Quote: (10-22-2012 11:04 AM)speakeasy Wrote:
I think we seem to keep forgetting that all the advanced countries of the world(we being the only exception) have some form of public option in health care. This is just the norm of the developed world. Somehow they manage to thrive just fine.
The only reason it's taken so long here is because we are raised to believe in rugged individualism. In Europe even the far right is much more collectivist. America's brand of conservatism is unique in the world, it's an odd combination of exceptionalism, religiosity, individualism, hawkishness and economic libertarianism.
On the bold faced point, read these:
One woman's lonely death on the NHS's 'care pathway' to the grave: MPs demand action after another patient is chosen to die without doctors telling family
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...amily.html
NHS 'heading for disaster' over lack of nurses
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/health...urses.html
NHS rationing is putting health at risk, says doctors' leader
Mark Porter, the new British Medical Association's chair of council, says cuts and rationing of drugs may harm patients
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/a...ors-leader
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Nationalized health services have one characteristic in common -- CENTRAL PLANNING. Central planning -- in any kind of business (health care, transportation, making cars) -- will fail because of the information problem. Government bureaucrats simply do not know enough to manage the complex quartet of supply, demand, quality, and price.
The result? Rationing, pricing distortions, unfulfilled demand, and, inevitably off-grid or black market activities.
I had this discussion the other day with a friend of mine -- a dyed in the wool lib -- and he said, "Health care is a right."
Really? On what tablet delivered from what deity does it say that? Where does it end? Do I have right to heirloom tomatoes? A jet pack? Landscaping?
Private economic systems are ALWAYS better than public ones. Are there dislocations? You bet. Manage the outliers then, create social safety nets. But don't implement central planning solutions. They are inevitably worse disasters than the disasters they are intended to prevent.
Inevitably.