I’ve been hearing a lot of sound and fury about health care “rationing.” Currently, if you don’t have the money, you are already rationed. If you do have the money, nobody is going to forbid you from buying an extra 10 MRIs out of your own pocket –even if they are utterly unnecessary– if that’s what you feel like you want. What am I missing?
You aren’t missing anything. It is an argument only slightly less dishonest than “they’re pulling the plug on Granny.”
The Sheila’s think alike. :)
Well, you’re right for the politicians and talk radio hosts and whatnot, Sheila, but not for everyone. The far-right general public believe that, yes, under the health care reform bill, they would be legally prohibited from pursuing certain types of health care deemed “unnecessary”, even under another insurance plan, even out-of-pocket. You can blame the brainwashing from the intellectually dishonest for that one.
Is healthcare a right? If yes, please explain why it is a right and housing is not. Both extend your life and increase your quality of life.
If it is not, why shouldn’t it be rationed the same way we ration everything from homes to Playstations to french fries – money?
Don’t get me wrong, I want some reform to balance the power away from health insurance companies and more to the consumer. However, all the talk about rationing by money being unfair confuses me.
The more I think about “rights,” the less I understand what they are. I don’t think they can exist independently of government because absent government, you don’t any rights unless you can generate enough force to enforce the supposed right. And, if a right is dependent on government, then rights boil down to being no more or less than what we say they are.
But, that metaphysical navel gazing aside, I think there are probably a lot of similarities between housing and health care. If you want shelter with heat and hot & cold running water, the government will generally help pay for some form of that if you can’t do it for yourself. If you want a mansion, you’ll have to do that for yourself.
There are practical reasons for government involvement in health care that maybe aren’t there with housing. With shelter, you pretty much know you are going to need it every day. There is an element of randomness and risk in health care — you don’t know when or how much you’ll personally need. But, with large populations of people, some good guesses can be made on how much will be needed for the pool generally. The larger the pool, the more manageable the risk. Large pools can also leverage down prices.