Yessiree that UK socialized medicine is great!

[laklak]

Why bother with insurance? Send everybody to the VA, look at the great job they're doing.

[piscator]

Why bother with insurance? Send everybody to the VA, look at the great job they're doing.

Or for that matter the Army or Navy, right?

[laklak]

I'd prefer Air Force Puke to ground pounder or squid, and forget about jarheads. Jarheads get the shit detail every single time.

[Seth]

So let's imagine the NHS could require signing an instrument that would mandate a fixed sum limit of treatment after a certain multiple of average life expectancy. A citizen would have to sign the contract some time in his 30s, in order to receive NHS services beyond age 40 - This contrivance would be more morally preferable in your book than the NHS agreeing with doctors that it's horribly invasive and painful, and very risky, and an odd shot, and a certain waste of resources to give a 104-year-old in ICU with N-H lymphoma and no living family a complete bone marrow transplant?

Of course. Any time the relationship is consensual and mutually agreeable and the parties know the provisions of the contract and sign it freely and without any sort of coercion it's a proper relationship with any business partner, including the government.

So, the government says "We're offering you a defined-benefit health care policy that covers X dollars in care or Y years of coverage, whichever comes first, and you get to decide when the policy begins. You may begin coverage now, but it will expire when you are Z years old, or you may wait and start coverage at any other age and you will be covered up to the limits of your policy and its time limit. Or, you may opt out of the program and draw the maximum authorized amount over the life of the policy as tax-exempt income that must be used only for health care. If you choose this option, your withdrawals begin immediately and end after Y years and you are responsible for administering the money as needed. However, once your benefits expire, you are no longer eligible for public health care."

This has the advantage of costing the taxpayers a known, fixed amount per person over the lifespan of the individual's coverage, which prevents care costs from ballooning out of control.

It also encourages people to OPT OUT of public health care, take the cash and invest it wisely in a personal health care savings/investment account which ONLY THEY have access to and to which they can contribute as much or as little more as they wish as prudent planning for the future. Nor does this system prohibit the individual from using that income to purchase a private health care policy tailored to his or her precise needs.

If you insist on offering socialized health care, at least this plan makes costs predictable and lets people manage their health care themselves, without the government having to build an entire bureaucracy, with the attendant waste of time and money, just to administer it. Plus, it keeps the filthy fingers of bureaucrats OFF of people's health care money.

The same thing should happen with social security benefits.

[Seth]

Why bother with insurance? Send everybody to the VA, look at the great job they're doing.

Exactly. The VA is a prescient preview of how socialized medicine will work...and does work elsewhere. "Reschedule him, maybe he'll die before his appointment..."

[piscator]

I'd prefer Air Force Puke to ground pounder or squid, and forget about jarheads. Jarheads get the shit detail every single time.

Tell me about it. My mom had spinal meningitis when she was pregnant with me and living on Camp Lejune. My dad was a brig chaser on a carrier on a Med cruise, and the Marine Corps wouldn't fly him back until they gave me and my mother Last Rites. My mom pulled through just to spite the fuckers, after being flown to Bethesda NH. She's still pissed off.

[piscator]

Why bother with insurance? Send everybody to the VA, look at the great job they're doing.

Exactly. The VA is a prescient preview of how socialized medicine will be monkey-wrenched under any Republican Administration"

But there wouldn't even be a VA under Libertarianism, which would suggest a private pay-as-you-go solution to your PTSD treatment and combat wounds.

[piscator]

So let's imagine the NHS could require signing an instrument that would mandate a fixed sum limit of treatment after a certain multiple of average life expectancy. A citizen would have to sign the contract some time in his 30s, in order to receive NHS services beyond age 40 - This contrivance would be more morally preferable in your book than the NHS agreeing with doctors that it's horribly invasive and painful, and very risky, and an odd shot, and a certain waste of resources to give a 104-year-old in ICU with N-H lymphoma and no living family a complete bone marrow transplant?

Of course. Any time the relationship is consensual and mutually agreeable and the parties know the provisions of the contract and sign it freely and without any sort of coercion it's a proper relationship with any business partner, including the government.

So, the government says "We're offering you a defined-benefit health care policy that covers X dollars in care or Y years of coverage, whichever comes first, and you get to decide when the policy begins. You may begin coverage now, but it will expire when you are Z years old, or you may wait and start coverage at any other age and you will be covered up to the limits of your policy and its time limit. Or, you may opt out of the program and draw the maximum authorized amount over the life of the policy as tax-exempt income that must be used only for health care. If you choose this option, your withdrawals begin immediately and end after Y years and you are responsible for administering the money as needed. However, once your benefits expire, you are no longer eligible for public health care."

This has the advantage of costing the taxpayers a known, fixed amount per person over the lifespan of the individual's coverage, which prevents care costs from ballooning out of control.

It also encourages people to OPT OUT of public health care, take the cash and invest it wisely in a personal health care savings/investment account which ONLY THEY have access to and to which they can contribute as much or as little more as they wish as prudent planning for the future. Nor does this system prohibit the individual from using that income to purchase a private health care policy tailored to his or her precise needs.

If you insist on offering socialized health care, at least this plan makes costs predictable and lets people manage their health care themselves, without the government having to build an entire bureaucracy, with the attendant waste of time and money, just to administer it. Plus, it keeps the filthy fingers of bureaucrats OFF of people's health care money.

The same thing should happen with social security benefits.

That's not the thought experiment I laid out at all. You just pulled some sort of lump sum payout option out of your ass. And the agreement was only marginally consensual, as it would theoretically be made under a certain duress, that of losing something one would still have to pay taxes for if one didn't agree early in life to be cut off at a certain point in old age.

I knew the distinctions would overwhelm your morality, or at least your reading comprehension, yet you would still be compelled to reply. I was correct.

[MrJonno]

It also encourages people to OPT OUT of public health care, take the cash and invest it

Back in the real world, there was talk of charging someone £10/$16 to see the doctor until they found out a very high % of the population simply don't have £10 spare, never mind £1000(000). It would cost more to administer and pay the £10 for those who didnt have it than what you would collect

Few people even have a month's salary in the bank, most actually have a negative wealth ie are heavily in debt.

Realistically its the NHS or death, I choose the NHS

[Hermit]

Back in the real world, there was talk of charging someone £10/$16 to see the doctor until they found out a very high % of the population simply don't have £10 spare, never mind £1000(000). It would cost more to administer and pay the £10 for those who didnt have it than what you would collect

Few people even have a month's salary in the bank, most actually have a negative wealth ie are heavily in debt.

Realistically its the NHS or death, I choose the NHS

Yabut in Lolbertardia the savings made by not having a national health scheme would be passed on to the Seths by less taxation, which they then can save up for a rainy day. There will of course be some who won't do that. So what? Fuckem. What do you think Lolbertardiaism is? In the words of Attila the Hen: There is no society.

[MrJonno]

At their heart libertarians basically want most of the human race dead, so it only has people like them in it. It's why libertarian is so fundamentally evil it puts 'freedom' ahead of humanity

[Seth]

Why bother with insurance? Send everybody to the VA, look at the great job they're doing.

Exactly. The VA is a prescient preview of how socialized medicine will be monkey-wrenched under any Republican Administration"

But there wouldn't even be a VA under Libertarianism, which would suggest a private pay-as-you-go solution to your PTSD treatment and combat wounds.

Wrong. The VA is part of a contractual obligation between the government and soldiers who volunteer for military service. It's an enforceable contract and anyone and everyone who violates the provisions of that contract would, under Libertarianism, be held PERSONALLY responsible for that breach of contract and would risk having to forfeit everything they own, and then some, to ANY veteran who they mistreated or failed to treat in accordance with the contract.

The VA is NOT socialized medicine, it's an obligation entered into freely by the United States that must be fulfilled.

[Seth]

So let's imagine the NHS could require signing an instrument that would mandate a fixed sum limit of treatment after a certain multiple of average life expectancy. A citizen would have to sign the contract some time in his 30s, in order to receive NHS services beyond age 40 - This contrivance would be more morally preferable in your book than the NHS agreeing with doctors that it's horribly invasive and painful, and very risky, and an odd shot, and a certain waste of resources to give a 104-year-old in ICU with N-H lymphoma and no living family a complete bone marrow transplant?

Of course. Any time the relationship is consensual and mutually agreeable and the parties know the provisions of the contract and sign it freely and without any sort of coercion it's a proper relationship with any business partner, including the government.

So, the government says "We're offering you a defined-benefit health care policy that covers X dollars in care or Y years of coverage, whichever comes first, and you get to decide when the policy begins. You may begin coverage now, but it will expire when you are Z years old, or you may wait and start coverage at any other age and you will be covered up to the limits of your policy and its time limit. Or, you may opt out of the program and draw the maximum authorized amount over the life of the policy as tax-exempt income that must be used only for health care. If you choose this option, your withdrawals begin immediately and end after Y years and you are responsible for administering the money as needed. However, once your benefits expire, you are no longer eligible for public health care."

This has the advantage of costing the taxpayers a known, fixed amount per person over the lifespan of the individual's coverage, which prevents care costs from ballooning out of control.

It also encourages people to OPT OUT of public health care, take the cash and invest it wisely in a personal health care savings/investment account which ONLY THEY have access to and to which they can contribute as much or as little more as they wish as prudent planning for the future. Nor does this system prohibit the individual from using that income to purchase a private health care policy tailored to his or her precise needs.

If you insist on offering socialized health care, at least this plan makes costs predictable and lets people manage their health care themselves, without the government having to build an entire bureaucracy, with the attendant waste of time and money, just to administer it. Plus, it keeps the filthy fingers of bureaucrats OFF of people's health care money.

The same thing should happen with social security benefits.

That's not the thought experiment I laid out at all. You just pulled some sort of lump sum payout option out of your ass. And the agreement was only marginally consensual, as it would theoretically be made under a certain duress, that of losing something one would still have to pay taxes for if one didn't agree early in life to be cut off at a certain point in old age.

I knew the distinctions would overwhelm your morality, or at least your reading comprehension, yet you would still be compelled to reply. I was correct.

You don't get to dictate my response to your "thought experiment," particularly when it's set up as a strawman like the one you proposed.

[MrJonno]

Pretty sure I'm freely gone into a contract to pay taxes to get medical care by choosing to live where I do.

Remember like everything else in life, being a citizen of a country is privilege not a right

If I wish to end the contract I move abroad (actually I can just get a flight home and get care even if I haven't lived in the country for decades but that's a pretty minor cost to society)

[piscator]

Why bother with insurance? Send everybody to the VA, look at the great job they're doing.

Exactly. The VA is a prescient preview of how socialized medicine will work...and does work elsewhere. "Reschedule him, maybe he'll die before his appointment..."

The VA is NOT socialized medicine, it's an obligation entered into freely by the United States that must be fulfilled.

So there'd be a VA under Libertarianism? Would you write new contracts so people who didn't benefit from Iraq and don't need prosthetics wouldn't be taxed? Would you write some kind of cap on VA bennies into enlistment contracts? Would the families of those 40+ dead servicemen be contractually limited in their response to civil breach of contract with binding arbitration before a VA judge arbitrator?


Shinseki and the Peter Principle aside, the VA is looking even more like a self serving Audrey II than it did after Vietnam. Maybe we need to send in Seal Team 6 again?