Thanks again for pointing that out, Muirgeo!

You’re missing the point in the Kelvin scale being codified into law. Yes, it is formally defined by the CGPM, but that’s separate issue than the one here. I have no objection to the governments setting an exact definition for the Kelvin scale. After all if I don’t like the Kelvin, I can always use a different one, or invent my own and use that. A better analogy to the issue here would be government regulations saying that every temperature scale must conform with certain guidelines. There is no way for anyone to know what the desired properties of a temperature scale will be for every application. The same holds for health care; there is no way to know what what makes up a desirable health care plan for every person.

You’re missing the point in the Kelvin scale being codified into law. Yes, it is formally defined by the CGPM, but that’s separate issue than the one here. I have no objection to the governments setting an exact definition for the Kelvin scale. After all if I don’t like the Kelvin, I can always use a different one, or invent my own and use that. A better analogy to the issue here would be government regulations saying that every temperature scale must conform with certain guidelines. There is no way for anyone to know what the desired properties of a temperature scale will be for every application. The same holds for health care; there is no way to know what what makes up a desirable health care plan for every person.

Are you here or in Singapore?

If that is the case, how do you allow yourself to work with lawyers?

Imagine a temperature scale codified into law? Well what of the Kelvin scale? It’s the International Standard for temperature and it’s the one that makes the most sense at 0 K as it is set at a non-arbitrary point – absolute zero.

By the way, I’m sure many a Libertarian loves to hold tenaciously onto the Imperial System of measurement over metric. After the true imperial measurement are based on the length of human body parts thus giving everyone their own personalised definition of an ‘inch’, ‘cubit’, ‘foot’, ‘yard’, etc.

About the rest of it, you know as much as I (having seen your comments on caplan’s blog and elsewhere) What can I say, means testing works. It may be the case that the government pays for basic dental in NDC, but since I’ve never personally experienced it (silver spoon in mouth and all that) I’m not sure that it is the case. Usually, schools do provide some dental and health service.

What we have going on for us are family clinics. While most of hospital care is public, (60-70% of the beds are in the public sector) There are a lot of private practices that can be found in every neighbourhood. So the bulk of specialists are public while the opposite is true for GPs.

In the public sector, the government will subsidise more of your treatment if you take class C wards which differ from class B and A primarily in how much privacy and comfort you get, and based on how much you are earning.

As caplan has said, its not a libertarian paradise. You are required to declare your income, and if you are alocal, they probably have the resources to check whether you have been honest about it.

My Dad used to run the emergency ward at SGH (Singapore General Hospital) and came up with ways to really get the urgent cases seen to first. In lots of ways, even with a bureaucracy if you are given sufficient local authority to implement ideas, things can be bottom up even in the public sector. Of course things were kind of newer then so when you are starting from scratch you dont have a bureaucracy telling you what you can or cannot do.

But the government at least pays lip service to the notion of bottom up organisation etc etc. And when I was in the army, we did have quite a bit of latitude on various things. Of course when orders came from the CO, there was nothing we corporals could do.

I hoped you would respond to that bit of muirdiocy. I’d go farther and suggest that, “We ARE altruistic by nature” belongs on The List.

From The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Robert A Heinlein:

Beware of altruism; it is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. If tempted by something that feels altruistic, examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it.

For a man who never met Yasafi, Heinlein sure understood muirpidity.

Your thoughts are cogent and rare. You face an uphill battle in getting the economics profession to listen, as the revivified Paul Volker is a founding chairman of the foundation that supports IFRS.

But what the hell, so does your pals muirduck, Disingenuous Kuehn, et al., so have at it.

If the U.S. congress were really interested in reforming our health care system, they would at least take a look at Singapore’s. But, health care reform in this country has nothing at all to do with reforming health care. It has everything to do with nationalizing a critical sector which is 16% of the U.S. economy in order to grow the power of politicians – and to divert attention from the fact that government run medicare is bankrupt.

In Britain, women are denied yearly mammograms after a certain age – can’t remember if it’s 65 or 69. After that age, they can only get them every 3 years. Unfortunately, breast cancer is highly correlated to age.

In the U.S., if you’re on Medicare (government health care), and you need a root canal, you won’t get one. It’s cheaper to extract the tooth. That would be okay if you could just pay the same doctor to do the root canal, but you can’t. It’s illegal to pay out of pocket to a doctor who has accepted you as a medicare patient.

My understanding of the Singapore system is that government will pay the amount that it would cost to extract the tooth and if you want the more expensive root canal, then you have to pay the difference (usually, out of the HSA account everyone is required to contribute to). Also, the Singapore government runs like a business – in general. There’s very little bureaucracy, very few entitlement programs in need of funding and very little interest in killing the private sector. At least, that’s my impression. This is a government that understands the importance of markets. I believe Singapore recently legalized a market in kidneys.

Things work very differently in Singapore. Things work. I’ve been trying to learn more about the medical system there, so if you can provide insight, I’d love it.

I recognize that you said you agree with me, but I am still compelled to reply.

For instance, as I said, law, regs, rules, can theoretically all get us to convergence and probably much quicker than standards. In Russ’s piece note that the people he mentioned as supporting standards to reach convergence were really talking about rules, regulations, and law, not standards; at least not in my lexicon and understanding of the word standards.

Standards, as I said, evolve more than are dictated. Again I go to examples of what I see as standards:

Consideration of others, a standard, can not be legislated.

Ambition to excel, a standard, can not be legislated.

Kindness, a standard, can not be legislated.

Honesty, a standard, can not be legislated.

Courage, a standard, can not be legislated.

Faithfulness, a standard, can not be legislated.

Responsibility, a standard, can not be legislated.

I am not fussing at you, just trying to articulate my thoughts on this subject, which by the way is not the first time I have thought long and hard about standards.

It is in my mind that we can have rules, regulations, or law without character, but no standards without character.

It is in my mind that if people have personal character and standards they can not be enslaved or controlled, no matter the rules, regulations, or laws they are subjected to.

Destroy the standards, you weaken or destroy the character, and then you can have your great collective.

Am I making sense to any one but me?

Are you sure? That sounds crazy. In Singapore we have both government run hospitals and private sector hospitals, but I dont see the private sector going out of business here. Also, I’m not sure that government hospitals can refuse to do mammograms for people who come in to do them either. (Of course Singapore may be different since government services in general are run is ways that net them a healthy profit and allowed to be subject to market forces. Which as part of a larger libertarian project, simply means that these aspects of the government are much closer to privatisation)