I disagree with Hightower.

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Friday, June 11, 2010

National Health Care 1

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I have reluctantly come to support it. By NHC I mean some variation of a single payer plan with the federal government picking up the bill. A simple description of that is: Medicare for all.
The principle motivator for me was that technology has presented or is presenting us with a major problem with respect to the viability of health insurance itself. We are becoming more and more able to predict which diseases that someone is likely to get. What do we do with that information? Privacy concerns will prevent individuals from being required to reveal that information. Therefore, in the face of that deficit of information, the insurance company would have to charge a rate based on the worst case scenario. That will make insurance even more expensive than it already is.
Of course, this would require an increase in taxation. If the choice is between doing it and not paying for it or not doing it, then I choose not doing it.
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6 comments:

  1. The single payor would have to charge (Uncle Sam) based on worst case as well.

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  2. But if everyone is in the program, then there is no possibility of cherry picking.

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  3. Agreed on the cherry picking issue. Which means that non smokers pick up (some of) the tab for smoking related illnesses. i.e. there could be NO policies for non smokers. Fair/Unfair or simply acceptable to get to universal coverage?

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  4. Perhaps this deserves a post of its own but my short answer is: smokers die earlier than nonsmokers. They may have more illnesses per year than nonsmokers but they've got fewer years so ... . The real kicker is that if they die earlier then SS comes out ahead on them!! Perhaps it would help the governments balance of payments if it encouraged smoking, skydiving, bungi jumping etc.

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  5. There is a central point that is generally ignored by those who favor National Heath Care. Here, a maxim from the philosophy of Libertarianism is needed.

    There can never be a right to health care. Any so-called right whose implementation is dependent on the seizure of money or property from one man to another can never be right. It is nothing less that inflicting slavery and tyranny upon one man from another.

    To put it simply, if you come to my house carrying near lifeless, sick child in your arms, I will do my best to give what I can and seek to raise the rest from the voluntary charity of others.

    But if you come with the determination to take by force, if necessary, what is needed to save that child, you are no better than a common thief and robber and should be treated accordingly.

    Despite the slow poison of government interference, (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid), what is left of the free market in medicine in this country has produced the highest quality medical care in all human memory.

    Problems of access can only be solved by the slow elimination of all price distortions of government granted health care and a return to the original principles of the free market.

    If you scoff at what you might say as simplistic solutions, go to the Cato Institute. There you will find detail plans, showing what a true free market in medical care would look like.

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    Replies
    1. I think that the reason no one answered this was because no one had ever argued here that HI should be a right.

      The arguments about people coming with guns applies to anything the government does.

      Who is John Galt?

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