KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (11/11/86)
From: ll-xn!scubed!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!psivax!seamus@caip
... If people were more inclined to see doctors then many problems
could be corrected at an early stage before complications set in.
Many expensive cures for serious problems could be avoided. We
might in fact see costs decline.
So why don't people do this now? Surely individuals paying for
their own medical care would be at least as motivated to keep costs
down as any government program would.
What Keith has not even considered is the overall economic benefit
from a more healthy population. ... This economic benefit would be
a benefit to everyone, even those who do not personally use public
health doctors.
How would it be a benefit to anyone but the patient? And why should
it be billed to anyone but the patient or someone who has voluntarily
entered into a medical insurance program?
Why do you assume that early medical care is more likely for people
with diseases in an early stage? I do think that the total number of
patient hours under a socialized system is likely to be much higher,
but this is not spread across the population. Hypochondriacs and
people with nothing better to do would hang out at the free clinics as
much as they were allowed to, while many people who need medical care
would avoid it to avoid the inevitable long lines, massive paperwork,
and unsanitary conditions. Read Ayn Rand's _We the Living_ for a good
description of socialized medicine and its consequences.
Quite aside from the efficiency and convenience issues, I object to
such a scheme on a moral basis. Why should people who take good care
of themselves be compelled to subsidize care for those who choose to
smoke and drink and take drugs and get social diseases? By seperating
an act from its consequences, people are encouraged to live for today
and not worry about who pays the bill. It only adds insult to injury
when government then concludes that since the general public will foot
the bill, that various unhealthy behaviors (drugs, gay sex, no
seatbelt, no motorcycle helmet) should be made illegal. It's silly,
anyway. Everyone knows that they won't make smoking illegal, and
that's where most of the involuntary medical subsidy goes - from
nonsmokers to smokers.
Socialized medicine gives government an interest in people's health.
This may not sound like a bad thing, but it is. What will they do
next, make unhealthy foods illegal? Where does their legitimate
interest end?
Also note that government has an interest in early death for people
on social security. Socialized medicine programs abroad invariably
have certain restrictions on services to old people. The older you
are the more restrictions. And why isn't there a government program
for life prolongation? There is no such thing as death by old age.
"Old age" is just a disease like any other, and should be just as
curable or preventable as smallpox, given research. Of course I don't
really advocate a government program to do this, but its absence is
quite curious considering the number of victims of old age, and
considering the enormous amounts of taxpayer money spent on less
important medical projects.
Government's main interest is to grow, and to exert more and more
control over more and more, especially over individual's lives.
Everyone is to be pigeonholed. Each person must go to government run
(or government approved) schools for N years, receive a 9 digit number
which will follow him for life and be used for everything, work for
some number of years and pay lots of taxes, retire at a specific age,
and die as soon after as possible. Anyone who violates this pattern
in any way is regarded as a problem and a troublemaker.
What's wrong with letting each individual allocate his own money as
he chooses? If he needs a major operation at the age of 80, one which
socialized medicine would have refused at his age, he can pay for it
himself if he regards it as worthwhile. If he had not been required
to pay social security taxes, but had instead put the same amount of
money in a bank at 6 percent interest, he would have retired a multi-
millionaire, so he can certainly afford it.
Do you also advocate a government run centralized taxpayer supported
church? If not, why not?
...But...this would imply that socialized medicine is a "PUBLIC
(or collective) GOOD" ...
Socialized medicine is a public evil.
...Keith
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