How wealth is created...

[mraynrand]

I am dissappointed that conservatives think that there is an acceptable number of uninsured people.

Your intellectual dishonesty has been noted.

[Cy]

So giving to the poor or less fortunate is a virtue, but how we give - through the filter of government programs, through charities, through donation of time and teaching, etc. is up to us here on this earth. What do we choose? How do we choose to help the poor? There is no edict from Christ to give to a government to disperse to the poor, only that we should help the poor. We should probably do so in the way that works best - the way that helps the most poor. And of course, there are vigorous disagreements as to which method will benefit the most, which I won't address in this post.

Cy: No. "How we give" is absolutely critical. First off, to say, "I will give to the poor by voting democratic" is wrong on so many fronts. (a) Liberalism hasn't done anything for the poor but entrenched their stay in that class. (b) it's a cheap way out of our ethical obligations to love one another (c) it runs counter to the separation of church and state!

I really cannot believe this. I've been hearing for 30 years how the separation of church and state means that us Christians should just keep out of politics. And now, starting with Obama on down, we're hearing that "being your brohter's keeper" and taking care of the poor, as Jesus supposedly wants (based on scant textual evidence), means that we should become a socialist state.

Unreal...

[HowardRoark]

I really cannot believe this. I've been hearing for 30 years how the separation of church and state means that us Christians should just keep out of politics. And now, starting with Obama on down, we're hearing that "being your brohter's keeper" and taking care of the poor, as Jesus supposedly wants (based on scant textual evidence), means that we should become a socialist state.

Unreal...

Excellent point Cy. Why is it that we have to suddenly listen to, and act upon, the morality of some "sky god" that Obama might believe in? Why exactly is he pushing his morality on the country to "take care of our brethren?" Ty told me last night that these are "private" matters and that polite people do not bring them into public discussions.

Barack Obama; please leave your moralizing out of the national debate!!!! Don't you know that we have a Seperation of Church and State?

[HowardRoark]

I really cannot believe this. I've been hearing for 30 years how the separation of church and state means that us Christians should just keep out of politics. And now, starting with Obama on down, we're hearing that "being your brohter's keeper" and taking care of the poor, as Jesus supposedly wants (based on scant textual evidence), means that we should become a socialist state.

Unreal...

Excellent point Cy. Why is it that we have to suddenly listen to, and act upon, the morality of some "sky god" that Obama might believe in? Why exactly is he pushing his morality on the country to "take care of our brethren?" Ty told me last night that these are "private" matters and that polite people do not bring them into public discussions.

Barack Obama; please leave your moralizing out of the national debate!!!! Don't you know that we have a Seperation of Church and State?

Well Howard, don’t you know that it is ultimately to your benefit to take care of these so called “least of these my brethren?” We need to keep them in the bare necessities in order to keep order in society. In the long run it is to your and your children’s advantage to throw these people a few crumbs. In fact, it might be worthwhile to actually build them homes (albeit bad ones) that we can house them in. It will also make it easier to “organize” them when we need them.

So, Howard (you selfish jerk), it is not out of morality or altruism that we “redistribute”, it is to keep society ordered. It is, in fact, a selfish act.

[HowardRoark]

I really cannot believe this. I've been hearing for 30 years how the separation of church and state means that us Christians should just keep out of politics. And now, starting with Obama on down, we're hearing that "being your brohter's keeper" and taking care of the poor, as Jesus supposedly wants (based on scant textual evidence), means that we should become a socialist state.

Unreal...

Excellent point Cy. Why is it that we have to suddenly listen to, and act upon, the morality of some "sky god" that Obama might believe in? Why exactly is he pushing his morality on the country to "take care of our brethren?" Ty told me last night that these are "private" matters and that polite people do not bring them into public discussions.

Barack Obama; please leave your moralizing out of the national debate!!!! Don't you know that we have a Seperation of Church and State?

Well Howard, don’t you know that it is ultimately to your benefit to take care of these so called “least of these my brethren?” We need to keep them in the bare necessities in order to keep order in society. In the long run it is to your and your children’s advantage to throw these people a few crumbs. In fact, it might be worthwhile to actually build them homes (albeit bad ones) that we can house them in. It will also make it easier to “organize” them when we need them.

So, Howard (you selfish jerk), it is not out of morality or altruism that we “redistribute”, it is to keep society ordered. It is, in fact, a selfish act.

But I thought that selfishness was bad (there we go, moralizing again), wasn’t it? At least that’s what the One said the other day in a speech. We are not supposed to be selfish for some reason. The reason escapes me now. I think it is based on some religion or something.

At any rate, I am confused. Sometimes morals are OK, but sometimes they are “laughable.” How do we know which morals are OK? And furthermore, when do we know that it is alright to moralize?

And keep your Ayn Rand covers and Adam Smith quotes out of here…….

[mraynrand]

[HowardRoark]

1 day!!

[Harlan Huckleby]

Government statistics also show 45 percent of those without insurance will have insurance again within four months after job transitions.

This is a silly argument, one that Ayn has been using: "Don't worry so much about the uninsurred, they are just between jobs."

I don't believe for a second that the economy is churning people in and out of jobs at such a high rate. But for the sake of discussion lets say 10M people are being dumped into the uninsured rolls every 4 months, and an equal number are finding new jobs with benefits. How is this comforting? It doesn't matter if people are uninsured for 1 month or 20 years, they are equally vulnerable. A high churn rate causes the same total hardship as long umemployment periods.

IF you are going to look at this as a question of statitics, all that matters is the total number of uninusred. But I don't even give a damn about the numbers, except as a rough indicator of the scale of the problem. It has to be dealt with at any rate.

[Harlan Huckleby]

So giving to the poor or less fortunate is a virtue, but how we give - through the filter of government programs, through charities, through donation of time and teaching, etc. is up to us here on this earth.

You make a valid point, certainly in theory.

The trouble is that human nature overall is not so generous. We can go back a couple hundred years to when government did much less, and there was massive poverty.

Or you can look at philanthropy rates among the wealthy today. They are very low, the Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts are the exception.

Private charity and volunteerism just doesn't cut it. That's the problem.

[mraynrand]

This is a silly argument, one that Ayn has been using: "Don't worry so much about the uninsurred, they are just between jobs."

.

I have never made this argument. Mostly I am simply trying to counteract your disinformation about the number of uninsured and confusing lack of insurance with lack of access. I don't deny that the health care system has all sorts of problems, what I don't agree with are your ideas (at least most of them) for fixing it.

[Harlan Huckleby]

This is a silly argument, one that Ayn has been using: "Don't worry so much about the uninsurred, they are just between jobs."

.

I have never made this argument. Mostly I am simply trying to counteract your disinformation about the number of uninsured and confusing lack of insurance with lack of access. I don't deny that the health care system has all sorts of problems, what I don't agree with are your ideas (at least most of them) for fixing it.

What ideas do you have to insure every American?

What is your plan for dealing with people with pre-existing conditions?

[GK]

This is a silly argument, one that Ayn has been using: "Don't worry so much about the uninsurred, they are just between jobs."

.

I have never made this argument. Mostly I am simply trying to counteract your disinformation about the number of uninsured and confusing lack of insurance with lack of access. I don't deny that the health care system has all sorts of problems, what I don't agree with are your ideas (at least most of them) for fixing it.

What ideas do you have to insure every American?

What is your plan for dealing with people with pre-existing conditions?

There is one problem, and one problem only, with health care today—it is that the government is knee deep in it already. You know this, don’t you? The healthcare system is one of the two most screwed up industries in America today (the other being education). In both of these industries, you get terrible service for a very high price ($35,000 a year tuition in college, and graduates still don’t know why we have an Electoral College). And, coincidently, these are two of the most strongly government-run industries in the country.

Do you think it is immoral that some people don’t have health care? Then you need to personally work as hard as you can to argue for the introduction of market forces into healthcare as soon as possible. There are currently no market forces in healthcare. None. That is why a CT scan can cost up to $3000, depending on where it is done. What should a CT scan cost? Who knows? If market forces had been in place for the last three decades, a CT scan would probably cost around $25. But healthcare prices have not been set by the market. How are they set? Big government and big companies sit down and negotiate big contracts between each other, so big important people can be happy with those prices. You, my friend, and all the other little people who have a hard time getting insurance, have no say in the matter. No say whatsoever.

But, you do have a say in how much a DVD player costs. And how much a gallon of milk costs. And how much a flash drive costs. And they’re all pretty cheap. Amazing how that works. You, the consumer, set the price, and it tends to be low. That’s pretty neat! Let the consumer have a choice, and cost goes down, and quality goes up. What is the freest market in America? I don’t know, maybe high tech. The high tech industry has experienced cutthroat competition for two decades, and now we have extraordinary computers for a few hundred dollars, all of the amazing features of the internet, and on and on.

Healthcare is not a right. It is a good and a service. That is a fact. A right is something you would have anywhere, even on a deserted island, like freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. You don’t have the right to bypass surgery on a deserted island, because there is no cardiothoracic surgeon there. Healthcare is a good and a service. So the question is, what is the most effective and most efficient way to get these goods and services to the most people for the lowest price? The answer to that question is not debatable—it is the free market.

[HowardRoark]

Healthcare is not a right. It is a good and a service. That is a fact. A right is something you would have anywhere, even on a deserted island, like freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. You don’t have the right to bypass surgery on a deserted island, because there is no cardiothoracic surgeon there. Healthcare is a good and a service. So the question is, what is the most effective and most efficient way to get these goods and services to the most people for the lowest price? The answer to that question is not debatable—it is the free market.

But don't you see? This is the outdated "negative" right. The Enlightened have now fixed all this with "positive" rights. Under this scenerio, the surgeon would (somehow) be forced to get to the island and take care of you.

[digitaldean]

Re: How wealth is created...

extreme forms of collectivism results in stacks of bloody corpses.

True. And extreme forms of capitalism have led to the failure of the financial markets in the U.S., and a every-man-for-himself healthcare system that leaves many people uninsurable.

I am not able to think up a good analogy for the relationship between capitalism and socialism. OK, here's one that will do: they are like gasoline and air in an internal combustion engine.

You need both elements in balance. Arguing that air is bad, it robs the engine of power is sort of true. And arguing that gasoline is bad because it floods the engine is also true enough.

(I know, socialism is the hot air.)

Your speech on the virtues of capitalism is true enough. But also simple minded and unhelpful. We need free markets plus checks on the free market. We need incentives and a safety net.

The best one to hit on your recipe, HH was Teddy Roosevelt. Unfortunately, not too many of that caliber in DC lately.

[Harlan Huckleby]

There are currently no market forces in healthcare. None. That is why a CT scan can cost up to $3000, depending on where it is done. What should a CT scan cost? Who knows? If market forces had been in place for the last three decades, a CT scan would probably cost around $25.

You are badly misinformed. There is no conspiracy anyhere that is keeping the cost of healthcare high. And the collusion you speak of is the only thing holding costs down.

But healthcare prices have not been set by the market. How are they set? Big government and big companies sit down and negotiate big contracts between each other, so big important people can be happy with those prices.

Insurance companies bargain with providers, and this simply serves to contain costs. With medicare, the government sets the price it will pay for each service, and public hospitals or medicare-authorized private hospitals must offer the services for those prices. These prices are a fraction of the free market prices.

I have a friend who has paid medical bills in three different ways: out of pocket, with private insurance, and now with medicare. Bills for the same services were FAR higher when he paid them out of pocket as compared to what his private insurer negotiated. And under medicare, the government pays about 50% of what the private insurer payed.

Your perceptions of how things work are completely wrong.

Healthcare is not a right. It is a good and a service. That is a fact.

Not a fact, a statement of your values. You believe that health care should be treated like any other commodity. I disagree. Most people around the world see this issue very differently. I view health care like education, it is wise for the public good to make it available for all.

what is the most effective and most efficient way to get these goods and services to the most people for the lowest price? The answer to that question is not debatable—it is the free market.

Our health care system has more free market characteristics than in any other developed country. We have excellent medical care for those who have good insurance, but overall our system is terrible, in my opinion. we allow insurance companies to cherry pick customers, and the market chaos produces inefficiencies in billing. Give me a single payer system, your free market is a disaster.