My Health Care Rant

I always find these arguments laughable. It's like a rabbit having to chose between eating dinner with the wolf or the lion. Whether health-care is owned by government or privatized, they are both susceptible and inevitably compromised by corruption and abuses from both ends- the owners and/or the patrons. Monarchy vs Democracy, Socialism vs Capitalism, Government vs Private, eventually all systems fail. The only thing you can do is keep updating the system as the times dictate.

Today, I believe the scales are tipped too far on the side of money. Those who have it have everything. Perhaps that always how it's been as far as history is concerned. Nothing new under the sun. Same old cycle of abuse, grievance, and revolution.

Go read my blog, titled:
' American Medicine: UnHealthy at ANY Cost. '

Quite verbose and diverse posts. Leave it to Jonathan to get the perennial flames of polemics blazing anew.

I have read that the European and Canadian systems suffer from exhausting queues in spite of the availability of free health care. It seems safe to agree there is much, much more to be developed until we get things right even in the smallest of arenas.

To a European it is indeed surprising that the wealthy USA does not have a national health care system covering all citizens. In one post the British National Health Service was mentioned although this is nowadays not a model for the US to copy. Yes everyone, even a visitor, gets access to free emergency health care but the British resident suffering from a serious ailment which is not seen to be life threatening very often has to wait months in a series of queues for attention. The NHS is over burdened by bureaucracy and worker's rights and it is not a system for the USA to copy. Most of the wealthier citizens all of whom are covered in theory by the free NHS pay additional premiums to a health insurance company to avoid having to queue in noisy crowded and unpleasant state hospitals. The French system seems to work much better but it is also more expensive to operate.

There is always a cap on how much money can be raised by taxation whilst leaving enough in the kitty for the national economy to grow. The choice to be made is where to spend the money raised by taxation and in Britain for sure it is the politicians who make the choices and not the tax payer. Under a two party system the choice comes to be: 'this way or that way' and if you the voter do not happen to agree with either choice then what can you do as a citizen voter? For sure many of we Brits would like to know.

Firstly I'm not an Objectivist. I refuse to be drawn into a point by point argument with you. However I will point out the major flaws in your comment. Socialism has always failed. Be it the anarcho-socialist communes of the hippies, or the huge Marxism-Leninism USSR.

Do you really think there were no fire companies or roads before the 16th amendment was ratified on February 3, 1913? Even today we still have poll roads.

Like Cogito said USA isn't a democracy nor is it socialist. The best description is corporatist. All the "fat-cat" scare tactics you site are only because this goverenmnt is set up that way. In a truly free market this "unfair corporation" BS wouldn't be possible if they didn't buy "our representatives" and use their influence through regulatory laws to stiffle any possible competition. Have you ever researched viking-age Iceland? You should. Anarco-capitalism has worked before and will again. I'm getting so pissed I'm not even going to edit this.

"Does evil even exist?"

I personally believe that it does.

Every person that I've ever met who's made the claim that it doesn't exist always goes right back on that statement the instant something bad or, 'evil' happens to them in this thing we call 'real life.'

Anarchy inevitably boils down to, "The bullies rule." It isn't a solution. It is the core problem.

Socialism sounds good in theory, and even appears to work for a while on a small scale. However, it fails to motivate progress. Socialist societies inevitably stagnate and decay.

Capitalism has its flaws. Those who gain power, by whatever means, do not readily relinquish it. Capitalism gives everyone a level playing field to begin with, but eventually a power bloc develops that can not be broken. However, as long as competition remains active, the economy thrives, and everyone benefits under it. Not equally, though.

What we currently have in America is not pure capitalism. There is a layer of Socialism as well, to prevent the least advantaged from being completely ground underfoot. The balance between Socialism and Capitalism shifts dynamically, and Democracy is one of the driving forces maintaining that balance. Too much Socialism, and the average standard of living begins to slide. Too much capitalism, and too large a portion of the population falls into the have-nots, but still has a vote.

There is no perfect system. This one works best of any thus far.

I think each of you need to give a defintion of democracy, because it seems you mean different things while using the same word.

I won't address this directly but I would like you to think about the root of my dissent for this and all tax funded projects from some of my past blog posts:


Here is an example. Mr. Jones down the street wins the lottery, but is a chintzy miser and the other 11 people on the block hate him for it. So they decide to use democracy to settle the issue. They will be fair and even let Mr. Jones vote on what they have in mind. The first issue they have is that Mr. Jones won’t share his private water park with them. Well they all vote, and lo and behold it’s 11 for and 1 against publicizing. The second issue is that he has all this money, but even on that block some families are having problems paying the rent. A vote is put forth and once again it’s 11 for and 1 against levying a twenty percent tax on Mr. Jones.

This, you say, is ridiculous. We have property rights. This country was founded on the principle that people could be secure in their possessions. Socialism has always failed because if people can’t keep what they produce they stop producing. Changing the numbers doesn’t change the facts, it could be the twelve people who live on that block or the 900 who live in your town, or the 1,000,000 who live in your state, but it’s still theft. Democracy is actually counterproductive to freedom.



Here it is: TAXATION IS THEFT

This isn’t an original thought to me. I believe Spooner was the first to publish this thought, but I could be wrong. A friend of mine who just joined the ranks of us Shruggers a la Atlas Shrugged just said it last week.

“How many men?” Is the strongest argument I’ve heard to support this. It goes something like this: A man stealing a car, is theft and as such most people would regard it as unethical. So a gang of five men steal the same car isn’t this also theft? How about ten men who take a vote (allowing the victim to vote as well) on whether to steal the car before stealing it? A gang of twenty men who not only take votes but have specialization of labor? One hundred men who take the car and give the victim back a bicycle? Two hundred men who not only give the victim back a bicycle but buy a poor person a bicycle as well? How about every one in your county votes to steal all cars worth more than $30,000 sell them and use the proceeds to give “free” health care to all people who make less than $12,000/year? How big does a group needs to be, and what characteristics does it need to have, before the immorality of theft becomes the alleged morality of taxation?

I see what you're saying Cog and basically, I agree with you.

I can't comment much on the health care bill. I have neither the time nor the energy to sift through its 1000+ pages, so I'm not at all qualified to speak on that.

My main issue is with the current political parties and how each side demonizes the other. They all lie, they all scheme, they all sabotage one another; it is just a matter of whether they wear red or blue.

The ones saying they want our leaders to fail are idiots like Rumbaugh and Beck. And yes, they have their single-digit-IQ followers.

I'm talking about Congress and the Presidency specifically. Instead of creating bills that cover the points everyone agrees on, like prohibiting insurance companies from refusing coverage due to pre-existing conditions, they push through a lump of crud huge enough to hide a ton of pork and everyone's sweetheart agendas.

Now I know the Republicans in Congress aren't above the same kind of shenanigans. Let either party have too much control, and you get this kind of runaway government.

The bottom line is that this particular health reform bill is a heap of crap with a few shiny things sticking out, and is being sold to the public as the Hope Diamond.