Re: David Cross on Health Care

> > And our *current* health care system is not one that I'd like
> > to defend.
>
> **sure.  But it is much more effective than the detractors will admit.

Effective?  Effective at what?  If you mean in the same sense that the
Pentagon is effective, then I agree.  ;-)

**nope, I meant effective in that most people do not want or need a change.  The 
system should have been modified to fix the problem of uninsured, not mess with 
the happily insured.



Reason
Magazine's editor-in-chief's stated that "ObamaCare opponents often
warn that a new system will lead to long waiting times, mountains of
paperwork, and less choice among doctors. Yet on all three of those
counts the French system is significantly better, not worse, than what
the U.S. has now." [1]


***and the VA, Military and Indian healthcare systems, not to mention medicare are 
all worse then we have now overall.    We are complaining about the established 
precedent of our own systems existing failures, not a comparison to someone 
elses..


Also, there are a few actuarial difficulties which distinguish health
care and insurance from property insurance; the math and ethics don't
work quite the same.  E.g. with house insurance, you can ethically say
"just don't live there" or "pay gargantuan premiums to live there"
(unless you live on the Florida coastline, where the politicians price
insurance without needing any actuary's approval).

**the disconnect is calling this health insurance and not allowing it to act like 
actual insurance.

Universal health care (for most values of "universal health care")
just won't work with any actuarial model in a purely free market with
short-sighted selfish participants.  It needs an enforced buy-in of
some sort (or market participants who are considerably more selfless
and charitable in aggregate than humans).


**Enforced?  How draconian.


  That could be taxation,

**could?   Really?  Would they really?  {/sarcasm}


 or
it could be a mandatory insurance requirement,


***it bears mentioning that with what they passed we get both.

or (to get back to
Paul's original post) it could be an enlightened self-interest
movement of Christians and other ethically-minded individuals to
voluntarily fill charitable health care funds (and keep them filled)
to previously unprecedented levels.

** no, that would no longer be universal health care.


> > as I'd like to move towards a stateless society, I'd prefer to remove
> > the state provided crutches first from those that don't need them, and
> > continue to provide them to those who aren't (yet?) being provided
> > them through stateless means.
>
> **I see all of that.  My problem is that I think we already do both, we provide
> more crutches than needed because we live in a victim centric society, and that
> combination concerns me.

Understandably so.

I personally know more people who qualify as legitimate victims and
don't get the health care they (arguably) should than fakers and
moochers.

**health care is only one aspect.  A huge amount f waste is done by people with no 
care wasting resources at emergency rooms getting non emergent care.  They often 
cannot be turned away.  Also, we insured likely waste a lot of money and drive up 
costs with some of our insistence at non essential convenience care.


 But I don't deny that the moochers exist and are a drain on
any system.

**I meant overall, with welfare, UE and other hand outs included.


But in this particular debate, anyone with a debilitating
chronic illness is technically a drain on the system.  Even for the
moochers, the money would at least be going towards creating societal
value (e.g. healthier individuals who might one day be productive,
funding research towards making non-mooching individuals healthier),
which is better than half of our military budget can justify.

***I just cannot share your altruism.



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