If your sense of right and wrong are based only on your personal well-being instead of the well-being of all people, then we're working from fundamentally different assumptions, just as much as if you were some environmentalist whose sense of right and wrong is based on the preservation of the way things are absent human involvement.
"Free market" implies the absence of regulation. Clearly, a regulated market can resolve at least some of these problems--for instance, the licensing and personal liability of doctors for their professional decisions, if done properly, can compensate for the lack of information on the part of consumers. Elasticity of demand in medicine is probably comparable to food--everybody needs to eat a certain about of food in order to avoid dying, and yet a regulated market is workable for food. That leaves elasticity of supply--which we would have more of, if medical schools were permitted to train more doctors. The supply of doctors and nurses is kept artificially low by restrictions in medical school enrollment. So I guess we're left between two alternatives--nationalize the entire health care system, or properly regulate the market instead of mis-regulating the market in order to make money for people who have political clout. I'm clearly in favor of fixing the regulations, because it's not at all clear to me that nationalizing the whole system is necessary or efficient.
I'm perfectly willing to agree that the necessities of life should be made available to everyone regardless of their ability to afford it. I'm not sure what to make about your bizarre handwaving about food and shelter, but they definitely fall within the category of "necessities of life", moreso than medical care. (The ancients had food and shelter--they didn't have open-heart surgery.) Food is bought and sold on an open market, and in places where this falls short, there are ways of helping people get what they need without engineering a centralized takeover of the entire system by a government bureaucracy. The same can be done for medicine. Even if medical care is provided for profit, no one need be denied medical care for inability to afford it--if you can't afford medical care but need it anyway, you have the same basic problem as the person who can't afford groceries without food stamps, and what you need is the same basic solution.
And if you were poor and couldn't afford one, the government could supply a full HSA for you, complete with sufficient funds for an annual checkup and flu shot, the occasional strep test, and some left over for incidentals. What? You're telling me this is the exact way poor people buy groceries if they can't afford them on their own? I had no idea similar problems had similar solutions!
If we had nationalized medicine, we still wouldn't have "the equivalent quality of oversight" by your standards. The government inspectors for food, construction, and product testing are, at best, trained and licensed professionals. If you're talking about that kind of "oversight", that's the exact same thing we accomplish by licensing doctors and having legal recourse for malpractice. Also, I've seen no indication that the incidence of malpractice is a serious concern (unlike the efficiency and availability of medical care). Still, it's not like every single orange and grape is looked over by the government inspector from picking to processing to sale--similarly, review of prescriptions and surgeries can easily be done efficiently, with information (and possibly video) recorded for later review.
Great, you can afford it. However if you were in a low paying job, where there is little chance you would get the same kind of insurance plan (or even being insured at all), then what?
That's like asking, "what if they don't pay you enough to afford groceries or rent?". You'll find that there are probably similar answers to all these questions, and they usually involve some part of society (these days, the government) extending a helping hand to the impoverished for the necessities of life. It doesn't involve having the government nationalize the farms, for instance.
Whats the difference between health and other things the government subsidizes like safety? After all aren't they the same inherently? How can you put a price on health, honestly?
"Safety" isn't an industry--although I'm sure companies that make motorcycle helmets do so profitably. Asking "how can you put a price on health" is like asking "how can you put a price on food" or "how can you put a price on rent"--just because you need something to survive doesn't mean it can't be provided in a market.
You think your physician will become poor simply because the government pays his salary?
I think there's nothing wrong with my physician working for himself, or in partnership with other physicians, to make a profit from providing their services--so long as there are ways of helping the poor afford those services.
Come back when you experience this shit first hand.
How could I possibly experience the type of health care system I'm describing when it doesn't even exist? I'm sure you've had a bad time with a health care system that's been set up specifically to make money for insurance and drug companies--I'm just saying it would be a bad idea to, for instance, start throwing doctors in jail if I paid them $50 to examine my sore throat.
This is exactly the problem insurance is supposed to solve, at which point it turns into how much you can reliably get from the insurance company. This is before we abandoned the entire concept of insurance and replaced it with some sort of witchcraft through which you're supposed to pay some company less than the value of the health care they're buying for you, and yet they still make a profit somehow. (Strangely enough, this witchcraft manages to work out only for the "insurance" company!)
Since I happen to have insurance and that's the way things are done, I have nothing to lose by not paying that way. But if I had to pay out of pocket, I could afford it. My total expenses would probably be less in a world where insurance wasn't expected to pay for everything--and that world is totally compatible with (for instance) my prescribing physician making a living without getting subsidized by the government, or the manufacturers of my thyroid supplement profitably selling it through pharmacies to me.
I'm a person. My sense of right and wrong is based (simply put) on the wellbeing of people--not on the preservation of "natural" systems for their own sake. I place "natural" in quotes because human beings, and everything human beings do and build, are a part of nature--indeed, human beings are the only part of nature that is even capable of making determinations of right and wrong. If we should let "nature" exist, unperturbed by human hands, then by that reasoning it's our duty to extinct the entire human race.
Not allowing scientists or (careful) observers to even visit or observe the Galapagos is stupid and wasteful. Of course it should be preserved from damage, but if we kill people for coming within one mile of them by boat, then they might as well not even be there.
That bird that "merely views [the Galapagos Islands] as a place to land, eat,shit and fuck" is part of the natural ecosystem of this islands. In its small way, it's a vital part of the food chain and the environment of that area...
Aren't you glad that we know all about this? Guess what--we wouldn't if this stupid "ban all humans, even scientists and ecologically careful visitors, from the Galapagos" policy was in place. I think many places should be preserved in a natural state--but only because our appreciation of them outweighs any other use we, as humans, would have for them. The ecosystem is an amazing system, but only because we're here to be amazed by it. Without a human observer, beauty doesn't exist, just eating, shitting, and fucking.
Having two touchpad buttons is a usability nightmare compared to chording with the control key (which is right next to the damn touchpad anyway) or the two-fingers-on-touchpad-plus-click gesture. Seriously, you really don't want to have to remember where the cutoff is, or accidentally trigger the wrong button that often.
That company no longer exists. That's like saying if Delta Airlines merged with American Airlines and bought the naming rights to rename the company Pan-American Airlines, you wouldn't fly on it because Pan-Am treated you badly in the 70's.
But the growth rate is only a concern if we're near carrying capacity, or are in danger of reaching it soon. Are we? I've heard hysterical shouting to that effect, but seen little hard evidence. Or are we just superstitious enough to get frightened by large numbers?
Health care should NEVER be a for-profit enterprise.
Why the fuck not? Food and housing are for-profit enterprises--they're just better managed. If you're poor, the government will even help you pay for them. You get a nifty debit card and you get to buy all the groceries you need. Public housing doesn't work quite that well, though...
Anyone who says different needs his insurance revoked right before he's kicked down a flight of stairs.
It should be a pretty fucking long flight of stairs before the lack of insurance makes a difference. Here's an idea, dumbasses: insurance is supposed to cover rare, catastrophic emergencies. I don't buy homeowner's insurance so some bureaucracy can pay for a plumber every time my pipes back up--I buy it in case my house burns down. I don't buy auto insurance so some bureaucracy can pay for my oil changes--I buy it in case I get rear-ended. The expense of "medical billing" comes from bad laws intended to benefit insurance companies. I would be far happier to just write you a check for setting a broken arm after falling down those stairs, thank you very much.
The reactions they cause would be hilarious were it not for the fact that these were the guys running the nation--example, during the 2000 elections when MM got Alan Keyes to mosh in a pit with his friends from Rage Against the Machine
Wouldn't it have been more direct to say, "Ignore the rest of this comment"? I highly doubt there is anything "they say on 4chan" that is worth the attention of anyone over the mental age of 13.
You're a bit confused there. The islands only have scientific and historical value to us--the reason for preserving them is to meet human needs, not to save some dumb little lizard for its own sake.
The "go to an AT&T store" was just a buzz-building maneuver. The entire quote, in context, was something like (I'm paraphrasing), "If you want to get an iPhone, you should go to an AT&T store. A lot of people are going to go to the Apple stores because they don't realize they're also for sale at AT&T stores, so if you go to an AT&T store, you'll have a better chance of getting one." That's just an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy (for vast lines at Apple)--and evidently, it worked. There were also vast lines at some AT&T stores, of course--Steve made the remark hoping to equally overflow BOTH outlets.
Apple's reputation is also more compatible with the "line up, stay overnight in line, and be on the news when the store opens" hoopla than AT&T's reputation is. By the way, the AT&T stores in Spokane, WA were indeed selling actual iPhones, although the AT&T kiosk in Moscow, ID was selling the vouchers.
Maybe a bad onscreen keyboard, but I think second for second you'd be faster typing on an auto-correcting keyboard than you would be handwriting, to say nothing of the handwriting recognition errors that you'd have to correct. Even one-fingered typing on iPhone's keyboard was way faster for me than handwriting ever is.
Slashdot Mirror
If your sense of right and wrong are based only on your personal well-being instead of the well-being of all people, then we're working from fundamentally different assumptions, just as much as if you were some environmentalist whose sense of right and wrong is based on the preservation of the way things are absent human involvement.
"Free market" implies the absence of regulation. Clearly, a regulated market can resolve at least some of these problems--for instance, the licensing and personal liability of doctors for their professional decisions, if done properly, can compensate for the lack of information on the part of consumers. Elasticity of demand in medicine is probably comparable to food--everybody needs to eat a certain about of food in order to avoid dying, and yet a regulated market is workable for food. That leaves elasticity of supply--which we would have more of, if medical schools were permitted to train more doctors. The supply of doctors and nurses is kept artificially low by restrictions in medical school enrollment. So I guess we're left between two alternatives--nationalize the entire health care system, or properly regulate the market instead of mis-regulating the market in order to make money for people who have political clout. I'm clearly in favor of fixing the regulations, because it's not at all clear to me that nationalizing the whole system is necessary or efficient.
I'm perfectly willing to agree that the necessities of life should be made available to everyone regardless of their ability to afford it. I'm not sure what to make about your bizarre handwaving about food and shelter, but they definitely fall within the category of "necessities of life", moreso than medical care. (The ancients had food and shelter--they didn't have open-heart surgery.) Food is bought and sold on an open market, and in places where this falls short, there are ways of helping people get what they need without engineering a centralized takeover of the entire system by a government bureaucracy. The same can be done for medicine. Even if medical care is provided for profit, no one need be denied medical care for inability to afford it--if you can't afford medical care but need it anyway, you have the same basic problem as the person who can't afford groceries without food stamps, and what you need is the same basic solution.
And if you were poor and couldn't afford one, the government could supply a full HSA for you, complete with sufficient funds for an annual checkup and flu shot, the occasional strep test, and some left over for incidentals. What? You're telling me this is the exact way poor people buy groceries if they can't afford them on their own? I had no idea similar problems had similar solutions!
If we had nationalized medicine, we still wouldn't have "the equivalent quality of oversight" by your standards. The government inspectors for food, construction, and product testing are, at best, trained and licensed professionals. If you're talking about that kind of "oversight", that's the exact same thing we accomplish by licensing doctors and having legal recourse for malpractice. Also, I've seen no indication that the incidence of malpractice is a serious concern (unlike the efficiency and availability of medical care). Still, it's not like every single orange and grape is looked over by the government inspector from picking to processing to sale--similarly, review of prescriptions and surgeries can easily be done efficiently, with information (and possibly video) recorded for later review.
That's like asking, "what if they don't pay you enough to afford groceries or rent?". You'll find that there are probably similar answers to all these questions, and they usually involve some part of society (these days, the government) extending a helping hand to the impoverished for the necessities of life. It doesn't involve having the government nationalize the farms, for instance.
"Safety" isn't an industry--although I'm sure companies that make motorcycle helmets do so profitably. Asking "how can you put a price on health" is like asking "how can you put a price on food" or "how can you put a price on rent"--just because you need something to survive doesn't mean it can't be provided in a market.
I think there's nothing wrong with my physician working for himself, or in partnership with other physicians, to make a profit from providing their services--so long as there are ways of helping the poor afford those services.
How could I possibly experience the type of health care system I'm describing when it doesn't even exist? I'm sure you've had a bad time with a health care system that's been set up specifically to make money for insurance and drug companies--I'm just saying it would be a bad idea to, for instance, start throwing doctors in jail if I paid them $50 to examine my sore throat.
This is exactly the problem insurance is supposed to solve, at which point it turns into how much you can reliably get from the insurance company. This is before we abandoned the entire concept of insurance and replaced it with some sort of witchcraft through which you're supposed to pay some company less than the value of the health care they're buying for you, and yet they still make a profit somehow. (Strangely enough, this witchcraft manages to work out only for the "insurance" company!)
Since I happen to have insurance and that's the way things are done, I have nothing to lose by not paying that way. But if I had to pay out of pocket, I could afford it. My total expenses would probably be less in a world where insurance wasn't expected to pay for everything--and that world is totally compatible with (for instance) my prescribing physician making a living without getting subsidized by the government, or the manufacturers of my thyroid supplement profitably selling it through pharmacies to me.
I'm a person. My sense of right and wrong is based (simply put) on the wellbeing of people--not on the preservation of "natural" systems for their own sake. I place "natural" in quotes because human beings, and everything human beings do and build, are a part of nature--indeed, human beings are the only part of nature that is even capable of making determinations of right and wrong. If we should let "nature" exist, unperturbed by human hands, then by that reasoning it's our duty to extinct the entire human race.
Not allowing scientists or (careful) observers to even visit or observe the Galapagos is stupid and wasteful. Of course it should be preserved from damage, but if we kill people for coming within one mile of them by boat, then they might as well not even be there.
Aren't you glad that we know all about this? Guess what--we wouldn't if this stupid "ban all humans, even scientists and ecologically careful visitors, from the Galapagos" policy was in place. I think many places should be preserved in a natural state--but only because our appreciation of them outweighs any other use we, as humans, would have for them. The ecosystem is an amazing system, but only because we're here to be amazed by it. Without a human observer, beauty doesn't exist, just eating, shitting, and fucking.
I have a chronic thyroid condition that requires daily medication, but thanks for your concern.
Having two touchpad buttons is a usability nightmare compared to chording with the control key (which is right next to the damn touchpad anyway) or the two-fingers-on-touchpad-plus-click gesture. Seriously, you really don't want to have to remember where the cutoff is, or accidentally trigger the wrong button that often.
That company no longer exists. That's like saying if Delta Airlines merged with American Airlines and bought the naming rights to rename the company Pan-American Airlines, you wouldn't fly on it because Pan-Am treated you badly in the 70's.
But the growth rate is only a concern if we're near carrying capacity, or are in danger of reaching it soon. Are we? I've heard hysterical shouting to that effect, but seen little hard evidence. Or are we just superstitious enough to get frightened by large numbers?
Why the fuck not? Food and housing are for-profit enterprises--they're just better managed. If you're poor, the government will even help you pay for them. You get a nifty debit card and you get to buy all the groceries you need. Public housing doesn't work quite that well, though...
It should be a pretty fucking long flight of stairs before the lack of insurance makes a difference. Here's an idea, dumbasses: insurance is supposed to cover rare, catastrophic emergencies. I don't buy homeowner's insurance so some bureaucracy can pay for a plumber every time my pipes back up--I buy it in case my house burns down. I don't buy auto insurance so some bureaucracy can pay for my oil changes--I buy it in case I get rear-ended. The expense of "medical billing" comes from bad laws intended to benefit insurance companies. I would be far happier to just write you a check for setting a broken arm after falling down those stairs, thank you very much.
Something tells me this was a bad example.
Wouldn't it have been more direct to say, "Ignore the rest of this comment"? I highly doubt there is anything "they say on 4chan" that is worth the attention of anyone over the mental age of 13.
You're a bit confused there. The islands only have scientific and historical value to us--the reason for preserving them is to meet human needs, not to save some dumb little lizard for its own sake.
What good are the Galapagos islands if no one can study or appreciate them? Perhaps you would like to generalize your solution to the entire earth?
It's only scary if you have accurate data about the carrying capacity of Earth, and if you're sure it's less than that. Or if you're fear-mongering.
The "go to an AT&T store" was just a buzz-building maneuver. The entire quote, in context, was something like (I'm paraphrasing), "If you want to get an iPhone, you should go to an AT&T store. A lot of people are going to go to the Apple stores because they don't realize they're also for sale at AT&T stores, so if you go to an AT&T store, you'll have a better chance of getting one." That's just an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy (for vast lines at Apple)--and evidently, it worked. There were also vast lines at some AT&T stores, of course--Steve made the remark hoping to equally overflow BOTH outlets.
Apple's reputation is also more compatible with the "line up, stay overnight in line, and be on the news when the store opens" hoopla than AT&T's reputation is. By the way, the AT&T stores in Spokane, WA were indeed selling actual iPhones, although the AT&T kiosk in Moscow, ID was selling the vouchers.
Me too. If they ever got popular, Hugo would just nationalize all the Apple Stores.
Maybe a bad onscreen keyboard, but I think second for second you'd be faster typing on an auto-correcting keyboard than you would be handwriting, to say nothing of the handwriting recognition errors that you'd have to correct. Even one-fingered typing on iPhone's keyboard was way faster for me than handwriting ever is.
Actually, we had that kind of war between 1861 and 1865. 33 years later we started a gratuitous war with Spain and stole all their colonies.
None of those UN resolutions, interestingly enough, actually authorized anyone to go to war.