Sicko (film) and American Healthcare...

[Mr Stabby]

For the record, that's completely untrue. Roads are the lifeblood of any developed country. Without them, the entire country would implode in a matter of days. Nobody would be able to get to work, cargo would never reach its destination, medical emergencies could not be attended to. People would starve, the economy would fall apart and civilisation would almost immediately start to collapse.

Still not everyone uses roads. It's also untrue to say if only the people who used roads payed for them, then they wouldn't exist. The UK has a road tax system anyway, which is in theory a direct tax, even though the money doesn't go back into the roads.

 

[No Limit]

Many societies have done well from free market capitalism. Communism is total nonsense.
A social market economy may be the best option for rich developed countries but poor countries can't afford it. The idea that civilization has been working towards any altruistic goal is nonsense.

What society has done well with a totally free, unregulated market? I'm not aware of any. About communism you are preaching to the wrong crowd since I actually lived a few short years of my life under it and my parents spent most of their life under it. I don't know why you bring it up, I am not advocating communism. I am advocating that society must, and does, provide some basic needs for it's citizens.

I would disagree that roads and railways require the government. Neither are always built by the government they are built by contractors, the free market is always more efficient than the government. The question isn't what services the government should provide, it's what is the role of the government, the services provided should reflect such a role.

What labor force built something has absolutely nothing to do with who operates it. The free market is ALWAYS more efficient than the government? You sure about that? USPS priority mail costs $4.80 and usually gets to its destination with 2-3 business days. The same letter with Fedex will cost you $12.90 (I just calculated a letter from my house to las vegas for shit and giggles) and get there in 3-4 business days. Not to mention I can drop off my USPS mail right outside of my home, for fedex or ups I have to drive to them or request a pick up at an additional charge.

So do you have any evidance that the free market is ALWAYS better than government? Because this is a clear example of where it isn't. And I can come up with many more.

The lack of government health care doesn't kill people, it is not killing people by not existing. Health care and a government regulated water supply are not an absolute necessity of society. Is it better for wealthy countries to have those things, probably, are they necessary for a free and prosperous society, no. They are still optional luxuries rather than basic rights.

The argument you are making is silly. I think you are making it just for the sake of making it. How in the world can a city such as new york with millions of people survive without a water supply? How much more would water cost if you had to order it from a private company? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just pay a couple bucks a month in the form of a tax?

In terms of health care it goes back to the same point you made earlier. Sure, people don't always die as a result of not having health care just like they don't always die as a result of not having clean drinking water. But it cuts down the life expectancy greatly.

Well the cost will go up because the people who don't use them will not be paying for them anymore, I really don't see why people should pay for things they don't use. It's almost an economic fact that the free market can do something cheaper than the government. Is the system in Manhattan a congestion charge or a road service charge? Unless you mean the toll booth tunnel, that is a sensible way of paying for the tunnel.

What justification is there for taking someones money to pay for something they won't use, so it will be cheaper for other people? Is it really any different from government funding modern art, a road is as useless to a non driver as modern art is to everyone.

As repiv said everyone uses roads. So even if you aren't driving on them your costs will go up when you walk to the store to buy something that had to be delivered there using roads.

 

[Mr Stabby]

What society has done well with a totally free, unregulated market? I'm not aware of any.

The UK, the USA, the roman empire to name a few. The massive wealth of the west was generated by a free market. The USA did have stupid tariffs but it was generally a free market in the 19th century/ early 20th and became vastly wealthy from it. Living standards in 19th century Britain were much better than 18th century Britain and the reason is the free market.

About communism you are preaching to the wrong crowd since I actually lived a few short years of my life under it and my parents spent most of their life under it. I don't know why you bring it up, I am not advocating communism. I am advocating that society must, and does, provide some basic needs for it's citizens.

You brought up the notion that society was working towards the goal of collectively working together which is communism.

What labor force built something has absolutely nothing to do with who operates it.

Railways in the UK are privately run.

The free market is ALWAYS more efficient than the government? You sure about that? USPS priority mail costs $4.80 and usually gets to its destination with 2-3 business days. The same letter with Fedex will cost you $12.90 (I just calculated a letter from my house to las vegas for shit and giggles) and get there in 3-4 business days. Not to mention I can drop off my USPS mail right outside of my home, for fedex or ups I have to drive to them or request a pick up at an additional charge.

US mail is not a free market system, the USPS has numerous unfair advantages, that allow them an edge over competitors.

Statutory monopoly

The right of the United States government to engage in postal services is established by the Postal Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 7) of the Constitution. The USPS holds a statutory monopoly on non-urgent First Class Mail, outbound U.S. international letters[3] as well the exclusive right to put mail in private mailboxes,[4] as described in the Private Express Statutes. According to Katy Lanza, from the Government Accountability Office, "The monopoly was created by Congress as a revenue protection measure for the Postal Service?s predecessor to enable it to fulfill its mission. It is to prevent private competitors from engaging in an activity known as ?cream-skimming,? i.e., offering service on low-cost routes at prices below those of the Postal Service while leaving the Service with high-cost routes."[3] The law that prohibits anyone except the USPS from placing mail in a private mailbox (18 U.S.C. ? 1725), was also passed for the purpose of preventing loss of revenue to the post office.[3] Besides the prevention of revenue loss, the 1934 legislation was passed for another reason, the second being, "Congress sought to decrease the quantity of extraneous matter being placed in mail boxes". Until 1979, competition in all letter mail was prohibited. However, faced with imminent legislation to exempt "urgent" letter mail from the monopoly, the Post Office decided on its own to exempt "extremely urgent" letters.[5] Competition in "extremely urgent letters" is allowed under certain conditions: The private carrier must charge at least $3 or twice the U.S. postage, whichever is greater (other stipulations, such as maximum delivery time, apply as well); or, alternatively, it may be delivered for free.[6] This is where carriers such as FedEx compete by offering overnight delivery, as well as where bicycle messengers compete for intracity mail. However, the private carrier of the urgent letters must not use the standardized mailboxes marked "U.S. Mail." Hence, private carriers of urgent letters must either deliver packages directly to the recipient, leave them in the open near the recipient's front door, or place them in a special box dedicated solely to that carrier (a technique commonly used by small courier and messenger services). The United States is the only country that has such a mailbox monopoly according to the American Enterprise Institute.[7]

Carriers, as well as mailers, are supposed to comply with the laws against using a competitor to mail an overnight letter that is not extremely urgent. A violation can occur at a home or a business where letters originate. But, since nonurgent letters can be mailed covertly through private carriers USPS has found it difficult to enforce. However, companies such as Bellsouth and Equifax have been investigated and fined for mailing nonurgent material through private overnight delivery services. Private carriers of overnight mail say that they do not inspect the mail of customers to determine if the content is extremely urgent and suggest that the responsibility for ensuring that rests with the mailers themselves. Carriers do, however, have certain responsibilities under the regulations.[3]

Since the mail monopoly only applies to nonurgent letter mail, the USPS is losing a significant amount of business to their competitors in other services, who offer lower rates. For example, FedEx and others have captured 90% of the overnight mail business.[4]

During the 1830s and 1840s several entrepreneurs started their own letter mail delivery companies, with the intent of ending the postal monopoly. These included Lysander Spooner and his American Letter Mail Company,[8] Henry Wells (of Wells Fargo) and Alvin Adams. To begin with, they were financially successful. However they were either forced out of business by several postal reforms leading to lower postage rates in the 1840s and 1850s as well as Congressional legislation enforcing the mail monopoly, or in the case of the Pony Express, became mail contractors.[9][10] The average price charged by the Post Office to mail a letter in 1845 was 14.5 cents, whereas the private postal systems generally charged between 5 and 6.5 cents. By 1851, the Post Office had cut their rates to 3 cents, which has been cited as the main factor in driving the private mail companies out of business. Another consequence of the rate cut was that by 1860, the formerly self-supporting Post Office depended on the Treasury for half its income.[11]

[edit] Arguments Against "Mail Monopoly"

Many of those on the political right who advocate laissez-faire capitalism have criticized the mail monopoly. Nobel Prize winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman said, "there is no way to justify our present public monopoly of the post office. It may be argued that the carrying of mail is a technical monopoly and that a government monopoly is the least of evils. Along these lines, one could perhaps justify a government post office, but not the present law, which makes it illegal for anybody else to carry the mail. If the delivery of mail is a technical monopoly, no one else will be able to succeed in competition with the government. If it is not, there is no reason why the government should be engaged in it."[12] In the conservative National Review, Sam Ryan, a senior fellow at the libertarian Lexington Institute, argued that the monopoly is the cause behind rising prices, as the post office is able to raise prices in order to off-set any increase in expenditure.[13] Moreover, Ryan argues that the Postal Service has not taken advantage of economies of scale, citing a study by the Postal Rate Commission which concluded that "The doubling of overall volume coupled with scale economies should have resulted in the average price of the stamp dropping in real terms."[14] Jim Kelly of UPS says that the Post Office has an unfair advantage and should be subject to the same rules as private carriers, such as paying taxes, following state and local regulations, and being subject to antitrust laws.[15]

So do you have any evidance that the free market is ALWAYS better than government? Because this is a clear example of where it isn't. And I can come up with many more.

The market is always more efficient than the government, it won't always be universally better. I'm sure I can find government meddling in nearly every case.

The argument you are making is silly. I think you are making it just for the sake of making it. How in the world can a city such as new york with millions of people survive without a water supply? How much more would water cost if you had to order it from a private company? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just pay a couple bucks a month in the form of a tax?

When did I ever say people could live without a water supply. A water supply is not an intrinsic right.

Actually having water free at the point of use is an insane idea. If you had such as system where all water costs were indirectly covered by an income tax, then if someone left their tap running for a month non stop they would not be charged anymore for it then using a sensible amount.

In terms of health care it goes back to the same point you made earlier. Sure, people don't always die as a result of not having health care just like they don't always die as a result of not having clean drinking water. But it cuts down the life expectancy greatly.

Your missing the point entirely, not having government run health care does not cause people to die.

Surely by that logic housing should be a right. The cold will kill the homeless outside therefore a lack of housing is what killed them and therefore they have the right to housing.

As repiv said everyone uses roads. So even if you aren't driving on them your costs will go up when you walk to the store to buy something that had to be delivered there using roads.

Not everyone uses roads. If you buy something in a shop and it has transports cost in the price then that's an optional payment, if you pay income tax there is no options. I have no problem with a road license tax on cars, my issue is the income tax of people paying for stuff they don't want or won't use.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Sorry for the long delay.

Libertarianism/classical-liberalism defines freedom in terms of property rights. People can do what they like to their own property and not to someone else's, your own speech/body is defined as your own property. How do you define liberty, without the concept of individual rights?

How about freedom of action?

Do you consider health care to be an issue of freedom?

I do (I believe in whatever level of social welfare is necessary to increase net freedom), but it is not a point I was (when I made that post) interested in debating. I was only saying that it was possible to regard it as such, that it may be someone's "right" to object to someone else's domestic policy.

It's both necessary and relevant. Liberty not only has nothing to do with state-funded services such as healthcare, these services actually reduce freedom. On the one hand, people are required to hand over a huge percentage of their income in taxes to pay for it (and the people who pay the most will usually get the least value for money and vice versa) - if taxes were not both accepted and necessary to sustain our current system of government, they would be theft by any other name.
On the other, the government taking care of people insulates them from the consequences of their actions. Successful people see far less of their success, while useless people are artificially sustained. Take it far enough and you end up with a situation like we have in this country now where many people are slaves to the system and have no idea how to look after themselves because they've never had to, and their parents never had to. Ironically, socialism actually creates poverty.

Strong arguments, but they merely confirm my point.

Your second sentence confirms the exact thing that it denies. Saying "thing x actually reduces thing y" admits that there is a relationship between x and y. So by arguing that state-funded healthcare generally reduces liberty, you are yourself admitting that state-funded healthcare can affect liberty. Therefore, if I believe your arguments, then I must (in the name of my preference for freedom everywhere) object to the implementation of state-funded healthcare.

Do you see? You can argue that healthcare increases liberty. You can argue that it decreases it. Either way, you concede that healthcare has to do with liberty, greater or lesser. You have just told me that healthcare reduces general freedom, so obviously it has something to do with teh matter. For Monkey, therefore, who cares about freedom for other peoples as well as his own, the domestic policy of the US is of direct concern - whether he believes that its effects are beneficial or malevolent. If he had said that he "had a problem" with [country x] because it did have public healthcare, I can't see how you could possibly object. It would be exactly the same issue.

All I was ever arguing with was this absurd statement:

America's domestic policies are none of your business whatsoever, so you have no right to "have a problem" with the US for these reasons.

And when that's out of the way, I'll be quite happy to join the debate on whether public healthcare increases freedom or decreases it.


EDIT: By the way, if you think people today have no conception of how to look after themselves, please, tell it to those numbered among my friends who have spent portions of this year or the last living in squats, on the street, or on the sofas of friends, while they work a minimum-wage job until they have the money to rent their own flat - all the while waiting for a pending benefit or housing application.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Also, the statistics on government welfare spending are deceptive because of where the money is actually going.

I predicted early on in this thread that I'd end up moaning about PFI, and, hey, here I am!

 

[Mr Stabby]

How about freedom of action?

What do you mean by that?

I do (I believe in whatever level of social welfare is necessary to increase net freedom)

Do you consider poorness and sickness as a forms of coercion? IMO freedom from having no money, makes about as much sense as freedom from having no Ferrari. It's a very abstract definition of freedom.

Is the notion of social welfare = more freedom applicable to all societies, The UK is a very wealthy country and can afford it's social welfare programs but most countries couldn't afford the levels of social welfare the UK has.

 

[MJ12]

I hate movies by this clown.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Is the notion of social welfare = more freedom applicable to all societies.

Nothing is applicable universally. And it's possible that I'm wrong.

As I said, "whatever level of social welfare". If I could be convinced that absolutely no social provision whatsoever would be best for everybody, I would support that. At least I would like to think so; I imagine that in reality I would be more stubborn in my preconceptions - either that or arguments good enough simply would not exist.

As for the rest, I hope to get back to you. At present I haven't the time.