david starling
Well-known member
U.S. healthcare is For-Profit, so the prices are driven up.
The Left in 2018: Unhinged
- Thread starter PilgrimsProgress
- Start date
AppLeo
Well-known member
Suppose you needed to get an x-ray because your life depended on it. And you needed to find one today!!!
And so you buy an x-ray for $5 dollars. And you may wonder, an x-ray for $5 dollars must be really bad.
Yes, but if your life depended on it, you would buy it. Especially if you're poor.
But why should an x-ray cost a lot of money if your life depended on something??? Why should an x-ray cost like $700 dollars? Or $1000 dollars?
In free healthcare, there is no free market. There are fixed prices. There is no variety of x-rays with different prices to choose from. Why? Because it's so heavily regulated. There's no competition.
If you want healthcare to get better for people, you need to have competition. Where companies compete to provide the best service, at the lowest price, to as many people as possible. I don't understand why people can't seem to understand this concept.
Buying an x-ray for $5 may be a really bad x-ray, but it gets the job done. It's the difference between buying a beater car and Ferrari. At the end of the day anyone can buy a car if they've saved up the money.
If you asked your doctor today, "how much will this x-ray cost me?" the doctor couldn't tell you. The doctor would have to go through the system or ask the insurance company.
You could ask that same question if you were at at a restaurant ordering food and actually get the prices. You could look at a list of restaurants and menus to order from. And there is cheap food and expensive food. Delivered food, ordered food, or food you buy from a store. There are options.
Basically, there's a free market in the food industry.
Food is also super cheap and easily accessible, I might add.
Our healthcare is actually supposed to be significantly cheaper, but our system makes it so expensive. We need to have more of a free market where you pay people to perform a service, rather than forcing people to perform a service in an over regulated environment. ANd it's terrible for poor people because they can't afford these prices because there are no other prices. So poor people have no choice... and I thought the left wanted to help the poor.
People treat healthcare as a right. But the truth is that healthcare is just a commodity. It's any other service people provide. But because people get a little worried about health, they've decided to socialize it, which makes it significantly worse.
It's the same with our schooling system. People get worried about a child's education, and so they force a child to go to a certain school, for a certain amount of hours, and learn certain things. And they don't even stop to realize how this education is really going to benefit the child on an individual level.
Food is just as important as your health and education though and yet we treat food as a commodity. And we have great food, all kinds of food, cheap or expensive that is able to be provided to just about everyone in the population.
Can you imagine paying $30 for only one kind of hot dog everytime you wanted a hot dog? And you're only choice of food was a hamburger or hot dog?
That's literally socialized medicine.
We need to treat healthcare as a commodity to get the same results.
I think this is utterly obvious.
When you treat healthcare as a right, healthcare isn't seen as a service or commodity anymore. The service provider turns into a slave. And the slave is directed in a super controlled and over regulated fashion. He can only provide a certain kind of x-ray, and it has to be at this price, and he has to provide to all people even if they don't have the money. And you start to see how horrible the socialized healthcare system is. Doctors are forced to provide medical care a certain way. Tax payers have to pay more for the people who can't pay for medical care. These people could pay for medical care however, if there was a free market to provide different variations of services and products.
No one starves to death because the only version of food is super expensive food. No, you can buy super cheap food and always know you'll be fed. Restaurants, and people who make food aren't so over regulated that they have to provide certain types of food at fixed prices. They can make any kind of food and sell it at any price. This means cheap food will always be around for hungry poor people.
If we look a Venuzuala (can't spell it), they have socialism where a carton of milk costs like $50 dollars, and there's not even that much milk. The isles are foodless and not bountiful like a store in the U.S.
What happens when people stop choosing to become doctors and socialized healthcare is a right??? Are we going to force people to become doctors. Is the government going to threaten to kill you or jail you unless you follow your destined career path? Socialized medicine will destroy our freedom.
And I can guarantee you, people will decide not to become doctors less and less. As the government intervenes more, doctors won't get paid the money that they deserve. They will get paid what the government thinks they are worth. Healthcare quality will go down because doctors will get paid a fixed salary that never changes when their quality of work changes.
It's funny because if you're a doctor who wants to make money, you'll become an ophthalmologist or a dermatologist because those are less regulated by the government.
Laser Eye surgery used to be like 20,000 dollars, but because of a more free system in eye medicine, it's been reduced to 3,000 dollars.
A black market will be created in a free healthcare system. "Instead of going to the government doctor, I'm going to pay a doctor on the street to fix my ankle for a much lower cost and quicker solution. Because the alternative is terrible."
I mean there's already a black market in Canada for crying out loud!
Healthcare in Canada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw
(it's not good)
There was a black market for toilet paper in the Venuzuala. I'm just wondering what the government regulated or banned to make toilet paper so difficult to deliver to people
And we know what Milton Friedman said, wherever there's a black market, it's freedom trying to come through. People want the freedom to buy and sell what they want. They don't want an authoritative force with a giant gun telling people how to live!
It's interesting to me because, if healthcare is so important, why don't we implement "free" whatever for everything. Let's just have the government own all the means of products and regulate everything there is. Everything is a right. You have a right to anything you want.
Did I hear free cars? Awesome, free Ferrari's for everybody! WOOOO partayyyyy... YOU get a car! YOU get a car! WE all get cars comerads!!!!
but seriously, if the government passed a bunch of laws so that everyone could have a Ferrari... guess what's gonna happen, not everyone is going to get Ferrari's! Omg wow really??? The governments laws aren't magic that is created from waving a wand. YEs, it's true. Just because something is free doesn't mean it's going to happen.
And just imagine what would happen to the economy. Like. everything would just fall apart because everyone would be slaving away to build these Ferrari's that everyone wants, that no one wants to pay or work for.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. No one is going to just give you something because you exist. You will be paying a price one way or another, so you may get into the mindset that whatever you want to have, you better work to pay for it.
We want free people, not free healthcare.
And so you buy an x-ray for $5 dollars. And you may wonder, an x-ray for $5 dollars must be really bad.
Yes, but if your life depended on it, you would buy it. Especially if you're poor.
But why should an x-ray cost a lot of money if your life depended on something??? Why should an x-ray cost like $700 dollars? Or $1000 dollars?
In free healthcare, there is no free market. There are fixed prices. There is no variety of x-rays with different prices to choose from. Why? Because it's so heavily regulated. There's no competition.
If you want healthcare to get better for people, you need to have competition. Where companies compete to provide the best service, at the lowest price, to as many people as possible. I don't understand why people can't seem to understand this concept.
Buying an x-ray for $5 may be a really bad x-ray, but it gets the job done. It's the difference between buying a beater car and Ferrari. At the end of the day anyone can buy a car if they've saved up the money.
If you asked your doctor today, "how much will this x-ray cost me?" the doctor couldn't tell you. The doctor would have to go through the system or ask the insurance company.
You could ask that same question if you were at at a restaurant ordering food and actually get the prices. You could look at a list of restaurants and menus to order from. And there is cheap food and expensive food. Delivered food, ordered food, or food you buy from a store. There are options.
Basically, there's a free market in the food industry.
Food is also super cheap and easily accessible, I might add.
Our healthcare is actually supposed to be significantly cheaper, but our system makes it so expensive. We need to have more of a free market where you pay people to perform a service, rather than forcing people to perform a service in an over regulated environment. ANd it's terrible for poor people because they can't afford these prices because there are no other prices. So poor people have no choice... and I thought the left wanted to help the poor.
People treat healthcare as a right. But the truth is that healthcare is just a commodity. It's any other service people provide. But because people get a little worried about health, they've decided to socialize it, which makes it significantly worse.
It's the same with our schooling system. People get worried about a child's education, and so they force a child to go to a certain school, for a certain amount of hours, and learn certain things. And they don't even stop to realize how this education is really going to benefit the child on an individual level.
Food is just as important as your health and education though and yet we treat food as a commodity. And we have great food, all kinds of food, cheap or expensive that is able to be provided to just about everyone in the population.
Can you imagine paying $30 for only one kind of hot dog everytime you wanted a hot dog? And you're only choice of food was a hamburger or hot dog?
That's literally socialized medicine.
We need to treat healthcare as a commodity to get the same results.
I think this is utterly obvious.
When you treat healthcare as a right, healthcare isn't seen as a service or commodity anymore. The service provider turns into a slave. And the slave is directed in a super controlled and over regulated fashion. He can only provide a certain kind of x-ray, and it has to be at this price, and he has to provide to all people even if they don't have the money. And you start to see how horrible the socialized healthcare system is. Doctors are forced to provide medical care a certain way. Tax payers have to pay more for the people who can't pay for medical care. These people could pay for medical care however, if there was a free market to provide different variations of services and products.
No one starves to death because the only version of food is super expensive food. No, you can buy super cheap food and always know you'll be fed. Restaurants, and people who make food aren't so over regulated that they have to provide certain types of food at fixed prices. They can make any kind of food and sell it at any price. This means cheap food will always be around for hungry poor people.
If we look a Venuzuala (can't spell it), they have socialism where a carton of milk costs like $50 dollars, and there's not even that much milk. The isles are foodless and not bountiful like a store in the U.S.
What happens when people stop choosing to become doctors and socialized healthcare is a right??? Are we going to force people to become doctors. Is the government going to threaten to kill you or jail you unless you follow your destined career path? Socialized medicine will destroy our freedom.
And I can guarantee you, people will decide not to become doctors less and less. As the government intervenes more, doctors won't get paid the money that they deserve. They will get paid what the government thinks they are worth. Healthcare quality will go down because doctors will get paid a fixed salary that never changes when their quality of work changes.
It's funny because if you're a doctor who wants to make money, you'll become an ophthalmologist or a dermatologist because those are less regulated by the government.
Laser Eye surgery used to be like 20,000 dollars, but because of a more free system in eye medicine, it's been reduced to 3,000 dollars.
A black market will be created in a free healthcare system. "Instead of going to the government doctor, I'm going to pay a doctor on the street to fix my ankle for a much lower cost and quicker solution. Because the alternative is terrible."
I mean there's already a black market in Canada for crying out loud!
Healthcare in Canada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw
(it's not good)
There was a black market for toilet paper in the Venuzuala. I'm just wondering what the government regulated or banned to make toilet paper so difficult to deliver to people
And we know what Milton Friedman said, wherever there's a black market, it's freedom trying to come through. People want the freedom to buy and sell what they want. They don't want an authoritative force with a giant gun telling people how to live!
It's interesting to me because, if healthcare is so important, why don't we implement "free" whatever for everything. Let's just have the government own all the means of products and regulate everything there is. Everything is a right. You have a right to anything you want.
Did I hear free cars? Awesome, free Ferrari's for everybody! WOOOO partayyyyy... YOU get a car! YOU get a car! WE all get cars comerads!!!!
but seriously, if the government passed a bunch of laws so that everyone could have a Ferrari... guess what's gonna happen, not everyone is going to get Ferrari's!
Omg wow really??? The governments laws aren't magic that is created from waving a wand. YEs, it's true. Just because something is free doesn't mean it's going to happen. And just imagine what would happen to the economy. Like. everything would just fall apart because everyone would be slaving away to build these Ferrari's that everyone wants, that no one wants to pay or work for.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. No one is going to just give you something because you exist. You will be paying a price one way or another, so you may get into the mindset that whatever you want to have, you better work to pay for it.
We want free people, not free healthcare.
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AppLeo
Well-known member
The U.S. isn't a different case for why socialized medicine can't work.
Socialized medicine is pathetic no matter what country it's tried in.
It doesn't matter if your population is 2 people, or 100 billion.
This should be super obvious.
However, the only time I can think of socialized medicine being a good thing is for like emergencies. You're someone who needs a service who isn't conscious or in the proper state to pay for a service. Like if you get in a car accident and you need someone to take you to a hospital and bandage you up, so you don't die. Great. I'm fine with that.
But other than that, all other forms of healthcare should be privatized, free, unregulated, laissez-faire, and capitalistic.
Socialized medicine is pathetic no matter what country it's tried in.
It doesn't matter if your population is 2 people, or 100 billion.
This should be super obvious.
However, the only time I can think of socialized medicine being a good thing is for like emergencies. You're someone who needs a service who isn't conscious or in the proper state to pay for a service. Like if you get in a car accident and you need someone to take you to a hospital and bandage you up, so you don't die. Great. I'm fine with that.
But other than that, all other forms of healthcare should be privatized, free, unregulated, laissez-faire, and capitalistic.
david starling
Well-known member
What about fire-fighting and police-protection? Should they be For-Profit?
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AppLeo
Well-known member
Yes, I don’t see why not.
But I mean, I don’t think it matters. It’s not like people’s houses are burning down and they are dying because firefighters are bad. They’re working fine.
But healthcare clearly suks, so you need free market for healthcare for it to advance and get better.
Do we really need private roads. Not really. I don’t know how you can have private roads though really, unless everyone paid for the same private road. Which is similar to public roads being payed with taxes, so.
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Oddity
Well-known member
What if there's an epidemic? Is it okay that you and tens of thousands of other people catch whatever is going around and die because there are no measures in place to deal with it?
Subsidised health care isn't a right. But it is a public good.
And do you think society would benefit if there were more people who didn't have even basic literacy and mathematical skills on the education front?
Subsidised health care isn't a right. But it is a public good.
And do you think society would benefit if there were more people who didn't have even basic literacy and mathematical skills on the education front?
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david starling
Well-known member
"The highest use of capital is not to make more money,
but to make money do more for the betterment of life." -{Henry Ford}
but to make money do more for the betterment of life." -{Henry Ford}
david starling
Well-known member
This is for Oddity, a saying of my own 
,
If we eliminated all of the contributions to civilization by those with personal prejudices and character-flaws, we'd be depriving ourselves of the good they were able to accomplish.
(Regarding Henry Ford's virulent anti-Semitism.)
,If we eliminated all of the contributions to civilization by those with personal prejudices and character-flaws, we'd be depriving ourselves of the good they were able to accomplish.
(Regarding Henry Ford's virulent anti-Semitism.)
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david starling
Well-known member
As I see it, the Rightwingers have become unglued, and are running on pure emotion rather than logical reasoning.
AppLeo
Well-known member
You’re setting up a hypothetical situation that will probably NEVER happen. When things get dire, government control shall get bigger, but when right now there is no need for socialized medicine.
And if honestly, good luck trying to stop an epidemic with the government instead of using the free market. The free market is always better or should be given the benefit of the doubt before the government.
There is no such thing.
https://youtu.be/xvz8tg4MVpA
No. I think society would benefit if public education didn’t exist.
There is no such thing as society anyway. Society is not an entity. It is not a thing. It’s just a name for a collection of individuals. Individuals come first. The individual is what matters.
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AppLeo
Well-known member
If man is a sacrificial animal then selflessness is a virtue. Really great if your purpose to life is to serve others at the expense of yourself.....
The world isn’t perfect because not everyone thinks the way I do. If everyone was selfish, the world would be a better place.
The only way to change my mind is to propose a better political system/philosophy.
Ukpoohbear
Well-known member
I have a thought that your family life is not healthy because you have such weird views about the world. But with bad parenting considered Appleo, if your family was selfish then you would be homeless and would be forced to apply yourself to this world by your own self from a young age but you can’t even cook Appleo.
Ukpoohbear
Well-known member
Just because you have been brought up in a nice house I don’t see how the parenting you have been given or your thoughts about the world are any better than gangster thug mentality.
AppLeo
Well-known member
Perhaps, but it depends. My parents wanted to take care of me and raise me. It was in their own selfish desires to raise a kid. If they didn’t want to raise a kid, I wouldn’t have been born in the first place.
Who cares if I can cook. Not me cuz I’ve got plenty of places to get food from.
The difference between my selfishness and a gangster thug is that I don’t take advantage of people. I don’t steal from people, I don’t lie to people, I don’t kill people, etc... a gangster does though.
However, I’m still selfish because I don’t give people money I earn, I don’t save people’s lives, I don’t concern my life with other people’s problems. I concern myself with my own problems. So I’m selfish, but not a parasitical kind of selfishness. Ayn Rand and I don’t believe in taking advantage of people and using them.
We want everyone to be the selfish so that they only concern themselves. No one else really matters. Only you matter to yourself. And everyone else matters to themselves. Every man is for their own self. Every man is responsible for himself.
And since we are all selfish and want what’s best for ourselves, whenever we interact with people, we only have positive interactions. If I want something and another individual wants something we can both help each other selfishly. For example, I need someone to give me food because I can’t cook, and someone wants money and they can cook. So the person cooks for me. They get my money, and I get food to eat.
It’s a win-win situation. Selfish individuals only do business or involve themselves with other selfish people for mutual, positive, win-win interactions. Every time people work with one another, it’s always a positive interactions. The more positive interactions the better the world becomes.
So if everyone was selfish the world would be perfect.
Because if you have a selfish person and selfless person. What happens? The selfless person helps the selfish person at their own expense. I’m hungry and want food, someone cooks for me for free. They’ve just given me food and they get no money in return. That’s a win-lose interaction.
And then there’s fully fledged communism, which consists of only lose-lose interactions. People selflessly help selfless people. No one lives for themselves and so everyone just ends up dying. Hence why millions of people die under communism.
david starling
Well-known member
There's never been a society that could be labeled "fully fledged communism" as you define it. Promises were made in Russia, but the result is perfectly described in George Orwell's book "Animal Farm".
Ukpoohbear
Well-known member
You make the effort to sound logical but you have always been helped. Saying your parents are selfish and so they feed you is weak.
You have never paid a bill, never cooked a meal. Your life is so good because of the help you get.
I already understand you are not a nasty person and are not looking to take advantage of others. But wake up, the world is not as simple as a pay for goods and give money for goods kind of way.
You need help to get away from the environment that is creating naive views. Your parents should be taking you to homeless soup kitchens but I bet they are too busy and get angry because they are trapped by their own lives.
Some people need help and who are you to judge in your comfortable life of having meals cooked for you.
You are not qualified.
Go help somebody and forget about yourself. The world will not be fixed by your solutions it’s ridiculous.
You have never paid a bill, never cooked a meal. Your life is so good because of the help you get.
I already understand you are not a nasty person and are not looking to take advantage of others. But wake up, the world is not as simple as a pay for goods and give money for goods kind of way.
You need help to get away from the environment that is creating naive views. Your parents should be taking you to homeless soup kitchens but I bet they are too busy and get angry because they are trapped by their own lives.
Some people need help and who are you to judge in your comfortable life of having meals cooked for you.
You are not qualified.
Go help somebody and forget about yourself. The world will not be fixed by your solutions it’s ridiculous.
Ukpoohbear
Well-known member
If we see something bad happening it is our duty to not be cowards and to be more than a person who goes to work to lay bills. The world is not really about what goods you buy or sell. Yes it is everyday and it is important to work so you can provide for yourself but it is not the main priority in our lives. It is your responsibility to be a good person and it is your responsibility if you have children to raise them to be good people with morals and not just raise children to work and pay or buy goods.
If you see something bad happen it is up to you to be brave enough to say no. Don’t put yourself in danger but be proud to say no to those who take advantage of others.
The only part I agree with is it is important to buy and sell goods,but is that all you have to say about life?
People take advantage of others, others help. What do you say about those who will take advantage? That they shouldn’t do that? Hen what? Evil will always exist. Be a good person and help people hurt by it.
Don’t fall asleep and stay in your routine because you believe you are only what job or duty you have.
If you see something bad happen it is up to you to be brave enough to say no. Don’t put yourself in danger but be proud to say no to those who take advantage of others.
The only part I agree with is it is important to buy and sell goods,but is that all you have to say about life?
People take advantage of others, others help. What do you say about those who will take advantage? That they shouldn’t do that? Hen what? Evil will always exist. Be a good person and help people hurt by it.
Don’t fall asleep and stay in your routine because you believe you are only what job or duty you have.
Ukpoohbear
Well-known member
Selfishness is wrong. It helps people stay in the routine and think they are able to not take responsibility for the pain that people are in. It lets those who take advantage to continue to do that. We are all responsible because if we turn the other cheek we are cowards. This is the truth and the reason I know is because everybody tries to wear a mask but they feel the guilt deep down.
AppLeo
Well-known member
But it's the truth. My parents take care of me because they WANT to take care of me. They aren't doing it because they have to or because they were forced to. They did it because they wanted to.
Yes, lucky me. I've done plenty around the house to help my parents anyway, so... It's not like I'm ordering them around like slaves.
Umm, it actually is. Millions of economic interactions take place between individuals to further their selfish-interest. The majority of the stuff we want or need is what we pay for.
No, no, my parents are fine. I've helped animals in pet shelters. I've been in that environment. Humans can help themselves though. Animals can't really do anything. That's why I helped the animals, and the kittens are freaking cute.
I can judge however I want. Free country and free speech. I'm entitled to my opinion and can speak and judge as much as I want.
I am qualified.
Dude, why would I help someone else when I can help myself. Didn't you just say I wasn't qualified? When I'm helping myself, I'm learning to pay my own bills and cook for myself. I can't really learn or build myself up, if I'm helping someone else.