House Votes for Repeal of Health Law in Symbolic Act

[Hauldren Collider]

What is this supposed to prove? The law has pretty much not taken effect yet. In fact the end of the article pretty much damns ObamaCare--increasing their level of management, something ObamaCare puts strict caps on, is correlated with their ability to pull a profit.

[giblets]

We agree that medical professionals should get paid. Where in the current system does that NOT happen?

They don't in systems where they don't get paid to treat people if those people lack purchasing power. Well, they do get paid for treating the well off.

If the government paid for everyone's television, then there is an incentive to provide television to everyone. The whole point of a market is that the market determines exactly how much television we should provide. The government is very bad at figuring these sorts of things out.

Televisions are toys. And since they're not a basic necessity, their value to consumers varies considerably. Plenty of people don't care much for television and it would be wasteful to give them one for free. But I don't consider it a waste to give anyone basic health care.

Milton Friedman observed that if the government ran the Sahara, we would soon face a shortage of sand. If there was enough medical care for everyone in this country, it would be cheap enough for everyone to get medical care. The only reason this would NOT be the case is government intervention. You are basically promoting the idea of healthcare as welfare. I don't think having healthcare be part of the welfare system is a terrible idea, but I do think having a very large welfare system IS a terrible idea. The focus should not be on getting more poor people on medicaid, it should be on getting more poor people OUT of medicaid and into an income level where they can afford insurance, and placing enough cost controls on medicare and medicaid that such insurance isn't exorbitant due to the government buying up all the supply.

It is far better to have too much spent on health care than too little. Each person's health is worth a lot, and a market system without appropriate modifications will greatly undervalue a poor person's health.

[BlackCat]

That's because you are too stupid to understand the analogy.

No offense, but it's you that are too stupid to recognise that there are no analogy. What you claim is simply idiotic.

[Hauldren Collider]

They don't in systems where they don't get paid to treat people if those people lack purchasing power. Well, they do get paid for treating the well off.

Duly noted--in a capitalist system, people who can't pay for something don't get it. Thank you! Next you will tell me that water is wet.

Televisions are toys. And since they're not a basic necessity, their value to consumers varies considerably. Plenty of people don't care much for television and it would be wasteful to give them one for free. But I don't consider it a waste to give anyone basic health care.

Televisions may be toys, but food isn't--and I don't think the government would do a very good job of determining how much food to produce. I'll let you think of the historical examples yourself.

The fact that YOU don't consider it a waste to give people healthcare doesn't mean that it isn't a waste. People want a lot of things that they don't have. If everyone wants something, giving it to everyone is NOT necessarily a good thing. Purchase decisions are not black and white. It is a balancing act of the personal cost to yourself and the benefits your receive. If you eliminate one side of this equation--the personal cost to yourself--you send the market careening off into inefficiency. This is wealth-destructive, even if it is wealth-redistributive. It is possible to overproduce healthcare. It is possible to overproduce anything.

It is far better to have too much spent on health care than too little. Each person's health is worth a lot, and a market system will greatly undervalue a poor person's health.

No. A poor person's health doesn't have much value. The value is whatever they can pay for it. As I've mentioned, certain levels of welfare are good for society, but increasing the ranks of the welfare recipients should not be the goal. Making people rich enough to no longer need welfare should be the goal. That's what welfare reform, which CLINTON signed, was all about.

Here's some wisdom for you: You are not smart enough to determine the things the market sets for us. Nobody is. That's why we use a market. The idea that you, personally, know precisely the amount of something that should be produced because your particular opinion on the value of something is gospel is at the height of arrogance.

[Elok]

I don't think "no offense" means much when it's immediately followed by explicitly calling someone stupid. No offense, but you're a retarded loser for thinking that.

[BlackCat]

I don't think "no offense" means much when it's immediately followed by explicitly calling someone stupid. No offense, but you're a retarded loser for thinking that.

Well, we europeans are usually polite even when telling someone that they are stupid

EDIT: Come to think about it, you said it better with "you're a retarded loser for thinking that".

[giblets]

Duly noted--in a capitalist system, people who can't pay for something don't get it. Thank you! Next you will tell me that water is wet.

Televisions may be toys, but food isn't--and I don't think the government would do a very good job of determining how much food to produce. I'll let you think of the historical examples yourself.

Well it wouldn't be terribly hard to figure out how large the population and estimate how many kilocalories, how much protein, etc. such a population needs. Of course using a market to decide which types of food is better, that's why the government uses food stamps, free school lunches, etc. to ensure everyone gets enough to eat and doesn't nationalize food production and distribution

The fact that YOU don't consider it a waste to give people healthcare doesn't mean that it isn't a waste. People want a lot of things that they don't have. If everyone wants something, giving it to everyone is NOT necessarily a good thing. Purchase decisions are not black and white. It is a balancing act of the personal cost to yourself and the benefits your receive. If you eliminate one side of this equation--the personal cost to yourself--you send the market careening off into inefficiency. This is wealth-destructive, even if it is wealth-redistributive. It is possible to overproduce healthcare. It is possible to overproduce anything.

Of course it's possible to overproduce. But I think the drawbacks of overproducing healthcare are far smaller than the repercussions of underproducing, and the cautious thing to do is generously fund healthcare.

No. A poor person's health doesn't have much value. The value is whatever they can pay for it.

As I've mentioned, certain levels of welfare are good for society, but increasing the ranks of the welfare recipients should not be the goal. Making people rich enough to no longer need welfare should be the goal. That's what welfare reform, which CLINTON signed, was all about.

Here's some wisdom for you: You are not smart enough to determine the things the market sets for us. Nobody is. That's why we use a market. The idea that you, personally, know precisely the amount of something that should be produced because your particular opinion on the value of something is gospel is at the height of arrogance.

I don't know 'precisely' how much to allocate for healthcare. However I'm very confident that, left to it's own devices, a market will result in poor people not getting nearly enough. There is nothing 'arrogant' about valuing other human beings.

[Dinner]

There is plenty of evidence that the New Deal was ineffective.

There is vastly more evidence that it was effective not just that the unemployment rate dropped by half in a very short period of time starting right when the New Deal started but also that the GDP stopped falling, almost exactly when the New Deal started, and by 1936 the GDP had recovered to it's pre-depression level. The kicker is that in 1937 when the Republicans won in Congress and cut back the New Deal the recession returned and there was a new economic recession in 1937. It's telling that no serious economist questions the new deal these days and only partisan hacks from partiian political groups spread the lie that the New Deal didn't massively help just about everyone.

The facts don't lie. Unemployment tumbled down to depression era lows and GDP shot up like a rocket; we're not talking 3% or 5% and instead double didget rates of GDP growth per year with even higher rates of industrial growth. It was an unqualified success in every way.

[Egbert]

Duly noted--in a capitalist system, people who can't pay for something don't get it. Thank you! Next you will tell me that water is wet.

Televisions may be toys, but food isn't--and I don't think the government would do a very good job of determining how much food to produce. I'll let you think of the historical examples yourself.

If the "market" decides that some people, those too poor to pay, shall not have food then people shall have no food. They would starve. They are not likely to starve quietly. They do stuff like rioting, having revolutions, stealing, looting and so forth. I'll let you think of the historical examples yourself.
Hence food stamps, school lunches and so forth.

BTW I am reasonably sure water is wet.

[Dinner]

One thing seems fairly clear--Keynsianism has been ineffective in the last few years.

What a load of horse ****. Keynsianism hasn't even been tried! A bill with 40% tax cuts and very little real spending, having that spending spread out over four years, is not Keynsianism.

[giblets]

If the "market" decides that some people, those too poor to pay, shall not have food then people shall have no food. They would starve. They are not likely to starve quietly. They do stuff like rioting, having revolutions, stealing, looting and so forth. I'll let you think of the historical examples yourself.
Hence food stamps, school lunches and so forth.

BTW I am reasonably sure water is wet.

Interesting that he told me to go look for historical examples of famine, considering that famines have generally been a distribution problem, much more than a problem of insufficient food production. But I guess he'd say that the hunger in someone's stomach is only worth what they're willing to pay

[Barnabas]

I live in a third world country with universal free healthcare.
The people who have jobs and pay taxes go to private clinics, the poor ones, around 35% of the population, mainly under the table employees and unemployed people, go to public hospitals.

The main difference is comfort, with the private medicine you wait much less and and for regular illneses, you phone and the doctor goes to your house, if you are poor, you always have to move your ass to the public hospital, and generally you have to wait for hours there.

If I want to see a dermathologist, I can get a turn for this week just by phoning him.
If I were a poor person, I would have to wake up before 6 am, to go to the public hospital, there, I would have to wait around 2 hours to see a regular doctor, who has to write down that I have an issue and that I have to see a dermathologist.
Only after that I would be able to see a dermathologist, and unless it is something urgent, I would have to wait probably more than one week.


Surgeries, all of them, are completely free, medicines are only free for the extremely poor ones. Since most poor people have a job (just under the table) they pay for their own medicines, most aren't shameless enough to want free medicines if they can't pay for them.

Universal healthcare does not mean that private medicine disappears, it is just about not forsaking poor people completely.

[DaShi]

And why not? Insurance companies are not charities.

If you want to cut costs, reduce medicare and medicaid coverage. Throw in vouchers so that people don't become hypochondriacs when they hit retirement age. Less demand means lower prices. And the young, poor and healthy no longer have to pay for the old, rich and sick.

What? You want to introduce moral hazard to reduce demand?

[DinoDoc]

If HC and minions had ruled here, I actually wouldn't have had a sister. She needed heart surgery shortly after birth, and my parents could in no way pay for such. Due to our healt care paid by public she still is alive and kicking.

What's your point? I can find just as meaningless anecdotal stories pointing out the deficiencies of European health systems. The only reasonable arguments or if the proposed reforms control costs or not or reduces the deficit in any meaningful way. The evidence thus far suggests the opposite.

[BlackCat]

I can find just as meaningless anecdotal stories pointing out the deficiencies of European health systems.

Please do.