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QuarkJets posted:These are not the procedures that make medical care expensive. Do you understand that? You must not be arguing in good faith. How do you simply ignore the example of the Oklahoma Surgery Center and it's dramatic savings in comparison to hospitals that rely on third party payer systems? You have every disingenuous excuse to discount every example of free market success that I mention. We must compare apples to apples. If we look at Atlas MD and the services offered as a general practitioner and compare it to the cost of any other general family doctor in the United States, you will see that the cost savings are substantial. Let's suppose in one month you became quite ill and you had to see your doctor half a dozen times or something like that. You would have saved literally hundreds of dollars in comparison to another family doctor who relied on a third party payer system. We'd have to investigate just how much savings they are able to pass on to the patient in terms of prescription drugs and the like but that would only bolster the efficacy of the free market. Okay, I can concede that the REAL out-of-control medical costs don't happen to be in internal medicine family doctors, but that doesn't invalidate this point. Remember, comparing apples-to-apples. But back to the Oklahoma Surgery Center, you cannot honestly tell me that surgical procedures are not one of the most expensive treatments a person can receive. Have you looked through that website are perused their pricing for various procedures? The VAST majority of surgeries on offer are between $2000 and $8000. These prices are between five and ten times cheaper than what hospitals charge that rely on third party payers. The model of actually listing your prices and allowing consumers to shop around and compare the cost of surgeries is what will serve to profoundly drive down the cost. This is what the Oklahoma Surgery Center is seeking to prove and how can you argue that they haven't succeeded when you compare their prices with the norm? The reason I am started to feel like you all are being entirely disingenuous is that on the one hand you accuse libertarians of supporting entirely unrealistic or impossible ways of solving social problems in the absence of the State, yet when we go out and prove exactly how it can be done in the real world, you resort to special pleading to invalidate those empirical examples of the effectiveness of market solutions to social problems. So, please, tell me why the Oklahoma Surgery Center is not an example of libertarian success in reducing the out of control costs in medical care?
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Jan 18, 2016 20:17
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Mr Interweb posted:Jrod, I have one question (well, actually several, but for now, just this one). How would a person in your perfect libertarian world deal with an expensive medical procedure for a life threatening disease? Should this person still be able to get treatment even if they can't afford it somehow, or does everyone just go "UH OH SPAGHETTIOS" and offer a get well card instead? Uh, why wouldn't this person go to gramps and gram for the money, isn't that what everyone does who can't afford on the free market something they desperately need? 
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Jan 18, 2016 20:18
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jrodefeld posted:You must not be arguing in good faith.  forevere: also update for page 58: There is still no reason to care about property rights.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:28
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paragon1 posted:Except, no, they wouldn't, because they would collapse as soon as economic bad times arrive and they all loving collapse due to simple loving math, as the book you're quoting to make this dumbass argument explicitly shows. Nobody said they would "collapse as soon as economic bad times arrive". You are acting as if it is some revelation that people give less to charity when they have less money, which tends to occur in a depression. Yeah, no poo poo. This might as well be an argument against charity as a whole. But you have made a gigantic error in your thinking and I will now expose your faulty thinking. Most progressives have claimed over and over that the reason we created a Federal Reserve in 1913 was to "even out the business cycle" and prevent the exact sort of economic crises that occurred under their watch in the 1930s. When libertarians propose a return to the gold standard and the abolition of the Fed, we are told that we had far more economic recessions in the 19th century and suffering was great for average people due to all this economic volatility. This is literally the basis for the justification for the Fed's existence. But if what you said is true, that mutual aid societies "would collapse as soon as economic bad times arrive" and you also hold the common progressive view that without the Fed, the economy suffered from systemic and frequent economic "bad times" then how is it that fraternal orders and mutual aid societies survived and even thrived throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century? These are mutually contradictory views. Either you must concede that economic times were generally good in the 19th century because mutual aid societies were thriving in which case you should support ending the Federal Reserve and bringing back the gold standard or you'd have to admit that economic downturns don't necessarily hurt fraternal orders and their efficacy in which case you're argument here has no merit. The last refuge you could seek to salvage your argument would be to claim that the Great Depression was an even larger economic crisis than any we've seen before or since and that is the primary thing that killed off mutual aid societies. In the first place, the libertarian argument is that the Great Depression is demonstrably NOT a market phenomenon and instead was caused by Federal Reserve credit expansion, then exacerbated and lengthened by foolish and counterproductive government programs. But even if this were NOT the case, arguing against mutual aid societies because they don't do too well in a one-in-our-history scale economic depression is hardly any argument at all. Lots of things suffer in a massive economic depression that doesn't mean those same things are not efficacious during the other 98% of the time.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:42
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jrodefeld posted:So, please, tell me why the Oklahoma Surgery Center is not an example of libertarian success in reducing the out of control costs in medical care? Because their surgeons have to be certified by THE STATE just like everybody else. Any other questions? Look how a baby can't recognize all the ways the state supports private enterprise.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:46
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jrodefeld posted:Nobody said they would "collapse as soon as economic bad times arrive". You are acting as if it is some revelation that people give less to charity when they have less money, which tends to occur in a depression. Yeah, no poo poo. This might as well be an argument against charity as a whole. And yes, we know that libertarians and Austrian school economists reject the mainstream explanations for the Great Depression, but given everything we know about them and how they think, that's not a terribly convincing argument when pretty much the entire rest of the field thinks differently.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:01
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jrodefeld posted:If you take this logic to its natural conclusion, you'd have to accept a total command-economy form of totalitarian socialist central planning. Everything in the market economy is limited to ones "ability to pay". If you can't afford a tv or a cell phone, you don't buy them. But who doesn't have access to a cell phone or a television in the United States. Literally no one. You're chosen your words very carefully in order to be the biggest slimeball possible. Whereas "access" to medical care in libertopia will always require payment, "access" to a cell phone does not; you can just ask to borrow someone's phone on the street. This lets you claim to have made a technically correct statement (everyone has "access" to a cell phone) while comparing apples and oranges (in a market economy, access to medical care is analogous to ability to purchase and continually pay for a cell phone, not access to a cell phone). You've also chosen to take the dumbest possible route by insinuating that medical care is equivalent to having access to a cell phone or a television. One of these things is a necessity, while the others are not. A command economy is also not the only logical conclusion of this line of logic. The logical conclusion includes any subset of economies where access to medical care is free for everyone regardless of ability to pay. Personally, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with access to a cell phone being limited by one's ability to pay while access to life-saving medical care is free for everyone. There's nothing logically inconsistent about this position, and your slippery slope argument doesn't change that. For someone obsessed with logic you sure do love committing logical fallacies. quote:The tendency of the market is to provide affordable products and services to all socioeconomic groups. Furthermore, the profit and loss system provides incentives for entrepreneurs to enter under-served markets so the supply is generally sufficient to meet demand. On the other hand, in socialist economies, the lack of a profit and loss system means that resources are not allocated as effectively as they might otherwise be, and the demand generally greatly outpaces supply. No, that's not the tendency of the market. The market provides products and services, but it doesn't give a poo poo about "socioeconomic groups". If you're poor and can't afford something, the freeness of the market doesn't help you obtain that thing. You also don't understand what "demand" means. Demand for a good exists independently of whether or not someone is able to pay for a good. For someone who accuses everyone of being economically illiterate you sure do seem to have no economic literacy of your own. quote:Arguing that medical care must be provided by Marxist principles ("to each according to his need") rather than through the market simply because medical care is very important unlike "frivolous" consumer goods doesn't hold any water either. I would argue that it is much more important that the most vital of human needs be provided by the market. Again, you're making an ineffective argument. The same people who believe that medical care should be distributed by need already believe that food should be distributed in the same way. And it mostly already is; programs like SNAP are meant to provide access to food to those who can't otherwise afford it. This position is both logically consistent and morally good; people who need access to food, or medical care, should have access regardless of their ability to pay. Where you begin to fail is in your assumption that one's ability to pay is an optimal choosing criteria for whether or not someone should receive medical care. Your reasoning is that free markets optimally reduce prices of goods and services, and then you make the leap to believing that one's ability to pay should optimally determine one's deservedness of medical care. This is a well that you return to frequently: the Just World fallacy. So here's a hypothetical for you: if I'm very good at swindling people out of their money, then I am very able to afford to pay for medical care, but does that mean that I am more deserving of medical care than my victims? The moral answer is no; one's ability to pay has nothing to do with one's need of medical care, ergo medical care should not be distributed according to one's ability to pay. quote:Why don't we take the delivery of all food products out of the hands of private farmers, grocery stores, deli and restaurant owners and nationalize all food production? All farms and grocery stores should now be run by the State. Food will now be declared a "human right" that every person is entitled to regardless of his or her ability to pay. We can have government officials handing out a standardized, regimented supply of groceries to each citizen at your local "DMV for food". It's not necessary to nationalize food production, you can still give everyone access to food without doing that. Likewise for healthcare. But even if you decided to nationalize food production, you've tried to imply that this will always lead to food shortages when that's really not the case. You point to bread lines in the Soviet Unions, but by that logic capitalism also leads to food shortages because there were bread lines during the Great Depression. In reality, neither of these economic systems explicitly lead to food shortages. The Soviet Union did not have food shortages for most of its existence, and China's agricultural output is the largest in the world. quote:Wouldn't you concede that access to a reasonable level of nutrition is AT LEAST as vital to human well-being as access to medical care? Just observing the world, we can see that the more capitalistic and free market oriented countries have the least problems with starvation and hunger. The nations foolish enough to object to a "for profit" food production and sale model have suffered starvation, malnutrition and other horrific consequences. But hey, at least you had the abstract "right" to bread in the Soviet Union regardless of your ability to pay! Yes, absolutely, access to nutrition is at least as vital as access to medical care. You seem to think that you're making a slam dunk point here but you're really not. Thousands in the US suffer from starvation and malnutrition because our efforts to distribute food to the poor is not sufficient, and this is a tragedy that we should actively try to fix. quote:To take another example, would you agree that in today's economy, not having access to a cell phone and the internet puts you at a massive disadvantage compared to the rest of the population? You could therefore argue that having a smartphone and a computer connected to the internet is absolutely essential for a human being to compete. Yet, the free market with its limitation and rationing based on "ability to pay" has provided cell phones and computers to literally every single person in the United States. I don't think there is even a single person who could not get a cell phone or computer if he wanted one in the United States today. "Get" a cell phone or computer, as in own? If you think that there's not a single person who could not purchase a computer in the US, then you truly have no understanding of the country in which I live. There are millions in this country living hand to mouth, meaning that they literally can not afford to purchase a computer. quote:If the price becomes low enough and the supply vast enough, the barrier to entry falls so far that there is no meaningful rationing based on ability to pay. This is plainly false; unless the price is 0, ability to pay will always resemble a form of rationing. quote:So if a medical procedure costs $500 or it cost $50,000, in either case there is technically "rationing based on ability to pay". Yet, the former price means that nearly everyone will be able to pay and the few that can't are far more likely to be able to get someone else to pay for them through charity. The latter would be hard for nearly everyone to find a way to pay. This is plainly false; many people in the US can't afford to spend $500 on a medical procedure. "Nearly everyone will be able to pay" is not even close to accurate. And, as has been shown throughout history, charity has never been nearly sufficient to support those with need. quote:What is needed for cheap and affordable medical care is greater productivity of medical equipment, less cost overhead through State-imposed regulations and licensing requirements so that a greater abundance of medical goods are available on the market and the cost of producing them is less. This is the ONLY way the price can come down. Having the State pay for medical care doesn't create more supply of doctors and medical goods. The cost is still there and it is passed onto the consumers in one way or another. If price of medical care is the only thing that you care about, then a free market solution can be pretty effective. There are a number of inefficiencies inherent in the free market, however; people who are unable to afford preventative care will often forego it, forcing them to pay more later. This drives up the cost of medical care overall despite existing in a totally free market solution. But as explained earlier, your assumption that ability to pay is an optimal rationing criteria for medical care is foolish and unproven. quote:It is my understanding that most of you are conceding that central planning in medical care necessitates arbitrary rationing based on edicts and guidelines from State officials. The trade-off in your mind is that forcing people who have non-life threatening medical conditions to wait longer for treatment or heaping a greater burden of the cost on the "rich", artificially limiting the supply of medical goods deemed "less urgent" is deemed fair as long as you can ensure that the poorer people who have a life-threatening condition are able to afford treatment regardless of their ability to pay. "Arbitrary rationing"? There's nothing arbitrary about it. If you need a heart transplant, then you should receive it before the guy who needs surgery to fix a broken nose. And realistically, with sufficient allocation of resources, there's no reason that you can't let both people have their surgeries. Medical care is not a natural good, we can create more of it through intelligent allocation of resources. Arguably, ability to pay is a much more arbitrary form of rationing than allocating by need. quote:But consider the moral principle at work here. If I want something, some product or service, it is my responsibility to find a way to get it. The fact that I have a "need" doesn't mean I have the right to lay claim on other people's property. I must go out and purchase medical services, or health insurance, or whatever else on the market. Or I must ask (pay attention to the word "ASK" which implies voluntary interaction and not aggression) for charitable help if I have fallen on hard times and I cannot pay for something that I truly need. We, society, ask that you pay your taxes so that we can give medical care to everyone who needs it. There, that wasn't so hard. I would argue that it is far more immoral to deny medical care to those who need it than it is to ask society to pay for that medical care. quote:The problem in our contemporary economy is that decades of State intervention has artificially inflated healthcare prices such that all kinds of voluntary transactions on the market, where free human beings are quite capable of solving these social problems, are prohibited by threat of aggression by the State. This is not a natural state of affairs. Here we go: you've recognized that there will be people who can't afford to pay, despite their need, but you're unwilling to let them have treatment because you don't want to pay taxes. That's a lovely moral position to take. You would rather let a person die than give them some fraction of your paycheck, basically. This is an irredeemable position to take, and you're a monster because you lack the ability to recognize that.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:04
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Hey guys, I'm afraid that assertions that price doesn't have effect on medical care are very wrong, but luckily the real state of things still shows that libertianism is loony tunes. Market pricing of medical procedures is the worst situation, where, aside from influence by cultural values, profit is the only thing being sought for. That is obvious, that is exactly what you would expect: doctors focus on what will make them the most money in general, many of the most highly skilled doctors compete for those jobs that pay the most, and primary care, boring and difficult to charge much for, suffers. However, we have consistently found that if people pay absolutely nothing for care, utilization becomes more inefficient. Emergency room utilization. If you do not attach any penalty for use of the ER--any copay, coinsurance, etc.--then the ER will often be used for non emergency situations. Putting a copay charge of a relatively small amount, like $100, vastly increases the patient 'triage'--they really dominantly correctly assess whether they need the ER or can be seen through urgent care during the next day or a clinic appointment or what have you. This really increases the ER efficiency, including the care given to other patients in the ER. Second, medication: if patients pay nothing for medication, they will almost never protest about being given in by the doctor even if they don't intend to use it. It makes it harder to track compliance if you do not include that little $10 copay. People's attitude towards a free material vs. something with even a nominal cost is actually significant. In Japan, health care for the elderly becomes totally free at some age--70, I think? There is a massive utilization spike at that age, where they suddenly consume a much higher level of care, without any actual correlation need for care nor any correlation improvement in their health condition: it is not useful care. Now, none of this at all means that libertarianism is right, because the solutions to all of these are not market-based, they are paternalistic determinations of cost and price that are then enforced. They work best when they are totally predictable by patients, as well. Patients are not able to do market-based comparison of actual costs, but if you communicate those costs to them through copay and other structure, you actually get more more efficient use of the system. If people want citations I can provide them, I'm being rather lazy, but this is well-established in the public health field, that the ideal state (in a developed country) is to have care be almost but not quite free, and that you can cover those truly destitute with forgiveness programs and the like. Obviously you can't demand payment up front in a mortal situation, either. skeet decorator posted:Oh of course, someone dying because they can't afford treatment has nothing to do with libertarian solutions, except for the solution you just proposed: JROd this absolutely shows that in libertarian scenarios people would die because they couldn't afford treatment. This is actually a point you feel is positive about the system, right, that it is rewarding virtue and punishing lack of virtue, because in the libertarian world the virtuous would earn, right? quote:See, I am the one who is being consistent in my application of moral rules for human conduct. You, I would suspect, would support the slave or any abolitionist killing the slave owners if they refuse to free the slaves immediately, but you wouldn't support the moral right of a person in the United States today to kill a police officer who is trying to kidnap you and enslave you behind bars for no good reason. Jrod a policeman can't enslave you behind bars. We have a court system. It is hosed up and bad and limited, but it exists. It turns out there's a good reason why we don't let people just kill cops when they feel the cops are being unjust: there exist other remedies if the cop is being unjust. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 21:19
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jrodefeld posted:So Caros, I’d ask you to now, in light of the overwhelming evidence that the healthcare system in the United States over the past fifty years has nothing to do with any proposed libertarian solution, to either admit to making a gross error in thinking that it did when you rejecting your previous libertarian beliefs. Or you are free to elaborate on your reasons for rejecting it but the experience with losing your friend, as emotionally distressing as that no doubt was, provides absolutely no argument against libertarianism whatsoever. Your concession to this fact would mean we are at least making progress. Oh of course, someone dying because they can't afford treatment has nothing to do with libertarian solutions, except for the solution you just proposed: jrodefeld posted:But that doesn't mean that those that don't have any money have the right to lay claim to others property as a so-called "right" that they are entitled to. They are entitled to work, keep what they earn, and negotiate with other market players for the goods and services they want. And they are entitled to ask for charity if they fall on hard times. But that is it. Stupid illogical people rejecting libertarianism, if only people would be rational and realize that taxing someone is a far greater crime than letting people die of treatable diseases. You don't see why telling someone that their friend dying is an acceptable part of your libertarian solution would drive them away from the ideology? Also, is it true you sell pirated blu-rays of people loving watermelons (please pm me if true)?
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Jan 18, 2016 21:21
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DrProsek posted:Jrod, I think it's not only justified, but an outright moral good to kill anyone involved in the slave trade. If someone firebombed the home of an auctioneer who organized auctions where slaves were bought and sold, I'd ask if the auctioneer lived alone, and if he did then I'd say that arsonist is a hero (and if not, I'd say they are a good person with some failings). If someone had kidnapped and hanged the entire crew of a slave galley during the days of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, I'd say there were a hero. If someone had walked right up to George Washington and shot him in the face simply for the crime for owning a slave, I'd say that assassin is a national hero and we should have a holiday to celebrate that murder. This is a bizarre line of argument. I actually agree with it to a degree. Self defense against coercion is of course justified but proportionality must be kept in mind. If I react to a small degree of coercion in excess of proportionality then my response becomes not merely defense but aggression. I can't justifiably shoot you because you walked across my lawn and you shouldn't get twenty years in prison because you shop lifted a pack of gum. In regards to historical slavery, slaves had every moral right to kill their masters. And whites who were abolitionists had every moral right to provide support and to kill the slave "owners" on their behalf. Having the moral right to do something does not necessarily mean that it would be strategically wise for the abolitionist cause to do so. If by mounting an organized insurrection against slave owning whites sparked a war that ended up killing thousands of innocents, not to mention hundreds of black slaves, then doing so might be unwise and counterproductive. But you'd be justified in doing so. But on the other hand, considering anyone who happened to "profit" from slavery as deserving of instant death is morally dubious because it would have been literally impossible for anyone to participate in the economy in any capacity without indirectly profiting from slavery. Even the most ardent abolitionists have to feed their families and buy clothes to wear and so forth. Therefore they indirectly profit from slave labor. Does that mean anyone has the moral right to murder them simply for existing in a grossly immoral society? I don't think so. What about children? A child happens to be born into a family that owns slaves. They aren't responsible for what their parents have done. Do they deserve death? I would advocate that the abolitionists target the large scale plantation owners first. I would have advocated they send a clear and unequivocal message that says "holding these Africans in bondage is immoral. If you do not immediately start freeing them and letting them go, we will start a coordinated and ruthless campaign for assassinations and all of your lives are forfeit". They would have absolutely every moral right to do this. But the actual killing would have to be targeted and precise. It should be the deed holders for the slaves personally that should be killed and not anyone else. Otherwise it becomes a slippery slope whereby you could justify killing someone merely for "not doing enough to oppose slavery" which is morally problematic to say the least. People are born into horribly immoral societies and if a person has no completely ethically sound options available to him, he cannot be criticized for simply trying to exist in a mad world. I think you are engaged in a rhetorical trick of sorts, but I'll nevertheless answer your question. Since both chattel slavery and income taxation are slavery of some sort, though there is no doubt a massive chasm between the two, would I say that murder of an IRS worker is similarly justified as an abolitionist who killed a slave owner who refused to free his slaves? Let me put it another way to make it more concrete. Let's suppose you commit a "crime" that is really no crime at all. Suppose you have a bit of marijuana or cocaine in your home. The neighbors tip off the authorities and they send police to come arrest you and put you in jail. Now, I would argue that you have every moral right to resist. If the police officers just knock on your door to talk with you and try to persuade you to go peacefully with them, I don't think you should shoot them. But you have every right to resist the kidnapping (which is exactly what would be taking place). If you peacefully resist and the authorities don't relent and walk away peacefully but instead escalate until they try to physically put their hands on you, then you have every moral right to shoot them. They are in the process of kidnapping you and you haven't done anything wrong. If it was someone who wasn't wearing an official uniform and carrying a badge, there would be no question you had every right to resist up to an including shooting your kidnapper if they don't relent. Now, notice that I said you had the "moral right". In practicality, if an officer comes to your house to take you to jail for marijuana possession, I strongly suggest you DON'T kill the police officer even though you'd have the moral right to do so. Not only would it be bad for you because now you'd spend a lifetime sentence behind bars or get the death penalty but it wouldn't practically help you achieve a free society. But there should be no moral equivocating on the point that you would indeed be morally justified in doing so, just as you would if a group of neighbors comes into your house uninvited and tries to use force to kidnap you. See, I am the one who is being consistent in my application of moral rules for human conduct. You, I would suspect, would support the slave or any abolitionist killing the slave owners if they refuse to free the slaves immediately, but you wouldn't support the moral right of a person in the United States today to kill a police officer who is trying to kidnap you and enslave you behind bars for no good reason. Why the inconsistency? I grant that their is a large gap in the degree of the moral atrocity between enslaving a black person for life in the 19th century American South, and a police officer putting you in prison for six months for a non-crime (smoking or selling marijuana or other drugs). But the moral principle is precisely the same.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:23
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Jrod you contribute nothing to society besides pirated movies and the world would be a demonstrably better place without you.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:24
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I'm going out again tonight so I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with your poo poo. Try not to run off until Tuesday so I have a distraction during my free time.jrodefeld posted:So, please, tell me why the Oklahoma Surgery Center is not an example of libertarian success in reducing the out of control costs in medical care? I did. You might have forgotten because it was in November of 2014, which was a previous instance of you trying this frankly sort of offensive series of arguments against me. Because I don't give enough fucks, here is my reply: quote:The Oklahoma Surgery Center is capable of doing what it does because it is an elective Surgery Center that is capable of taking a small amount healthy patients who pay significant amounts of cash up front for procedures, something that isn't true of your typical hospital that performs the same procedures. They have no administrative staff, and their prices increase dramatically when insurance is involved. So how about you answer my question. If the Oklahoma Surgery Center is such a model for success why is it basically the only one of its kind nationwide? This really shouldn't be a hard question to answer. I mean I can answer it my way very simply, because it is a model that does not scale outside of a small subset of wealthy americans who are capable of paying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket when they have a non-life threatening medical issue. Considering the majority of medical spending takes place towards the end of someone's life, a clinic that can provide out of pocket medical care to relatively healthy adults is in a lot of ways a luxury and not something that can in any way be scaled to deal with national healthcare needs. Hope this helps.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:30
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:poo poo I can't scrounge $0 together! I guess I should talk to you like I would a loving child because that is about the level of your economic literacy. Do you understand that governments can't conquer the reality of scarcity through official decree? The only things that actually cost zero dollars are those things that are available in superabundance and thus supply far outstrips human demand. For everything else, there is a price. Medical services have to be produced in a costly way which means that the price for a surgery cannot be "zero". In State welfare systems, you are only given the impression that something is free because the bureaucracy is so convoluted and complex that the actual cost is not immediately apparent. You ARE paying a price for healthcare services in Great Brittain and in Canada, the laws of economics demand that this be so.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:37
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jrodefeld posted:I guess I should talk to you like I would a loving child because that is about the level of your economic literacy. Oh are you getting mad? gently caress your "reality of scarcity," the answer in every case is to simply take from the rich. Take, take, take. Take their earnings, take their businesses, take their boats and houses.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:41
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That's what taxation is for.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:43
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jrodefeld posted:I guess I should talk to you like I would a loving child because that is about the level of your economic literacy. Governments have in fact conquered the reality of scarcity through official degree, or at least beaten the poo poo out of it. Even in the US, which has horrible wealth discrepancy, where we have absolutely destitute people, very, very few people die through starvation or hunger. This is mostly due to the government actions which keep food prices low through subsidies, as well as direct government supply of money for food. Compare this to other countries which don't have this, and you'll find people there actually die of starvation. So there, scarcity solved! In addition, other countries have solved the scarcity of housing; they guarantee housing for all citizens. So, given these quick and easy examples of scarcity being abolished, can you try again? Also everyone understands that health care is paid for, via taxes, as is sane and reasonable, in the UK and Canada. Nobody thinks it appears out of nowhere. Edit: Another scarcity conquered by the government: Clean water. This is true to the extent that the failure to provide it represents a huge political scandal. Jrod this underscores how bad you are at debate. The typical position would be a special pleading argument that scarcity of healthcare is different than scarcity of food or water. Instead, you stupidly claim that government can't solve any scarcity, which is nearly immediately disprovable. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 21:45
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jrodefeld posted:You ARE paying a price for healthcare services in Great Brittain and in Canada, the laws of economics demand that this be so. And those prices are demonstrably and significantly lower in Great Britain and Canada. You moron. You idiot. You loving uneducated poo poo-licking goblin.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:45
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jrodefeld posted:You must not be arguing in good faith. How do you simply ignore the example of the Oklahoma Surgery Center and it's dramatic savings in comparison to hospitals that rely on third party payer systems? You have every disingenuous excuse to discount every example of free market success that I mention. I'm ignoring it because others have already addressed this better than I could. Here's Caros' most recent post on it: Caros posted:I debunked your OSC bullshit in the last thread and you ignored me and talked about racism. When I get home I will look up the post and drop it for you here. Personally, I feel that pointing to the Oklahoma Surgery Center doesn't work because it's pretty easy to drive down prices when you have the luxury of not having to deal with emergency patients. This alone means that having all medical providers adopt a for-cash payment model would not have nearly the economic benefits that you claim. What you really need to do to drive down cost is allow emergency room providers to turn away patients who can't pay. But that would be immoral as gently caress, so we shouldn't do that. You also continue to ignore the fact that medical insurance is a natural product of a free market. You keep pointing to this as an inefficiency. Isn't this a massive logical inconsistency? If the free market is optimally efficient at everything, then why don't you consider health insurance a boon to society? quote:We must compare apples to apples. If we look at Atlas MD and the services offered as a general practitioner and compare it to the cost of any other general family doctor in the United States, you will see that the cost savings are substantial. Let's suppose in one month you became quite ill and you had to see your doctor half a dozen times or something like that. You would have saved literally hundreds of dollars in comparison to another family doctor who relied on a third party payer system. We'd have to investigate just how much savings they are able to pass on to the patient in terms of prescription drugs and the like but that would only bolster the efficacy of the free market. I don't give a poo poo about the cost of visiting a family doctor. There's a much bigger picture here that you keep trying to brush off. And speaking of "apples to apples", you continually fail to make an apples to apples comparison every time that you compare OSC to major hospitals and the like. They're not alike at all, and you keep comparing prices without considering the very significant differences in the types of services provided. I'm willing to grant that health insurance has driven up cost. But cost is not what really matters in medical care. You want to reduce the average cost of care by refusing care to those who can't afford it, the rest of us want to give care to those who need it. Our goals are not compatible. quote:But back to the Oklahoma Surgery Center, you cannot honestly tell me that surgical procedures are not one of the most expensive treatments a person can receive. Have you looked through that website are perused their pricing for various procedures? The VAST majority of surgeries on offer are between $2000 and $8000. These prices are between five and ten times cheaper than what hospitals charge that rely on third party payers. I didn't tell you that. Earlier in your post you accused me of ignoring the OSC example, remember? Again, see above; I think Caros' explanation of OSC is good, and personally I feel that not having an emergency room is a huge contributor to their cost savings. You want to make an Apples to Apples comparison, but you continually refuse to do so. quote:The model of actually listing your prices and allowing consumers to shop around and compare the cost of surgeries is what will serve to profoundly drive down the cost. This is what the Oklahoma Surgery Center is seeking to prove and how can you argue that they haven't succeeded when you compare their prices with the norm? Not really, because if you're having a brain aneurysm then you really don't have the time or the ability to shop around. You need care now, regardless of the price. In your scenario, the best that you could do would be to maintain a list of providers for whatever procedure that you might need in the future, which would be completely impractical, so people would just wind up purchasing health insurance so that this is done for them, and that's how we got to where we are today. I'll remind you again that health insurance is a natural product of the free market. The OSC model I think is good for elective surgery, which is all that they provide. But you can already shop around for elective surgery; this is true throughout the country. No one forces you to see a specific provider. If you're on an HMO plan, then they'll only cover a specific surgeon that they've chosen on the basis of cost (Free Market!), but (A) you can always pay out of pocket if you want someone else and (B) most PPO plans let you shop around as much as you want. Your OSC example is contrived and illustrates your profound lack of understanding of healthcare in the US. quote:The reason I am started to feel like you all are being entirely disingenuous is that on the one hand you accuse libertarians of supporting entirely unrealistic or impossible ways of solving social problems in the absence of the State, yet when we go out and prove exactly how it can be done in the real world, you resort to special pleading to invalidate those empirical examples of the effectiveness of market solutions to social problems. No, you are the one resorting to special pleading with crazy amounts of extrapolation. Elective surgery and family doctor visits are low-hanging fruit when it comes to cost reduction, and attempting to compare visiting the doctor for a bad boo-boo to the cost of an MRI scan is preposterous. Furthermore, as someone else in the thread has shown, the cost of surgery at OSC is not significantly less than the real cost of surgery. So the only real cost reduction is in cutting out the insurance middle-man, which healthcare providers throughout the country are already free to do. What you're really arguing for, then, is the abolition of health insurance, a natural product of the free market, an action that is completely contrary to your own principles. Furthermore, by your logic the healthcare systems in Canada and the UK are an example of UHC success in reducing the out of control costs in medical care. Costs in these countries are way less than costs in the US. But what really matters is that it is immoral to refuse to treat people on the basis of wealth. The cost of medical care under UHC could be double what it is in a totally free market solution, and I would still argue that the UHC solution is superior because it treats people on the basis of medical need (a meaningful metric) instead of on the basis of personal wealth (a completely arbitrary metric). QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 21:49
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Whatever argument there is about whether the Oklahoma Surgery Center is or is not successful (which also depends on what sorts of expectations you are asking it to meet), it still remains a product of a Statist regulatory system and, as such, does not work as an example of Libertarian thought.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:55
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jrodefeld posted:I guess I should talk to you like I would a loving child because that is about the level of your economic literacy. Wait, you're right. poo poo! I can't scrounge up an extra $10 come tax season! Okay, fixed. Great job just straight-up ignoring my post about what recourse their is for contract fraud, too.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:03
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Gerund posted:Whatever argument there is about whether the Oklahoma Surgery Center is or is not successful (which also depends on what sorts of expectations you are asking it to meet), it still remains a product of a Statist regulatory system and, as such, does not work as an example of Libertarian thought. This is a bad argumentation tactic because it plays into his no true free market bullshit. For example I could rebut this by saying that you are right, it is tainted by statists and would be cheaper and even more effective absent their interference. Nothing he is talking about exists in the real world or has ever existed, so pointing out that his 'near thing' example isn't perfect doesn't really work. That aside: Jrodefeld! For all your talk of scarcity I think we should do a little project. Studies have shown that between 45-65,000 die annually in the US from lack of ability to pay. The population of Canada is roughly 1/10th the size of the US. If Canada is unable to solve scarcity, one would logically assume that we would have the same number of annual deaths due to inability to recieve timely treatment per capita, if not more since we are socialists and governments always fail at delivering poor health outcomes. I challenge you to find 45 cases (not 4,500, 45) in any year on record where Canadians died from lack of ability to receive medical care. It seems like it should be simple shouldn't it? Somehow I think you won't take me up on it.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:05
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Caros posted:Jrodefeld! Am I allowed to violently quote this each time he does take you up on it? And tell him to not weasel his way out of it with some bullshit about quality of care when it is a binary got care/not got care thing?
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Jan 18, 2016 22:08
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jrodefeld posted:I guess I should talk to you like I would a loving child because that is about the level of your economic literacy. i'm glad jrod is back to get salty at people in this thread he started so that people can make fun of him anyway if you're so good at economics can you please explain why you're trying to pretend "things cannot cost zero" is the same argument as "things can be made very cheap and then paid for to persons who cannot afford it" because i'm basically just a mental child and even i think those are two different arguments entirely! boner confessor fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 22:11
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Am I allowed to violently quote this each time he does take you up on it? By all means. My guess if he takes it up is that he will go the "We don't have statistics on people who die waiting for treatment" or something along that lines.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:13
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Obdicut posted:However, we have consistently found that if people pay absolutely nothing for care, utilization becomes more inefficient. Granted, and I think that the solution to this is to just charge people who can afford to pay rather than charging everyone. So we should still have UHC, but with fees if it's determined (after the fact) that you didn't really need to visit the ER. Everything else should be gated by primary care visits (which would also have a small copay), so you can't just walk into a hospital and demand to have an MRI scan. quote:Second, medication: if patients pay nothing for medication, they will almost never protest about being given in by the doctor even if they don't intend to use it. It makes it harder to track compliance if you do not include that little $10 copay. People's attitude towards a free material vs. something with even a nominal cost is actually significant. Makes sense to me, so long as we're still agreeing along the lines of "charge a copay if the patient can afford it", which I believe we are. The determination can be made according to income, but really what matters is that people who need care receive it. Optimizing that system after the fact with copays to ensure that people use the healthcare system more efficiently seems like a totally reasonable step to take. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 22:16
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Jrod, do you declare the profits you make from selling those bootleg blu-rays of yours?
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Jan 18, 2016 22:21
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I just realized that you probably didn't see this while you were being too handsome and cool jrodefeld. I know it is a bit belated but we made this for you. Merry Christmas! https://youtu.be/gZvUMmDF0I4
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Jan 18, 2016 22:27
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QuarkJets posted:Granted, and I think that the solution to this is to just charge people who can afford to pay rather than charging everyone. So we should still have UHC, but with fees if it's determined (after the fact) that you didn't really need to visit the ER. Everything else should be gated by primary care visits (which would also have a small copay), so you can't just walk into a hospital and demand to have an MRI scan. Absolutely. I'm just noting that in this case we have very robust data showing the real economic behavior of humans: if you give them a 'real' market price for medical stuff, they can't deal with it, nobody does that sort of research, but if you give them an artificial, state-mandated price that actually improves system efficacy. In a way, medicine solves the main problem that white goods have under the command economy: in medicine we have multiple groups of experts who can decide what is and isn't a needed good, what levels of care are appropriate, etc. That's a lot harder to do with like, iphones. Oh and some pro-socialist healthcare news:http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jul/19/doctors-best-hospital-managers-new-research The best hospitals are headed by doctors, i.e. workers, not capitalists nor those whose goals align with capitalists.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:35
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Mr Interweb posted:drat, sorry to hear what happened to your friend, Caros. Insurance would still be available for people but it would actually function as real insurance. People have car insurance but it is only for unexpected events like accidents. You have to pay to replace your tires, get your oil changed, and most predictable repairs that take place over the life of a car. Healthcare would be much the same way in a libertarian society. The vast majority of healthcare would be paid out of pocket, with no third party involved. People will then have a limited insurance that covers catastrophic health care emergencies such as what happened to Caros's friend. According to Caros, she DID have insurance but it didn't cover very much of her treatment at all. This is obviously perverse. Insurance is entirely backwards. In a libertarian society, catastrophic insurance would exist exclusively to cover these sorts of unexpected and urgent medical emergencies. Some people buy house insurance in case of fire, with the understanding that should their house be destroyed, the insurance would pay them the value of the house so they could replace it. What do you think would happen if people would buy house insurance with that understanding, and then after it was destroyed, the insurance company decided they would only pay you 10% of the value of the house and you'd have to pay the rest? Then they would be operating like health insurance companies in the United States sometimes do, like what Caros's friend had to deal with. Insurance wouldn't have to do with employment in a libertarian society and could be purchased from out of state or even out of the country. There would be more competition and purchasing catastrophic health insurance would be very much like purchasing car insurance. Okay, but you'll no doubt retort that even with all that, some people simply won't purchase catastrophic health insurance and then something really serious happens and they simply can't afford the emergency medical treatment that would be required to save their lives in such a scenario. This no doubt could happen, but we cannot possibly insulate people from the potential consequences of their actions. Any of us could wind up in a situation where we need something that we can't afford on our own. If you choose not to buy house insurance and your home burns down, does somebody else owe you a new home? No, you took a risk. By assuming that risk, you accepted the fact that the unlikely could come about in which case you'd have lost a home without the immediate ability to replace it. But even saying that, in this scenario where a person chooses not to buy catastrophic health insurance and ends up with an emergency medical condition that he or she cannot pay for, then there is a role for private charity. The people who insist that private charity could NEVER be sufficient to cover the needs are really abdicating any responsibility they have towards their fellow man. People are more ingenious and innovative than you are giving them credit for. Confining ourselves to the United States (I am a US citizen after all), lets look at the percentage of people who routinely vote for Progressive policies, the left-wing of the Democratic Party or the Bernie supporters if you will. I'll even stipulate that many people are not caring and wouldn't think to help others. I don't believe this but I'll assume it for arguments sake. I would wager that there are about 70-80 million American adults who are committed left-wing voters who support Progressive values and want a State because they think it can provide social welfare to those that need it, level the playing field, regulate the big banks and corporations, etc. Let's suppose those 80 million Americans decided to eschew politics and focus on non-political ways of providing a social safety net for those that need it? You really don't think that that many dedicated people couldn't find ways to help fund necessary medical treatments for people like Caros's friend, who simply were unlucky and had an insurmountable obstacle in the way of getting the life saving medical care she needed? I strongly think that they could. Maybe the 19th century fraternal order system would not be viable in today's age. Or perhaps they would take the valuable aspects of those systems and modernize it in other ways. So why don't people do this already? A large part of the problem is that people have been indoctrinated into the erroneous belief that charity and social welfare are the job of government. Those of you who insist that private efforts will always be grossly insufficient have fallen into a self-defeating trap. I don't believe this is the case whatsoever. There is a role for a privately-funded social safety net, along with affordable catastrophic health insurance plans that can be purchased much like car insurance plans are purchased today, independent of employment and irrespective of State borders. Finally, most non-emergency medical treatments and procedures will be purchased out of pocket and you can expect the prices to fall when you introduce price competition and a working market without any third party interference. Does this answer your question?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:07
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I feel like you mentioned it in the other Jrod thread, but I didn't recall what the circumstances were.
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YF19pilot posted:阿! jrodefeld 豬頭! 您好. 你好嗎? Never heard that expression? The joke is that there is no beachfront property in North Dakota, but if you are gullible enough to believe the poo poo you believe, then you might be gullible enough to think that there is. Another variation is "if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you". I know it flew right over your head, but what am I here for other than to educate?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:12
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jrodefeld posted:Never heard that expression? The joke is that there is no beachfront property in North Dakota, but if you are gullible enough to believe the poo poo you believe, then you might be gullible enough to think that there is. Another variation is "if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you". Really jrodefeld? These are the posts you choose to reply to?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:17
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Mr Interweb posted:When I was growing up, I had a case of severe asthma. Would get constant attacks, and found myself going to the hospital quite frequently. We were also very poor, but thankfully I was able to get on medi-CAL (California's version of medicaid). I don't know if it's fair to say that I'd probably be dead without it, but I know we'd either be bankrupt, or I'd be suffering quite a bit more than I did. Both of which I'm sure would be fine with Jrod. To again quote the great Frederick Bastiat: “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” What would make you assume that because I don't support the State providing social welfare for the poor, that I don't support social welfare? And making the claim that you think I'd be "fine" with people needlessly dying is a ridiculous accusation and serves to purpose other than to stir the pot. We can debate issues without resorting to impugning the motives of our opposition.
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Jan 18, 2016 23:19
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jrodefeld posted:I know it flew right over your head, but what am I here for other than to educate? you think that's what you're doing holy lol
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Jan 18, 2016 23:19
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jrodefeld posted:We can debate issues without resorting to impugning the motives of our opposition. Like every time you scream PUT DOWN THE GUNS?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:21
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jrodefeld posted:To again quote the great Frederick Bastiat: wow bastiat sounds like a giant crybaby
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Jan 18, 2016 23:23
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Caros posted:Not actually my girlfriend, just a female friend I was very close to at the time despite the distance. Childhood friend. Yeah, I didn't think it would be in any way out of bounds for me to mention the death of your friend since you volunteered that information and you mentioned that it was the major catalyst that caused you to abandon libertarian thought, which makes it pretty relevant to the discussion we are having about the merits of libertarianism. Attacking me on this is just a cheap way for other posters to act indignant and oh-so offended. To be clear, I don't think I can argue the fact that your friend would have been able to receive some sort of treatment in Canada. I'll have to trust you, considering that you have looked into this specific fact a lot more than I have. But I do think this is a poor argument in comparing two systems by using a single anecdote. I could pull up anecdotes about people in Canada who had to come down here to get any sort of decent medical treatment, depending on the specific problem they were having. It doesn't prove very much.
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Jan 18, 2016 23:28
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jrodefeld posted:To again quote the great Frederick Bastiat: The state doesn't raise grain. It does, however, subsidize grain through a complex series of price fixing and direct subsidies and loan forgiveness. It also maintains a fleet of weather satellites that give accurate reports to farmers, maintains a storehouse of information on farming techniques, ensures an adequate supply of clean water divided between the farms, etc. Libertarians don't want this, because libertarians are the most short-sighted people ever. jrodefeld posted:
You really can't, except for elective surgery. I challenge you to do so.
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Jan 18, 2016 23:29
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Obdicut posted:The state doesn't raise grain. It does, however, subsidize grain through a complex series of price fixing and direct subsidies and loan forgiveness. It also maintains a fleet of weather satellites that give accurate reports to farmers, maintains a storehouse of information on farming techniques, ensures an adequate supply of clean water divided between the farms, etc. Libertarians don't want this, because libertarians are the most short-sighted people ever. They want all this, and they want it still for free, but they want it all privatized, which will make it all work better and for cheaper. Also if it wasn't for government we'd have had all this infrastructure in place even sooner.
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Jan 18, 2016 23:31
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so he's on a tear again here and I really don't feel like reading it but has anyone brought up that collective bargaining (as in lots of consumers negotiating together for better prices) is one of the most basic market principles out there and is the entire reason UHC, acting as a single aggregate representative for Healthcare recipients, is able to negotiate much better prices? The market argument also supports UHC.
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Jan 18, 2016 23:36
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jrodefeld posted:To again quote the great Frederick Bastiat: I was always a fan of the Proudhon rebuttal: quote:"Your intelligence is asleep, or rather it has never been awake...You are a man for whom logic does not exist...You do not hear anything, you do not understand anything...Your are without philosophy, without science, without humanity...Your ability to reason, like your ability to pay attention and make comparisons is zero...Scientifically, Mr. Bastiat, you are a dead man." To be honest I could just quote that verbatim but for the name and it would apply to his disciples as well.
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Jan 18, 2016 23:40
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