TakeYouToTasker

Every man is not motivated by profit, but every man is motivated by self interest. People tend to do what makes them feel good when they can. Charitable works are not done to help those in need, charitable works are done because it makes the giver/doer feel good about helping those in need. The hard truth is, however, that nothing else would even begin to be possible without the man motivated by profit.

I thought it was bicycles, but yes.

Every motivation is in self interest. We do things because they make us feel either good or bad. That's it. The worker is entitled to no such thing. The innovation does not exist without the capitalist. The job doesn't exist without the capitalist. The production does not exist without the capitalist. 100% of the risk is taken on by the capitalist. The capitalist is the reason the laborer has a job rather than being a subsistence farmer. The laborer has sold his own labor to the capitalist for an agreed upon wage, and that's all he's entitled to.

I propose doing things that would put the pressure of markets into the realm of health care, and would encourage the expansion of care providers. - At birth, every US citizen, along with the SSN, would receive an HSA. Contributions to this HSA would be 100% tax deductible to any person, business, or other entity that would contribute to it, with no limits. The dollars in this HSA would roll over annually, and could be spent only on medical care. These accounts would be subject to a 100% estate tax at the time of death, with the dollars being shifted into a trust account, which unlike SS and Medicare, could not be comingled with the general fund, or borrowed against in any capacity. This trust would pay it's proceeds directly into the accounts of living citizens. Individual states and employers would also have the flexibility to contribute dollars into the accounts of their citizens and employees as they saw appropriate. - Using the Interstate Commerce Clause for it's proper purpose, to strip away each individual state's right to restrict it's own insurance markets, and allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines, forcing insurers to compete for business. - Mandate that doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, provide 100% price transparency allowing consumers to shop for their health care the same way they shop for anything else, putting actual market forces on the medical industry to drive down prices. - Implement tort reform, lowering the costs of malpractice insurance. - Implement patent reform, shortening the duration of product monopoly, driving down the price of drugs and their delivery systems. - A national pool for catastrophic care.

... No, no they were not. You don't know what a free market is. Medicine is the most heavily regulated industry in the world.

You seem to be under the impression that doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing, even if the thing you are proposing will make things much worse. You seem to be under the impression that everyone (anyone?) here thinks the current system is quality, and doesn't need drastic reforms. You seem to be under the impression the businesses will increase or maintain production levels while you seek a system with incentivizes the opposite. All of those impressions are retarded, and are exactly why young people should spend more time learning than proclaiming their ignorance from mountain tops.

No, it's that we understand that free markets drive down prices (healthcare in the US is not a free market), and that price fixing always works against the interests of the consumer.

This is the pinnacle of naivete. You propose to suck profits from an industry, while at the same time expecting supply to not be interrupted? This is absurd, and once again shows you to be less than a novice in both business and the most basic economics. Not only will supply be interrupted domestically, but also globally, as the US bears the costs of supplying the world. It will increase wait times upwards of 1000% in many cases, if we implement anything similar to the UK or Canada. Supply will drop drastically, as reimbursement rates make operating a medical practice untenable current doctors will close their doors; and the best and the brightest will no longer enter medicine, and will take their talents to industries where they can still be rewarded for their hard work and intellect, so there will be no replenishment. So not only will supply dry up, but what remains will be a lower quality, resulting in worse care.

... Apparently I need to go slower for you. That's fine. The law of supply and demand applies to everything. Government commandeering the system does not somehow magically repeal it. There will always be some supply (there's that word) of doctors, R&D, overhead, etc. When you artificially restrict what can be earned for their goods and services, disincentivising the practice of medicine and it's supporting industries, the supply (golly gosh) of providers will decrease. Coupling this with "free" care will increase demand (seeing a pattern here?) for care. But low and behold... where are the doctors? There is no supply to meet the increasing demand. Hence shortages. Hence decreased access. We are already pushing the limits of supply to meet current demand. It is incredibly difficult to find doctors taking on new patients as it is, and that's new patients with quality insurance; massive percentages of doctors won't accept new patients with Medicaid/Medicare because their reimbursement rates don't actually cover the costs of care. Making matters worse, doctors are spending more and more time as businessmen, trying to expand their practices to increase volume to make up for diminishing reimbursements, and spending far less time with patients as a result. This is a tire fire at the moment, and everything you have advocated is a can of gasoline. The point, once again, is that these people are poor because they make bad decisions regardless of the fact that they live in the worlds largest economy. They are uneducated because they make bad decisions regardless of the fact that they live in a country with spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. They won't take care of themselves, or use preventative care because they make bad decisions.

Again, you have zero understanding of supply and demand. You are at the same time espousing a desire to reduce health care providers, and disincentivize entry into the field via reduced compensation and fewer choices for doctors which will ultimately lead to lowering of standards for becoming a doctor (IE worse doctors), while somehow believing this will lead to better access. It doesn't matter if a person can afford to go to the doctor when there are no doctors to go to. Not having enough health care providers is an absolute restriction on access. /facepalm You're making my argument now. The poorest and least educated are the poorest and least educated because they make poor decisions. The poor are still poor even though they live in the worlds largest economy. They have access, but refuse to make the decisions to take best advantage. The least educated are the least educated even though they live in a country that spends the largest amount of dollars on education per capita in the world. They once again have unparalleled access, but refuse to make decisions to take best advantaged. But you've somehow divined from this cultural disaster that even though all evidence points to the poor and uneducated continuing to make poor decisions, that this will some how be different, because reasons. Educate yourself.

You are already beginning to. Libertarianism is on the rise in America, and that's before you begin to account for the massive upswell of an adherence to the philosophy among youth rejecting the social justice mantra.

No, the point is that you're making appeals to popularity and authority, which are logical fallacies; while at the same time failing to argue the merits of your case. So far you've tried to make the case that eliminating providers, and producing fewer and lower quality providers in the future, will lead to better access to care; which is evidence of nothing more than the fact that you have no understanding of supply and demand, cause and effect, and basic market forces. You've also demonstrated that you have no understanding of the reasons care is so expensive in this country: an obesity epidemic, out of control diabetes rates, degenerative heart conditions, etc. are conditions unique to America, and drive the majority of our health care costs. Couple that with the fact that the introduction of insurance did not lead people towards preventative care, but rather to an explosion in ER care, and you see that problems with the culture of poorer communities is the major issue.

Why should anyone care if you respect Charles Krauthammer, and that respect in proportion to how much you respect them? That might be the dumbest thing I've ever read entered into argument here. Seriously. And yes, that's exact what he said in the op-ed. Which doesn't present any data at all. And focuses on the political viability of a government run system rather than it's functionality. Which is exact what I said. Try again.

That's another op-ed which is complete bereft of actual data, and focuses on the political viability of a government run health care system, rather than it's functionality. So no, that's actually much worse. Stop introducing non-sequitur nonsense. No, it doesn't illustrate that at all. It illustrates that some people can't afford the expected Mercedes-Benz G-Class so they opt to purchase a Jeep Liberty instead because of the price transparency involved.

The article is an agenda driven op-ed that omits massive amounts of data to drive a conclusion with the intention skipping debate, and reinforcing a narrative to those already submitting to their confirmation biases. Medical tourism, as you use it here, is actually a case for free market reforms in medicine rather than a call for a state takeover. People do things like traveling for surgeries because of price transparency, and taking advantage of different markets. However, in doing so they also may incur greater risks. This bears out in the US as well with the advent of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, and the wild success it's having with it's free market model.

You'd rather receive healthcare in Brazil, China, and Iran than in the United States?

It's easy to call something a right, but far more difficult to prove it out. It's also important to call into question what happens to these nations when their health care systems collapse, which they are beginning to do in most of Europe. Will quality healthcare still be a right there when it isn't obtainable?

Now on to the structural part of your argument. You intend to increase access and quality by reducing resources? Explain how that works.

It is, because now you're at least arguing from an honest position with agreed upon terms. Health care is a luxury. Now that you're conceded that health care is a luxury, we can begin to tackle the access and affordability arguments.

Today's libertarianism, or classical liberalism, has been proven very successful.

Again, you aren't addressing the fundamental underlying inconsistencies in your position. You're entitled to any opinion you'd like to have, but that doesn't somehow infuse it with merit. If something is a right, it needs to be something available to you in a vacuum without the intercession of others. It needs to be something inherently part of your humanity, in it's natural state. How can something be a right if: a) there is a limited supply of it b) it requires the resources and labor of others If we "run out of care", because it is a finite resource, how can one claim a right to something that doesn't exist? If something requires the labor and resources of others in order to produce, what happens if (when) they decide to stop producing it?

It's not semantics. Saying something is a right implies something very specific; which is why you chose to call it a right. You'll have to resolve this internal logical inconsistency if you want your argument to have merit.

It's a question that you should be able to answer easily, because it's fundamental to your position. If you can't answer it, what does that say about your assertion?

You didn't answer my question. How can something be a right if: a) there is a limited supply of it b) it requires the resources and labor of others If we "run out of care", because it is a finite resource, how can one claim a right to something that doesn't exist? If something requires the labor and resources of others in order to produce, what happens if (when) they decide to stop producing it?

The better posters here do exactly that.