The administration has gone TOO far

[ftyuv]

[quote Beeeej]And if it helps, picture a victim who has very little money.[/quote]

Well, what about the person with relatively little money whose car got stolen?  What happens if somebody steals my car, crashes into a school bus and causes waaay more than the $100k-per-incident in damages that I'm covered for?  I have a job that pays decently and a bit of money in the bank, but that kind of an accident would destroy me if it fell on my head.

If Alice steals Carl's car and crashes it into Bob, Carl is not part of the story's main plotline.  Making him part of the plot, and especially as a responsible party, is unfair.  Therefore, a system which avoids this is fairer.

The question of universal health care is orthogonal.

[DeltaOne81]

[quote krose]But the inability or unwillingness to pay is only one of the two key issues here.  The other half is that theft is always wrong.  And taxation is morally equivalent to theft (among other things).  Just because you need something doesn't mean that I am morally obligated to pay for it, and yet I am forced to because the government has threatened to throw me in jail if I don't.[/quote]

This is where you're basically going to split with most others here, and where there basically is no particular bridge to compromise or agreement.

And I'm not even talking about 'taxation is theft' part, which is what probably jumps out, but about the one step back rationale behind that.

The difference is that I, for one, believe that as a society we do indeed have a moral obligation to make sure that all are taken care of to some basic level of eneed. If people in our society need something, and are suffering because they don't have it, then we all share some moral responsibility to our collective failure to provide an environment that can supply everyone that need.

Now, I am not saying that the answer is always taxation (personally I feel that should be a last resort), but that doesn't mean there is any greater social moral responsibility to find solutions to a problem. And health care in this country is a biggy. That doesn't mean nationalized, or single payer necessarily, but some solution (MassHealth is an interesting start, but only addresses one part of the problem).

I'm not saying this to convince you, but merely to point out where the basic fundamental philosophical break is. I believe that everyone in society has an obligation to those around them to find solutions to the problems confronting the society (again, I generally prefer market-based solutions to tax-based ones, but still). You believe in a much more every-man-for-himself-not-my-problem philosophy (well beyond even that of conservative economics it seems). And so we vote .

[Rosey]

I've continued this over in http://elf.elynah.com/read.php?5,104899

Kyle

[marty]

[quote nyc94][quote Beeeej]So, now, go back to the beginning and answer again.  Who should pay, why, and why is it fairer than the real world's answer?[/quote]

Honda for building the car and the government for building a substandard road?  It's fairer because they have deeper pockets?  Sorry, it's late.[/quote]

Honda for building a car that's so damn easy to steal.  For many years, that was one of the reasons they kept making the top ten stolen list.

[Trotsky]

[quote ugarte]It is burden shifting from the innocent person who didn't assume any risk to an agent who did (the insurance company) and more logical than people think when they first hear it.

Tort reform is a bunch of bullshit driven by insurance company lobbyists. Most of the famous cases of runaway juries are either (a) complete fiction; (b) a kernel of truth surrounded by lots of fiction; or (c) fake cumulative statistics.[/quote]

1. Tort reform is bullshit for exactly the reasons stated.

2. I thought the purpose of the burden-shifting cited in your example was economic efficiency -- sue the party most able to pay (the insurance company).  The idea, which I've always been uncomfortable with, is that over time the systemic effect will be distributing the recovery cost for the theft-accident damages back across the entire population of the insured, without biasing in favor of a particular insurer.  The further thought is that individual insurers are incentified to, say, give price breaks for vehicles with anti-theft devices, since they would pay out fewer claims over time, and thus theft as a whole would decrease as a result of the liability law.

I've never been really happy with that sort of legal functionalism, but it seems to have been fashionable for the last 30-40 years of American jurisprudence.

I'm sure someone who actually made it past the 10 week mark of law school can comment far more knowledgably. ::thud::

[KeithK]

Greg, we've moved.  Get with the program!

[Willy '06]

Just tell them that you sold all your tickets and that you do not have them to return them. You are very sorry. What can they do about that.

[marty]

[quote Beeeej][quote Robb][quote KeithK]Life isn't fair, but trying to pin your misfortune on others isn't fair either.[/quote]

Couldn't have said it better - absolutely right.  The thief is responsible; if he can't pay, then the chain ends there.[/quote]

You may say, and would even be right, that it isn't "fair" for the car owner's insurance company to be forced to pay for the victim's damages if the thief cannot pay them - but why is it "fairer" to force the victim to pay for them?

The legislatures and courts had a choice to make,...[/quote]

So the government, who would have to pay the medical expenses of some poor soul hit by the impoverished car thief, has shifted their Medicaid costs to the insurance companies.  Does this surprise anyone?