The "financial professional" is blind to the fact that Medical Schools , hospitals, drug research, all are financed with tax money. He thinks medicine is some free market divorced from gov’t .
WOOF - 05:05am on 05/07/2006
So Batt, are you suggesting that only the well off are entitled to receive health care, and if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t expect to live as long?
Or are you suggesting that health care providers shouldn’t be continually forced by health insurance companies and the government, to provide health care at rates far less than deserved for the sake of health insurance company profits, and lower tax rates for the wealthy?
Marc - 10:05am on 05/07/2006
If you have a "right" to healthcare, I would have to NOT have a "right" to not have my money taken from me.
Dave - 01:05pm on 05/07/2006
Woof: You wrote: "The "financial professional" is blind to the fact that Medical Schools , hospitals, drug research, all are financed with tax money. He thinks medicine is some free market divorced from gov’t ."
That is the problem, exactly. Since WWII, various forces have combined to make healthcare into a socialist entitlement, to the detriment of both healthcare and the citizens of this country. The answer is not more socialism, but less. Get the AMA and the govt out of healthcare training and return it to the market forces. We will get the supply of medical professionals we need, and prices will come down while service will improve. Check out the largely unregulated and totally unsocialized computer market.
Let’s get that divorce as soon as possible. Charity medical care should be strictly a matter of private contribution, not govt confiscation.
I think the incentive to become more wealthy is only improved by the ability to get better stuff and services. We need more of that, not less. Unregulated markets always act to serve the maximum amount of demand. Low cost healthcare for the less productive is a market. Get it?
robert108 - 02:05pm on 05/07/2006
"The "financial professional" is blind to the fact that Medical Schools , hospitals, drug research, all are financed with tax money."
Woof,
Au contraire! In the first place, medical schools, hospitals, and drug research are most certainly NOT all financed with tax money. Nor are Pell Grants and Stafford loans available for medical school students. Some hospitals are constructed with municipal bonds, but then so are most professional sports stadiums. (I assume you are not seriously going to suggest that tickets to NFL or Major League Baseball games should be priced according to the income of the buyer.) Similarly, if an immigrant couple uses an SBA loan to buy a small business… a dry cleaning establishment, for example… does that gove the government the authority to tell that couple how much they can charge to clean and press my suit? Or launder my white shirts? Nonsense!
The point Donny Baseball was making is that a doctor, like an attorney, a CPA, a roofing contractor, or anyone else in business for himself has every right to charge the going market rate for his services, for his knowledge, and technique and experience, and that no one, even the government, has a "right" to expect him to make those services available at a lesser rate if he chooses not to do so.
The ten year investment in education and training is the doctor’s. Certainly he is the one responsible for the half million dollars or more in loans that have accumulated by the time he is ready to open his own practice. The idea that anyone else has some sort of claim on his services for "the public good" is idiotic.
Besides, exactly where in the Constitution is this "right" to be found anyway?
Bat One - 04:05pm on 05/07/2006
Robert I always love your analogy that health care can be treated like any other commodity. Computers are made in the US, China, Korea, India, Japan, and probably a few other countries, and we can go to a CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City etc and shop for the best deal. We can even shop on the internet.
Tell me, under your imagined system, just how will we compare prices for medical care? Will there be stores like CompUSA, where we can price health care from all the different countries, and pick the best price? Then when we decide on the care we need at the price we can afford, will that country just send their doctors and staff to treat us?
And also if you would, tell me how likely do you really think it is the US will ever adopt totally free markets in health care as you envision? And just how long will it take for health care costs to start coming down, so that more people will be able to afford it?
Marc - 05:05pm on 05/07/2006
"So Batt, are you suggesting that only the well off are entitled to receive health care, and if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t expect to live as long?"
Marc,
To answer your question, I am suggesting that nobody is "entitled" to healthcare. There is no constitutional basis for such a claim, Is it fair? Of course not. But then the word "fair" is nowhere to be found in the Consitution either.
I am not in any way obliged to provide for your healthcare, or that of your mother, your wife, or you children. That responsibility is yours, and theirs, not mine. And certainly not the responsiblity of the American taxpayer.
Bat One - 05:05pm on 05/07/2006
Well said Bat One.
WETBACK - 05:05pm on 05/07/2006
Bat, a simple "yes" would have sufficed.
And how about the second part of my question
And are you suggesting that health care providers shouldn’t be continually forced by health insurance companies and the government, to provide health care at rates far less than deserved for the sake of health insurance company profits, and lower tax rates for the wealthy?
The "financial professional" is blind to the fact that Medical Schools , hospitals, drug research, all are financed with tax money. He thinks medicine is some free market divorced from gov’t .
So Batt, are you suggesting that only the well off are entitled to receive health care, and if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t expect to live as long?
Or are you suggesting that health care providers shouldn’t be continually forced by health insurance companies and the government, to provide health care at rates far less than deserved for the sake of health insurance company profits, and lower tax rates for the wealthy?
If you have a "right" to healthcare, I would have to NOT have a "right" to not have my money taken from me.
Woof: You wrote: "The "financial professional" is blind to the fact that Medical Schools , hospitals, drug research, all are financed with tax money. He thinks medicine is some free market divorced from gov’t ."
That is the problem, exactly. Since WWII, various forces have combined to make healthcare into a socialist entitlement, to the detriment of both healthcare and the citizens of this country. The answer is not more socialism, but less. Get the AMA and the govt out of healthcare training and return it to the market forces. We will get the supply of medical professionals we need, and prices will come down while service will improve. Check out the largely unregulated and totally unsocialized computer market.
Let’s get that divorce as soon as possible. Charity medical care should be strictly a matter of private contribution, not govt confiscation.
I think the incentive to become more wealthy is only improved by the ability to get better stuff and services. We need more of that, not less. Unregulated markets always act to serve the maximum amount of demand. Low cost healthcare for the less productive is a market. Get it?
"The "financial professional" is blind to the fact that Medical Schools , hospitals, drug research, all are financed with tax money."
Woof,
Au contraire! In the first place, medical schools, hospitals, and drug research are most certainly NOT all financed with tax money. Nor are Pell Grants and Stafford loans available for medical school students. Some hospitals are constructed with municipal bonds, but then so are most professional sports stadiums. (I assume you are not seriously going to suggest that tickets to NFL or Major League Baseball games should be priced according to the income of the buyer.) Similarly, if an immigrant couple uses an SBA loan to buy a small business… a dry cleaning establishment, for example… does that gove the government the authority to tell that couple how much they can charge to clean and press my suit? Or launder my white shirts? Nonsense!
The point Donny Baseball was making is that a doctor, like an attorney, a CPA, a roofing contractor, or anyone else in business for himself has every right to charge the going market rate for his services, for his knowledge, and technique and experience, and that no one, even the government, has a "right" to expect him to make those services available at a lesser rate if he chooses not to do so.
The ten year investment in education and training is the doctor’s. Certainly he is the one responsible for the half million dollars or more in loans that have accumulated by the time he is ready to open his own practice. The idea that anyone else has some sort of claim on his services for "the public good" is idiotic.
Besides, exactly where in the Constitution is this "right" to be found anyway?
Robert I always love your analogy that health care can be treated like any other commodity. Computers are made in the US, China, Korea, India, Japan, and probably a few other countries, and we can go to a CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City etc and shop for the best deal. We can even shop on the internet.
Tell me, under your imagined system, just how will we compare prices for medical care? Will there be stores like CompUSA, where we can price health care from all the different countries, and pick the best price? Then when we decide on the care we need at the price we can afford, will that country just send their doctors and staff to treat us?
And also if you would, tell me how likely do you really think it is the US will ever adopt totally free markets in health care as you envision? And just how long will it take for health care costs to start coming down, so that more people will be able to afford it?
"So Batt, are you suggesting that only the well off are entitled to receive health care, and if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t expect to live as long?"
Marc,
To answer your question, I am suggesting that nobody is "entitled" to healthcare. There is no constitutional basis for such a claim, Is it fair? Of course not. But then the word "fair" is nowhere to be found in the Consitution either.
I am not in any way obliged to provide for your healthcare, or that of your mother, your wife, or you children. That responsibility is yours, and theirs, not mine. And certainly not the responsiblity of the American taxpayer.
Well said Bat One.
Bat, a simple "yes" would have sufficed.
And how about the second part of my question
And are you suggesting that health care providers shouldn’t be continually forced by health insurance companies and the government, to provide health care at rates far less than deserved for the sake of health insurance company profits, and lower tax rates for the wealthy?
Practising medicine is not a right.