Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
I don't mean to embarrass anyone, but I do mean to challenge everyone.
In the comments to a recent post, and y'all are supposed to be reading the comments anyway, it was said:
I have a couple of serious questions for anyone who agrees with this statement.
Do you understand what universal literacy has done for this country? Or what decent health care means to a person's quality of life?
Do you think universal literacy is a good thing? If no, I need to know why it is good for some fraction of the populace to be illiterate and innumerate--and I don't care how big that fraction is.
And do you think quality health care should be available to everyone? If no, I need to know why it is good for some fraction of the populace to be unhealthy--and I don't care how big that fraction is.
And if you say yes to either, I want it explained to me how…under existing circumstances, not some ideal stae of existance…these things can be attained without government involvement.
You see, I have a STRONG libertarian streak, it rund deep and broad. But Reason is my toolset and Reality is the substance I work in. I see the abuses, I see the corruption—but it's not the society that must be disrupted. The society as laid out is capable of delivering great good.
It is the corrupters that must go.
Understand that.
A capitalist republic is a structure that can properly represent the will of the majority and still respect the minority. If it isn't corrupted.
A socialist society is a structure that can properly represent the will of the majority and still respect the minority. If it isn't corrupted.
There are any number of structures that can properly represent the will of the majority and still respect the minority. If they aren't corrupted.
You don't unwind thousands of years of human cultural development, dammit. And you can't convince me that's what you want to do. No, you want to unwind enough to loosen the strictatures you personally feel. And you haven't thought through the repercussions if everyone in the nation dissolves the particular part of the universal compromise called society that they feel restricts them. Because if you did, you'd recoil in horror.
Posted by P6 at October 17, 2003 08:24 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2015I'll bite. :)
Healthcare & education are good things. We can all agree on that. & improvement in the quality of healthcare &/or education is a good thing, while a decline in the quality of either or both is undesirable.
However, government involvement is not necessarily a good thing in the long run. What it does is create a dependence on government, which to some degree or another government exploits.
As far as education goes, we have government imposed standards that, while in areas such as math, aren't detrimental, in areas such as history are devastating. They impose the view the govenrment wants the students to have onto the curriculum.
Healthcare isn't much different. The partial subsidation has caused problems, mainly inflated prices. Yep, when the government offers to pay part of the bill, prices go up. So does demand. If you're in a totally privatized situation you go to the doctor when you have to. In a subsidized situation you go to the doctor when you want to. Or more accurately when the next available appointment is open.
I invite you to look at England or Canada or any other country with socialized medicine. The quality of care is much less than the quality of care here. Not to mention the quantity of health care is less over here because of less demand. I've heard some nightmare stories about Canadians & Englishmen waiting 6 months for an appointment.
Now if government got out of healthcare & education right here, right now, things would be chaotic for the first few years. But not as bad as you'd suppose. In the long run though, medical & education costs would go down. & the quality would remain at the same level or go up. I'm thinking the quality of education especially so. Look around you now - a private school with no federal & little state oversight usually has a better educational program for its students than a state run, federally funded & standardized school.
As for the worries about the poor & underprivileged in our society, they are always going to be an area of concern as long as currency is used for the majority of transactions. But private institutions would spring up to provide assistance to those who need it. They wouldn't be as encompassing or generous as the federal government is now, but they'd be enough to ensure that at least a basic level of education was available to the poor. & trust me, if people contribute money to a girl with a website who asked for donations to get out of credit card debt, people will contribute to a private charity to provide for education.
But there are other areas that must be addressed simultaneously in order to see a ral benefit, otherwise it's like privatizing the power companies in California but still setting a maximum price they can charge.
The medical malpractice insurance rates are way too high in some areas, owing to frequent & sometimes frivilous litigation & extravagant awards to plantiffs. Teachers' unions are problematic when trying to get rid of a teacher who doesn't do a good job. Medicines such as penicilin that should be available to the public are strictly regulated. I could go on but it wouldn't be enough to simply get the government out of direct involvement with medicine & education, it'd take removing them from the peripheral issues that affect medicine & education as well. & it would further help if we got rid of that damn protection racket called the federal income tax.
See, while you are correct that any form of govenrment could work if it remained unci=orrupted, the problem is keeping it uncorrupted. Ours is corrupt as hell, but it was designed to be functional despite human nature. Socialism looks great on paper, but it doesn't take into account human nature (at least the models that have been tried) & so it never works out well for long.
Privatization of damn near everything will work & it'll work better than a government run operation. There are a few exceptions (city water for example) but medicine & education aren't exceptions.
Oh, here's a novel idea - education is & always will be a parental responsibility. If a kid makes it into college on an athletic scholarship but can't make it through the front page of a paper, I don't blame the schools. I blame the parents who willing neglected their obligation to see to their kids education. So the fear of a non-government school system creating high illiteracy rates is only valid if we are speaking solely of orphans.
I just don't see government as the best & only solution to problems. In fact I see it as contributing to the problems even when it attempts to help.
I had a lengthly debate on my own blog with a libertarian about universal health care in which we discussed many of these issues. Ultimately, he agreed that private entities could not provide truly universal health care, they can only provide it to those who are willing to pay. That is not "universal health care" according to my definition.
Al-Muhajabah,
It is not "universal Health Care". That term is a misnomer & while sounding cool, promises something it is incapable of delivering. "Free Health Care" is another one, since the health care is paid for, just not at the doctors' office. What we are discussing is the socialization of medicine. That is simply what it is. The treatment is paid for by taxes taken from the general public. It's no different than a robber who mugs people in order to pay for his grandmother's surgery, except it's done en masse & with more force backing it up than most robbers can muster.
Was it also brought up that not everyone receives health care in a socialized system?
Government cannot provide universal health care, as there is always a shortage of doctors & an abundance of patients. A government would have to literally conscript doctors to treat everyone & the quality of that care would be unacceptably low.
Again, look at Canadian & English examples, or any other country you choose. A significant number of people do not receive government health care in socialized countries simply because of the lack of availability of health care. Hell, a guy was jailed in France for practicing dentistry illegal not too long ago. He had a booming business because the wait to see a licensed dentist was so long.
That should not fit your definition of "universal health care" either.
I understand & admire your compassion. But it simply is not possible through government or private institutions, to treat everyone. It is possible to give the vast majority of people access to adequate health care, & it's possible to give a slight majority adequte to slightly below adequate health care. But until human nature & physiology changes, it is impossible for all to have access to quality health care.
A free market, or privatized solution offers the best quality of care for the greatest number of people possible. It may not seem like it but that is the compassionate choice.
Yeah, I heard all this before. There is a specific cost to providing health coverage, and that cost is not zero. As long as that is the case, there are some people who are not going to be able to afford it and will not be covered if they have to pay for it. The only way to provide it to them is if their costs are paid for by somebody else, namely the wealthy, who can afford to pay more than the cost to them. The government can accomplish that through taxation but no private company could get away with charging people proportional to their incomes. The people who would be asked to pay more would not stand for it and would have to be coerced to do so. People accept that the government can coerce them, they accept that as the price of living in an organized community with others. They would not accept it from a private entity.
The idea that private companies can provide basic services to everybody is a fantasy. Any Econ 101 textbook will explain that much better than I have. If we want to provide a service for everyone, it must be delivered by the government. People who don't want the government to be involved either don't really want poor people to have those basic services or they are deluding themselves.