{"id":2669,"date":"2009-09-10T23:34:27","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T07:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2669"},"modified":"2009-09-11T00:00:43","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T08:00:43","slug":"the-big-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-big-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Am I the only one whose cynicism about politicians and the American public has been exhausted by the extent of the popular delusions and knowing falsehoods which are emerging during the whole “healthcare debate”? It is interesting to listen to liberal and conservative health policy specialists who aren’t too focused on partisan politics talk candidly about our healthcare system; they may disagree as to the solution, but they generally agree that our employer-based system burdened by state level regulations is totally sub-optimal. To be less prim it kind of sucks ass. In contrast, the politicians want to “reform” the system while keeping its rotten heart intact because the public is totally loss-averse<\/a>.
\n
\n– Yes, Obama does want to socialize risk.<\/p>\n

– Yes, it will cost more.<\/p>\n

– No, we do not have a free market in health care. Medicine is socialized between the ages of 0 and 18, and 65+, and for many of the poor. Private insurance is heavily regulated. Do you know that many states force insurance to cover infertility treatment<\/a>? That means that stupid poor people who breed early are subsidizing the life choices of intelligent richer people who keep putting off having children for the sake of advancing their career or furthering their education. But that’s what the stupid voters demand through their representatives.<\/p>\n

– A genuine libertarian<\/a> or conservative healthcare solution would terrify the American public as much as the Left-liberal vision does. That’s why the Republicans aren’t offering much of an alternative.<\/p>\n

– Yes, rationing will occur, and does occur, whether by government or insurance companies. Scarcity is a fact of economic life.<\/b> But in politics everything is possible and resources are infinite. Every man a king!<\/p>\n

– Most medical consumers are stupid, and the intelligent ones don’t make choices which are sensitive to cost because of the nature of insurance.<\/p>\n

– Doctors make a lot of money because licensing limits the labor supply and they can bid up their services. Yes, nurses can do most of what a family doctor does. No, doctors are not geniuses, I helped some current practicing M.D.’s with their chemistry and calculus homework back in the day, and let me tell you that there is one emergency room physician who had a notorious tendency to “space out” randomly who I wouldn’t want to be treated by in a pinch (though she was a very nice person). I recently went in to get some medicine for my bronchitis and I told my M.D. exactly what to prescribe and she diligently complied after a minimal check-over of my health status. $150 that insurance pays up just for signing the prescription!<\/p>\n

– Many diseases are genetic. But many are due to lifestyle. Fatty and sugary food taste very good. Soft drinks are irresistible. I think so personally, but generally avoid them because of concerns about my health. I forgo pleasure now because of the risk of disease later. Other people do not forgo pleasure, or can not. These tendencies are likely partly hardwired<\/a>, but if half the population has them by definition they’re not preexisting conditions, so these people get insured too. Steak and soda tastes so damn good!<\/p>\n

– Lifestyle changes are not impossible. Seventh Day Adventists<\/a> add ~half a decade to their life expectancy through healthy living. Ah, but are they having fun?<\/p>\n

– Americans demand more and more services and refuse to stop complaining about the increased premiums which those services entail. A large number of patients at my doctor’s office refuse to be seen by the nurse practitioner for basic appointments because they want “the best” care. The reality is that in most of these cases you’re getting very little extra medicine (if any) for multiples more of price. Americans demand more government services and lower taxes, so this sort of behavior is not surprising.<\/p>\n

At some point we’re going to come to the end of the line with all this nonsense. We’re a mammoth nation of ~300 million people, can we truly coordinate our disparate values and abilities to realize what we wish to be? Conservatives wonder as to the scalability of the European Union, with the all the kludginess entailed by its common monetary policy. But the late great financial panic makes me wonder if these United States is of appropriate scale either. Ah, but that’s an unpatriotic thought.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/b> And don’t get me started on the student loan racket and higher education inflation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Am I the only one whose cynicism about politicians and the American public has been exhausted by the extent of the popular delusions and knowing falsehoods which are emerging during the whole “healthcare debate”? It is interesting to listen to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2681,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions\/2681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}