Intrade: 70.5% chance Obama will win third debate

[MikeH]

IMPORTANT NOTE : I did not give an opinion on whether Obamacare would make it more or less efficient.

[giblets]

I don't believe you actually don't understand this. But how about I just give you a quick summary of the relevant arguments anyway:

1. Public healthcare (particularly obamacare) is less efficient than private insurance. (NOTE: The US cannot be described as really having private insurance. There are huge, horrible government interventions into the healthcare system.) So not paying for someone else's healthcare through a redistribution scheme is better from the standpoint of maximizing social welfare.
2. If the fetus is a moral person, you shouldn't be allowed to kill it. Alimony sucks too but you can't kill your ex wife to avoid paying it.

You can disagree with these, fine. But don't claim again that there is some deep inconsistency here. There isn't.

1. Do you support vouchers so poor people can get private insurance and not die? How does not having a redistributive scheme maximize social welfare when income has diminishing marginal utility?
2. Should you be allowed to remove the fetus from a woman's body and then leave it to fend for itself?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well. It's a bit more complicated than that. Reality is the efficiency is related to the specific scheme, some private are really efficient, some are horrible, some public are efficient, some are horrible.

eg. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877


The current US pre-Obamacare system is already comfortably the least efficient though.

Though, I think that's more of a side issue. I think people can be consistent in thinking public healthcare isn't the best option and also think that abortion is immoral due to when they start the human life clock.

[Hauldren Collider]

The current US pre-Obamacare system is already comfortably the least efficient though.

That's quite possible. The way we handle health insurance in the US is idiotic. You'll note that both Republicans and Democrats want to do healthcare reform--they just disagree completely on what direction to take it.

[regexcellent]

1. Do you support vouchers so poor people can get private insurance and not die? How does not having a redistributive scheme maximize social welfare when income has diminishing marginal utility?

Why not just give them vouchers, which they can choose to spend on health care? I'm not on welfare so I'm not super concerned with how welfare recipients get their money but I don't see why it has to be earmarked.

BTW the whole vouchers thing is basically Paul Ryan's plan for Medicare.

2. Should you be allowed to remove the fetus from a woman's body and then leave it to fend for itself?

No more than you should be allowed to abandon your 6-month-old on the street and leave him to fend for himself.

[MikeH]

Though, I think that's more of a side issue. I think people can be consistent in thinking public healthcare isn't the best option and also think that abortion is immoral due to when they start the human life clock.

Well.

I think that if you think abortion should be illegal for moral reasons, you should also see it as a moral obligation to ensure that there is a healthcare system in place to care for any unborn babies who's prospective parents can't afford to pay for them, and to care for them as children until they can get jobs and pay for themselves.

I don't think it matters whether this is a public or a private scheme, but normally there would need to be some kind of governmental regulation to ensure the private firms follow their obligations there.

[Asher]

You are a ****ing idiot. Arguing with you is like talking to a third grader who still firmly denies the existence of negative numbers. You do not listen to a word anyone says. Go hang out with MrFun and the rest of your masturbation circle.

You could at least make some minimal effort to acknowledge the opposing arguments and actually address them, but you are either too stupid or too lazy or too arrogant or some combination of the three.

Is it intentional that you just lampooned yourself?

I understand your argument (you believe a fetus is a person). You're welcome to it. I acknowledge your argument.

I cannot address your argument because your argument is not based on fact. It is opinion and philosophy. As is mine. You are either "too stupid or too lazy or too arrogant" to understand it.

The difference between you and I is I support liberty, while you proposed to dictate what a woman can do to her body. The problem here is you refuse to acknowledge my argument or refute it in any way. You keep spouting your opinion as if it is fact and obvious. It is not fact, it is not obvious. It is authoritarian.

[Hauldren Collider]

1. Do you support vouchers so poor people can get private insurance and not die? How does not having a redistributive scheme maximize social welfare when income has diminishing marginal utility?
2. Should you be allowed to remove the fetus from a woman's body and then leave it to fend for itself?

1's a strawman, I think we should have voucher medicaid for the desperately poor, but I think you are making a false comparison. We consider children to be, essentially, helpless. They have fewer rights, and they also have fewer responsibilities. We have a number of laws requiring them to do things like go to school, restricting their ability to sign contracts, use certain products (namely tobacco and alcohol), and we also put them under the care until age 18 of another person, who has almost absolute authority over every part of their life. We do not consider adults to be helpless. Suggesting there should be symmetry between the things we afford children and the things we afford adults is silly.

[Asher]

I don't believe you actually don't understand this. But how about I just give you a quick summary of the relevant arguments anyway:

1. Public healthcare (particularly obamacare) is less efficient than private insurance.

This is a bald-face lie. Ridiculously obvious one.

Are you to tell me the Canadian system is less efficient than American? Let me guess -- America's system is inefficient not because of the enormous HMO overhead and bureaucracy and insurance crap, but because the government helps poor people.

[regexcellent]

Reading is fundamental, Asher.

1. Public healthcare (particularly obamacare) is less efficient than private insurance. (NOTE: The US cannot be described as really having private insurance. There are huge, horrible government interventions into the healthcare system.) So not paying for someone else's healthcare through a redistribution scheme is better from the standpoint of maximizing social welfare.

[Hauldren Collider]

This is a bald-face lie. Ridiculously obvious one.

Are you to tell me the Canadian system is less efficient than American? Let me guess -- America's system is inefficient not because of the enormous HMO overhead and bureaucracy and insurance crap, but because the government helps poor people.

I love how Asher continues to master the master the Ben style of posting. He's getting better at it every day. Observe the sentence that immediately follows what he quoted:

(NOTE: The US cannot be described as really having private insurance. There are huge, horrible government interventions into the healthcare system.)

Medicaid is a major source of inefficiency, but pales in comparison to Medicare. However there are a number of other reasons why it is very inefficient. You could write whole books on it. For starters, the fact that when it is supplied by the workplace it is tax exempt, but not tax exempt when you get it yourself.

[snoopy369]

Separate from my feelings on the matter, which I generally don't discuss, I think that the comments were unsurprising and entirely reasonable from his point of view; but entirely unreasonable from an irreligious point of view. And that is the fundamental problem with the abortion debate. Both sides have entirely reasonable stances from their point of view (and, as opposed to most of the other fundy wackiness, both sides have reasonable points of view on the matter from an objective standpoint). However, the two sides' stances are inherently in conflict; there is not really the possibility of compromise at the end of the day. I imagine the Pro Choice side could (and has, somewhat) compromise away some of the more elective abortions - ie, I don't think very many people would support abortion if it were solely women who realized a few months in that they didn't really want a baby. Some would, but it's not quite so fundamental (nor quite so easy to defend) that it couldn't be compromised away, in exchange for keeping very early electives (ie, morning-after pill and within a few weeks) and non-electives (rape, health, etc.).

But on the other side, you really do have a hard time seeing the compromise at all. Maybe mother's health, if it's assured the baby will kill the mother and likely die itself. But even that I think is difficult for the religious - because it's taking the power of life and death into human hands from God, or similar lines of thought. Euthanasia is not that dissimilar after all from the baby's point of view. And a lot of the other ones - rape victims, Downs Syndrom babies, etc. - really are from their point of view murdering an innocent child, and that's pretty hard to compromise on I think if that is your point of view.

Honestly from an objective viewpoint, in the abortion debate the pro-choice side tends towards the 'fundamentalist' bent as much or more so than the pro-life, in the sense of ignoring the fact that the other side does have a valid argument (whether you personally agree with it or not). That's unfortunate, in my opinion, and why it's nearly impossible to have a meaningful debate on the subject.

[MikeH]

But there are lots of public schemes that are more efficient than other private schemes. NHS always comes top or near top of developed world health service efficiency surveys.

I know many Americans have an unshakeable faith that private firms are always more efficient than public services, but that really isn't always true.

[regexcellent]

It would be nice if pro-abortion folks wouldn't hide behind canards like rape babies all the time, and instead actually address the issue.

[giblets]

1's a strawman, I think we should have voucher medicaid for the desperately poor, but I think you are making a false comparison. We consider children to be, essentially, helpless. They have fewer rights, and they also have fewer responsibilities. We have a number of laws requiring them to do things like go to school, restricting their ability to sign contracts, use certain products (namely tobacco and alcohol), and we also put them under the care until age 18 of another person, who has almost absolute authority over every part of their life. We do not consider adults to be helpless. Suggesting there should be symmetry between the things we afford children and the things we afford adults is silly.

It would certainly be fantastic if everyone suddenly gained the ability to pay for their own health insurance upon turning 18, but that is sadly not the case. And there are people who apparently think "don't make me pay anything for anyone else's healthcare, but a fetus's right to life totally trumps a rape victim's right to her own property." If you don't personally support letting the poor die, that's great. It doesn't make the position I was referring to consistent.