Here’s a letter that I sent to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman applauds the fact that the health-care bill passed by the Senate “ban[s] insurance discrimination on the basis of medical history” (“Tidings of Comfort,” Dec. 25).
If it’s good policy to ban contracting parties from taking account of reality – from taking account of facts that are central to the very reason a contractual exchange takes place – then Mr. Krugman should also applaud legislation that bans, say, the New York Times from rejecting columns submitted by authors less talented than he. After all, why should someone’s pre-existing condition of having no talent at writing an entertaining newspaper essay be used as an excuse by a big, powerful, profit-seeking corporation to deny an otherwise worthy person the opportunity to publish in your august pages?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
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Think of it this way. If Government had done what you want them to do, 30 years ago, you wouldn't have to worry about genetic diseases because no one would have developed the techniques to find them.
PCR is the workhorse for all DNA testing and that was technique was refined by a private company. (Kary Mullis working for Cetus Corporation)
Godfrey Hounsfield one of the inventors of modern CT scanning tech, did his work working for EMI Central Research Laboratories, a private company that used profits from the Beatles music sales to subsidize research.
Ironically the best treatment for PKD is kidney translplant. Thanks to government intervention, kidneys are more valuable than Dark Matter. If Government would let a market develop for organs, we would see a 1000 fold increase in transplants and saved lives.
“The problem with genetic testing is that it breaks this contract…”
It would be much more cost beneficial to ban all genetic testing out-right?
Then you don't have to worry about preexisting genetic conditions at all.
I am.
And you're confusing libertarianism with anarchism.
“The State is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else” – Bastiat.
It'll never happen. Everyone always pays for his own benefits even if it's in ways that are not easily counted.
You've chosen to reproduce knowing you have the disease. Reproduction is a choice. Why should everyone else have to pay for the reproductive choices of your family?
You could ban it in the context of making coverage decisions but not treatment decisions.
The problem with genetic testing is that it's going to lead to people being cast out of the normal system. They will then accumulate in the government system.
Sure it does, “We the People of the United States, …. establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare….”
And the fact that your whiney ass does nothing but complain while taking advantage of your assurance of your justice, of your tranquiity and of your safety is a statement that you think on level with a teenager who's not had to go forth and produce and defend for himself. And likewise you are too much of a hypocrite and a leech to uproot and go to another country where society is ordered and things are done as you would wish. People like you must have been raised without rules and never taught any lessons on sharing. Where you an only child by chance?
You're a smear merchant and wrong to boot. Our government, as it was envisioned by the founding fathers, was geared towards this principal: “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
Redistribution, by its very definition, alters the means of acquiring and possessing property.
“People like you must have been raised without rules and never taught any lessons on sharing. Where you an only child by chance?”
I pity you…
That's because costs are not always monetary. Everyone pays in one way or another…I completely agree. We just all get to pay with substandard care, queues and lack of innovation. But look on the bright side, don't you feel better now?!?!
No you have to ban it all outright. No cherry picking when you get to use it or not.
My point is that everything has a hidden cost. If you ban it then you lose all the advantages of it. Yet if you keep it then you have to take the disadvantages of it as well. You can't just close your eyes like they don't exist.
So what would you have. Ban it and then live with all the ramifications (misdiagnosis, and mistreatment) or keep it and live with the ramifications (the ones that have a higher cost of care will have to pay a higher proportion of coverage)?
Libertarians like to scare people with 'death panels' talk as if they wouldn't exist in a free market.
Well, the problem is that the political state, though various rhetorical constructions, makes conscription a sanctioned alternative to persuasion and charity.
Thus slavery, enacted via the democratic process and enforced by the political state, becomes a “proper” means to various ends.
OF course, as a government managed economy increases the scarcity of resources, we can, collectively, forbid people with resource exhausting genetic conditions from reproducing.
Good point. The modern assumption is that any service provided by charity isn't provided at all, and hence government must step in.
“Predisposition” is a troublesome word. Everyone, for example, has a “predisposition” to having their femur snapped by a vice, given sufficient pressure, and given that they have a femur. If an event occurs, we know that a “predispositon” for that event existed at the time of occurence. Events do not occur in the absense of “predispositions.” Everyone that has ANY medical condition had a “predisposition” for that event, or it would not exist. To my knowledge, I do not have a “predisposition” to injure my wing.
It may sound a little Carlin-esque to ask what the difference between a “predisposition” and a “disposition” is, but what the hell? Sincere question here. Thanks.
Further on in the article St. Krugman says: “And it establishes the principle — even if it falls somewhat short in practice — that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.”
What I don't understand is why does he restrict this entitlement to just Americans? Why not the whole world? Why dont the democrats just declare that everyone anywhere in the world is entitled to free healthcare at the cost of American taxpayers?
Damn fine point. But that would be too obvious. No, the 'Progressives' have to get what they can politically at the moment. The rest will come later — like when we give ourselves a new name with the word 'union' in it and go around and swallow up neighboring countries in order to sustain our entitlement programs. By that time, no one will notice that we had become exactly what Reagan sought to dismantle through strategy and even old Reaganites will be on board because 'the cause' will have a red, white, and blue appeal to it.
Not at all.
Libertarianism involves limited government, anarchism an absence of government.
You are confusing government with society. It shows when you talk of the social contract. The social contract is a tool to confuse the distinction between government and society. It only exists so that those who believe in it will not object when government steps out of bounds, because they believe it is for their own good.
They wouldn't. In a true single payer system the government bans access to the health care system to simple fee-for-service patients. In Canada, if the government tells you that you cannot have a recommended procedure your only choice is to flee the country, usually to the U.S., where you can always pay cash and get the procedure.
The thing I find amusing – in a tragic sort of way – is the use of “community ratings” so that the young and healthy who don't find health insurance a good value today will be forced to purchase it at a much higher price than is currently charged or is actuarily fair. Truly this is nothing more than a huge tax levied on the young and healthy. I guess that'll teach 'em for voting for Obama.
And why stop at heathcare? Why not food, water, clothing, entertainment, happiness?
An important thing to remember about Krugman is that much – if not most – of what he writes about does not fall within the realm of economics. On these issues his utterances are due no more respect than those of your local hobo. Maybe less.
Promote the general welfare? Read the Invisible Hand quote to understand what the word 'promote' means in context of the others [hint: it's used three times as a verb that shows how the welfare-of-all is enhanced through the indirect nature of people acting in their own self-interets]!
But go on and play stupid, SAFI, and pretend to ellipses away from a verb much more powerful and direct. That verb: 'SECURE'. As in:
In successive posts on this thread you asserted:
In this country from here on out if you want to sell health insurance or newspapers for that matter you can not discriminate.
and then this:
Early on, as with many things you use the system little and pay into it little. As you age you use it more and pay into it more.
Ruffly…if I had my choice this would be paid for by a 1.0% tax on incomes above $50,000 and going to 5% for incomes above say $5,000,000.
I notice you show up to comment here, but aren't interested in defending your hypocrisy about discrimination, as pointed out by LCJ.
Jim,
You might like this, if you haven't read it already:
http://mises.org/daily/3952
Yasafi claims that only (leftist) politicians can determine how much liberty a man needs in order to be free.
I've read the Constitution hundreds of times, but can't find the clause or amendment that makes this assertion.
You didn't just quote from The Virginia Declaration of Rights did you??? Have you read that through??
That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the COMMON BENEFIT, protection, and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes and forms of government that is best, which is capable of producing the GREATEST DEGREE OF HAPPINESS AND SAFETY and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a MAJORITY of the community hath an INDUBITABLE, UNALIENABLE AND INDEFEASIBLE RIGHT to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged MOST CONDUCTIVE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL.
Thank you; I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Sure I did because it is derived from Locke's “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
He wont defend it, either. He'll pretend that he didn't write it or that somehow it is not hypcritical. He probably snapped his fingers — Chandler Bing style [(NBC show) Friends reference] — and muttered that that didn't just happen. Does he also pretend to know what he's doing while treating his young patients?
Personally, I think it makes a lot more sense than, say, devoting the largest share of our national resources to the project of annihilating entire nations, killing more than a million mostly unarmed civilians, and sacrificing American sons and daughters, for the profits of of a relatively small group of powerful men. It also makes more sense to me than justifying such a rampage of profiteering slaughter – and the well-documented widespread torture of men, women AND children – on the alleged criminal actions of a few dozen men. Now, I could be wrong in assuming that in our country it might be a good idea for all insured parties to collectively carry the weight of those with chronic illnesses and in assuming that this makes more sense than bankrupting our nation in order to commit genocide for profit, but it could be that I'm mistaken.
“authors less talented than him…” Tsk, tsk.
“authors less talented than him…” Tsk, tsk.
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