#
Dear MNG,
"A much better way would be to take property from some people
and use that property to induce the doctor to tend to the person.
But it's all going to be enslavement to you I
imagine..."
Why is it better to steal from some people rather than have many
people give according to their ability and inclination to pay? And
regardless of a persons views, forcing one to labor or pay a
portion of ones labor is slavery. You can call it taxation, but it
is what it is - stealing the time and work of another person AKA
slavery.
"But of course a man may make another person "his slave" if the
contrary course would cause a person to die or suffer serious harm.
There are worse things morally than slavery for goodness
sake!"
I don't earn much but pay thousands of dollars in taxes. How about
giving me a few grand so I can buy some steaks and get a dental
appointment etc? Are you going to follow your alleged morals, or do
I have to get a tax collector backed by a SWAT team to get you to
pay up on your moral obligations?
"Like I said, if a person steals an apple from a stand and a cop
pulls his club and says "put that apple back or else" and he does I
guess you could say we all just supported an act of "enslavement",
but I'm betting you are not only cool with that, you would
cheer..."
The apple wasn't earned. Slavery is the theft of earnings.
Regards,
Patriot Henry
Patriot Henry|8.14.09 @ 10:25PM|#
Dear John,
"Because civil society, while it does a lot, doesn't do everything.
There is nothing unreasonable about the idea that government can
tax and take that money to fill in the gaps of civil society and
make things a bit less brutal. I am sorry I don't find anything
wrong or unreasonable with that idea in principle. I certainly find
a lot unreasonable about its execution."
One can not prevent brutality by brutal acts. What is the principle
of taxation in a "democratic"/republican system such as ours? Group
A the voters picks Group B the politicians who decide how and how
much of Group C the taxpayers property to take and then how and how
much of this property to give to Group D the welfare/warfare state
recipients. What is the principle behind this complex system that
you support?
"It might be that I am naive. That no matter how well
intentioned, government invariably goes berserk and if you try and
do anything you end up with a Byzantine welfare state like we have
today. I am willing to admit that possibility."
You are being naive. No offense intended - but that's the word that
fits.
As Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely" - and as Mao said "Power comes from the barrel of a
gun". This political power is the power to use guns, and the threat
of their use, and cages, and the threat of their use. As soon as
anyone is given this magic power of being able to use force and the
threat of force, either directly or indirectly, then they become
corrupt.
So not only are you naive - you are corrupt. Again, no offense
intended, but that's the word that fits.
Your willingness to admit the possibility that you have erred
demonstrates that you might not be irrevocably doomed. You can save
yourself yet if you so choose. Or you can maintain your beliefs and
overtime you'll demand more and more of other people's property for
yourself.
"But I am not willing to rant and rave a bunch of nonsense that
any taxing of me to help anyone else is immoral
slavery."
I go hungry so others may eat. I go without medical care so others
may receive medical care.
If that's not immoral slavery, what is?
How about the Chinese peasants and Russian poor who pay taxes their
government loans us to pay for our Medicaid, Medicare, and Social
Security? If it's not immoral slavery to rob and impoverish poor
Americans, then surely there is nothing immoral or slavish about
robbing and impoverishing the poor of other nations to feed,
clothe, and medicate Americans, right?
Regards,
Patriot Henry
|8.15.09 @ 10:52PM|#
PEOPLE! This left/right fight has made both sides incoherent. Nevermind Mackey...I challenge you guys on the left and right...and tell me why the Whole Foods plan is not the best bet yet. From a liberal point of view and a conservative view everyone wins. 1)the individual pays no premiums 2)The individual gets money to cover most of the deductable 3)Individual is incent-ed to shop around and make wise decisions on their health 4)Insurance companies dont get to control the patients choices as much. 5)In addition the employee gets the extra to keep if they have any of the money left over. How is this not the best plan, possible? If Obama proposed this and the right opposed it....Then I would feel exactly the same way. How about the rest of you guys on the right?
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