A Few Scattered Points on the American Healthcare Debate
Not at all in the mood to write a long libertarian polemic about healthcare, its existing ills and so on. Hence, a few short points.
- Those who say healthcare should be a "fundamental right"..... have they ever read the bill of rights? Do they recognize what negative rights mean? I know Obama does. Maybe that's why even as he pushes for taxpayer-funded healthcare, as far as I know, he has never called it a right, a la Ted Kennedy (rest in peace).
- The basic idea of "healthcare insurance" is so absurd. It is absurd that the same word "insurance" is used to describe a fall-back bet you make for mostly-unlikely events like car accidents, and the inefficient skewed-incentive payment plan for falling sick, which pretty much everyone always will. Democrats need to understand that the problem is not really "insurance companies" per se, but the concept of "insurance" itself.
- IF...and that's a big bold "IF" for me.....but IF we have to have some sort of a public insurance reform in America, the least worst way is seriously to just go with a single payer plan, like medicare. Or like they have in the UK. This public option plan that Obama is championing literally combines the worst of the two worlds.
- Those who say healthcare should be a "fundamental right"..... have they ever read the bill of rights? Do they recognize what negative rights mean? I know Obama does. Maybe that's why even as he pushes for taxpayer-funded healthcare, as far as I know, he has never called it a right, a la Ted Kennedy (rest in peace).
- The basic idea of "healthcare insurance" is so absurd. It is absurd that the same word "insurance" is used to describe a fall-back bet you make for mostly-unlikely events like car accidents, and the inefficient skewed-incentive payment plan for falling sick, which pretty much everyone always will. Democrats need to understand that the problem is not really "insurance companies" per se, but the concept of "insurance" itself.
- IF...and that's a big bold "IF" for me.....but IF we have to have some sort of a public insurance reform in America, the least worst way is seriously to just go with a single payer plan, like medicare. Or like they have in the UK. This public option plan that Obama is championing literally combines the worst of the two worlds.
