"Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments

In article ,
Jack Hollis wrote:

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:04:57 GMT, Steven Bornfeld
wrote:

The problem is where do you draw that line and who do you
help?
I don't have any answers for that one either.
Bill C


The short answer is we will pay either way.

Steve

When you buy private insurance, there are state laws governing the
insurance companies. They pretty much draw the line.

Uh, Jack, the insurance companies write the bills, their
lobbyists deliver them, and the legislature passes them.

--
Michael Press

In article
,
Simon Brooke wrote:

in message , Robert Chung
') wrote:

At the base of this (as has probably been mentioned several times in
this thread) is the question of whether health care is a right or a
privilege. Â*A person's answer to this question will determine to a
great extent their reactions to any other point in the argument about
social welfare.
Can our healthcare dollars be used more efficiently? Â*Of course, but
not without regulation. Â*I've heard that 1/3 of healthcare dollars are
spent on the last 6 months of life (I know, like the joke goes, the
only thing is, how do it know?).

I'm not sure the "right vs. privilege" thing is central.

I'm not sure it's even meaningful. What is a 'right' and who gets to
decide what is a 'right'? Any rights theory really comes down to
consensual acceptance of a single non-human authority, and, in a
multi-faith world, we don't have one. So any talk about 'rights' is
either simply woffle or else a bid for hegemony.

Which brings us back to utilitarianism, which someone upthread cast scorn
on. Well, I'm happy to agree that it's inelegant and often produces
results which are uncomfortable or seem at variance with our instinctive
sense of natural justice, but it's the only moral system which has any
real intellectual credibility.

I tried to make sense of this, even rot-13'd it. Still no
go: `moral system with intellectual credibility'? Does it
have street cred too?

--
Michael Press

Michael Press wrote:
I tried to make sense of this, even rot-13'd it.

Its the Fuentes Code V2.0. Much better than pet names.

Robert Chung wrote:
Greg wrote:

Well that is perhaps obvious in a standard way of thinking, so it isn't
what I'm driving at.

You know, I don't think I've ever accused you of thinking in a standard
way.

Thank you. {laughs}

However, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a discussion of
health system performance is just a discussion of health system
performance.

People use it to make government policy. That is what scares me.

I reject the /political/ dictum of "the greatest good for the greatest
number." I wonder how others justify it.

If you re-read my comments in this thread, you'll see that I never
advocated a particular health system, or any particular organizing
approach.

And that is why I said I don't know what you think. I wasn't accusing
you of making policy recommendations, but I know that others do based
on the dictum.

A bigger problem, from my perspective, is that there are people
who believe that the current US system is above reproach. If they think
the system is the best that it can be there's no reason to ever consider
changing it.

Sure, it probably is blind nationalism at its root. The subtle side is
that if you are against "nationalism," you might be against any
associated national government action to be logically consistant.

As I've said previously, there may be reasons why one would want to
de-regulate the health care system -- just that those reasons don't have
much to do with cost or quality of care.

True.

I would think that you would be concerned about
the cost-quality mismatch in the US compared to other
countries.

I'm concerned about what I pay for what I get in everything. I think
the only comparative studies of government that are really important to
me is how much and in what way each restrict liberty. Health care is
only a part of what some of the "western" nations do, so it is only
mildly interesting.

In the case of the US, poor value is exacerbated by rare (over
the course of the lifespan) but catastrophically expensive events. The
rarer and more catastrophic an event, the harder it is for conventional
insurance companies to manage the risk and the more likely it is for there
to be calls for increasing the risk pool -- such as in universal care or
single-payer sytems (which aren't the same thing). That's the kind of
thing that drives you nuts, so I would think you'd be concerned about
value mismatch.

There are always calls for the government to solve "problems." I don't
want that to happen, and people endlessly doing so is why I lost faith
in so-called *limited* government (apparently oxymoronic) and became
more radical. And I don't think one can independently look at health
and health care independent of all other goods. That tact is drenched
in value judgement (about what is important). So I'm not so sure a
cigar is just a cigar in this case. No one knows what the cost of
health care *should* be, especially in the "aggregate," a slippery
notion prone to abuse.

So again, it might sound like like I against trying to get a macro
picture of things going on in some given society -- such as bang for
buck in "health care," loosely speaking. I'm not.

Steven Bornfeld wrote:

The free marketers seem to think they have a measure of control in the
system as it exists now.

Your comment is self-contradictory. If "they" are "free marketers,"
then they are against control. To the extent it is a "controlled
system," then a free marketer is against it. The US "system" is not a
free market in health care -- a free marketer could not support it
as-is. Other governments may interfere more "effectively," or at least
you might think so if you simply look at health care alone.

My guess is that they haven't had to deal with
catastrophic illness in a loved one lately.

It sounds like you are resorting to "they are just cold-hearted
assholes" ad-hominium, and relying on an emotional response, instead of
making a rationale critique. That is okay for the usenet.

Simon Brooke wrote:
in message , Robert Chung
') wrote:

At the base of this (as has probably been mentioned several times in
this thread) is the question of whether health care is a right or a
privilege. A person's answer to this question will determine to a
great extent their reactions to any other point in the argument about
social welfare.

What most people call "social welfare" is simply using the hammer of
The State to satisfy some groups idea of what is "good." Therefore, it
really isn't social welfare, it is always the mask of tyranny.

Can our healthcare dollars be used more efficiently?

They are not "our" dollars. "You" are implying the dollar (property)
of one person's is the dollar (property) of another's. By what ethical
justification is my dollar your dollar? If one draws a legal line of
how much one holds and how much is taken, where and why?

Of course, but
not without regulation.

No modern society has an unregulated health care market. What
unregulated modern society is being compared against? What is "health
care" supposed to cost?

I've heard that 1/3 of healthcare dollars are
spent on the last 6 months of life...

Is that "right" or "wrong.?"

I'm not sure the "right vs. privilege" thing is central.

It is central because it roots out the underlying value judgements,
including what the sense of justice is and "right" from "wrong."

I'm not sure it's even meaningful.

This is, of course, a good lead-in to positivist dogma. While
everything else in nature, has a nature, and the nature can be
scientifically studied, the positivist says humans uniquely have no
nature -- their nature is "whatever." This is the dogma that can
justify "killing redheads" because of transient expediency for the
local dictator.

What is a 'right' and who gets to
decide what is a 'right'?

There are essays to treatises written on the topic. A (negative) right
is something one is born with due to the nature of being human. (You
can see why positivists need to do away with natural right -- they can
impose any policy they fancy, at whatever time they wish, if there is
no such thing as a right.)

Natural rights/law claims you have a right to an _independent_ life,
and that you have a right to property. You won't get a treatise on
natural rights/law in a usenet post.* The right to property even has
utility, if that satisfies some (See Epstein
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738200417/) Also Kinsella embedded
some interesting ideas on property in his essay _Against Intellectual
Property_
(http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15...op erty%22see,
p.19 under the heading _Property and Scarcity_: "The very possibility
of conflict over a resource renders it scarce, giving rise to the need
for ethical rules to govern its use. Thus, the fundamental social and
ethical function of property rights is to prevent interpersonal
conflict over scarce resources... Were we in a Garden of Eden where
land and other goods were infinitely abundant, there would be no
scarcity and,therefore, no need for property rules; property concepts
would be meaningless. The idea
of conflict, and the idea of rights, would not even arise.").

Any rights theory really comes down to consensual
acceptance of a single non-human authority, and, in a
multi-faith world, we don't have one.

It is true that in older natural rights/law theory, the thinkers did
include language of a "God." However, a deity is unnecessary to the
theory, and more modern readings would reveal this to you.

So any talk about 'rights' is
either simply woffle or else a bid for hegemony.

Actually, to *not* talk about it is the track to hegemony. If there
are no foundations in boundaries ("free spheres") and regulation of
human behavior and exchange, *anything goes*. Postitivist doctrine,
left to rule by itself, is dangerous for exactly this reason.

It isn't woffle; is that it is extremely difficult to frame well due to
the foundational nature of the problem.

Which brings us back to utilitarianism, which someone upthread cast scorn
on. Well, I'm happy to agree that it's inelegant and often produces
results which are uncomfortable or seem at variance with our instinctive
sense of natural justice, but it's the only moral system which has any
real intellectual credibility.

Rawls (a positivist) wrote something like (on p.141 of TOJ): "we define
the original position such that we end up at the desired result." Such
a tact is one that defies science and nature. Humans are part of
nature, and they are studied under the science of natural law. A real
research scientist doesn't start out with a desired result and then
work the problem to fit the result.

The postitivist doctrine is difficult to systematically refute. But
it, at best, only gives partial answers. Natural law is more
encompassing, and in my opinion, it can actually suck up positivism and
utilitarianism into it.

I personally believe the problem attacking these philosophpical and
moral/ethical matters is language itself. When one digs very deep the
language becomes tautological, and many just wave things off as
"definitional." But this hardly lends justification to postitivism.
There is a reason philosophers struggle. The tool itself -- language
-- is not up to the task. I think this is why many throw up their
hands and finally resort to mysticism and supernaturalism. I cannot.


-----
* Following is from the recent Norwood case. Obviously I disagree
that "Government is the necessary burden."



CITY OF NORWOOD, APPELLEE, v. HORNEY ET AL., APPELLANTS. (TWO
CASES.)
CITY OF NORWOOD, APPELLEE, v. GAMBLE ET AL., APPELLANTS. (TWO
CASES.)

excerpt:

{¶ 35} Believed to be derived fundamentally from a higher authority
and natural law, property rights were so sacred that they could not be
entrusted lightly to "the uncertain virtue of those who govern."
Parham v. Justices of Decatur Cty. Inferior Court (Ga.1851), 9 Ga. 341,
348. See, also, Bank of Toledo v. Toledo (1853), 1 Ohio St. 622, 664;
Proprietors of Spring Grove, 1 Ohio Dec. Reprint 316; Joseph J.
Lazzarotti, Public Use or Public Abuse (1999), 68 U.M.K.C.L.Rev. 49,
54; J.A.C. Grant, The "Higher Law" Background of the Law of Eminent
Domain (1932), 6 Wisc.L.Rev. 67. As such, property rights were believed
to supersede constitutional principles. "To be * * * protected and *
* * secure in the possession of [one's] property is a right
inalienable, a right which a written
constitution may recognize or declare, but which existed independently
of and before such recognition, and which no government can destroy."
Henry v. Dubuque Pacific RR. Co. (1860), 10 Iowa 540, 543. As Chief
Justice Bartley eloquently described more than 150 years ago: {¶ 36}
"The right of private property is an original and fundamental right,
existing anterior to the formation of the government itself; the civil
rights, privileges and immunities authorized by law, are derivative -
mere incidents to the political institutions of the country, conferred
with a view to the public welfare, and therefore trusts of civil power,
to be exercised for the public benefit.
* * * Government is the necessary burden imposed on man as the only
means of securing the protection of his rights. And this protection -
the primary and only legitimate purpose of civil government, is
accomplished by protecting man in his rights of personal security,
personal liberty, and private property. The right of private property
being, therefore, an original right, which it was one of the primary
and most sacred objects of government to secure and protect, is widely
and essentially distinguished in its nature, from those exclusive
political rights
and special privileges * * * which are created by law and conferred
upon a few * * *. The fundamental principles set forth in the bill of
rights in our constitution, declaring the inviolability of private
property, were evidently designed to protect the right of private
property as one of the primary and original objects of civil society *
* *." (Emphasis sic.) Bank of Toledo, 1 Ohio St. at 632.

steve wrote:
On 21-Aug-2006, smacked up and reeling, Jack Hollis
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:

Less kids in the class means better education. Perhaps requiring a
nurse in the room is a good idea. **** the lawyers.

Cost means something too, you know. A teacher for every kid would be even
more effective. How about a team of educators working round the clock for
each kid? Absurd? Of course.

My guess is that the overwhelming number of people think that scarcity
is something that affects only their own life and somehow does not
apply to governed society. Somehow though the magic of government,
scarcity is abolished.

"Then... a miracle happens." -- BF, 1759

Im illustrating a point.

The audience is deef and blind, but not dumb. Everyone has something
to say.

Jack Hollis wrote:
On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:04:57 GMT, Steven Bornfeld
wrote:


The problem is where do you draw that line and who do you

help?
I don't have any answers for that one either.
Bill C


The short answer is we will pay either way.

Steve


When you buy private insurance, there are state laws governing the
insurance companies. They pretty much draw the line.


What line is that?

Steve

Pudd'nhead Wilson wrote:
Steven Bornfeld wrote:


The free marketers seem to think they have a measure of control in the
system as it exists now.


Your comment is self-contradictory. If "they" are "free marketers,"
then they are against control. To the extent it is a "controlled
system," then a free marketer is against it. The US "system" is not a
free market in health care -- a free marketer could not support it
as-is. Other governments may interfere more "effectively," or at least
you might think so if you simply look at health care alone.


My guess is that they haven't had to deal with
catastrophic illness in a loved one lately.


It sounds like you are resorting to "they are just cold-hearted
assholes" ad-hominium, and relying on an emotional response, instead of
making a rationale critique. That is okay for the usenet.



My use of "free marketers" was intended as ironic. I don't believe
them for a second.
If my speculation sounds to you as ad hom, too bad. In these issues,
perspective is everything, and I've known people whose thinking has
changed on these issues literally in a heartbeat.

Steve

wrote:

Bill (and HH), you'd probably like to read this article on pension
plans and spreading demographic risk/trends over larger pools
of employers and employees, by Malcolm Gladwell,
which appeared in the latest New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact

i did like that article which is a little funny because i didn't
really know what a pension was or how it worked until i read the article
& so wouldn't have guessed i would like it. (i will have to just work
until i die or until i kill myself because i'm sick of working, so i've
never paid attention to that stuff).

heather
(exactly how does ben find time to read these things and also keep up
with rbr? i need to give him a raise... i've been away on vacation for a
week and have only been able to selectively read some posts in between
watching some bike racing today to try to keep up- but i did have a
dream last night that magillagorilla was traveling around the country in
a big tour bus like a bad metal band from the 1980's, so my subconscious
is trying to help me out, i guess..)