Wrong Right

I can see why people claim a right to health care. It's economics. Let's take Jane and her boyfriend, Joe, for example:

Jane: "Where'd you go?"

Joe: "Out."

It wasn't worth it for Joe to explain to Jane that he went to the mall, then to his ex-girlfriend's house, then to the liquor store, then back to his ex-girlfriend's house. So he summed it up, "Out."

In this case people are correct when they say, "I have a right to health care," if what they really mean is, "It is within my rights to pursue care for my health."

In this case we should respond, "Whatever," which translates into, "Hey, you can do whatever the hell you want to. Frankly I don't give a damn. Just don't violate the rights of someone else when you do it.

If you think that they originally meant that they are entitled to health care at someone else's expense, then you can add the word "man."

"Whatever, man."

Which means all of the above plus "I hope you're done now because you're starting to piss me off. Now get the hell out of my face."

So to those of you who say that you have a right to health care - whatever.

Emily: would you be happier if it was "free markets provide the most efficient allocation of resources"?

Ever tried to pack suitcases into a trunk? Now imagine 300,000,000 trunks and however many suitcases, where the trunks are moving around and the suitcases are changing size. The difficulty of the problem is beyond the imagination, much less any solution to it. The best solution is not going to be found in standardizing suitcases or stopping the trunks from moving. The best solution is to allow the trucks to choose the suitcases that best fit it (Okay, so I broke the metaphor at this point, but you know what I mean.)

1skeptic: Again, you are simply assuming, without presenting any evidence, that politics outdoes the market. You say "I don't think I'll be driving a hard bargain shopping around when I'm lying on stretcher." and this is very true. But neither do you HAVE to bargain hard in a free market. The more free the market, the more cruel businessmen are to each other. Each tries to destroy the other's profits using whatever means necessary. Government interference in the market may make it easier for consumers, but it also makes it easier for businessmen to screw consumers. Yes, I realize that this is counter-intuitive, but if everything that economics produces was always obvious, who would bother studying it?

Emily,

Medical care, like any scarce thing will be rationed, since there is not enough of it to exhaust the demand for it. There is no way that everyone can have their own personal physician following them around.

The rationing will either be done through peaceful means ie voluntary exchanges or gifts aka the free market, or it will be performed violently by people who interfere with the voluntary apportioning aka political means.

Here is a book that delves into the flaws of political rationing:

http://www.mises.org/books/socialism/contents.aspx

Emily,

1) this morning


2) last July (the latest time)


3) Never done this, but have discussed with my husband the possible circumstances under which we might choose to do such a thing for one another. And markets do allow for efficient allocation of resources. What's your point?

"the market allows for efficient allocation of resources"

What kind of stupid statement is this?

When was the last time you had to commute 20 miles to work? When was the last time you had to go to an emergency room? when was the last time you helped someone die?

In your ivory tower, never mind human experience, hey Bugsie?

I take it you guys are somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun.

Emily

1skeptic,

As someone with a chronic disease, I have to say that although I may be in an emotionally vulnerable position, I am in a rational one also. The two are not mutually exclusive. The mere fact that the decisions that need to be made are difficult does not mean that they need to be made for me. In fact, my health care decisions are some of the most personal and important I make in my life, and the ones where I most emphatically do NOT want paternalistic oversight. As for the idea of "shopping around on while on a stretcher", it's necessary to think about important health care choices before they actually need to be made, and I think it's crazy that we don't. This is why, for example, I have advance directives. In our health care system as it is now, people tend not to plan ahead.


Think about it- you can plan your own funeral to make sure that exactly what you want to happen to you after you die actually happens (and you're not even around to care!). But people don't plan what they want done in case of a major medical emergency. If we could find some way to encourage that, it would be better than some one-size-fits-all government "protection."

Hi Russell

I am actually quite skeptical of most government intervention. I wouldn't bother coming to this site otherwise. For example, I am not advocating - for example - government provision of healthcare, as in the UK at present, and I am in favour of limited proportional payment by the recipient, to counter moral hazard.

But I don't think I'll be driving a hard bargain shopping around when I'm lying on stretcher. To that extent, some societal protection is necessary, and that is what government can provide.

1skeptic: you must not be very skeptical of government if you assume a priori that government does a better job of protecting consumer interests in the case of emergency healthcare. There isn't any evidence to justify this assumption. There's plenty of evidence that people often don't shop around much -- but that shopkeepers cater to those who do. Why do they do that? Because no shopkeeper is going to let the profits they represent lay on the table.

In essence a free market creates a tragedy of the commons for profits.

It's a rude misunderstanding that causes people to say "Well, nobody wants to be sick, so OF COURSE nobody would overconsume healthcare". Yes, you actually hear people say this. They're idiots, but they vote.

Anything which addresses somebody's unease is subject to overuse. Let's start with doctors. If cost is not a consideration, they'll order up a cat scan instead of an x-ray. Rather than try to conserve the payer's resources, they'll act to conserve their personal resources.

Or look at patients. What do you think a patient will say, when asked "Procedure A is a little less X, but costs more than procedure B" when they're not paying for it? Since cost is not their problem, of course, they're going to ask for procedure B. Nothing but the best for them when insurance is paying for it.

In other words, healthcare isn't at all different. When somebody else is paying the bill, the cost will be infinite.

I hate commenting on blogs. "I agree" or "wow, thanks, you really opened my mind there" doesn't seem to be worth posting. On the other hand...

How healthcare is different, in my opinion:

(1) Suppose all healthcare was free.Would you be overdosing on paracetamol?

(2) Can homo economicus plan not to be sick - say not to have cancer, and act accordingly?

(3) Can you beat the medical insurance companies at contract interpretation or enforcement in courts? Just to spice it up, assume at this point you have a medical condition.

(4) At the point where you badly need medical attention, do you find yourself in a rational position, or an emotionally (if not just physically) vulnerable position?

Given the above, there are good reasons for having a well-defined regulatory framework for healthcare provision.

In the real world the producers end up capturing the regulators, so healthcare that is mostly taxpayer funded but minimally shared in cost by the recipient - as in france - could be the optimal solution.

As for the CSM article

(a)

"With food free at the point of delivery, consumers would take all that they can carry. People would quickly learn that if they don't grab as much food as possible today, the store might run out of the foods that their families need tomorrow. "

What is the healthcare equivalent - will people be queing up for ECG / EMR scans even if they don't need them at that moment? Healthcase can't always be hoarded, and can have zero value to most healthy people.

(b)

"This situation leads to monstrously inefficient consumption of healthcare. Some people consume too much, while many others with more pressing needs do without."

Sounds suspiciously socialist in sentiment. To each according to his 'real' needs? from the market?

(c)"Because the wasteful consumption caused by heavily subsidized access"

Some convincing examples of this in the article would have been good. Not to do with food or footwear or whatever, but healthcare as we know it.

"the US is already paying for universal health coverage. It's just not getting to all the peole who need it."

And it never will get to everyone who needs it -- not under any model. The only choice is whether we ration it by political means, or through voluntary means on a market.

The current problem calls for less government, not more.

the US is already paying for universal health coverage. It's just not getting to all the peole who need it.

This isn't just an issue of ideology- it's

also an issue of economic rationality.

Daniel: Bruce will tell us that there's no need to ration health care, because nobody actually WANTS health care. All we have to do is buy just enough health care to cover people's illnesses and that will be enough. You don't REALLY think that people would be so irresponsible as to take worse care of themselves just because health care is free, do you? Oh, you do?? You must be one of those loony SORE folks who thinks that demand slopes downwards!

We now return you to our sarcasm-free postings.

cpurick: I have met some honest leftists who are willing to pay higher taxes. Of course, they do it because they believe in progressive taxation .... which means that in order to soak the rich, they're willing to get themselves a little wet.

Otherwise, the situation is exactly as you portray it. Leftists don't think the government is just spending their own money for them. They think that "the rich" are paying for everything -- and that that has no cost to them.

Bruce, when were "the problems associated with large masses of uneducated (not merely under-educated) people living in my community." a problem? You see, you are simply waving your hands at the problem of educating uneducated people, and presuming that because government schools *intend* to educate everyone, that everyone actually becomes educated. I claim that that problem has never been solved, but instead that government schools sacrifice the education of the middle to attempting the education of the least. It's a great idea to educate everyone, but you're ignoring the cost (but that's why you're a leftist -- leftists don't care what it costs other people for them to feel good about themselves.)

Two can make unfair comments, you know.

This Bruce Hall is very confused.

Apparently, he thinks that all that is not expressly prohibited constitutionally, and may potentially be “desirable,” is therefore “constitutional.”

This is false.

Along with numerous bad examples, he cites a very strange cost/benefit scenario whereby the overall pooled cost of universal healthcare is somehow mysteriously less than the apparent individual consumer cost thereof, with government intervention.

By this logic, and potential political to be had in this bonanza, virtually any public good could be rationalized to be “for the public good,” [under a proper interpretation of the “General Welfare” clause] or in other words “to each according to his needs” [K. Marx], and we would be buying food through our employer now, as well. Or possibly the government.

This is stupid.




Luckily, during the Depression, Justices McReynolds and Butler, in their Helvering v. Davis (1937, 301 US 619) dissent, saw through this stupidity, which modern liberals like Bruce Hall now wish to rehash:

“[The general welfare clause] is not a substantive general power to provide for the welfare of the United States, but is a limitation on the grant of power to raise money by taxes, duties, and imports……If it were otherwise, all the rest of the Constitution, consisting of carefully enumerated and cautiously guarded grants of specific powers, would have been useless, if not delusive.”

It also completely ignores moral hazard introduced by government intervention in this area.

Good intentions………

Bruce, you should look at your own words.

"Now substitute "education" for "health care"."

"Now substitute "social security" for "health care"."

Indeed, education and social security -- and virtually every "social program" continues to remain an issue. Despite the billions of dollars redistributed in the name of solving these problems, they persist -- as they always will. Admit it: even you know that education will *never* be solved. The war on poverty will *never* be won. So what is the real point?

When healthcare is socialized, it too will *never* stop being an issue. Always, there will be some reason why it just needs a little more money to finally be "fixed." Frankly, I'm sick of this crap -- are you really so foolish as to fall for it? Hogwash!

And tarran was right about energy, shelter, and food. In a few years we'll be having this argument about how food should be a right, and you'll try to tell everyone to "substitute "health care" for "food." And the only difference will be that the nay-sayers will be able to show that socialized healthcare is no less a failure than social security, education and welfare.

"what kind of society are we satisfied with? One that creates great economic opportunity, but says "too bad" to the less fortunate... or one that creates great economic opportunity, but has compassion for the less fortunate. Great if the latter can be done by private effort... but the record there is lacking credibility."

There is a big difference between "the less fortunate" and "the less deserving." The private effort has its own way of judging who is really counted among the former and who is really counted among the latter.

On the other hand, public welfare defines only the politically-correct "criteria" that people must meet in order to qualify for assistance. It then becomes a simple -- and profitable -- matter (indeed, a complete full-time *occupation*) for "the less deserving" to structure their lives in order to qualify for the hand out of the day. Government simply does not have the incentives or the political fortitude to withhold services from elective free riders.

I think you ought to do a little soul-searching about your motives. Do you honestly seek to invest your hard-earned into government assistance that's free for the taking, or is there, perhaps, a blue streak in you that thinks somebody else -- somebody who's "too rich" or "more able to pay" should be picking up the tab?

I may actually have met a Democrat or two who felt his own taxes weren't high enough. But I have yet to meet one with the conviction to give the difference to the government voluntarily. Always, they expect someone else to pick up the slack.

Let me tell you something: if you're educated enough to read Cafe Hayek, then on tax day you will be classified as "filthy rich." Congratulations.

Bruce Hall: " One that creates great economic opportunity, but says "too bad" to the less fortunate... or one that creates great economic opportunity, but has compassion for the less fortunate. Great if the latter can be done by private effort... but the record there is lacking credibility."

Do you honestly believe that New Deal and Great Society socialism still has any credibility? Is it not apparent that decades of social spending simply left more people than ever dependent on the government's ability to take from the productive and transfer to the non-productive?

The most successful federal action to lift the impoverished has been the the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 - aka the Welfare Reform Act. Even the liberal magazine New Republic defends this legislation:

"A broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster--and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped."

Bruce,

I agree that one should not base policy on anecdotal evidence, which is why I pointed out my examples were anecdotal.

I assume that when you linked to an op-ed article from a UVA economics professor asking for more funds your point is that economic professors are hypocrits who want more public funds for ourselve yet aren't willing to help others. That economic professors are human and as such some (I won't say all)engage in rent-seeking behavior is a valid point. But whether health-care is a right or an entitlement is a separate question from whether or not public funding education (and social security) is proper.

You say my observations of the Canadian system are incorrect because we don't have to adopt universal health care such as Canada. That's true, we don't. What do you propose instead? My point is that health care, like other goods, involve scarce resources. So the resources must be rationed in some way. Apparently you don't like the current system of rationing. What other mechanism, besides the market, should be used to ration health care?

Bruce, it seems like you are saying anything the public decides to do through it's elected representatives is exempt from criticism. Is idiocy no longer idiocy once over 50% of the voters believe it?

Bruce,

If you governments provide social security, it should come as no surprise that there will be an increase in people who don't save on their own.

If you governments provide "free" health care, it should come as no surprise that there will be an increase in people who don't purchase health insurance.

If you governments provide welfare, it should come as no surprise that there will be an increase in people who choose not to work but rather live off others.

You accuse most of us of having an "I've got mine" attitude and imply that we're selfish, but how is it any more selfish than an "I want yours" attitude. The problem with most social programs is that while they may start with good intentions, we live in a world of real consequences. There is nothing noble about reaching into the pockets of your neighbor to pay for something you believe in.

Bruce,

We've given lots of money, but the progressives keep telling us the problems are getting worse. You see the trap don't you? If the problems aren't really getting worse, then what is the need for more money? And if the problems are getting worse, then why on earth would we throw good money after bad? From now on, the guilt trip approach isn't going to work. It is now up to the progressives to prove that they can make some real progress with the money they have. When they do that, then we can talk about giving more.

I know I'm swimming upstream with this crowd, but here goes:

There is a difference between what is a "constitutional right" and what is considered "desirable" by a country (and in the U.S., that is determined by the political process so no b.s. about there not being a social will or some other nonsense).

As individuals, we may object to the process, but that is "constitutional" and your objection is "personal."

Social Security may not be your idea of the "best" way to secure a retirement, but our elected representatives decided it was a good way to ensure that there was a minimum level of support. Now you can argue that charities could hand that. Not likely. Charities did a shitty job of that before social security. By and large, as individuals, Americans have demonstrated an "I got mine" attitude and used charitable giving for tax deductions.

Public education not only *may* provide the only reliable method of educating all children... it is the only reliable method. For those who can afford a private school, great. By our economy is best served in the long run by public education.

Now to the point.... The current situation of increasingly unaffordable health care is not simply a matter of more people vying for scarce resources. The medical profession has been attacked by the legal profession over decades resulting in excessive insurance costs (liability) and dissuaded many from areas such as family practice. My own family physician (actually the largest practice in the area) has signs all over the office protesting what the lawyers are doing and what the state allows. Hey, lawyers are just good businessmen taking advantage of an opportunity... that hurts the rest of us. They have a "constitutional" right to do so.

Consequently, health care (which has improved significantly as a result of technology) is significantly more costly. But to blame it on more people wanting health care is spurious. And to say that because it is artificially more costly (technology improvements USUALLY lead to lower costs) because of the legal profession and our lawsuit-happy environment, we should ignore the plight of those who are now priced out of health care, is a lot like saying because education is getting so expensive, we should get rid of public education and let only those who can afford it get it.

All of the arguments against some form of health care support for those who cannot pay revolve around the notion that "it will cost ME more" rather than what might be best for the commonwealth. Well, public education costs ME more, but it also provides the basis for avoiding the problems associated with large masses of uneducated (not merely under-educated) people living in my community.

Likewise, I am not thrilled about 35 million people living in poverty in the U.S. having no way to pay for their health care and then tying up expensive emergency rooms when a simple clinic visit would suffice. But, hey, the hospitals have to treat them; private clinics don't have to... and they don't operate under principles of charity.

I get it guys... it's more expensive for ME.

Bruce, it is indeed black and white. You complain that private charities don't do enough. They don't, because the government has already drunk at the trough. This drains private charities of resources. It long bothered me that we have government solving problems that used to be solved by private charities. What happened to them? One conclusion (yours) is that they weren't good enough. Another conclusion is widespread intellectual error: socialism was truly seen as the way of the future. Why bother paying private charities when you can just raise taxes and accomplish the goal through the government? There was no answer until public choice theories were developed.

The other thing you don't seem to realize that that poverty is not about money. People who are poor will remain poor if you simply give them money. They are poor because all of their choices suck. Money CAN improve people's choices, but it doesn't necessarily do so. A drug addict with money is still a drug addict. A criminal with money is still a criminal.

Bruce,

Subsidizing education only makes some sense because it is one area where a market failure *may* exist. Parents with children already have more recurring household expenses than couples without children. If education were not subsidized, a case could be made that many parents of children would forego educating them because of the additional expense within the same budget constraint (and perhaps a more constrained budget do to hard choices that parents must make – choices that *may* limit income producing opportunities). And it is not as though you can tell a young adult, “Hey, you should be saving your money for your future child(ren)’s education so that you’re not in a cash pinch when and if you might have (a) child(ren)!” So, should education even be an entitlement just as it is today? On liberal grounds, one could argue that education should not be subsidized – that using a one size fits all approach to education ignores the very real (and many times difficult) choices homo-economicus must make. However, society, as a whole (and perhaps correctly), has come to the realization that the long-term benefits of publicly funded education must eclipse the present day costs many times over.

Someone else had mentioned above – I’m paraphrasing – “Where do the entitlements end…surly food and shelter are even more important than income security at old age and subsidized access to world class medications, diagnosis, and procedures.” When you compare education with old age/survivor insurance and healthcare, though, you really do start heading down a slippery slope of just what kinds of choices society really wants to take away from homo-economicus. And you really would have to be an economic ignoramus to suggest that there would be more benefits than costs if we allow the central planning bureaucrats to provide these necessities of life. But the thing that frosts me the most about people who advocate/clamor for these necessities of life to be included in the federal goodie bag is, is that you have no concern for my preferences or those preferences of others

If you really wanted to play it straight, you’d limit your advocacy to individual state-run entitlement programs, or, at the very least, give people like me an escape and/or option-out feature so that I can choose to not contribute to, nor draw resources from, your Utopian fantasies.

Health care is neither a right nor an entitlement in any sense of these words. It is not constitutionally enumerated in the general welfare clause or even the commerce clause, nor is it contained in the Bill of Rights.

It was, up until WWII, a primarily consumer-based market which functioned quite well. To say that healthcare is a dysfunctional or nonfunctional market ignores the root cause of that problem: government intervention. But for government intervention, this market would most likely be functioning fine, certainly much better than it currently does.

The same can easily be said of Social Security, which illegally coerces people to surrender their money to the government (with no guaranteed payout), removing their right to do with their money as they please, and [adversely] altering their choices for retirement, among other things.

Most of the comments above have this causality backwards.

To say that I have a right to healthcare is another way of saying that my neighbor has an obligation to provide me with healthcare. So those of you who favor creating such a right, take a look around. Once you succeed, all of your neighbors, all 300 million and growing, will have the right to demand that you provide them with healthcare.

The problem isn't that creating such a right would be "wrong". The problem is that it won't work.

Daniel,

A couple of points:

1. substituting eduction or social security for health care is simply a matter of making comparisons for "desirable programs" with another (which you can then argue is not desirable from your perspective... as is state-supported education)


2. all programs could have the same type of population restrictions based on age or income or natural grouping (like college students); health care assistance does not have to follow the "universal" Canadian model... so I think your inplied connection may be the illogical factor here.


3. BYU is a terrible example because tuition is split by LDS and non-LDS students. LDS families tithe so they are "self-taxing" relative to LDS related organizations. It might have been better to compare the University of Michigan with Harvard or Stanford since all are top-notch universities.

Again, the point is what kind of society are we satisfied with? One that creates great economic opportunity, but says "too bad" to the less fortunate... or one that creates great economic opportunity, but has compassion for the less fortunate. Great if the latter can be done by private effort... but the record there is lacking credibility.

"I think a centally controled economy that eliminates the market would be a great idea. We can provide for all of people's needs and do it without the tyranny of a pricing system."

Surely this is meant to be a joke. If not, please name a single example of any government eliminating prices and not producing tyrrany and shortages. The greatest loss of life in history has followed not from war but from supplanting prices.

Bruce,

Maybe I was over-reacting a bit, possibly because both words are emotionally charged. I would just like to see them used correctly in the debate or not used at all, as you did substituting "desirability". Good word. It emphasizes that these are choices for society to make more than absolute obligations to be met.

Living on the border with Canada, I have anecdotal evidence on treating health care has an entitlement. About 7 or 8 years ago 23 of the 27 hospitals in metro Toronto closed their emergency rooms because of a lack of funding. A crisis occurred because a person died when an ambulance took the person to a hospital with a closed emergency room. On a CBC radio call in show, everyone said health care needs to be reformed yet they didn't want the American system.

Because of long waits, Ontario and other provinces began sending patients to the U.S. for treatment.

A couple of years ago the Ontario Premier released the budget proposal which included 5,400 more heart surgeries. I always wondered what happened to the 5,401st additional person. Did (s)he get the surgery? How long was the wait?

As mentioned in another post, health care involves scarce resources that must be rationed in some manner. The question is whether a bureaucrat in Toronto, Richmond VA, or Washington D.C. makes the decision or whether my doctor and I make the decision.

If I remember my logic correctly, the argument of substituting education or social security is the fallacy of a slippery slope.

For what it's worth, I recently heard that the tuition of Brigham Young University (a private university) is less than the tuition at the University of Utah (a state run university).

Two sets of statistics for your edification without benefit of my comments... and since the connection should be apparent:

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbrank.pl

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/saipe/national.cgi?year=2003&ascii=#SA31

If food costs went up 12% every year... if you were encouraged to get as many apples as you wanted at the store, where prices are not posted, then a month later were billed $40 each for them (negotiated down to $5)... if the demand for better corn flakes was so insatiable that we would pay practically any price for marginally better cornflakes, so that there were aisles full of "new, improved" cornflakes selling at ever higher prices...if there was a 10% chance that you might die if you didn't buy just the right kind of bran muffin in the next 2 months...

if this were the case, the public would be clamoring for control of the food markets. Have you tried to get health care service lately that you actually had to pay for? It's easily the least functional market that has any bearing on our lives. It looks nothing like the market for food.

Scott,

Thanks.

It is laudable that GMU has attempted, and to some extent succeeded, to wean itself from the public trough. It may even be a pattern for other colleges and universities to follow. But I'm inclined to think that without GMU's resources and reputation, other lesser universities might find it extremely difficult to use that model (as witnessed by UV's problems).

If private charity were really effective in solving many of the social ills, then they wouldn't exist to the extent they do. What I am saying is not a matter of inflicting small harms on a lot of individuals. It is a matter of our society determining how best to address the real issues it faces in the absence of private willingness and ability to fund and coordinate actions to address these issues.

We all tend to be selective about what we perceive as "rights" versus "responsibilities." Perhaps the "right" to function in a capitalist economy with minimal interferrence from the government brings a "responsibility" to make sure we address our society's problems with just as much enthusiasm. I think Thomas Jefferson would have agreed with that position. I also think that this is not the mindset of those arguing against public programs.

Just consider a simpler issue: how many privately funded free/not-for-profit parks are available for the public to enjoy? Sometimes we choose to be taxed for the common good. It is not communism or socialism, but recognition that some resources are better pooled for the general improvement of our conditions.

It is not black or white.

Bruce,

I think we can all agree that providing services to your fellow man is laudable. Reaching in to your own pocket, or working hard to develop successful fund raising drives for charity by asking your neighbors to reach into their own pockets is a noble effort. Serving your fellow man and making a profit in the meantime is certainly the best way to go about it. But reaching into your neighbor's pocket and telling him it's for his own good is contemptible.

Don is saying that my rights cannot confer an obligation on you, if they do, my rights begin to violate your rights, and then all rights are threatened with negation as rationing is imposed from the top down.

By the way, the Washington Post is doing a series of articles right now about how well farmers are doing by the tax system and USDA direct cash payments, and cheap insurance that returns billions to farmer's every year. So I won't cry if they choose not to take advantage of all the government aid available to attend state schools.

Also BTW, if you listen to Russ Roberts podcast interview with Dr. Williams, you'll hear that in 1994 and beyond the GMU econ department was under the same budget cutting pressure, even more so then other places because GMU was trying to divert funds to start up its New Century College program, which was the butt of lots of jokes and subject to lots of ridicule when I was an undergrad 1998-2002. The econ department responded by raising its own funding, through private channels and was able to grow and thrive and become the dynamic department it is today. Maybe UVA needs to take a page out of that playbook.

It sounds like you are a very caring individual with good intentions, but if you want to do good by first inflicting small harms on lots of individuals, you may need to rethink your plans.

Great article.

Forgot to add this little link to the above:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59738...>

See what happens when those damn farmers and millwrights don't pay their "fare" share toward elite universities?

A little over-reaction here?

First of all, Doug is correct that the term "right" is a bit emotional... but then so is "entitlement."

My point was that there are some aspects of the commonwealth and the common good that have evolved over time and become recognized as "desirable."

It is "desirable" to offer public education so that the poorest of our citizens can send their children to school and, potentially, improve the commonwealth.

It is "desirable" to offer a basic social security net so that the least successful (economically) are not abandoned in their need.

Is it such a stretch to say that it is "desirable" to ensure that those who cannot afford health care are provided at least the basic services? The alternative is our present system where expensive emergency rooms substitute for less expensive clinics.

Yes, there is an economic cost to provide such services. On the other hand, there is a societal cost to NOT provide a basic level of assistance. We can debate what that LEVEL might be, but even "primitive" societies recognize the need to help those less fortunate and able. Or has our economic thinking become too "advanced?"

By the way, consider the result of dropping state funding for colleges and universities such as, oh, George Mason, for example. Certainly there is no "right" to support highly-paid college professors with the taxes of farmers or millwrights who will never attend college.

I know, we can't go there.

Don, it's okay to treat health-care as a right. What's wrong is treating any rights as entitlements. They are not the same thing: Rights simply exist but entitlements are created. I don't hear these people agitating for the government to give me the firearm I have a right to bear.

Of course we have a right to health-care and food and firearms. What needs fighting is the notion that any right carries a corresponding entitlement. Don't let them keep getting away with using "rights" the wrong way.

Dead-on as usual, thanks again Dr. Boudreaux.

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Bruce is right, let's go further:

Let's substitute food production for health-care. Let's substitute energy production for health care. Let's substitute shelter & housing for health care.

I think a centally controled economy that eliminates the market would be a great idea. We can provide for all of people's needs and do it without the tyranny of a pricing system.

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Bruce, all goods and services are rationed somehow. We can't each afford to have one personal doctor devoted to the care of each individual, with each person having their own MRI machine etc.

Now, the market allows for efficient allocation of resources, and provides incentive to constantly reduce operating costs while expanding the pool of people provided the service.

The other form of rationing is by force, some group of people decide who gets how much of what goods and services. if they can extract heir funding at gun-point, they have no incentive to expand the qulity of the service they povide, they have no incentive to reduce per unit costs. Instead, they have incentive to limit the pool of services they provide and th epool of people they serve.

I grew up in a country with a (at the time) relatively unregulated medical industry. Doctors mad house-calls, and I had my broken femur expertly knitted at a fraction of the cost one would pay in the U.S. This is not because of some special magical divide between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Lasik eye surgery, which is subject to free-market forces, today costs a fraction of what it used to , and is available to people from all walks of life.

I like the "LEt them eat cake" bit. Even though Mme Antoinette never actually uttered those words, do you understand the background that thye cover. The French aristocracy's attempts to tax and monopolize food production created shortages in many goods and services leading to economic hardship? In other words, it was the feeling of a government official when confronted by the shortages his administration had created.

In other words, "LEt them eat cake" is the rallying cry of those who seek to have government take over the provision of a service, not those who advocate leaving it in the sphere of voluntary exchanges i.e. the free market.

Interesting argument.

Now substitute "education" for "health care".

Now substitute "social security" for "health care".

It's beginning to sound very 18th century. "Let them eat cake."