Health Care

[moda0306]

Price controls result in shortages or surpluses. Both make us poorer and hurt our standard of living.

Natural resources as private property are a price control.  They create artificial scarcity where there once was abundance.

Or so one could reasonably argue .

They can be traded for. They can be bid away from the owner if the price offered is high enough. As long as people are willing to pay the price, or more accurately as long as we are able to profit from offereing a service people will think of ways to offer it.

They are available for usage still.

Yes... of course they're available for usage.  How else is an "owner" supposed to make a profit.

I could walk down the street and pick-pocket every person I run into, and just because the cash is now "available for usage" by people willing to trade me their services or products for it, it is still unfair "control" that I have placed upon everyone.

The price system is the signal to potential producers that people prefer something over another (a paticular service over whatever else the money could buy). They then move to supply it. When violent threats are used to prevent the price from moving to a place where producers will create supply you have a shortage. People cannot get as much of a good or service they would prefer to what they have otherwise. This is a lower standard of living.

Violent threats like "get off 'my' land, injun?"



You have a habit of bouncing between what seems to be a "proven" moral status of behavior/ownership/etc, and consequentialist arguments... "arguing from effects," if you will.  Explaining how the market allocates resources more in line with with what "people" or "the market" want is a consequentialist argument... further, by your own reasoning regarding false congregations of individual pieces, "the people" and "the market" do not really exist any more than "society."  "We" are just a bunch of sovereign individuals occasionally choosing to interact with each other. 

I don't mind arguing from effects, as long as we can stay relatively consistent, but as soon as doodle and I (or anyone else) start to challenge your "arguments from effects," by showing more ideal results when the government does X or Y, you attack us for saying "the ends justify the means" and being morally bankrupt.  When we post an outside source, you complain that we don't think for ourselves.  When we ask questions about where your reasoning & empirical evidence lies, you get annoyed that we don't just "state our argument," though you really never state yours as an argument, but just run-on paragraphs with what appear to be circular logic, but because of the nature of how you present it, it's impossible to see how all your premises connect to conclusions, and which are supposed to be self-evident.  Of course, we had a good role over on the "Proving Morality" debate... but you seem to have gotten sucked back into a lot of your old habits on other threads .

This all makes you very difficult to debate or have a productive conversation with, sometimes.  Just too much goal-post moving.

But as I've mentioned before... so many of these arguments don't need to happen if you would just prove morality.  Any consequentialist argument, after that point, could be self-evident as just being BS.  So many arguments... avoided.

[moda0306]

Honestly the only way to untie the gordian knot I think is for a bunch of ballsy doctors to set up a hospital where they do what they actually became doctors to do: heal sick people without a bunch of bureaucracy and bullshit. Needless to say, this would be highly illegal, and it would probably precipitate a Waco-type standoff that made people realize the absurdity of the notion of federal laws backed by the government's guns prohibiting healers from healing. The change in our nation's psyche wouldn't happen immediately, but I think it would get the ball rolling, the way Waco had a major impact on the modern gun rights movement, and how since then, we haven't really had any major federal defeats and have begun toll back the leviathan.

They should do it near Clive Bundy's ranch.

It would be hard for the jackboots to kidnapp or shoot unarmed doctors and nurses for selling medical services, especially if they are paying taxes.

Wait... are the jack-boots the militia that threatened force if the BLM confiscated the cattle on U.S. government land for unpaid rents/taxes, or the backup requested by BLM agents after having threats of force mailed to them by a deadbeat renter's family & buddies that don't even recognize the federal government as existing?

No need to answer... just a bit of snarkitude. I'm done... promise. 

[Kshartle]

You have a habit of bouncing between what seems to be a "proven" moral status of behavior/ownership/etc, and consequentialist arguments... "arguing from effects," if you will. 

Strictly because I didn't want to hijack the thread into the morality realm, which is all too easy to do with pretty much any issue.

I never think something is correct because it's the most economical. I do believe the opposite though (the most moral ends up being the most economical).

Most of these discussions assume act utilitarianism as the highest virtue or some form of it. So I tried to approach it from that angle (as I've been asked to many many times). The NAP horse has been beat to death enough.

[WiseOne]

Honestly the only way to untie the gordian knot I think is for a bunch of ballsy doctors to set up a hospital where they do what they actually became doctors to do: heal sick people without a bunch of bureaucracy and bullshit. Needless to say, this would be highly illegal, and it would probably precipitate a Waco-type standoff that made people realize the absurdity of the notion of federal laws backed by the government's guns prohibiting healers from healing. The change in our nation's psyche wouldn't happen immediately, but I think it would get the ball rolling, the way Waco had a major impact on the modern gun rights movement, and how since then, we haven't really had any major federal defeats and have begun toll back the leviathan.

There are several such hospitals out there.  They're not doing any better than the rest.

Of course you're all correct about price controls...it would just introduce a different kind of nightmare.  Maybe it's as simple as allowing hospitals to set different prices for cash paying patients, which would let the free market enter the picture.  I can't speak for hospital administrators, who seem to live somewhere on Mars in my experience, but almost every doctor I know would dearly love to be able to do this.

Best "Mars" example:  couple years ago I saw something in my inbox that I was positive was an April Fool's joke (yes it arrived on 4/1).  It was a proud announcement of a new hospital program:  the Zone of Silence.  The idea is that if you're doing something you don't want interrupted, you have to stand in a Zone of Silence square or put on your Zone of Silence hat.  I couldn't get any work done the rest of the day because my friends and I were all laughing our heads off.

I managed to snag a Zone of Silence pin, but I REALLY wanted the hat.

[moda0306]

You have a habit of bouncing between what seems to be a "proven" moral status of behavior/ownership/etc, and consequentialist arguments... "arguing from effects," if you will. 

Strictly because I didn't want to hijack the thread into the morality realm, which is all too easy to do with pretty much any issue.

I never think something is correct because it's the most economical. I do believe the opposite though (the most moral ends up being the most economical).

Most of these discussions assume act utilitarianism as the highest virtue or some form of it. So I tried to approach it from that angle (as I've been asked to many many times). The NAP horse has been beat to death enough.

Ok, well that's all well-laid out.  Thanks for explaining. 

And we're in full agreement that the NAP has been beaten to death.  It's just as dead as most other moral ideals... good to think about but fails under scrutiny .

[Pointedstick]

Honestly the only way to untie the gordian knot I think is for a bunch of ballsy doctors to set up a hospital where they do what they actually became doctors to do: heal sick people without a bunch of bureaucracy and bullshit. Needless to say, this would be highly illegal, and it would probably precipitate a Waco-type standoff that made people realize the absurdity of the notion of federal laws backed by the government's guns prohibiting healers from healing. The change in our nation's psyche wouldn't happen immediately, but I think it would get the ball rolling, the way Waco had a major impact on the modern gun rights movement, and how since then, we haven't really had any major federal defeats and have begun toll back the leviathan.

There are several such hospitals out there.  They're not doing any better than the rest.

I'd be very curious to find out why. Are they truly not able to deliver services cheaply? Do they not have enough patients? Are they stupidly taking too many loss leader patients and not enough financially lucrative ones? etc.

[WiseOne]

It's because contrary to popular belief, doctors aren't the ones making the rules.  It's mainly the insurance companies and Medicare.  Plus the fact that if someone uninsured arrives on your doorstep you are legally and ethically required to treat them at least until they're stable, regardless of cost.  Plus the whole malpractice juggernaut.

[MachineGhost]

We will get price controls when we get single payer. You won't see the prices though, but the government will. And it will refuse to pay them. That will be the control.

I gotta tell you that combined might of "We the People" refusing to pay $42K+physician charges for a hospital visit has a wee little more weight than doodle's friend simply deciding he's not going to.  The heavy hand of the law seems to be the only thing these jokers in the medical industry complex respond to.  And keep in mind by "jokers" I mean the Executive Board creatures who are living high off the hog in an upper class elitist lifestyle while literally everyone else suffers perdition.

Price controls or economic injustice?  You decide.

[Pointedstick]

It's because contrary to popular belief, doctors aren't the ones making the rules.  It's mainly the insurance companies and Medicare.  Plus the fact that if someone uninsured arrives on your doorstep you are legally and ethically required to treat them at least until they're stable, regardless of cost.  Plus the whole malpractice juggernaut.

I guess I was envisioning a cash-only clinic that wouldn't care about insurance companies or medicare. Though I guess that the hippocratic oath could lead to financial death by adverse selection bias.

This all sort of suggests to me that medicine should be a branch of another organization that doesn't need to concern itself about making a profit. Historically this was the church, but during that time, there were these pervasive social memes of "charity" and "God" that seem to be dying. I wonder if it's simply not possible to have good medical care without the virtue of charity or unleashing the full forces of capitalism (which seems highly objectionable to most people).

[Kshartle]

It's because contrary to popular belief, doctors aren't the ones making the rules.  It's mainly the insurance companies and Medicare.  Plus the fact that if someone uninsured arrives on your doorstep you are legally and ethically required to treat them at least until they're stable, regardless of cost.  Plus the whole malpractice juggernaut.

Agreed on everything except the ethical part

If they're ethically required to treat are the ethically required to pass the cost on

Doctors and hospitals get blamed just like greedy oil companies get blamed or McDonalds gets blamed. Very few get where the human created problems come from.

[Mark Leavy]

I guess I was envisioning a cash-only clinic that wouldn't care about insurance companies or medicare. Though I guess that the hippocratic oath could lead to financial death by adverse selection bias.

This all sort of suggests to me that medicine should be a branch of another organization that doesn't need to concern itself about making a profit. Historically this was the church, but during that time, there were these pervasive social memes of "charity" and "God" that seem to be dying. I wonder if it's simply not possible to have good medical care without the virtue of charity or unleashing the full forces of capitalism (which seems highly objectionable to most people).

I checked out Bangkok earlier this year.  Outstanding facility. Top notch doctors.  All setup to welcome foreign patients.  They work on a cash basis.  Very viable for any major work you need done. 

[Pointedstick]

Based on this anecdote, my guess would be that your parents reside in Illinois. There is no backlog, except in funding. State employees don't have insurance in the traditional sense; it is a self-funded plan where the insurance co acts as a 3rd party administrator only, and assumes no actuarial risk. If the IL state treasury doesn't appropriate the money to pay the doctors/labs because they don't have it, no one gets paid until the money becomes available, often months later. The irony, of course, is that if a private insurer failed to pay a claim for a year they would get sanctioned and fined. 

It sounds like you have some experience with this system, which, as you correctly guessed, is in Illinois.

Oh, Illinois…

[MachineGhost]

About 46 percent of physicians accept Medicaid, according to a 15-city survey last year by staffing firm Merritt Hawkins. That’s down about 10 percent from four years before. To encourage primary-care doctors to take Medicaid patients, the Affordable Care Act has temporarily increased the program’s payments to doctors, matching Medicare’s higher rates through 2014. But the boost doesn’t apply to specialists such as cardiologists and oncologists. “What they pay doesn’t even come close to covering expenses,”? says Pat Howery, the administrator at Colorado West Otolaryngologists, an ear, nose, and throat clinic in Grand Junction. For a basic office visit, Howery says, UnitedHealth Group (UNH) pays $119 and Medicare $73; Medicaid comes in at $52. “You can’t make this up in volume,”? he says. In January the clinic began limiting each doctor to two Medicaid appointments a day.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... h-medicaid

[doodle]

2 month wait to see my dermatologist......Canada's wait times are looking pretty good right now.

you wanted to wait longer?

A survey of Atlantic Canadians, of whom Nova Scotians make up a large part, show they have the longest wait times in Canada — 23 weeks — just to get a first appointment with a dermatologist, the Canadian Skin Patient Alliance said Wednesday.

"The wait time for Nova Scotia dermatologists surveyed ranged from almost four months to a full year," researchers said in their report card. "And wait times are growing progressively worse."

from http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/55695-study-dermatology-waits-province-five-times-longer-accepted-levels