From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Thu Jul 19 2001 - 08:43:04 MDT
>From: "Smigrodzki, Rafal" <SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU>
>I can't resist joining in the discussion about health care - maybe
>because I am busy with it about 12 hours/day, leaving too little
>time for the extropian thing.
>There is a very important moral issue involved in paying for
>medical care with tax-derived funds - namely, isn't it morally
>wrong to take money under duress, (the IRS), ultimately backed by
>a threat of death, to pay for other persons' life-saving
>procedures?
>I would say it depends.
I would say you are incorrect.
>There are some people who just don't care much about their health
>- they smoke, drive drunk, blow their cortical vessels with
>cocaine, and then come to depend on public largesse for treatment
>and other support, without ever paying a dime into the pool of
>insurance money. I would have no compunction about letting them
>rely on private charity for their needs.
We agree.
>But then, there are other people, those who you are probably
>thinking about - the nice, hard-working, regular folks, who
>sincerely want to pay but just happen to make too little money for
>full insurance, after paying for food, rent, utilities, kids'
>college fund. I am willing to help them, to some extent, and to
>support the use of governmental oppression to force other
>citizens to help, too.
Well, with the "support the use of governmental oppression to force
other citizens to help too." we part company, the second force is
applied we are not talking about citizens, but subjects.
If people cannot afford to have children, then they shouldn't do
so. I should not be required to pay for their choices.
>How would you know that somebody is nice and honestly willing to
>pay their health bills? And, another important element, not all
>persons have the same needs - there are people willing to spend
>their last dime on nutritional supplements and the best medicine
>there is. Others, having 10 000$ to spend, might allocate only a
>few hundred dollars for health, and prefer to spend the rest on a
>Caribbean cruise.
Don't need to know.
>I think that a workable and fair system would offer tiered,
>government-standardized but privately run insurance plans to all
>citizens.
You're not talking government standardized, you're talking
government subsidized.
>The difference between the actuarial, free-market cost of
>insurance, and the premiums paid, would be covered by tax money.
>The system would encourage diligent shopping for the best plan at
>the lowest cost, because the customers would be paying a lot of
>their own money, in terms of percentage of their disposable
>income. However, nobody would be denied care because of the
>inability to pay.
The difference would be payed by me, as I already indicated I don't
see this as fair.
I vote no.
>Thus, even the poorest, but very health conscious person could
>afford the best medicine. Those who would want to spend some of
>their disposable income on, let's say, lipstick, would pay only a
>percentage of the DI, and receive less care, assuming the full
>personal responsibility for their choices.
With my help, administered with a gun to my head, no thanks.
>Nobody would get hurt, except by their own nonchalance, and nobody
>would get a free ride either.
Yeah, nobody would get hurt as long as I "cooperate". No thanks!
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
SBC/Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
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