---------- Nathan Saper[SMTP:natedog@well.com] wrote: On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 08:37:42PM -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:
You cannot provide cheap insurance by punishing insurers, any more than you can provide cheap housing by punishing landlords. It has been tried. A
law compelling insurance companies to insure the unhealthy will merely raise costs for the healthy, resulting in more people going uninsured.
If you want to guarantee insurance for the unhealthy without ill effects
the TAXPAYER has to pay, and I suspect that if this proposition was put to the public, enthusiasm would be considerably less. Indeed the Clintons did put something very like that proposition to the public, and there was little enthusiasm.
Having socialized healthcare would be ideal. However, I think that the political atmosphere in this country pretty much removes that possibility.
[...] Nathan, have you ever actually looked at socialized medicine? It's fine for some things, but not for others. Illnessess which can be cured and which curing will return a person to productive labour get treated - after a while. Illnessess which strike late in life and/or require expensive treatment get much shorter shrift. Britain's NHS record on cancer treatment is a national disgrace. Why do you think Austin Power's teeth were a running joke? The state of British (ie, socialized NHS) dentistry lags *far* behind the US, especially in the area of orthodontics. Canadians like their socialized system, but any Canadian who gets sick knows that (for a price) they can get faster, better treatment in the US. There are more MRI machines in single US cities than in all of Canada, and the waiting lists up there can outlast an Albertan winter. The sad truth is that cost of the best medical care has exceeded the ability of the average person to afford it. (When I say 'average' I mean the arithmetic mean of incomes, so robbing the rich to treat the poor still won't get everyone the best possible care). Regardless of how we choose to finance it, there will remain many people whose lives could have been improved by treatments which were not performed due to reasons of cost. Once you recognize that medical care *must* be rationed, the question is how, and by who. The majority of the subscribers to this list are anarcho-capitalists and/or libertarians, and abhor any taking by force. Your socialist outlook is very much a minority viewpoint, and I don't think you're going to change anyones mind. The solution to this problem is not to propose different ways to slice up the too-small pie - it's to expand the pie. The greater the wealth, the more people who can afford good care. People who are responsible for their own welfare (and enslaved to the welfare of others) have the best chance of acheiving wealth. Peter Trei