Is healthcare a right? why or why not?

[Sactowndog]

That's getting to it I suppose. So why do you think we ought to? Why is a society that simply provides things to people with no expectation of responsibility better than a society that ask its citizenry to have a level of responsibility to provide for it's own well being?

I hate to bring up Rush again because the left loves to just pick him apart but he noted that that mentality, where we do things that just feel good and right is an example of a sentiment of people who's hearts are disconnected from their brains (what makes sense vs. what feels good). It feels good to say we 'ought to provide poeple free healthcare'. But is that really what's best for the growth of a society? Is it really best that a society over time learn that it can be dependant on others for what they need rather than take responsibility for providing it to themselves?

If you don't bring up Rush you deny us on the left the pleasure of mocking him. Please feel free to bring him up whenever you wish

Society ought to ensure healthcare is available to all its citizens. How it should be funded is the moot point so, as usual, Rush is wrong. Ah, the pleasure

Isn't this a ridiculously black and white question?

Rush is an idiot and choses to ignore the fact that we already provide free health care for a huge chunck of society and those who have the most ability to be independent in their choices (the elderly) are the least penalized. As long we we mandate emergency rooms take all comers we provide free health care.

It is equally true however, that we can't do everything. So the question isn't do we provide fee healthcare, the question is how do we ration our scarce dollars.

 

[Wiseacre]

That's getting to it I suppose. So why do you think we ought to? Why is a society that simply provides things to people with no expectation of responsibility better than a society that ask its citizenry to have a level of responsibility to provide for it's own well being?

I hate to bring up Rush again because the left loves to just pick him apart but he noted that that mentality, where we do things that just feel good and right is an example of a sentiment of people who's hearts are disconnected from their brains (what makes sense vs. what feels good). It feels good to say we 'ought to provide poeple free healthcare'. But is that really what's best for the growth of a society? Is it really best that a society over time learn that it can be dependant on others for what they need rather than take responsibility for providing it to themselves?

If you don't bring up Rush you deny us on the left the pleasure of mocking him. Please feel free to bring him up whenever you wish

Society ought to ensure healthcare is available to all its citizens. How it should be funded is the moot point so, as usual, Rush is wrong. Ah, the pleasure

Isn't this a ridiculously black and white question?

Rush is an idiot and choses to ignore the fact that we already provide free health care for a huge chunck of society and those who have the most ability to be independent in their choices (the elderly) are the least penalized. As long we we mandate emergency rooms take all comers we provide free health care.

It is equally true however, that we can't do everything. So the question isn't do we provide fee healthcare, the question is how do we ration our scarce dollars.

An even better question is how can we keep HC costs down? And for the record I don't think HC is a right, it's a service that you pay for if you want it.

 

[Sactowndog]

And part of that response I think is the problem. We don't dig far enough to uncover the real issue. I prof I once had introduced to the concept of the five whys. The theory being that when tackling a problem you usually have to ask the question 'why' at least five times in order to really identify a problem. So why do we think there is a problem with our healthcare industry in the first place? It isn't because of a quality of care issue, the U.S. is probably the best in the world in terms of technology, physicians and resources. The reason I think that we have a 'problem' with the healthcare industry is because it is so expensive. I think that's the real issue. We (as a nation) probably wouldn't be haveing this discussion as to rights or who should pay for it, etc., if the cost of a kidney transplant was $5.

Too funny you talk about 5 whys and then you stop at 1. You don't even take your own advise. Let me help you....

1) Healthcare isn't working why
2) Healthcare is so expensive why (you stop here)
3) Supply and demand don't seem to be working why
4) Demand curves are built on a concept called diminishing utility and that is failing why
5) Because diminishing utility requires that as the price of something rises $1 that a portion of the market will drop out becasue they don't see the value. Which of you would be willing to deny your child critical care because the cost rose by a buck?

None of you

Which is why Healthcare isn't working and why market based solutions on a failing market structure won't work.

 

[Sactowndog]

If you don't bring up Rush you deny us on the left the pleasure of mocking him. Please feel free to bring him up whenever you wish

Society ought to ensure healthcare is available to all its citizens. How it should be funded is the moot point so, as usual, Rush is wrong. Ah, the pleasure

Isn't this a ridiculously black and white question?

Rush is an idiot and choses to ignore the fact that we already provide free health care for a huge chunck of society and those who have the most ability to be independent in their choices (the elderly) are the least penalized. As long we we mandate emergency rooms take all comers we provide free health care.

It is equally true however, that we can't do everything. So the question isn't do we provide fee healthcare, the question is how do we ration our scarce dollars.

An even better question is how can we keep HC costs down? And for the record I don't think HC is a right, it's a service that you pay for if you want it.

I would agree but I think you have to start by acknowledging (via 5 questions) that health care costs are high because we depend on a market based system where supply and demand doesn't/can't work. If you disagree then tell me how much you childs life is worth because a demand curve requires you to have a number.

Once you acknowlege that truth you can begin to build a system.

 

[Wiseacre]

Isn't this a ridiculously black and white question?

Rush is an idiot and choses to ignore the fact that we already provide free health care for a huge chunck of society and those who have the most ability to be independent in their choices (the elderly) are the least penalized. As long we we mandate emergency rooms take all comers we provide free health care.

It is equally true however, that we can't do everything. So the question isn't do we provide fee healthcare, the question is how do we ration our scarce dollars.

An even better question is how can we keep HC costs down? And for the record I don't think HC is a right, it's a service that you pay for if you want it.

I would agree but I think you have to start by acknowledging (via 5 questions) that health care costs are high because we depend on a market based system where supply and demand doesn't/can't work. If you disagree then tell me how much you childs life is worth because a demand curve requires you to have a number.

Once you acknowlege that truth you can begin to build a system.

Supply and demand could work to hold down costs if the gov't didn't intervene. Unfortunately, that's not the case, we have price controls and we do not allow free and open competition for HC services in most states.

As you no doubt know, a child's life is priceless and you would do well to eschew the theatrics and stick to the reality of the situation. Which is that we don't have enough providers; gov't run HC is not going to address either the rising costs or the shortage of providers. Maybe you should read up on what's going on in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, check this out:

"Obama has nominated Henry J. Aaron to head the Social Security Advisory Board, a panel that advises the president and Congress about the old age system. The choice is most dangerous, since Aaron has a decades-long record as an advocate of denying American patients health care along the lines of the British national health system.

Aaron, a Brookings Institution scholar, has devoted his entire career to creating an intellectual and economic basis for health care rationing. In 2000, Aaron wrote, “The problem is that in the real world of limited medical resources, denial of beneficial care is inescapable.” Aaron wrote in a 2009 paper it is necessary for the government “to develop protocols that enable providers to identify in advance patients in whom expected benefits of treatment are lower than costs [and] to design incentives that encourage providers to act on those protocols.” That is, government must provide “incentives” to assure doctors deny treatment to those whom the ruling class deems unworthy of life

 

[lizzie]

Isn't this a ridiculously black and white question?

Rush is an idiot and choses to ignore the fact that we already provide free health care for a huge chunck of society and those who have the most ability to be independent in their choices (the elderly) are the least penalized. As long we we mandate emergency rooms take all comers we provide free health care.

It is equally true however, that we can't do everything. So the question isn't do we provide fee healthcare, the question is how do we ration our scarce dollars.

An even better question is how can we keep HC costs down? And for the record I don't think HC is a right, it's a service that you pay for if you want it.

I would agree but I think you have to start by acknowledging (via 5 questions) that health care costs are high because we depend on a market based system where supply and demand doesn't/can't work. If you disagree then tell me how much you childs life is worth because a demand curve requires you to have a number.

Once you acknowlege that truth you can begin to build a system.

Health care costs are high because of government intervention in the free market. When congress passed legislation requiring insurance companies to provide comprehensive coverage, regardless of the market demand, and individuals stopped having to pay for their drugs and physician office visits, the cost controls which were formerly provided by market competition were driven out.

 

[Greenbeard]

Aaron, a Brookings Institution scholar, has devoted his entire career to creating an intellectual and economic basis for health care rationing. In 2000, Aaron wrote, “The problem is that in the real world of limited medical resources, denial of beneficial care is inescapable.” Aaron wrote in a 2009 paper it is necessary for the government “to develop protocols that enable providers to identify in advance patients in whom expected benefits of treatment are lower than costs [and] to design incentives that encourage providers to act on those protocols.” That is, government must provide “incentives” to assure doctors deny treatment to those whom the ruling class deems unworthy of life

Brought to you by the same idiots who turned this guy, the intellectual godfather of the quality improvement movement, into Dr. Mengele.

Back in the 1980s, Berwick was a pediatrician at the Kenmore Center of the Harvard Community Health Plan in Boston, and in charge of "quality assurance" for the plan. His intellectual curiosity led him to wonder how non-medical parts of U.S. society addressed quality, a heretical notion in the snobby, clubby world of organized U.S. medicine.

In his search, Berwick stumbled onto a fast moving and worldwide intellectual revolution in industry and manufacturing. A key thought leader was another former heretic named W. Edwards Deming who taught the Japanese in the 1950s and the US in the 1970s and '80s that the path to economic success required a relentless focus on customer satisfaction and quality improvement, and that better quality -- doing the right thing and doing it right -- was a way to save money by eliminating rework. The term of art was "total quality management."

In 1989, Berwick wrote a seminal article for the New England Journal of Medicine called "Continuous Improvement as an Ideal in Health Care," and set off an intellectual revolution in American, and eventually, global medicine. Prior to Berwick, "quality" had been linked with the word "assurance" with the cavalier and false assumption that quality already existed, and all that was needed was adequate policing to root out "bad apples." Every hospital was required to have a "quality assurance" department that looked out for quality; everybody else just did their jobs.

More than anyone, Berwick changed the word from "assurance" to "improvement" with new assumptions: quality must be an essential part of everyone's job; no matter how good or how bad you think you and your organization are, every day, you have multiple opportunities to improve; and the key to quality improvement (QI) is the elimination of errors and waste, along with the empowerment of workers. Berwick did more than just establish an idea, he created an organization, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), to advance and actualize it. Under his leadership, IHI has become the worldwide home for QI through training, teaching, learning, collaborating, advocating, and more. [...]

That insight led Berwick to shift his focus to health system change. Still at IHI, he became centrally involved in two landmark reports from the Institute of Medicine, To Err Is Human in 1998 (affirming for the first time that at least 100,000 Americans lose their lives every year due to medical errors) and Crossing the Quality Chasm in 2001 (defining the scope and breadth of quality deficiencies in the US health system and charting a path toward improvement). In 2003, focusing on his wife's life threatening illness, he wrote his own personal account of exposure to poor quality, Escape Fire.

At IHI, Berwick developed the national 100,000 Lives Campaign which organized hospitals across the nation in an unprecedented way to undertake a series of QI measures to save that number of lives through systemic, coordinated quality improvement. (While the campaign generated sizable momentum, the final result is disputed.) More campaigns followed, including the Triple Aim campaign to improve patient care, cut health care costs, and fix population health needs. Berwick brought the Triple Aim to CMS, though the lawyers demanded a name adjustment to "Three Part Aim." The CMS-HHS Partnership for Patients is now working to reduce hospital acquired infections and complications.

 

[Sactowndog]

Supply and demand could work to hold down costs if the gov't didn't intervene. Unfortunately, that's not the case, we have price controls and we do not allow free and open competition for HC services in most states.

As you no doubt know, a child's life is priceless and you would do well to eschew the theatrics and stick to the reality of the situation.

It is not theatrics at all. The two statements are by definition mutally exclusive for anyone who has spent anytime studying Macro economics...

A childs life (or a parents) is priceless
and
supply and demand could work

Just like it is a big lie that "healthcare is a right" among liberals it is an equally big lie that "the market will work" among conservatives.

 

[lizzie]

Supply and demand could work to hold down costs if the gov't didn't intervene. Unfortunately, that's not the case, we have price controls and we do not allow free and open competition for HC services in most states.

As you no doubt know, a child's life is priceless and you would do well to eschew the theatrics and stick to the reality of the situation.

It is not theatrics at all. The two statements are by definition mutally exclusive for anyone who has spent anytime studying Macro economics...

A childs life (or a parents) is priceless
and
supply and demand could work

Just like it is a big lie that "healthcare is a right" among liberals it is an equally big lie that "the market will work" among conservatives.

The market was working prior to HMO's and comprehensive coverage. It used to be the case that insurance was just that: insurance if something catastrophic happened. People paid for physician office visits, thus prices were affordable due to market forces. Same with drugs. If I didn't like Dr A, I could go to Dr B. This created competition for business.

 

[Sactowndog]

Health care costs are high because of government intervention in the free market. When congress passed legislation requiring insurance companies to provide comprehensive coverage, regardless of the market demand, and individuals stopped having to pay for their drugs and physician office visits, the cost controls which were formerly provided by market competition were driven out.

There is no market in much of health care. If you think there is you should have failed Macro Economics....

Let me spell it out again since you apparently missed it last time....

Markets require supply and demand curves...

Demand Curves are based on the notion of Diminishing Utility. Diminishing Utility is why demand falls as price rises.

Diminishing Utility doesn't exist for much of health care. If a child or parent is seriously sick varying the cost doesn't change the demand for the item. No one will sacrafice the life of their child no matter how you vary the price.

The demand curve is a straight vertical line and the only that constrains prices is the conscious of the suppliers. Lately as health care has gone corporate that conscious is in short supply.


Where demands curves do exist in health care they function poorly.

Demand curves work best where you are buying a product. The benefit is immediately tangible.

Demand curves work less well where the benefit being bought is unclear such as reducing risk in the future. It is even worse when the consumer believes the government will eliminate that risk by forcing Hospitals to accept all patients regardless of ability to pay.

As a result people skip preventative care and neo-natal care they should be getting because of poor market dynamics.

Quite possibly a pure market based system might be the worst possible way to deliver health care.

 

[Wiseacre]

Supply and demand could work to hold down costs if the gov't didn't intervene. Unfortunately, that's not the case, we have price controls and we do not allow free and open competition for HC services in most states.

As you no doubt know, a child's life is priceless and you would do well to eschew the theatrics and stick to the reality of the situation.

It is not theatrics at all. The two statements are by definition mutally exclusive for anyone who has spent anytime studying Macro economics...

A childs life (or a parents) is priceless
and
supply and demand could work

Just like it is a big lie that "healthcare is a right" among liberals it is an equally big lie that "the market will work" among conservatives.

When you start talking about a child's life, you're bringing emotionalism into what should be an intellectual discussion. Maybe it's time for you to face reality; which is that no matter which way we go, we cannot save every child's life. We don't have enough providers and we can't afford it. That is the reality dude, we don't have the money and sooner or later we go bankrupt and no amount of increased taxes on rich people can change that.

The question boils down to whether the free market can do a better job of holding down HC costs than the gov't can. Which way can provide the best and most care, which one avoids rationing the most. You say gov't, I say free market. You say the free market hasn't done so well up to now, I say fix it then. You say the gov't can do a better job, I say the gov't couldn't effectively run a nickle lemonade stand. You say that price controls will work tohold down costs, I say you're out of your mind, price controls have NEVER worked to do that.

 

[Sactowndog]

The market was working prior to HMO's and comprehensive coverage. It used to be the case that insurance was just that: insurance if something catastrophic happened. People paid for physician office visits, thus prices were affordable due to market forces. Same with drugs. If I didn't like Dr A, I could go to Dr B. This created competition for business.

HMO's have actually restrained costs. In a portion of the market it was not the market that was working it was the conscious of health care providers. Hospitals that were non profit that have since become profit based.

Also your examples are in preventative care which is not where the big costs lie. In fact, part of the problem is people avoid preventative care because it is discretionary and drive up costs down the road.

 

[Sactowndog]

When you start talking about a child's life, you're bringing emotionalism into what should be an intellectual discussion. Maybe it's time for you to face reality; which is that no matter which way we go, we cannot save every child's life. We don't have enough providers and we can't afford it. That is the reality dude, we don't have the money and sooner or later we go bankrupt and no amount of increased taxes on rich people can change that.

The question boils down to whether the free market can do a better job of holding down HC costs than the gov't can. Which way can provide the best and most care, which one avoids rationing the most. You say gov't, I say free market. You say the free market hasn't done so well up to now, I say fix it then. You say the gov't can do a better job, I say the gov't couldn't effectively run a nickle lemonade stand. You say that price controls will work tohold down costs, I say you're out of your mind, price controls have NEVER worked to do that.

So you just ignore the point and spew your dogma I guess.

There is nothing emotional about it at all. It is purely an factual understanding of demand curves and how they work. I don't give a damm if we save any childs life, the point is those who do have a child at risk will spend any amount. You can't have a market under those conditions.

Also in my post I never said government provide it or provide price controls. I only pointed out those who claim a pure free market is the best approach either never took or should have failed macro economics.

 

[Wiseacre]

When you start talking about a child's life, you're bringing emotionalism into what should be an intellectual discussion. Maybe it's time for you to face reality; which is that no matter which way we go, we cannot save every child's life. We don't have enough providers and we can't afford it. That is the reality dude, we don't have the money and sooner or later we go bankrupt and no amount of increased taxes on rich people can change that.

The question boils down to whether the free market can do a better job of holding down HC costs than the gov't can. Which way can provide the best and most care, which one avoids rationing the most. You say gov't, I say free market. You say the free market hasn't done so well up to now, I say fix it then. You say the gov't can do a better job, I say the gov't couldn't effectively run a nickle lemonade stand. You say that price controls will work tohold down costs, I say you're out of your mind, price controls have NEVER worked to do that.

So you just ignore the point and spew your dogma I guess.

There is nothing emotional about it at all. It is purely an factual understanding of demand curves and how they work. I don't give a damm if we save any childs life, the point is those who do have a child at risk will spend any amount. You can't have a market under those conditions.

Also in my post I never said government provide it or provide price controls. I only pointed out those who claim a pure free market is the best approach either never took or should have failed macro economics.

You have pretty strong statements against the free market approach, but provided nothing to support your contention. "Spew your dogma I guess", usually that signifies a weak argument that resorts to an attempt to marginalize the other pov. Guess I assumed that since you are so anti free market that your solution must be pro gov't. Or do you even have a solution?

So tell me, mister macro economics expert, why is the free market not the best approach? You gonna tell me about how bad it's been up to now? What, we can't do better with it? What's a better approach then?

 

[lizzie]

There is no market in much of health care. If you think there is you should have failed Macro Economics....

Let me spell it out again since you apparently missed it last time....

Markets require supply and demand curves...

Demand Curves are based on the notion of Diminishing Utility. Diminishing Utility is why demand falls as price rises.

Diminishing Utility doesn't exist for much of health care. If a child or parent is seriously sick varying the cost doesn't change the demand for the item. No one will sacrafice the life of their child no matter how you vary the price.

The demand curve is a straight vertical line and the only that constrains prices is the conscious of the suppliers. Lately as health care has gone corporate that conscious is in short supply.


Where demands curves do exist in health care they function poorly.

Demand curves work best where you are buying a product. The benefit is immediately tangible.

Demand curves work less well where the benefit being bought is unclear such as reducing risk in the future. It is even worse when the consumer believes the government will eliminate that risk by forcing Hospitals to accept all patients regardless of ability to pay.

As a result people skip preventative care and neo-natal care they should be getting because of poor market dynamics.

Quite possibly a pure market based system might be the worst possible way to deliver health care.

There used to be a market demand.

 

[Sactowndog]

You have pretty strong statements against the free market approach, but provided nothing to support your contention. "Spew your dogma I guess", usually that signifies a weak argument that resorts to an attempt to marginalize the other pov. Guess I assumed that since you are so anti free market that your solution must be pro gov't. Or do you even have a solution?

So tell me, mister macro economics expert, why is the free market not the best approach? You gonna tell me about how bad it's been up to now? What, we can't do better with it? What's a better approach then?

I provide nothing to support my contention?

Have you ever taken a Economics class in your life? Do you have understand the mechanisms of supply and demand beyond what you hear on Rush?

If you want to address the root of the argument which is diminishing utility or perhaps you recall it as marginal utility does in fact exist I would be happy to listen to your argument.

You ask me to tell you why a free market approach is not the best approach. Is that because you didn't understand it the first 5 times or are you just belligerent?

Since you can't follow my explanation here is a link on Diminishing Marginal Utility. Read it and then perhaps you can tell me how you think it applies to health care.

http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pls=wpd&c=dsp&k=marginal+utility+and+demand

 

[Sactowndog]

Quite possibly a pure market based system might be the worst possible way to deliver health care.

There used to be a market demand.

I don't think so.

Health care prices were constrained by a sense of propriety not by market demand. It was also constrained by their was just less you could do to keep someone alive. You couldn't spend $500,000 keeping someone alive not because you didn't want to but because they died long before that point.

Executive compensation used to be reasonable relative to other peoples salaries. Demand for Chief Executives was no less great in the 40's or 50's than now. But the sense of propriety among our business leaders has changed greatly. That difference and your ability to keep people alive longer is what has changed not the shape of the demand curve.

As the Chief said a childs life is priceless. It was no less so in the 50's.

 

[Sactowndog]

So tell me, mister macro economics expert, why is the free market not the best approach? You gonna tell me about how bad it's been up to now? What, we can't do better with it? What's a better approach then?

I don't have a better approach at this point. And even if I did that is not the point of my post. The point of the post is we will never solve this health care problem until both sides give up their cherished lies.

Lie on the left: Healthcare is a right
Lie on the right: Market forces will solve the problem

Both are equally false

 

[Listening]

So tell me, mister macro economics expert, why is the free market not the best approach? You gonna tell me about how bad it's been up to now? What, we can't do better with it? What's a better approach then?

I don't have a better approach at this point. And even if I did that is not the point of my post. The point of the post is we will never solve this health care problem until both sides give up their cherished lies.

Lie on the left: Healthcare is a right
Lie on the right: Market forces will solve the problem

Both are equally false

Not really.

The left is mistaken in call it a right. But I believe the argument is a misuese of words by many. What I think the left believes is that it is a social responsibility. In that regard, we should be talking.

The right believes that market forces will solve the problem. That is true. If the problem is that people don't have access to the health care they are willing to pay for. That is much different than being able to afford it.

Would I sell my house to pay for cancer treatment. Should I have to ?

I think the conversation starts (and ends) with defining what it is that we feel are the social obligations we have to individuals with regards to health care. In other words, how much health care is enough ? Or even what is health care ?

Is health care giving chemo to a 50 year smoker with stage 4 lung cancer ?

Is health care giving hip replacements to fat people who don't take care of themselves ?

All of this has to be discussed and agreed to. Once that happens, I think the solutions become pretty straightforward.

 

[Bern80]

Health care costs are high because of government intervention in the free market. When congress passed legislation requiring insurance companies to provide comprehensive coverage, regardless of the market demand, and individuals stopped having to pay for their drugs and physician office visits, the cost controls which were formerly provided by market competition were driven out.

There is no market in much of health care. If you think there is you should have failed Macro Economics....

Let me spell it out again since you apparently missed it last time....

Markets require supply and demand curves...

Demand Curves are based on the notion of Diminishing Utility. Diminishing Utility is why demand falls as price rises.

Diminishing Utility doesn't exist for much of health care. If a child or parent is seriously sick varying the cost doesn't change the demand for the item. No one will sacrafice the life of their child no matter how you vary the price.

The demand curve is a straight vertical line and the only that constrains prices is the conscious of the suppliers. Lately as health care has gone corporate that conscious is in short supply.


Where demands curves do exist in health care they function poorly.

Demand curves work best where you are buying a product. The benefit is immediately tangible.

Demand curves work less well where the benefit being bought is unclear such as reducing risk in the future. It is even worse when the consumer believes the government will eliminate that risk by forcing Hospitals to accept all patients regardless of ability to pay.

As a result people skip preventative care and neo-natal care they should be getting because of poor market dynamics.

Quite possibly a pure market based system might be the worst possible way to deliver health care.

That theory isn't exactly true. It rests on the premise that since no one would sacrifice their life or child's life for cost, there is no diminishing utility. That premise isn't accurate. It isnt' reality. Our medical system isnt' treating only life threatening issues. It isn't even treating mostly life threatening issues. Since for most medical issues people's lives are in fact NOT at stake they would be in a position to shop for care.