Now that our season is over...

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights. But that doesn't mean it's okay.

Mmmmkay. I suspect that's not really true, since the people raped/pillaged were likely involuntary parties. But thanks for playing.

Can you just come right out and call me and/or Keith a Nazi? At least then we could Godwin the thread and save us all from more of your emotional invective and logical fallacies.

Point out one of my logical fallacies. Just one.

mnagowski

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights. But that doesn't mean it's okay.

Mmmmkay. I suspect that's not really true, since the people raped/pillaged were likely involuntary parties. But thanks for playing.

Can you just come right out and call me and/or Keith a Nazi? At least then we could Godwin the thread and save us all from more of your emotional invective and logical fallacies.

Point out one of my logical fallacies. Just one.

I'll give you two:

For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights.

This is either:
Assuming false: you can prove anything if you assume false.
Straw man: restating someone's (potentially valid) argument as something else that is very easy to refute.

You seem very keen on property rights, but it is unclear to me that you have thought of any other rights or freedoms that living beings might aspire to have. You can try reading Issiah Berlin, Henry George, or Kwame Appiah.

Appeal to authority: assuming Keith doesn't understand what freedom is and then dazzling him with a bunch of names of people who (obviously) know better than he does.

I'm sure I can find more. Would you like me to?

Kyle Rose

mnagowski

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights. But that doesn't mean it's okay.

Mmmmkay. I suspect that's not really true, since the people raped/pillaged were likely involuntary parties. But thanks for playing.

Can you just come right out and call me and/or Keith a Nazi? At least then we could Godwin the thread and save us all from more of your emotional invective and logical fallacies.

Point out one of my logical fallacies. Just one.

I'll give you two:

For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights.

This is either:
Assuming false: you can prove anything if you assume false.
Straw man: restating someone's (potentially valid) argument as something else that is very easy to refute.

You seem very keen on property rights, but it is unclear to me that you have thought of any other rights or freedoms that living beings might aspire to have. You can try reading Issiah Berlin, Henry George, or Kwame Appiah.

Appeal to authority: assuming Keith doesn't understand what freedom is and then dazzling him with a bunch of names of people who (obviously) know better than he does.

I'm sure I can find more. Would you like me to?

Those aren't fallacies, Kyle. They are rhetorical tools. Fallacies would have required there to be something incorrect in my logic.

In the first, I used a counterfactual to suggest that your argument for property rights (homesteading is an acceptable form of allocating property rights because it is a historical practice) didn't pass the sniff test because other historical practices for assigning property rights don't exactly pass the sniff test either.

If you want to go deeper into the argument, you later suggested that homesteading is okay because it happens between two consenting parties. But that's not exactly true. I never consented to property that was obtained via homesteading before I was born. And back in the days prior to the development of civilization, my ancestors certainly didn't agree to the land usurped by your ancestors, or vice versa.

Now, what did happen 230 years ago was that some of the forefathers of this country agreed to a basic set of principles upon which this country could be governed and in which decisions could be made by the majority with ample safeguards to protect the interests of the minority. And we've done a somewhat decent job in living up to their promise.

In the second, I didn't appeal to authority. I asked him to consider an opposing perspective when it was clear that he had not done so. He seemed quite surprised that there are competing definitions of freedom and property rights out there. I suggested places where he could see that minds differ.

Now are you going to keep on whining about my emotional appeals and egging us on to invoke the names of totalitarian dictators or are you actually going to engage in a conversation?

mnagowski
In the first, I used a counterfactual to suggest that your argument for property rights (homesteading is an acceptable form of allocating property rights because it is a historical practice) didn't pass the sniff test because other historical practices for assigning property rights don't exactly pass the sniff test either.

Funny, "sniff test" doesn't appear in my list of valid arguments.

If you want to go deeper into the argument, you later suggested that homesteading is okay because it happens between two consenting parties.

Where did I say that? Homesteading is something that one does with unclaimed land. There is no other party, which is why it's primary land acquisition.

And back in the days prior to the development of civilization, my ancestors certainly didn't agree to the land usurped by your ancestors, or vice versa.

The point is that homesteading allows one to transform unclaimed land plus labor into a claim of ownership. It's not sufficient to simply land on the moon and say, "All of this is mine!" But it should be okay for one to set up a mine on the moon and claim the land around the mine.

Now, what did happen 230 years ago was that some of the forefathers of this country agreed to a basic set of principles upon which this country could be governed and in which decisions could be made by the majority with ample safeguards to protect the interests of the minority. And we've done a somewhat decent job in living up to their promise.

First of all, I don't think this has worked out particularly well: the Constitution is pretty well meaningless these days, as it means whatever nine people in black robes say so rather than what the text plainly says.

Second of all, I don't see what this has to do with the rest of the discussion.

In the second, I didn't appeal to authority. I asked him to consider an opposing perspective when it was clear that he had not done so.

I read it as, "You are obviously not qualified to have this discussion because you don't understand what all these other people you've never heard of say about freedom." Whether or not you intended it that way, that's the way I interpreted it, especially in light of your final statement in that post. Having quite extreme views, I see this style of argument quite frequently from people who think democracy and liberty are equivalent or even related concepts.

Now are you going to keep on whining about my emotional appeals and egging us on to invoke the names of totalitarian dictators or are you actually going to engage in a conversation?

Thankfully, I know the limits of my patience. Having a life, I am going to go back to living it.

Kyle Rose
...the Constitution is pretty well meaningless these days, as it means whatever nine people in black robes say so rather than what the text plainly says...

If only it were ever so simple as plain language interpretation.

KeithK
It's free-rider only insofar as we guarantee treatment to those who cannot pay for it. If I choose not to buy insurance and can't pay my medical bills then my medical treatment should stop, except when the providers are will to provide it pro bono. If 'm a twnetysomething professionalwho chooses to take the risk and not buy insurance then I should face the potential financial ruin if my bet goes bad.

IMHO this doesn't work this way. If I need to get, say $10,000 to survive, I will try EVERYTHING to get that money. Lie, cheat, steal, start a revolution, whatever. Because I want to live. I'm pretty sure many twentysomething professionals would do the same. They won't just lie down ad go to sleep.

Secondly, it's important to note that we absolutely do not have a health care system where you can just pay for the medical treatment. If I were to not have insurance and get medical service, I would be paying 3 or 4 times the cost that the insurance company is paying. For pretty much everyone (but maybe the top 1%), your options are: Health insurance, or get sick and go bankrupt (even if you could afford the real cost of your treatment). And heck, It's not even that - since I can't even get affordable health care insurance unless I belong to a corporation or somehow join some other powerful group (AARP when I retire) because they take a cut there.

I'm not sure how the U.S. health care system came about. I do know that it doesn't work and we need something else. Given that the corporations have mainly shaped the current system, I would be willing to say that they have failed and let the government give it a try. Maybe they can do better. I can't imagine them doing much worse, to be honest.

ugarte

Kyle Rose
...the Constitution is pretty well meaningless these days, as it means whatever nine people in black robes say so rather than what the text plainly says...

If only it were ever so simple as plain language interpretation.

They could at least try to get the low-hanging fruit correct. Like the parts of the Bill of Rights that incorporate something like "Congress shall make no law..." or "...shall not be infringed." Those parts seem pretty damn clear.

Kyle Rose

ugarte

Kyle Rose
...the Constitution is pretty well meaningless these days, as it means whatever nine people in black robes say so rather than what the text plainly says...

If only it were ever so simple as plain language interpretation.

They could at least try to get the low-hanging fruit correct. Like the parts of the Bill of Rights that incorporate something like "Congress shall make no law..." or "...shall not be infringed." Those parts seem pretty damn clear.

Is Massachusetts quartering troops in your residence again? I hate it when that happens. The soldiers are always leaving mud all over the kitchen tile.

I feel that I am in the middle of most of you guys politically. I can almost always see good and bad points to any Republican or Democratic proposals. Normally, if my choice doesn't win an election, I am bummed but I don't worry too much. There are usually enough checks and balances and every candidate is usually moderate enough that nothing is done too far out of line for me. For the first time in my life, the current president and congressional leadership have gotten me very frustrated, angry, and even a little bit worried.

As far as the health care goes, I do think that we need to make some tweaks to the system to prevent the preexisting conditions exclusions and to cut cost. What drives me crazy, though, is the way this government has gone about it.

I feel that our government has gone about the health care changes completely wrong. I didn't bulldoze my house and build a new one to fix the leaky windows it had. I replaced the windows. Obama doesn't seem to operate that way. Rather than making a few minor changes to the best health-care system in the world to make it even better (and, on a larger scale, the United States of America), he has completely changed the focus of the whole system. Everyone talks about reducing costs, but this "reform" only succeeds in transferring the costs from private payments over to taxes. There is nothing in here addressing tort reform or improving choice and therefore competition by allowing individuals to shop across state lines.

My wife works for a health insurance company here (nonprofit by the way as are many) in Vermont. Because of the high level of regulations and small population, only 3 companies are willing to provide insurance here. She said their systems are 2-3 generations behind those of the company she used to work for near Boston. There are also many more glitches and SNAFUs implementing policies here compared to in MA. What's the difference? There are many companies all heavily competing and therefore driving the quality of the service they provide in MA. If you still have complaints after being with all 3 companies in VT, all you can do is start over again. I'm sure customer service and efficiency will really improve if some people get their way of having a single, government provided program with no other options. How would you like to have only 3 car companies or 3 cell companies to choose from? For that matter, how would any of us have liked it if all colleges were run by the government and provided the exact same experience with no options?


One of the biggest problems with health care costs is low-deductible plans which encourage people to abuse their insurance by getting checked for every cough or sniffle. Companies with plans offering little-to-no-deductible often see high rate increases because people use them when they really don't need to. Have we addressed this by encouraging people to take on plans with a little higher deductible which might make them think twice before running down to the emergency room? Of course not. Instead we are going to be fined if our plans don't meet certain limits imposed by the government. Why shouldn't I be allowed to choose a high-deductible, catastrophic plan if I so choose? If I have some sort of health issue or lead a high-risk life like a race car driver or extreme skier, I can pay the higher premium since I will be more likely to use it at some point.

I am all for improving our health care system by restricting exclusions based on preexisting conditions, eliminating the connection between jobs and health care plans, reducing costs by addressing tort reform to reduce the ridiculously high malpractice insurance, and increasing competition of private companies to drive efficiency and better service. I also think we need to find a way to increase individual responsibility and hold people accountable for their own actions affecting their health risk.

What drives me crazy with our current government is their encouragement of an entitlement society. I'm all for helping anyone who is down on their luck, but their are enough people out there living off the government (and therefore those of us who work hard and pay taxes) without Obama acting as an enabler by acting like the government is a parent- watching out for our every step to make sure we don't fall and get hurt. If we never fall down, we never learn how to get back up.

This country has succeeded through innovative ideas and the hard work and dedication to implement them.

There is a big difference between the government being there to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed and the goverment making everyone's success equal.

My wife works for a health insurance company here (nonprofit by the way as are many) in Vermont. Because of the high level of regulations and small population, only 3 companies are willing to provide insurance here. She said their systems are 2-3 generations behind those of the company she used to work for near Boston. There are also many more glitches and SNAFUs implementing policies here compared to in MA. What's the difference? There are many companies all heavily competing and therefore driving the quality of the service they provide in MA. If you still have complaints after being with all 3 companies in VT, all you can do is start over again. I'm sure customer service and efficiency will really improve if some people get their way of having a single, government provided program with no other options. How would you like to have only 3 car companies or 3 cell companies to choose from? For that matter, how would any of us have liked it if all colleges were run by the government and provided the exact same experience with no options?

It's striking that you are pointing to Massachusetts as a model for the country to follow considering that Obamacare is essentially following Massachusetts's model.

I feel that our government has gone about the health care changes completely wrong. I didn't bulldoze my house and build a new one to fix the leaky windows it had. I replaced the windows. Obama doesn't seem to operate that way. Rather than making a few minor changes to the best health-care system in the world to make it even better (and, on a larger scale, the United States of America), he has completely changed the focus of the whole system. Everyone talks about reducing costs, but this "reform" only succeeds in transferring the costs from private payments over to taxes. There is nothing in here addressing tort reform or improving choice and therefore competition by allowing individuals to shop across state lines.

Couple of things:

1) Under no objective measure does the U.S. have the best healthcare system in the world. Perhaps we have the best medical technology, but there is no proof that the technology is actually providing something of value (except for maybe hope, which can come a lot cheaper in the form of religion). We're currently spending a lot of money to pay people how to figure out how to not insure sick people, and yet you call that "the best health care system in the world".

2) Nobody is bulldozing anything with the health care changes. (And that's why the bill has a received a lot of criticism from the left.) The (asinine) employer-based system is still the mainstay. Private insurance companies can still profit off of health insurance premiums. Doctors are still making all of their decisions with the patient (and the insurance company looking over their shoulder.) The small-group and individual insurance markets are still not going to be very deep or competitive markets.

3) Cost controls are very much embedded in the health care reform bill. For one, Medicare Advantage plans are going to have to be a lot more accountable and can't stop fleecing unsuspecting retirees. For two, we're now going to be funneling a lot of previously uninsured people into inexpensive primary care and away from the emergency rooms. This will help lower costs dramatically because now we;ll be able to treat diabetics instead of waiting for them to show up in the ER with acute renal failure. Three, we're going to start taxing the most expensive health care plans in an attempt to limit the amount of no-deductible "Cadillac plans" that cause some of the costs to continue to increase every year. There are other plans in the bill as well, including comparative effectiveness research as well as provider incentives that will hopefully keep doctors from doing high-risk, low-benefit (but high profit!) surgeries.

4) You say there are some things in the system that require changing. I imagine you are probably referring to the fact that insurers can deny people with pre-existing conditions and can choose to drop people who get sick. My sense is that you can't get rid of these practices unless you spread the risk pool around some more (or else everything becomes very expensive) and that you can't spread the risk pool around unless you mandate individual coverage. And you can't mandate individual coverage unless you can make certain that it's affordable for folks to pay for health insurance. Because I don't think a lot of your average freelance carpenter or plumber (with hypertension or what have you) with a family of four can afford premiums on the individual policy market with the wages they are making.

mnagowski


It's striking that you are pointing to Massachusetts as a model for the country to follow considering that Obamacare is essentially following Massachusetts's model.

I am referring to MA solely to emphasize the need for competition of private industries. The companies in MA run more efficiently and provide better customer service than those in Vermont where overbearing regulations and redtape have reduced the choices to only three companies. When competition is removed, there is not much incentive for companies (or the government) to provide a better product.

The vast majority of opinions I hear coming from MA regarding the state run aspect of MA health care complain about the cost to the state and how it is not sustainable. I think the election of Scott Brown in such a liberal state speaks better than anything I can say regarding the success of government run health care there.

Kyle already said some of what I had in mind from reading your responses. But this does deserve a response. You're essentially telling me that I'm ignorant because I haven't read so and so and their different notions of freedom. I am aware that there are other theories out there. I wasn't surprised to hear someone talk about collective freedom. I simply reject the concept. I disagree.

I've focused on property rights because they are particularly relevant to this case. As a general rule I don't believe in positive rights (I don't recognize a right to health care, for instance) so that eliminates (from my POV) a lot of other rights/freedoms that you might bring up. Not that you did, of course. You just said "[ I]t is unclear to me that you have thought of any other rights or freedoms" and then told me to go read so and so. You come off as a bit snide and insulting.

I have hundreds of people who have studied the issue for decades on my side. Can you at least agree that the majority has spoken and health care reform is legal?

Appeal to authority. I happily admit that there are plenty of folks who agree with you. There are plenty who disagree with you too. Even if it was 99-1 against me I'm still going to make up my own mind.

I agree that the majority of the current members of Congress have spoken. (Which isn't the same as the majority of people, who oppose the bill according to polls. But we don't live in a direct democracy.) I don't agree that the bill as passed is legal because I think that at least the mandate is unconstitutional. (That pesky Constitution that you mentioned.) Even if SCOTUS upholds the law I will support candidates who will work to repeal the bill because I don't agree with it.

I don't believ that costs will be lower this way. I'm not willing towait 20 years to find out before passing judgement.

That's a really fantastic argument. Filled with facts and reason (and typos).

This is my favorite part of your post. Dripping with insult. You know, it can be funny to point out someone's typos when we're just playing around. It tends to detract from actual discussion. Especially when I'm obviously not some dumb ass troll on this board whose constant typos tell you you should just ignore him. (For the record, my typing suffers when I'm spewing out thoughts right before running off to do something productive at work.)

My disbelief in the cost numbers isn't a matter of conservative faith. I don't believe the cost estimates because 1) very few government cost estimates are ever correct 2) especially health care cost estimates (see Medicare) 3) the bill has budget gimmicks to make it look palatable (e.g. many benefits don't kick in for four years after revenue streams kick in) and 4) I have read analyses (summaries anyway) that disagree with the estimates. There's some subjectivity there obviously - which sources do you believe? But that's always the case.

Is it okay to demand that this thread be moved to JSID now?

RichH
Is it okay to demand that this thread be moved to JSID now?

Come on, this is totally a sports discussion!

And do you really have a right to demand anything here?

mnagowski

3) Cost controls are very much embedded in the health care reform bill. For one, Medicare Advantage plans are going to have to be a lot more accountable and can't stop fleecing unsuspecting retirees. For two, we're now going to be funneling a lot of previously uninsured people into inexpensive primary care and away from the emergency rooms. This will help lower costs dramatically because now we;ll be able to treat diabetics instead of waiting for them to show up in the ER with acute renal failure. Three, we're going to start taxing the most expensive health care plans in an attempt to limit the amount of no-deductible "Cadillac plans" that cause some of the costs to continue to increase every year. There are other plans in the bill as well, including comparative effectiveness research as well as provider incentives that will hopefully keep doctors from doing high-risk, low-benefit (but high profit!) surgeries.

This is nonsense. None of these things are going to lower the % of GDP that we collectively spend on healthcare.

Your "stop fleecing unsuspecting retirees," is "forcing a one-size-fits-all solution to Medicare Advantage plans so that consumers no longer have choices about what they would like included in their plans and letting the market price those choices accordingly" to me.

Getting people to primary care instead of waiting for them to turn up in the ER may or may not save cost. What if you prevent a guy from needing $500k of renal failure care but that extends his life long enough that he later has a $1M heart attack? We're all going to die someday; therefore, we're all going to need serious care at some point in our lives - that cost is roughly fixed.

Adding new taxes just shifts money from being paid to private companies to being paid to the government. Where's the cost savings there?

We currently spend ~16% of GDP on health care, and under the status quo that was projected to rise to ~20% by 2020. Come back in 10 years, and if we're spending less than that due to this bill, I'll eat my hat.

mnagowski
4) You say there are some things in the system that require changing. I imagine you are probably referring to the fact that insurers can deny people with pre-existing conditions and can choose to drop people who get sick. My sense is that you can't get rid of these practices unless you spread the risk pool around some more (or else everything becomes very expensive) and that you can't spread the risk pool around unless you mandate individual coverage. And you can't mandate individual coverage unless you can make certain that it's affordable for folks to pay for health insurance. Because I don't think a lot of your average freelance carpenter or plumber (with hypertension or what have you) with a family of four can afford premiums on the individual policy market with the wages they are making.

The problem with this argument is that we're NOT going to be spreading the risk pool out very much more. We're only going to be increasing the number of people in the system by ~10-15%, which is not nearly enough larger of a pool to spread out the additional costs that all these new users (ESPECIALLY those with pre-existing conditions) will incur. Clearly, if you force companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions, then forcing people to buy insurance does help spread the cost to some degree, but I've never read anything that convinces me it's a slam-dunk that the additional costs will be spread thin enough to reduce the overall amount spent on health care. Don't forget that now that you're forcing perfectly healthy people to buy insurance, they'll start using health care services at a much greater rate themselves, so the premiums they pay is not just free money for the health insurance companies.

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights. But that doesn't mean it's okay.

Mmmmkay. I suspect that's not really true, since the people raped/pillaged were likely involuntary parties. But thanks for playing.

Can you just come right out and call me and/or Keith a Nazi? At least then we could Godwin the thread and save us all from more of your emotional invective and logical fallacies.

For fuck's sake, if it will kill this thread, then Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

cth95
One of the biggest problems with health care costs is low-deductible plans which encourage people to abuse their insurance by getting checked for every cough or sniffle. Companies with plans offering little-to-no-deductible often see high rate increases because people use them when they really don't need to.

This is what classical economics and "moral hazard" would suggest - and it is insurance industry cant - but, for the record, there is very little evidence that this is true when it comes to health care. It isn't true with low deductible plans and it isn't true with actual socialized medicine. The pay the typical person loses from not working, not to mention the inconvenience of office visits, swamps the effects of a low deductible. High deductible plans serve the purpose of cost shifting much more than they control behavior for the vast majority of insured.

Trotsky

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
For all but the last fraction of recorded human history, raping and pillaging was a completely acceptable way of acquiring property rights. But that doesn't mean it's okay.

Mmmmkay. I suspect that's not really true, since the people raped/pillaged were likely involuntary parties. But thanks for playing.

Can you just come right out and call me and/or Keith a Nazi? At least then we could Godwin the thread and save us all from more of your emotional invective and logical fallacies.

For fuck's sake, if it will kill this thread, then Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

For fuck's sake, if it will kill this thread, then Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

It wasn't a part of an argument, so I don't think it counts.

I've focused on property rights because they are particularly relevant to this case. As a general rule I don't believe in positive rights (I don't recognize a right to health care, for instance) so that eliminates (from my POV) a lot of other rights/freedoms that you might bring up. Not that you did, of course. You just said "[ I]t is unclear to me that you have thought of any other rights or freedoms" and then told me to go read so and so. You come off as a bit snide and insulting.

I don't see how property rights are relevant to the health care talk at all. People are decrying the mandate and the tax, but mandatory taxation to provide public goods has been a part of this country for a long time. This was an issue settled 200 years ago.

Positive rights are more than just the right to ensure a certain standard of living, or a right to health care. The much more basic positive right is being able to have a role in choosing who governs the society (and how it is governed) of which one is a part. It's the right to be a social being and be able to interact with others to come to agreements about governance. I suppose you might suggest that this is really just a reflection of property rights and everything can be a contractual agreement between parties, but what happens if you have no property?

I agree that the majority of the current members of Congress have spoken. (Which isn't the same as the majority of people, who oppose the bill according to polls. But we don't live in a direct democracy.) I don't agree that the bill as passed is legal because I think that at least the mandate is unconstitutional. (That pesky Constitution that you mentioned.)

For what it is worth, the bill has been tracking at around a 50/40/10 favorable/unfavorable/no opinion rate in unbiased popular polls since it has been passed. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-23-health-poll-favorable_N.htm) And if you think the mandate is unconstitutional, I imagine you must think that a lot of other things must be unconstitutional, like that act from the 1790s that taxed ship captains to provide for the hospitalization of their crews. But how about a compromise -- I'll agree to to get rid of a mandate provided we provide a public option to buy-in to Medicare.

My disbelief in the cost numbers isn't a matter of conservative faith. I don't believe the cost estimates because 1) very few government cost estimates are ever correct 2) especially health care cost estimates (see Medicare) 3) the bill has budget gimmicks to make it look palatable (e.g. many benefits don't kick in for four years after revenue streams kick in) and 4) I have read analyses (summaries anyway) that disagree with the estimates. There's some subjectivity there obviously - which sources do you believe? But that's always the case.

Well, now there's an actual argument. To respond to your arguments:

1) very few budget forecasts are ever correct, but we need to work with the best of what's available, and this forecast shows that we'll actually be reducing the deficit in the long run, unlike any other piece of legislation passed in the last decade.

2) I think everybody knows that Medicare is on a rapidly unsustainable path. That's why the Democrats realized they had to do something about it, unlike the Republicans who actually started to defend Medicare benefits tooth and nail. But other government estimates aren't really that bad provided it is coming from the CBO or the Congressional Research Service and not the political parties. That's why a lot of us knew that Bush's tax cuts or the Iraq War or Medicare Part D were massive blunders before they even happened.

3) I'm really not certain what budget gimmicks you are talking about. The front-loading of taxes is really just a Republican talking point and not the truth. Here's a chart from the CBO:



4) That's fair. You are certain to believe any source that you want. I tend to believe sources that have a clear sense of objectivity and don't have an obvious political agenda working on their side. Like the Congressional Budget Office.

Getting people to primary care instead of waiting for them to turn up in the ER may or may not save cost. What if you prevent a guy from needing $500k of renal failure care but that extends his life long enough that he later has a $1M heart attack? We're all going to die someday; therefore, we're all going to need serious care at some point in our lives - that cost is roughly fixed.

Adding new taxes just shifts money from being paid to private companies to being paid to the government. Where's the cost savings there?

We currently spend ~16% of GDP on health care, and under the status quo that was projected to rise to ~20% by 2020. Come back in 10 years, and if we're spending less than that due to this bill, I'll eat my hat.

I disagree that the cost is fixed. A lot of other first-world countries aren't spending the same amount of money as us, with often better health outcomes as well.

I hope that we don't reach 20% of GDP, but it might very well happen due to the amount of excessive private-sector bureaucracy we are leaving in the system to deal with billing and enrollments and advertising and all that. A public option would have definitely been cheaper for us.

Clearly, if you force companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions, then forcing people to buy insurance does help spread the cost to some degree, but I've never read anything that convinces me it's a slam-dunk that the additional costs will be spread thin enough to reduce the overall amount spent on health care.

I don't think anybody has been talking about reducing the overall amount spent on health care. That would require single-payer to get rid of the bureaucratic bloat that exists. Or rationing. What most studies I have read about the bill think it will do is start to curb the annual increases we see in rising costs. This is because of a) the preventive health measures that will pay dividends down the future, b) the programs that are in place that encourage doctors to be more efficient in their practices. Some communities in this country are spending three times more than other communities with the same health and economic characteristics for the same health outcomes? Why? Some doctors follow the 'best-practices' better than others.

Don't forget that now that you're forcing perfectly healthy people to buy insurance, they'll start using health care services at a much greater rate themselves

This doesn't make much sense to me. Perfectly healthy people choose to go to the doctor just to chat? Or are they going to start demanding open heart surgery just because they have insurance? Perhaps they are going to start getting tested for their cholesterol levels every other year, but that is not what is causing health care costs to skyrocket. It's end of life care.

mnagowski
I don't see how property rights are relevant to the health care talk at all. People are decrying the mandate and the tax, but mandatory taxation to provide public goods has been a part of this country for a long time. This was an issue settled 200 years ago.

How is individual health a public good?

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
I don't see how property rights are relevant to the health care talk at all. People are decrying the mandate and the tax, but mandatory taxation to provide public goods has been a part of this country for a long time. This was an issue settled 200 years ago.

How is individual health a public good?

Because when everybody around you has tuberculosis you have a problem? Because when the majority of the country's teenagers are too fat to qualify for military service you have a problem? Because when a country's labor force becomes increasingly too sick or diseased to be productive suddenly you find it hard to obtain all of the great products and services that used to be available to you it kind of sucks?

mnagowski

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
I don't see how property rights are relevant to the health care talk at all. People are decrying the mandate and the tax, but mandatory taxation to provide public goods has been a part of this country for a long time. This was an issue settled 200 years ago.

How is individual health a public good?

Because when everybody around you has tuberculosis you have a problem?

Okay, so preventing contagious epidemics is a public good. How is, for instance, preventing or healing an individual's heart disease or MS or correcting his or her vision a public good?

Because when the majority of the country's teenagers are too fat to qualify for military service you have a problem?

That sounds like a feature, not a bug. And even a vast majority of fatties still leaves millions of limbs for IED's to blow off ideal-weight teenagers.

Because when a country's labor force becomes increasingly too sick or diseased to be productive suddenly you find it hard to obtain all of the great products and services that used to be available to you it kind of sucks?

By your logic, anything that affects productivity is a public good. "I don't have a plasma TV set, so I'm unhappy, so I'm less productive. Plasma TV's only cost $1200, and my lack of one is making me much more than $1200 less productive, so clearly I need a subsidy." So where do you draw the line? I draw the line at non-exclusionary goods and services, because there's a natural dividing line there. If your philosophy is to attempt to maximize national productivity, then you have to admit policies like this if you admit individual health as a public good. Otherwise, please tell me what your guiding philosophy is.

So where do you draw the line?

We can draw the line wherever we choose to as a society. That's the beauty of our system of government. We can decide what we can afford and can't afford, what we think is valuable for us to invest in, and budget for it.

In the 1930s we created a wildly successful and beloved anti-poverty program for the elderly, orphans, and the disabled that didn't happen to increase the nation's productivity but certainly improved the social and physical well-being for a lot of the country and probably increased aggregate demand because most elderly people live hand to mouth. In the 1860s we provided lots of funds to create institutions of higher education that helped to foster a lot of important research/discovery/education in this country. In the 1800s we purchased enough land to double the country's size, allowing hundreds of thousands of settlers to prosper as a result of this investment.

I haven't seen any research backing the notion that lack of plasma televisions has resulted in worse social or economic outcomes for the country. If you can find decent evidence to this fact, maybe we should consider it.

But the productivity losses due to the current structure of health care payment are quite high. Millions of people are currently suffering from "job-lock" because they can't afford to lose their employer's health care coverage. They have a great business idea that they can't invest in, or they can't go back to school to get the advanced degree in engineering. That's why the rates of entrepreneurship suddenly jump at the age of 65.

[papers.ssrn.com]

And countless others are too sick to work today because they didn't get the relatively cheap care they needed when it would have mattered. Like a lot of the 6,000 people who die of asthma every year.

mnagowski

Don't forget that now that you're forcing perfectly healthy people to buy insurance, they'll start using health care services at a much greater rate themselves

This doesn't make much sense to me. Perfectly healthy people choose to go to the doctor just to chat? Or are they going to start demanding open heart surgery just because they have insurance? Perhaps they are going to start getting tested for their cholesterol levels every other year, but that is not what is causing health care costs to skyrocket. It's end of life care.

"Perfectly healthy" was a poor choice of words on my part. I'm thinking of people who don't currently have health care, but once they do will begin to make appointments with their PCF for every sniffle and muscle ache. At the very least, these people will affect the access to care, if not the overall cost.

I completely agree that end-of-life care is the biggest issue. You don't think it's a fixed cost. What specifically, in this bill, reduces the cost of end of life care? Increased preventive care delays it at best, and at worst extends lives into the regime where multiple systems begin failing simultaneously which will actually increase the end-of-life costs. Or is it merely a hope that 85 year olds will demand less end-of-life care and just go into the night more quietly than their 75 year old counterparts would have?

This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

Jeff Hopkins '82
This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

No it isn't.

Greenberg '97

Jeff Hopkins '82
This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

ugarte

Greenberg '97

Jeff Hopkins '82
This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

Oh I'm sorry. This is abuse.

Trotsky

ugarte

Greenberg '97

Jeff Hopkins '82
This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

Oh I'm sorry. This is abuse.

Stupid git.

mnagowski
We can draw the line wherever we choose to as a society.

This is a misconception. "Society" doesn't choose anything because society is not sentient. Individuals can choose for themselves, and the resulting aggregate of those choices is what produces society as we experience it.

You are talking about substituting democracy for individual choice. Democracy is just one way among many (monarchy, oligarchy, etc.) to legitimize the act of one group of individuals forcing their preferences on others. You can use all the high-minded rhetoric you want to describe this, but this is in fact exactly what democracy is: the elimination of individual freedom in favor of majority preference.

Damn, I thought we had successfully derailed this conversation. I'll try again.

Kyle Rose
Democracy is just one way among many (monarchy, oligarchy, etc.) to legitimize the act of one group of individuals forcing their preferences on others.

"Help, help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"

Greenberg '97
Damn, I thought we had successfully derailed this conversation. I'll try again.

Kyle Rose
Democracy is just one way among many (monarchy, oligarchy, etc.) to legitimize the act of one group of individuals forcing their preferences on others.

"Help, help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"

Bloody peasant!

Robb

mnagowski

Don't forget that now that you're forcing perfectly healthy people to buy insurance, they'll start using health care services at a much greater rate themselves

This doesn't make much sense to me. Perfectly healthy people choose to go to the doctor just to chat? Or are they going to start demanding open heart surgery just because they have insurance? Perhaps they are going to start getting tested for their cholesterol levels every other year, but that is not what is causing health care costs to skyrocket. It's end of life care.

"Perfectly healthy" was a poor choice of words on my part. I'm thinking of people who don't currently have health care, but once they do will begin to make appointments with their PCF for every sniffle and muscle ache. At the very least, these people will affect the access to care, if not the overall cost.

Sure. And there are provisions in the bill to produce more primary care physicians and increase funding for community health centers.

But let me ask you this: Do you currently have health insurance in Switzerland? And do you go see a primary care physician for every little sniffle or muscle-ache? Do all the people who live in Switzerland go see their doctor every week because they scratched their hand? If not, what makes you think that all those who are currently uninsured in America will take time out of their incredibly busy days, leave work, and pay money to see a doctor for a trivial issue?

When I lived in England for a year, I never had to go to the NHS because I thankfully didn't get sick. Even though it was free! (My friends did, and they had pretty glowing reports, much like my friends in Canada. And the UK and Canada have two of the "draconian" systems.) My father at the age of 60 has good insurance but he has only been to the doctor twice in the past two years because he hasn't been sick! People don't go to the doctor a) if they're not really sick, or b) they can't afford it.

I have a friend who just came back from the Peace Corps who is 25 and uninsured. She's afraid to take a cross-country road trip because if something happens, she has no insurance. And I can guarantee you that when does get insurance, she's probably not going to be running off to the doctor right away if nothing is wrong (except for perhaps, her annual gynecological exam).

I completely agree that end-of-life care is the biggest issue. You don't think it's a fixed cost. What specifically, in this bill, reduces the cost of end of life care? Increased preventive care delays it at best, and at worst extends lives into the regime where multiple systems begin failing simultaneously which will actually increase the end-of-life costs. Or is it merely a hope that 85 year olds will demand less end-of-life care and just go into the night more quietly than their 75 year old counterparts would have?

I don't think people with chronic conditions are a fixed cost. Give a man with high blood pressure some meds and get him on an exercise regime and the likelihood of him needing $250,000 bypass surgery goes way down. Make certain I can stay on my medications and that I do my physical therapy and the likelihood that I will ever receive very expensive joint replacement surgery goes way down. Hell, treat people with Type II diabetes the right way and their condition will likely reverse itself.

End of life care is a different story. But first, it should be noted that we're turning the conversation away from how we can insure everybody under the age of 65 to how we curb skyrocketing end-of-life costs. They're completely separate issues, and I think a lot of that has less to do with questions of insurance and more with the practices of physicians and hospitals

A lot of end-of-life care costs don't come in the final years of your life, they come in the final weeks. What's amazing is that even though everybody thinks that Medicaid is a program from the poor underclass, 80% of its spending actually goes to individuals over the age 80! So it's really a program for the old (who by being old, tend to be poor, and sick).

There is a wide level of variation in the type of end-of-life care that you will receive, mostly based on which hospital and which region of the country you end up in. If you're 85 and show up with metasized lymphoma, some hospitals will actually try to do chemo on you because there is money in it. Others will just give you same pain kills and tell you to try to enjoy life because they don't want you to suffer and they know that your life expectancy is the same anyway.

What the Affordable Care Act does is implement some programs that try to start working through this issue. It includes taxes for hospitals that have high re-admission rates and additional penalties for hospitals that see high rates of hospital-acquired infections. On top of that, there will be incentive payments for hospitals that demonstrate the lowest cost of care by age, sex and race adjusted per enrollee spending for Medicare. So the hospitals are finally being incentivized to start looking at their own practices and ask themeselves "why does it cost that county so much less to treat their patients than we do"?

None of these programs will be a magic bullet, but it's a start. And it's more than we have done in the last fifty years. It would have been nice if we could have done more. I know that there were at least 51 or 52 senators who wanted to go much further, but unfortunately the fillibuster prevailed.

"Help, help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"

Bloody peasant!

Oh, what a give away. D'ja hear that, did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about.

Kyle Rose

mnagowski
We can draw the line wherever we choose to as a society.

This is a misconception. "Society" doesn't choose anything because society is not sentient. Individuals can choose for themselves, and the resulting aggregate of those choices is what produces society as we experience it.

You are talking about substituting democracy for individual choice. Democracy is just one way among many (monarchy, oligarchy, etc.) to legitimize the act of one group of individuals forcing their preferences on others. You can use all the high-minded rhetoric you want to describe this, but this is in fact exactly what democracy is: the elimination of individual freedom in favor of majority preference.

I don't know what to tell you Kyle. We're social animals. Group behavior is what this species is all about. Just as groups of cells can be sentient, groups of people can be sentient as well. We've developed an imperfect system to encourage peaceful, cooperative group behavior to foster decision-making in terms of the allocation of our resources. While this system curbs certain individual actions (like the abillity to own nuclear weapons, earn an incoming without paying taxes, or building structures with asbestos in them) it also provides a lot of benefits to everybody in the group as well. Common defense. Research in basic science. Education for our youth. Public provisions to the young, old, and suffering. Greater prosperity and well-being.

If you really dislike democracy as a system of government, you can: 1) run for public office on a platform of getting rid of democracy, or 2) try to find another group of people somewhere else in this universe that will have you.

mnagowski

For fuck's sake, if it will kill this thread, then Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

It wasn't a part of an argument, so I don't think it counts.

Oh, so who are you to decide what counts and what doesn't? Last century in Germany there was a man who thought that he could tell everyone what should count and what shouldn't. He ended up murdering millions. Thread Nazi!

mnagowski
I don't know what to tell you Kyle. We're social animals. Group behavior is what this species is all about. Just as groups of cells can be sentient, groups of people can be sentient as well.

OMG, we've gone off the deep end.

We've developed an imperfect system to encourage peaceful, cooperative group behavior to foster decision-making in terms of the allocation of our resources.

No, people form governments primarily to protect them from external threats. That all this other stuff has been tacked on later, and the power of government levy taxes used to fund further erosions of our liberty, is just more evidence in favor of my argument. There is no reason why my desire to have an army to defend me from invading Mongols must come paired with pension payments to old people: the two are entirely orthogonal, and implying that they are somehow inexorably linked is disingenuous. Total government may be the inevitable endpoint of any government, but it isn't necessary to achieve the objectives that people had in mind when they formed the government in the first place.

While this system curbs certain individual actions (like the abillity to own nuclear weapons, earn an incoming without paying taxes, or building structures with asbestos in them)

Straw man. But don't let me stop you.

it also provides a lot of benefits to everybody in the group as well.

You reject the possibility that a far more limited government might benefit some people much more than the existing system?

Common defense. Research in basic science. Education for our youth. Public provisions to the young, old, and suffering. Greater prosperity and well-being.

So you assert that these things are not possible in the absence of total government?

If you really dislike democracy as a system of government, you can: 1) run for public office on a platform of getting rid of democracy, or 2) try to find another group of people somewhere else in this universe that will have you.

As expected, I will file you in the "If you don't like it, move" bucket. Cheers.

As expected, I will file you in the "If you don't like it, move" bucket. Cheers.

Not at all. I eagerly await your run for public office.

mnagowski
If you really dislike democracy as a system of government, you can: 1) run for public office on a platform of getting rid of democracy, or 2) try to find another group of people somewhere else in this universe that will have you.

While we're seem to be on the same side of health care, I absolutely hate the leave the country statements.

I'd love to move to a country that has a more socialist type government*. But in order to do this I need to be given full citizenship or a permanent green card for said country. Otherwise I can't actually make a living there. So it's not an option. (I'd probably also need language lessons for me and my wife if the country I move to is not Spain or the U.K.). Given what are real options for me, I chose to live in one of the most socialist of American cities.

(Kyle would want to move to a less socialist country but the point still stands. Although I'm not sure why he would want to live in Boston.)

* Not a fan of full socialism either. But unlike what some screamers might say, socialism vs capitalism does not have to be a black and white thing.

RichH
Me? I only wonder what the Kentucky post-season thread is talking about.

I hear they're having an in-depth discussion on the merits of an integrated European economic market.

kaelistus
(Kyle would want to move to a less socialist country but the point still stands. Although I'm not sure why he would want to live in Boston.)

I love everything about Boston except for the government. (And the terrible drivers, of course, but that's really not so bad once you figure out the specific ways in which Boston drivers are retarded.) In all seriousness, Boston is a great place to live because it's full of young, energetic people with passions for nearly everything: if you have a hobby, no matter how esoteric, you can find a group of like-minded people here. I also like the fact that at practically any time of the day or night somewhere there is a pickup hockey game I can get in on: there are at least 80 hockey rinks in the greater Boston area.

The government here, OTOH, is a corrupt, one-party, old boys' club that is in serious need of major turnover. For example, the last three speakers of the Massachusetts House have been indicted. But the people vote Democrat because they've always voted Democrat and their daddies voted Democrat, and I suspect they also have the voting equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome: secretly, they've come to identify with their terrible government. "They're assholes, sure... but they're our assholes!" I suspect this will change eventually, but right now the Republican party (anti-gay, pro-war, anti-freedom) isn't exactly a viable alternative. People here are educated and rightfully look on populism and politicians like Sarah Palin with disdain: but that doesn't leave them much of a choice on election day.

(And the terrible drivers, of course, but that's really not so bad once you figure out the specific ways in which Boston drivers are retarded.)

Well, at least we can agree on some things. I felt the highway driving in Boston was pretty awful, as well as through some of inner suburbs. Part of it has to do, I think, with the shorter acceleration lanes. I biked a lot during the summer I first got sick because I couldn't walk but I could still bike, and I felt the drivers throughout Cambridge and downtown were always fairly courteous to bikers.

As for Massachusett's corruptness, I didn't feel it was that bad. But that's because I come from Upstate New York, which is pretty awful. Massachusett's state government looks like a model of efficiency and restraint relative to New York State. Much lower taxes as well. The 'Taxachusetts' name is not deserved at all.

Kyle Rose

No, people form governments primarily to protect them from external threats. That all this other stuff has been tacked on later, and the power of government levy taxes used to fund further erosions of our liberty, is just more evidence in favor of my argument. There is no reason why my desire to have an army to defend me from invading Mongols must come paired with pension payments to old people: the two are entirely orthogonal, and implying that they are somehow inexorably linked is disingenuous. Total government may be the inevitable endpoint of any government, but it isn't necessary to achieve the objectives that people had in mind when they formed the government in the first place.

Do not people form governments to also protect themselves from internal threats? You know, prohibitions against killing, stealing, physical harm, etc....laws. Are there not other forms of internal threats that governments by the people and of the people could also protect people from like hunger, slavery, and many of the common good issues discussed somewhere above?

But let's stick with the assertion that government exists primarily to protect us from external threats. Who decides whether or not there is an external threat to act on? What is the method by which we should act on it? War? Alliance? How do we decide this? How is the tyranny of the majority any different in this case from the case in which the government acts against an internal threat?

One other deep issue to consider in addition to the fundamental legitimacy of property rights is what about children? If the parents choose not to insure themselves or their family is it the child's fault? Should they suffer for it and fail to receive care?

One other deep issue to consider in addition to the fundamental legitimacy of property rights is what about children? If the parents choose not to insure themselves or their family is it the child's fault? Should they suffer for it and fail to receive care?

But children are just the property of their parent's until the age of 18 so we don't have to worry about them, right?

I think dealing with the issue of children and what you are born into is one of the fundamental problems with a property rights only approach to liberty and justice. Specifically, there are many scenarios in a property-rights only universe that fail the Rawlsian test that freedoms and liberties should have meaningful value to you.

More specifically, if you aren't granted any of our positive rights (the right to life, the right to eduction, the right to nourishment, etc.) your freedoms to interact in a property-rights regime will be seriously encroached upon.

In your ideal property-rights world, let's suggest that for whatever reason a lot of adults die. So you could find yourself in a situation where you have a lot of feral children roaming around, technically squatters on other people's property, trying to steal food, and constantly being chased away by the property-owners, with guns. Because they had stunted linguistic and cognitive skills, these feral children would lack the capacity to interact in a property-rights universe. Hell, they would lack the capacity to live. And, well, you can't worry about "freedom" unless you are pretty certain you are going to live the next day, right?

One could suggest that all of the property-rights holders could donate charity to an orphanage. But because it's voluntary, only some do, and eventually the orphanage gets overcrowded and underfunded. Soon there's no food for the orphans and the children start to die.

Questions:

1) Would either Kyle or Keith agree to the possibility of being born into a system like this?
2a) If not, describe to me how a property-rights only view of liberty could possibly safeguard this outcome. Because I wouldn't have wanted either of you to die in an orphanage at the age of five.
2b) If yes, assume that you become that dying orphan. Could you then tell me that none of your liberties had been encroached upon by your perfect 'property-rights' regime?

No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

Roy 82
No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

No, I believe I succumbed to the "it's Saturday so I have better things to do than argue on the internet" argument (the last post was on a Saturday).

In short my answers is: life sucks if you're a dying feral orphan.

KeithK

Roy 82
No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

No, I believe I succumbed to the "it's Saturday so I have better things to do than argue on the internet" argument (the last post was on a Saturday).

You have your theory, we have ours.

KeithK

Roy 82
No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

No, I believe I succumbed to the "it's Saturday so I have better things to do than argue on the internet" argument (the last post was on a Saturday).

In short my answers is: life sucks if you're a dying feral orphan.

I'm sorry, your arguing time is up. That's it. Good morning!

P.S. Dying Feral Orphans is a great name for a rock band.
P.P.S. No I haven't had an original thought in years.

Roy 82
P.S. Dying Feral Orphans is a great name for a rock band.

No argument there.

KeithK

Roy 82
P.S. Dying Feral Orphans is a great name for a rock band.

No argument there.

Quitter.

KeithK

Roy 82
No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

No, I believe I succumbed to the "it's Saturday so I have better things to do than argue on the internet" argument (the last post was on a Saturday).

In short my answers is: life sucks if you're a dying feral orphan.

Life also sucks if you are a child who is discriminated against in the provision of health insurance. That's our point.

mnagowski

KeithK

Roy 82
No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

No, I believe I succumbed to the "it's Saturday so I have better things to do than argue on the internet" argument (the last post was on a Saturday).

In short my answers is: life sucks if you're a dying feral orphan.

Life also sucks if you are a child who is discriminated against in the provision of health insurance. That's our point.

Yes, but when Keith says "life sucks" I think he means, "sometimes life is going to suck for some people, no matter what we do - it's just an inherent feature of life" whereas I get the feeling that you might be saying, "isn't it horrible that life sucks for this person? We must rally to do everything that we can to help alleviate the suckiness."

Robb
Yes, but when Keith says "life sucks" I think he means, "sometimes life is going to suck for some people, no matter what we do - it's just an inherent feature of life" whereas I get the feeling that you might be saying, "isn't it horrible that life sucks for this person? We must rally to do everything that we can to help alleviate the suckiness."

Not "everything." To be consistent, we can either sell all our stuff and give it to the starving or avert our gaze and intone they must pull themselves up by their boot straps. The only people who are logically consistent are saints and sociopaths.

Trotsky
saints and sociopaths.

Another good name for a rock band.

Robb

mnagowski

KeithK

Roy 82
No response from Kyle or Keith. By the Official Rules of Internet Fora Arguments we (lefties/liberals) have been declared the winners.

Challenging the basic moral authority and fundamental limitations of the property rights approach was a strong factor in the victory. However, in the end the neo-libertarians/neo-anarchists succumbed to the classic "what about the children" maneuver.

No, I believe I succumbed to the "it's Saturday so I have better things to do than argue on the internet" argument (the last post was on a Saturday).

In short my answers is: life sucks if you're a dying feral orphan.

Life also sucks if you are a child who is discriminated against in the provision of health insurance. That's our point.

Yes, but when Keith says "life sucks" I think he means, "sometimes life is going to suck for some people, no matter what we do - it's just an inherent feature of life" whereas I get the feeling that you might be saying, "isn't it horrible that life sucks for this person? We must rally to do everything that we can to help alleviate the suckiness."

'Everything that we can' is a bit of a stretch. Somewhere in the world a child is drowning right now and you don't see me going all Baywatch to save the poor kid.

But it's entirely fair that we might want to consider rights other than property rights when devising our society so starving feral orphan children are less of a problem. Oops. I said "society". There's that word that doesn't exist again.