Salon accuses medical entrepreneur Rick Scott of being a greedy profit-monger who's only opposing healthcare reform because he currently makes money treating uninsured patients.
I couldn't get past page one of this smear job because it made me so angry. But let me address the author's disgusting tactics on that first page:
He gleefully points out a wrongful-death suit against one of Scott's employees. This suit is supposed to show how people who work on the profit motive deliver shoddy care in their mad rush to pile up as much money as possible.
Good writers use examples -- to illustrate a principle or a trend. Bad writers and con artists take isolated instances and turn them into "examples" that supposedly prove their point. It's like the acquaintance I've mentioned who, on a hot day in October two years ago, exclaimed that anyone who didn't believe in global warming was a total idiot. One warm spell in NYC the fall, and that was enough for her to declare that the planet is warming dangerously due to man's activity. Never mind the cool weather we've had all summer this year; never mind the evidence to the contrary on a much larger scale.
So, Salon is going to have to come up with more than one wrongful-death lawsuit to prove that for-profit walk-in clinics provide bad care -- particularly when, if I wanted to use the same sneaky tactic, I could point to the poor Iraq veteran who went in for a routine GI surgery at a VA hospital and came out an amputee. (Wish I had the link to the story; any astute readers want to remind me what it is?) Nothing, not even a free market, is going to prevent humans, including doctors, from being fallible. We make mistakes, and when a doctor makes a mistake, the consequences can be much worse than when, say, a McDonald's burger-flipper does. But the fact that humans make mistakes is not an argument against the free market. In fact, it's an argument for the free market. Note that Salon is making as much hay as it can out of a single case of misdiagnosis. That's because, in a free market, it is to the benefit of an entrepreneur to make sure his employees make as few mistakes as possible! If his clinics are known as a place to get good routine care, he'll make money; if a news story comes out about how a clinic doctor screwed up a diagnosis and someone died, that is going to hurt his profits -- and so will any money paid out in a lawsuit. The poor Iraq vet, on the other hand, has no recourse -- he can't sue the government for what was done to him. So why wouldn't we want the free market?
The author also makes a big deal out of the fact that Rick Scott had no experience in health care before deciding to make money providing it. No one, apparently, should try to enter the healthcare industry without already having experience. This belief flies in the face of the fact that a motivated person -- and someone looking to make big profits certainly could be motivated enough -- can do the research and teach himself what he needs to know to run a successful healthcare business that's good for both his bottom line and his customers. Besides, if nobody should try to run a healthcare business without experience...by what right do politicians and bureaucrats, many of whom have never done an honest day's work in their lives, much less work in the healthcare industry, propose to regulate the business of health care?
Making a profit by providing low-cost care to patients who can't afford insurance is dismissed as "just a business opportunity." Wait a minute. We're talking about a win for everyone involved! Scott and his employees make money; patients obtain care at a price they can afford. If Scott were working for a charity, altruistically sacrificing himself to provide care at the same low prices, he would be hailed as a saint. So a transaction in which someone wins and someone else loses is good, but one in which both parties win is bad? What kind of messed-up attitude is that?
All that the first page of this article has told me is that Rick Scott is a hero -- and Salon's piece should be exposed as the dirty smear job that it is.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Consider the context
Today's Wall Street Journal editorial page points out that remaining "deficit neutral" -- a demand Obama has made of healthcare reform proposals -- is likely to be "achieved" through massive context-dropping. How? Max Baucus's bill plans to keep costs down for the federal government -- by forcing costs onto the states through an enforced expansion of Medicaid.
So, states would have a decreased ability to dictate what services Medicaid must provide, but they'd have an increased responsibility to pay for it. With state after state facing inability to meet budgetary shortfalls, where does Congress think the money to pay for the healthcare tab is going to come from? Blank-out.
Tactics like these are more typically associated with con artists. You know, "This wool coat only costs $19.99!" But the shipping and handling will run you $109.99. A cheap wool coat with the context dropped sounds great. A cheap wool coat, in the context of inflated shipping prices, doesn't sound like such a good buy. Same goes for health care. "Deficit neutral" may look pretty to members of Congress, but not so much to the governors they're screwing over -- and not to you and me, since we all pay state taxes on top of our federal bill. Don't fall for the flimflam!
So, states would have a decreased ability to dictate what services Medicaid must provide, but they'd have an increased responsibility to pay for it. With state after state facing inability to meet budgetary shortfalls, where does Congress think the money to pay for the healthcare tab is going to come from? Blank-out.
Tactics like these are more typically associated with con artists. You know, "This wool coat only costs $19.99!" But the shipping and handling will run you $109.99. A cheap wool coat with the context dropped sounds great. A cheap wool coat, in the context of inflated shipping prices, doesn't sound like such a good buy. Same goes for health care. "Deficit neutral" may look pretty to members of Congress, but not so much to the governors they're screwing over -- and not to you and me, since we all pay state taxes on top of our federal bill. Don't fall for the flimflam!
Friday, September 25, 2009
If you think bureaucrats' hands are clean...
...think twice.
Lots of people think we need the FDA for the same reason they think we need an SEC and a myriad of other regulatory agencies -- because businessmen are corrupt and would steal our money, sell us unsafe goods, and otherwise trample consumers on their way to making a quick buck. So we need regulatory agencies -- staffed with government employees who are supposed to be immune to third-party influence -- to keep such predatory businessmen from eating us all alive.
Well, those regulators aren't as saintly as you think. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the FDA approved a medical device it knew to be unsafe because of political pressure from elected officials -- elected officials who, as it turns out, had received large campaign contributions from the company that manufactured the device.
Okay, so if the FDA was correct in its initial analysis and the device is not safe, there are some unscrupulous businessmen involved here -- ones who wanted to make money selling a shoddy product. But the agency didn't protect us. It caved to political pressure. Their first concern was not the welfare of patients -- it was keeping their jobs.
As I argued in my TOS article on the FDA, in a free market, ratings agencies would arise to voluntarily provide information on the safety of drugs. And one of the most important differences between a private ratings agency and a government regulator is that, at the private agency, keeping your job means doing the right thing for patients. A ratings agency that did not provide accurate information about the products it rated would go out of business -- because its poor track record would eventually come out, its ratings would be discredited, and patients would turn to another source of information. At a government agency, by contrast, keeping your job often has very little to do with doing your job well but rather with whom you know and what special interests need to be appeased. It's precisely because the FDA is made up of government employees that it cannot fulfill its stated purpose of protecting Americans' health.
This isn't limited to accepting bribes from those businessmen who evade the fact that wealth must be produced, not obtained by fraudulent means. What about when politicians' beliefs conflict with medical fact? Birth control pills are the most obvious example. Hormonal contraceptives would be so much more convenient if I didn't have to go running to my doctor every year to get a prescription, then wait for the pharmacist to refill it at prespecified intervals. These pills are not dangerous -- in fact, they are safer than many drugs already approved for over-the-counter use. (Consider Tylenol, which can kill you if you overdose on it, due to its effects on the liver; taking a full pack of birth control pills, on the other hand, will probably cause nothing worse than temporary nausea.) Yet oral contraceptives remain a prescription-only drug. Since it's not the drugs' safety that keeps FDA from allowing consumers to purchase them without a prescription, there must be another reason. Could that reason be...religious rightists who think contraception is against God's plan? I'm convinced it is.
As the knee-device case shows, we can't trust bureaucrats to be thinking only of our best interests when deciding which drugs and devices to approve and which should be scuttled. In a free market, profits would flow toward companies that do the right thing for their patients -- and that's just the kind of alignment of purpose that we need.
Lots of people think we need the FDA for the same reason they think we need an SEC and a myriad of other regulatory agencies -- because businessmen are corrupt and would steal our money, sell us unsafe goods, and otherwise trample consumers on their way to making a quick buck. So we need regulatory agencies -- staffed with government employees who are supposed to be immune to third-party influence -- to keep such predatory businessmen from eating us all alive.
Well, those regulators aren't as saintly as you think. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the FDA approved a medical device it knew to be unsafe because of political pressure from elected officials -- elected officials who, as it turns out, had received large campaign contributions from the company that manufactured the device.
Okay, so if the FDA was correct in its initial analysis and the device is not safe, there are some unscrupulous businessmen involved here -- ones who wanted to make money selling a shoddy product. But the agency didn't protect us. It caved to political pressure. Their first concern was not the welfare of patients -- it was keeping their jobs.
As I argued in my TOS article on the FDA, in a free market, ratings agencies would arise to voluntarily provide information on the safety of drugs. And one of the most important differences between a private ratings agency and a government regulator is that, at the private agency, keeping your job means doing the right thing for patients. A ratings agency that did not provide accurate information about the products it rated would go out of business -- because its poor track record would eventually come out, its ratings would be discredited, and patients would turn to another source of information. At a government agency, by contrast, keeping your job often has very little to do with doing your job well but rather with whom you know and what special interests need to be appeased. It's precisely because the FDA is made up of government employees that it cannot fulfill its stated purpose of protecting Americans' health.
This isn't limited to accepting bribes from those businessmen who evade the fact that wealth must be produced, not obtained by fraudulent means. What about when politicians' beliefs conflict with medical fact? Birth control pills are the most obvious example. Hormonal contraceptives would be so much more convenient if I didn't have to go running to my doctor every year to get a prescription, then wait for the pharmacist to refill it at prespecified intervals. These pills are not dangerous -- in fact, they are safer than many drugs already approved for over-the-counter use. (Consider Tylenol, which can kill you if you overdose on it, due to its effects on the liver; taking a full pack of birth control pills, on the other hand, will probably cause nothing worse than temporary nausea.) Yet oral contraceptives remain a prescription-only drug. Since it's not the drugs' safety that keeps FDA from allowing consumers to purchase them without a prescription, there must be another reason. Could that reason be...religious rightists who think contraception is against God's plan? I'm convinced it is.
As the knee-device case shows, we can't trust bureaucrats to be thinking only of our best interests when deciding which drugs and devices to approve and which should be scuttled. In a free market, profits would flow toward companies that do the right thing for their patients -- and that's just the kind of alignment of purpose that we need.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Success story
A column in yesterday's New York Times entitled "Does This Pencil Skirt Have an App?" reminded me: It's time to brag!
The author talks about her experience with Lose It!, an iPhone app that tallies your calories in and out, gives you a daily budget, and charts your progress to weight-loss goals.
I can only say good things about Lose It! As I mentioned earlier this year, I've been using the app myself. Well, now I can say it's gotten me results beyond any other weight-loss program I've ever tried (and I have tried a few). There's nothing earth-shattering about the concept: You count calories, and make sure you burn more than you eat. But because I always have my phone with me, I'm less inclined to cheat: I enter my foods right after I eat them and know immediately how much I have left to eat that day. I can't pretend that my five-mile run is worth a large order of fries when in fact it's only good for about a small; I know before I eat a Caesar salad that even though it's a salad, it's quite calorie-heavy; I can't underestimate the amount I've had for breakfast and lunch when I sit down to dinner.
I originally started using Lose It! with the goal of losing 15 pounds to run a better marathon. (Everyone thinks my primary motivation was getting married, but I actually lost too much weight for that -- my dress was way too big!) I hit my original goal in June, and decided to keep going. I began this year at 157 pounds, which on my 5'8" frame had crossed the line from "voluptuous" to "a little chubby." Thanks to Lose It!, I surpassed my goal and got to 135 pounds in July, and have been successfully maintaining that weight for about two months now. I've gone down three dress sizes, and am the smallest I've ever been as an adult! I'm the same weight as I was in high school, but in considerably better shape (I couldn't run a mile then, much less the marathon).
Here's a bit of evidence:
2008 Philadelphia Marathon. Not fat, but not looking my best.
And in the 2009 Philadelphia Distance Run, which I ran on Sunday (photo credit: Kendall Justiniano) -- that's me in the black shirt and pink hat:
So, as it turns out, losing 20+ pounds does indeed lead to faster running! My previous record for the half-marathon distance was 2:07:01, which I did back at the 2007 Philly Distance Run. I expected I could take a couple of minutes off of that, but only in my wildest fantasies did I imagine what actually happened: I broke two hours! I came in at 1:59:44, slicing more than seven minutes off my PR, and I didn't even feel like I had raced that hard.
I can't tell you how excited this makes me for the NYC Marathon, which I will be running for the first time in just over a month. I bet I slice several minutes off my PR for that distance, and I can't wait to do it with two million spectators on the sidewalks.
Oh yeah, and my husband can't keep his hands off me ;)
Go, me -- and hooray for Lose It!
The author talks about her experience with Lose It!, an iPhone app that tallies your calories in and out, gives you a daily budget, and charts your progress to weight-loss goals.
I can only say good things about Lose It! As I mentioned earlier this year, I've been using the app myself. Well, now I can say it's gotten me results beyond any other weight-loss program I've ever tried (and I have tried a few). There's nothing earth-shattering about the concept: You count calories, and make sure you burn more than you eat. But because I always have my phone with me, I'm less inclined to cheat: I enter my foods right after I eat them and know immediately how much I have left to eat that day. I can't pretend that my five-mile run is worth a large order of fries when in fact it's only good for about a small; I know before I eat a Caesar salad that even though it's a salad, it's quite calorie-heavy; I can't underestimate the amount I've had for breakfast and lunch when I sit down to dinner.
I originally started using Lose It! with the goal of losing 15 pounds to run a better marathon. (Everyone thinks my primary motivation was getting married, but I actually lost too much weight for that -- my dress was way too big!) I hit my original goal in June, and decided to keep going. I began this year at 157 pounds, which on my 5'8" frame had crossed the line from "voluptuous" to "a little chubby." Thanks to Lose It!, I surpassed my goal and got to 135 pounds in July, and have been successfully maintaining that weight for about two months now. I've gone down three dress sizes, and am the smallest I've ever been as an adult! I'm the same weight as I was in high school, but in considerably better shape (I couldn't run a mile then, much less the marathon).
Here's a bit of evidence:
2008 Philadelphia Marathon. Not fat, but not looking my best.
And in the 2009 Philadelphia Distance Run, which I ran on Sunday (photo credit: Kendall Justiniano) -- that's me in the black shirt and pink hat:
So, as it turns out, losing 20+ pounds does indeed lead to faster running! My previous record for the half-marathon distance was 2:07:01, which I did back at the 2007 Philly Distance Run. I expected I could take a couple of minutes off of that, but only in my wildest fantasies did I imagine what actually happened: I broke two hours! I came in at 1:59:44, slicing more than seven minutes off my PR, and I didn't even feel like I had raced that hard.
I can't tell you how excited this makes me for the NYC Marathon, which I will be running for the first time in just over a month. I bet I slice several minutes off my PR for that distance, and I can't wait to do it with two million spectators on the sidewalks.
Oh yeah, and my husband can't keep his hands off me ;)
Go, me -- and hooray for Lose It!
"Bad goals, bad solutions" at Lucidicus Project
I'm a fan of "Bad goals, bad solutions," a post by Jared Rhoads at The Lucidicus Project. This post clearly lays out Obama's stated goals, the free-market solutions that could actually accomplish those goals, and the government intrusions that are supposed to achieve the goals, but will only drive our healthcare system further down the path of destruction.
Go check it out!
Go check it out!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Medicine as it could be and ought to be
I'm rereading Gen LaGreca's novel, Noble Vision, for the umpteenth time. In all this talk of healthcare "reform," I desperately needed the vision of the kind of doctor who succeeds in a free system -- and the kind of health care we could enjoy if we had one.
Here's one of my favorite excerpts:
He'd never understood why people said that doctors should derive no selfish reward from the care they provide. He felt the most glorious sense of pride from saving someone's life, and he could not make the grueling effort that medicine required without fervently loving his work. He knew the world meant that he could love his profession and derive spiritual fulfillment from it but that he should not love making money from it...
Was he supposed to offer people the ultimate value, their very health and existence, yet not desire a financial reward for his services the way in which the provider of a house, a car, or a swimming pool would? Because their services are more valuable than those offered by others, are doctors to be prohibited from setting the terms of their own compensation? Are doctors to be punished because they offer so much? Because they are...good?
Get the word out about this book. We need it now, desperately -- but not only does it contain a much-needed message about free markets in medicine, it's also a gripping, powerful story. Ayn Rand said that the purpose of a novel is to tell a story, not to preach -- yet it can still teach by showing us how our lives could and should be. And that is just what Noble Vision does.
Here's one of my favorite excerpts:
He'd never understood why people said that doctors should derive no selfish reward from the care they provide. He felt the most glorious sense of pride from saving someone's life, and he could not make the grueling effort that medicine required without fervently loving his work. He knew the world meant that he could love his profession and derive spiritual fulfillment from it but that he should not love making money from it...
Was he supposed to offer people the ultimate value, their very health and existence, yet not desire a financial reward for his services the way in which the provider of a house, a car, or a swimming pool would? Because their services are more valuable than those offered by others, are doctors to be prohibited from setting the terms of their own compensation? Are doctors to be punished because they offer so much? Because they are...good?
Get the word out about this book. We need it now, desperately -- but not only does it contain a much-needed message about free markets in medicine, it's also a gripping, powerful story. Ayn Rand said that the purpose of a novel is to tell a story, not to preach -- yet it can still teach by showing us how our lives could and should be. And that is just what Noble Vision does.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Answering liberal arguments #6: "What's YOUR solution?"
In his healthcare speech to Congress, President Obama attempted to pigeonhole his opponents as those who would do nothing to reform health care in America. He claims to want to listen to anyone who has a viable proposal. But by "viable proposal," he means "proposal that involves increased government control" and "sticking it to insurance companies/pharmaceutical companies/whoever is the victim du jour."
Obama is succeeding in creating a false dichotomy: Either we go along with a massive increase in government control over health care, or we are supporting the status quo, with which few are happy.
But it is possible to be against Obama's wishes and for true reform. Supporting a free market is not supporting the status quo. To support a free market is to advocate for the removal of the many government controls -- whether they are entitlement programs, tax incentives, or regulations -- that got us to the situation we're in in the first place.
Example: Freelance workers can't avail themselves of group rates for health insurance and have to pay for theirs with post-tax dollars, not pretax dollars as those of us who are employed by others can do. A free market would solve this problem by allowing all individuals to purchase their own insurance -- preferably with untaxed dollars, but at least without the tax policy that benefits the employee over the entrepreneur. An individual's policy would no longer be tied to his job, but would be selected by him and nobody else. He would not lose the policy if he lost his job, and he would be able to select the insurance that best meets his health needs and ability to pay.
Example: Setting insurance free of employment status, thus causing individuals to evaluate and purchase their own policies, would cause consumers to price-shop -- both for their policies and for the out-of-pocket costs they'd likely pay in order to avoid high premiums. If your annual physical is something you pay for yourself, instead of something your insurance covers (which is merely hiding the expense from you, not taking it away from you), you'd start to ask questions about whether your doctor is the best value for your money. Placing the responsibility to pay on the shoulders of the person who gets the service will drive prices down -- as we've seen with LASIK and plastic surgery.
Example: John Mackey's approach to insurance for Whole Foods employees.
Don't let Obama and his ilk paint you as a do-nothing status-quo supporter if you're for a free market. There is no dichotomy -- his two proposed alternatives are both bad, and only the unspoken third option, the free market, can save us.
Obama is succeeding in creating a false dichotomy: Either we go along with a massive increase in government control over health care, or we are supporting the status quo, with which few are happy.
But it is possible to be against Obama's wishes and for true reform. Supporting a free market is not supporting the status quo. To support a free market is to advocate for the removal of the many government controls -- whether they are entitlement programs, tax incentives, or regulations -- that got us to the situation we're in in the first place.
Example: Freelance workers can't avail themselves of group rates for health insurance and have to pay for theirs with post-tax dollars, not pretax dollars as those of us who are employed by others can do. A free market would solve this problem by allowing all individuals to purchase their own insurance -- preferably with untaxed dollars, but at least without the tax policy that benefits the employee over the entrepreneur. An individual's policy would no longer be tied to his job, but would be selected by him and nobody else. He would not lose the policy if he lost his job, and he would be able to select the insurance that best meets his health needs and ability to pay.
Example: Setting insurance free of employment status, thus causing individuals to evaluate and purchase their own policies, would cause consumers to price-shop -- both for their policies and for the out-of-pocket costs they'd likely pay in order to avoid high premiums. If your annual physical is something you pay for yourself, instead of something your insurance covers (which is merely hiding the expense from you, not taking it away from you), you'd start to ask questions about whether your doctor is the best value for your money. Placing the responsibility to pay on the shoulders of the person who gets the service will drive prices down -- as we've seen with LASIK and plastic surgery.
Example: John Mackey's approach to insurance for Whole Foods employees.
Don't let Obama and his ilk paint you as a do-nothing status-quo supporter if you're for a free market. There is no dichotomy -- his two proposed alternatives are both bad, and only the unspoken third option, the free market, can save us.
A nudge up the stairs
I'm already fed up with New York City spending my tax dollars on anti-smoking advertising and those annoying banners all over the city that say "Start walking." But I didn't know about this: Thomas Farley, the new city health commissioner, not only wants to ban smoking in public parks (one of the few places smokers have left to go), he wants to make us take the stairs.
Oh, it's not being couched in terms of "make us." It's all about "encouragement" and "guidelines." But no matter how you dress it up in nice-sounding terms, those "guidelines" are really dictates backed by the government's mailed fist. For example, putting in smaller elevators and nicer-looking staircases will help a building get more credits toward LEED ("green") certification; at present, being LEED is not required for non-municipal new construction, but if I were a betting woman, I'd put money on the city making LEED certification a requirement in the future. And, in the New York magazine article I linked to, a former city official suspects the health commissioner could further "nudge" by expediting approvals or otherwise favoring "stair-friendly" construction projects.
Where does that leave those of us who like our elevators and escalators just fine? Screwed.
I'm a very fit person (just broke two hours in the half marathon on Sunday!) and I hate the stairs. Normally my legs are just too tired from running. But even if I weighed 100 pounds more than I do and I simply didn't feel like taking the stairs, it would be my right to stay fat and get on the elevator. It is not the state's prerogative to push us toward what it considers a healthier lifestyle.
Mr. Farley: On behalf of all stair-haters, keep your nose out of our business!
Oh, it's not being couched in terms of "make us." It's all about "encouragement" and "guidelines." But no matter how you dress it up in nice-sounding terms, those "guidelines" are really dictates backed by the government's mailed fist. For example, putting in smaller elevators and nicer-looking staircases will help a building get more credits toward LEED ("green") certification; at present, being LEED is not required for non-municipal new construction, but if I were a betting woman, I'd put money on the city making LEED certification a requirement in the future. And, in the New York magazine article I linked to, a former city official suspects the health commissioner could further "nudge" by expediting approvals or otherwise favoring "stair-friendly" construction projects.
Where does that leave those of us who like our elevators and escalators just fine? Screwed.
I'm a very fit person (just broke two hours in the half marathon on Sunday!) and I hate the stairs. Normally my legs are just too tired from running. But even if I weighed 100 pounds more than I do and I simply didn't feel like taking the stairs, it would be my right to stay fat and get on the elevator. It is not the state's prerogative to push us toward what it considers a healthier lifestyle.
Mr. Farley: On behalf of all stair-haters, keep your nose out of our business!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Answering liberal arguments #5: The Facebook hornswoggle
Raise your hand if you've seen this as the Facebook status of at least one person you know:
No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
The implication, of course, is that you want people to die or go broke if you don't support liberal healthcare "reform."
To those who have blithely dropped this glib little statement, which does a great job of obscuring the fact that the proposed "reforms" would simply sink health care into a worse state of slavery than it is in already, into their Facebook pages, I would simply say: Great. If you feel sorry for those who can't afford health care, get thee to a private charity and donate as much as you non-sacrificially can. Go out and knock on doors and persuade as many of your friends and family as you can to donate their money as well. Just don't use government force to make those of us who have higher values than other people's health care pay for it.
There is no right to health care. Creating a government entitlement to one will jack up demand while stifling supply (shrugging doctors, anyone?) -- so, practically, it will not do what liberals want it to do (that is, give health care to everyone), and, worse, it will be a moral sin because the rights of healthcare providers will be violated to create that entitlement.
No one should live as a slave because others can't or won't pay for their own care, and no one should go broke paying for other people's care!
No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
The implication, of course, is that you want people to die or go broke if you don't support liberal healthcare "reform."
To those who have blithely dropped this glib little statement, which does a great job of obscuring the fact that the proposed "reforms" would simply sink health care into a worse state of slavery than it is in already, into their Facebook pages, I would simply say: Great. If you feel sorry for those who can't afford health care, get thee to a private charity and donate as much as you non-sacrificially can. Go out and knock on doors and persuade as many of your friends and family as you can to donate their money as well. Just don't use government force to make those of us who have higher values than other people's health care pay for it.
There is no right to health care. Creating a government entitlement to one will jack up demand while stifling supply (shrugging doctors, anyone?) -- so, practically, it will not do what liberals want it to do (that is, give health care to everyone), and, worse, it will be a moral sin because the rights of healthcare providers will be violated to create that entitlement.
No one should live as a slave because others can't or won't pay for their own care, and no one should go broke paying for other people's care!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Answering liberal arguments #4: "We're the richest nation in the world!"
Here's one that I hear a lot: "We're the richest country in the world, yet we don't provide health care for all of our citizens. That's unconscionable!"
Embedded in the "That's unconscionable!" part of the argument is an implicit statement that health care is a right. But a right for whom? For Americans? Why Americans? Why not Mauritanians, Serbians, Cambodians, and so on and so forth? If "health care is a right" is taken to its logical conclusion, then every child in sub-Saharan Africa who isn't getting the HIV medications he needs, every Southeast Asian who suffers from malaria, even every Briton and Canadian who is denied treatment because the government considers it unnecessary, is a living reproach to all of us Americans. If health care is a right, we ought to be providing it to them...shouldn't we?
Even liberals have to realize that this isn't possible. And if a so-called moral ideal is impossible, we need to reevaluate whether what we are glorifying -- health care as a right -- is indeed a proper moral ideal. Morality, after all, is a guide for how to live on this earth -- and if morality suggests a goal that is physically impossible, then maybe it's the morality being applied that needs to get tossed out.
In fact, health care is not a right, as so many others have eloquently argued. It would be impossible to live if health care were a right, because every dollar we earned would be "owed" to a child with AIDS, or a homeless person with tuberculosis, or prenatal care for a heroin addict. Health care is a need -- but it's every person's responsibility to provide for that need himself, and if he cannot, to seek private charity, not to demand his care as a right from others.
Embedded in the "That's unconscionable!" part of the argument is an implicit statement that health care is a right. But a right for whom? For Americans? Why Americans? Why not Mauritanians, Serbians, Cambodians, and so on and so forth? If "health care is a right" is taken to its logical conclusion, then every child in sub-Saharan Africa who isn't getting the HIV medications he needs, every Southeast Asian who suffers from malaria, even every Briton and Canadian who is denied treatment because the government considers it unnecessary, is a living reproach to all of us Americans. If health care is a right, we ought to be providing it to them...shouldn't we?
Even liberals have to realize that this isn't possible. And if a so-called moral ideal is impossible, we need to reevaluate whether what we are glorifying -- health care as a right -- is indeed a proper moral ideal. Morality, after all, is a guide for how to live on this earth -- and if morality suggests a goal that is physically impossible, then maybe it's the morality being applied that needs to get tossed out.
In fact, health care is not a right, as so many others have eloquently argued. It would be impossible to live if health care were a right, because every dollar we earned would be "owed" to a child with AIDS, or a homeless person with tuberculosis, or prenatal care for a heroin addict. Health care is a need -- but it's every person's responsibility to provide for that need himself, and if he cannot, to seek private charity, not to demand his care as a right from others.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Objectivist Roundup #114
Welcome to Objectivist Roundup #114! These are articles written by bloggers who embrace Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. As Rand herself put it:
Lots of posts this week, so let's get to it!
First-time contributor Earl Parson presents My Views on Health Care Reform at Parson Studio Group.
Gideon Reich presents Conservatives vs. Idealism at Armchair Intellectual, saying, "Attacks the Conservative view of human nature as described by PJTV's Bill Whittle and offers an alternative."
Paul McKeever presents two posts at his self-titled blog:
Brian Phillips presents A Day of Service at Live Oaks, saying, "Last Friday I honored our President's request and spent the day in service--to myself."
Another double entry from Roderick Fitts at Inductive Quest:
Paul Hsieh presents TOS Article: "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability" at We Stand FIRM, saying, "My forthcoming TOS article provides intellectual ammunition to oppose new controls on insurance companies that would force them to cover pre-existing conditions."
Ari Armstrong presents Atlas Shrugged Relevant for Modern Times at FreeColorado.com, saying, " In anticipation of upcoming Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups, I wrote an op-ed for the Longmont Times-Call about the novel."
Mike "Zemack" LaFerrara presents Obama - Bearing False Witness at Principled Perspectives, saying, "'The Big Lie,' American version."
I present Answering liberal arguments: "But you have good insurance!" right here at ReasonPharm. I'm going to be addressing common liberal arguments for healthcare 'reform' in the next several days. The first: Only people who already have "good" insurance would argue against extending coverage to everybody.
Diana Hsieh presents 9/12 Tea Parties at NoodleFood, saying, "My report on the Denver 9/12 Tea Party, with some additional pictures from DC."
Kelly Elmore presents Continuing to Think About Happiness at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "Rather than my final ideas about happiness (cause I don't have complete ones yet), this post asks a lot of questions and gives some tentative answers. I hope some of you bloggy types might have some good comments for me to think over."
Amit Ghate presents A Principle for Politics at Thrutch, saying, "A link to an article I wrote arguing that to solve our current political problems, we need to re-adopt the principle of individual rights."
Gus Van Horn presents MY Blue Sky at his self-titled blog, saying, "It is just as important to recover from the attacks of 2001 as it is to remember them."
Two from Beth Haynes at Wealth Is Not the Problem -- Actually, Mr. President, Our Health Care Is Too Cheap! and Values Clarification.
And, Stephen Bourque presents Note to the Republican National Committee at One Reality, saying, "Precisely because Republicans are supposed to be the guardians of freedom and limited government, they have rendered the true defenders of liberty impotent."
That wraps it up for Roundup #114!
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."About the Author," Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.
Lots of posts this week, so let's get to it!
First-time contributor Earl Parson presents My Views on Health Care Reform at Parson Studio Group.
Gideon Reich presents Conservatives vs. Idealism at Armchair Intellectual, saying, "Attacks the Conservative view of human nature as described by PJTV's Bill Whittle and offers an alternative."
Paul McKeever presents two posts at his self-titled blog:
- Laying Blame for the Economic Mess: Milton Keynes or John Maynard Friedman? He says, "Irrationality is what, essentially, undermines freedom and capitalism, but one of the most common and destructive instances of irrationality is the libertarian practice of holding up Milton Friedman and his monetarism (i.e., intentionally expanding or contracting the money supply to control wages and prices) as a champion of capitalism. In my view, monetarism essentially does by monetary means what Keynesianism does by fiscal means: both redistribute a percentage of the money supply from those who earn it to those who do not. The first by way of public-private co-operation (the federal reserve, together with private banks), and the second by way of purely public means (i.e., taxation by government). Hence the misguided libertarian championing of the former, and of Friedman."
- Paul McKeever’s Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 7 : Paul McKeever: He says, "In this installment: truth, memory, death, and even...beards."
- Finding Solace by the Sea at his self-titled blog.
- Michael Jordan Scores One For "I" at The American Individualist.
Brian Phillips presents A Day of Service at Live Oaks, saying, "Last Friday I honored our President's request and spent the day in service--to myself."
Another double entry from Roderick Fitts at Inductive Quest:
- Introduction to Induction: What is Induction and Why Study It? He says, "Sort of a introductory post on induction, and why we should want to study it."
- Aristotle's "Two" Views on Induction: McCaskey's Resolution (Part 2). He says, "A shorter essay in which I discuss two of McCaskey's criticisms of the 'Aristotle is an enumerative inductivist' viewpoint. Here, we learn that enumeration isn't effective at all, and that one must to the essence of the thing being studied, what makes it the kind of thing it is."
Paul Hsieh presents TOS Article: "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability" at We Stand FIRM, saying, "My forthcoming TOS article provides intellectual ammunition to oppose new controls on insurance companies that would force them to cover pre-existing conditions."
Ari Armstrong presents Atlas Shrugged Relevant for Modern Times at FreeColorado.com, saying, " In anticipation of upcoming Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups, I wrote an op-ed for the Longmont Times-Call about the novel."
Mike "Zemack" LaFerrara presents Obama - Bearing False Witness at Principled Perspectives, saying, "'The Big Lie,' American version."
I present Answering liberal arguments: "But you have good insurance!" right here at ReasonPharm. I'm going to be addressing common liberal arguments for healthcare 'reform' in the next several days. The first: Only people who already have "good" insurance would argue against extending coverage to everybody.
Diana Hsieh presents 9/12 Tea Parties at NoodleFood, saying, "My report on the Denver 9/12 Tea Party, with some additional pictures from DC."
Kelly Elmore presents Continuing to Think About Happiness at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "Rather than my final ideas about happiness (cause I don't have complete ones yet), this post asks a lot of questions and gives some tentative answers. I hope some of you bloggy types might have some good comments for me to think over."
Amit Ghate presents A Principle for Politics at Thrutch, saying, "A link to an article I wrote arguing that to solve our current political problems, we need to re-adopt the principle of individual rights."
Gus Van Horn presents MY Blue Sky at his self-titled blog, saying, "It is just as important to recover from the attacks of 2001 as it is to remember them."
Two from Beth Haynes at Wealth Is Not the Problem -- Actually, Mr. President, Our Health Care Is Too Cheap! and Values Clarification.
And, Stephen Bourque presents Note to the Republican National Committee at One Reality, saying, "Precisely because Republicans are supposed to be the guardians of freedom and limited government, they have rendered the true defenders of liberty impotent."
That wraps it up for Roundup #114!
Answering liberal arguments #3: Wingnuts and teabaggers
The left, unfortunately, has mastered the catchy little smear term. How many times have you heard, "Wingnuts say the government shouldn't be involved in health care at all!" or "Those teabaggers think we can't afford reform!" Everyone involved in the conversation is then supposed to laugh derisively, because of course wingnuts and teabaggers are crazy, and couldn't possibly have anything worthwhile to say.
This is a coward's "argument." Instead of trying to rebut what a free-market advocate says, liberals simply smear him by calling him a name. They lump him in with that guy who started a fight and got his finger bitten off, the tea-party speakers who ramble on about God and country, and other actual crazies. In that way, the leftist absolves himself of having to actually respond to the facts of a free-market advocate's argument. It's a form of what Ayn Rand called the argument from intimidation -- the attempt, not to actually refute what a speaker says, but simply to scare people off from agreeing with him by implying that doing so would be crazy or stupid.
I have made the mistake of letting a liberal pull this stunt on me before. A couple of years ago, during a brief warm spell we were having in the fall, a group of my choir friends and I were bitching about the hot weather. One of them piped up immediately, "See? Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming is a total idiot!" (As an aside, note how when there's an entire summer of cool weather in NYC, these same people aren't thinking about how you cannot prove global warming based on a day's or a week's worth of weather.) I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to have an argument at the time. I wouldn't keep my mouth shut now, and definitely not with regard to the healthcare debate. Saying nothing lets liberals continue to use this dirty little trick to get out of having to actually defend their position.
It's not necessary to get into a lengthy debate -- merely to make it known that you disagree. When someone drops the "wingnut" or "teabagger" bomb, you can simply say, "I'm not interested in belaboring this, but people who believe in a free market are not nut cases," or even "I don't like that term. Why don't we just focus on what [person accused of being a teabagger] has to say?"
Those catchy little terms are weapons used to disarm a rational argument before it even gets off the ground. Don't let liberals get away with it!
This is a coward's "argument." Instead of trying to rebut what a free-market advocate says, liberals simply smear him by calling him a name. They lump him in with that guy who started a fight and got his finger bitten off, the tea-party speakers who ramble on about God and country, and other actual crazies. In that way, the leftist absolves himself of having to actually respond to the facts of a free-market advocate's argument. It's a form of what Ayn Rand called the argument from intimidation -- the attempt, not to actually refute what a speaker says, but simply to scare people off from agreeing with him by implying that doing so would be crazy or stupid.
I have made the mistake of letting a liberal pull this stunt on me before. A couple of years ago, during a brief warm spell we were having in the fall, a group of my choir friends and I were bitching about the hot weather. One of them piped up immediately, "See? Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming is a total idiot!" (As an aside, note how when there's an entire summer of cool weather in NYC, these same people aren't thinking about how you cannot prove global warming based on a day's or a week's worth of weather.) I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to have an argument at the time. I wouldn't keep my mouth shut now, and definitely not with regard to the healthcare debate. Saying nothing lets liberals continue to use this dirty little trick to get out of having to actually defend their position.
It's not necessary to get into a lengthy debate -- merely to make it known that you disagree. When someone drops the "wingnut" or "teabagger" bomb, you can simply say, "I'm not interested in belaboring this, but people who believe in a free market are not nut cases," or even "I don't like that term. Why don't we just focus on what [person accused of being a teabagger] has to say?"
Those catchy little terms are weapons used to disarm a rational argument before it even gets off the ground. Don't let liberals get away with it!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Answering liberal arguments #2: "If we can afford Iraq, we can afford health care."
You know that tired old bumper-sticker bromide, "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber"? It's alive and well. Says New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in "The Body Count at Home":
"After Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans, eight years ago on Friday, we went to war and spent hundreds of billions of dollars ensuring that this would not happen again. Yet every two months, that many people die because of our failure to provide universal insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?"
Basically, the argument amounts to: If we have money to spend on war, then we have money to spend on health care for everyone.
But this argument ignores the fact that some expenditures are properly the responsibility of government, and others are not. Or, rather, the average liberal who spouts this bromide is actually reversing which is which.
War against nations that sponsor terrorist states is a proper function of government. In that case, government is protecting our individual rights from enemies who would like to deprive us of life and liberty. Of course, we can argue that the war in question should not have cost us nearly as much as it has, neither in dollars nor in American blood spilled, because the reason this war has been so dragged out and so expensive is that America is not willing to fight to the utmost of her capability and to squash terrorism-sponsoring states as they deserve to be. But that is beside the point; what's relevant to our discussion here is that national defense is something that government should properly pay for because it is necessary in order to defend individual rights. Americans have the right to be left alone -- not to have their lives and their property threatened by rogues -- and defending that right sometimes means war.
Health care, by contrast, is not a right. It consists of goods and services that must be produced -- and having the government provide it for Americans merely means that those goods and services (or the money to pay for them) must be seized from some Americans and given to others. Even if this is not done through a direct government handout, but rather by regulations that force insurance companies to cover everyone, it's still the use of physical force to make some men sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. This is not a proper function of government, and no matter how many wars' worth of money we have, it would not be enough money to make government interference in health care the right thing to do.
"After Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans, eight years ago on Friday, we went to war and spent hundreds of billions of dollars ensuring that this would not happen again. Yet every two months, that many people die because of our failure to provide universal insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?"
Basically, the argument amounts to: If we have money to spend on war, then we have money to spend on health care for everyone.
But this argument ignores the fact that some expenditures are properly the responsibility of government, and others are not. Or, rather, the average liberal who spouts this bromide is actually reversing which is which.
War against nations that sponsor terrorist states is a proper function of government. In that case, government is protecting our individual rights from enemies who would like to deprive us of life and liberty. Of course, we can argue that the war in question should not have cost us nearly as much as it has, neither in dollars nor in American blood spilled, because the reason this war has been so dragged out and so expensive is that America is not willing to fight to the utmost of her capability and to squash terrorism-sponsoring states as they deserve to be. But that is beside the point; what's relevant to our discussion here is that national defense is something that government should properly pay for because it is necessary in order to defend individual rights. Americans have the right to be left alone -- not to have their lives and their property threatened by rogues -- and defending that right sometimes means war.
Health care, by contrast, is not a right. It consists of goods and services that must be produced -- and having the government provide it for Americans merely means that those goods and services (or the money to pay for them) must be seized from some Americans and given to others. Even if this is not done through a direct government handout, but rather by regulations that force insurance companies to cover everyone, it's still the use of physical force to make some men sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. This is not a proper function of government, and no matter how many wars' worth of money we have, it would not be enough money to make government interference in health care the right thing to do.
Answering liberal arguments: "But you have good insurance!"
I've decided not to blog specifically about Obama's speech after all; plenty of people have done that already, and I'd prefer to spend some time debunking popular liberal arguments instead, one at a time.
One accusation I get a lot when I say I oppose the current healthcare "reforms" under consideration is, "Sure, you say we don't need reform, but that's only because you have good insurance. If you didn't, you'd know why we need [a public option/more government regulation of the insurance industry/insert untenable proposal of your choice here]."
If you don't have health insurance, and still believe in a free market, then you don't need my help rebutting this argument. I do, however, have a policy that's quite comprehensive. I have not had a health problem to date that hasn't been paid for largely by my insurance company. When I was in the ER a few years ago with a fainting fit, I paid about $500 on a total $4,000 bill. When I developed heel pain during marathon training last year, I paid a $15 copay for each visit I made to the sports medicine specialist or to my physical therapist, and the insurance company took care of the rest. When I had upper respiratory infections earlier this year, I paid my primary care physician $10 and my pharmacy $5 for the generic antibiotics; again, the insurance company paid my doctor the remainder of his fee.
"See," my liberal friends say, "you're lucky because you have good insurance. Why shouldn't everyone else be in that position?"
Well..."good" by whose standards? Not mine.
Back in 2007, I gave a breakdown of why all that coverage is not, in fact, a good deal for me. I am young and in excellent physical condition. I don't smoke, rarely drink, and maintain a healthy weight. So I don't consume a lot of healthcare resources. Even when you add in what my physical therapy last year cost, I (and my employer, on my behalf) have still put much more money into the system than I have gotten out of it. My policy covers all sorts of extras, like addiction counseling and hospice care, that I'm unlikely to use any time soon, if ever. I'd much rather spend a lot less money on a catastrophic-coverage policy, pay for my own anticipated healthcare expenses (like birth control and doctor visits), have some money put away for unanticipated but non-catastrophic expenses (such as last year's physical therapy), and have the catastrophic coverage available for when there is a true emergency. That would be good insurance for me. Instead, I get a cookie-cutter policy -- because the government has, through force, "encouraged" my employer to buy me more coverage than I need at the expense of my salary.
So no, dear liberals, I don't have "good" insurance. I have fairly comprehensive insurance -- but it costs my employer a lot more money than it's worth to me. How is that "good"? A free market would generate more individualized solutions -- one of which would work best for me, another of which would work well for someone with a chronic condition.
And just because I work for an employer that provides me with comprehensive coverage, it doesn't mean that I, or anyone else, owes such coverage to those who can't or won't get it for themselves. There is no right to health insurance, to health care, nor to any good or service that has to be produced by others.
One accusation I get a lot when I say I oppose the current healthcare "reforms" under consideration is, "Sure, you say we don't need reform, but that's only because you have good insurance. If you didn't, you'd know why we need [a public option/more government regulation of the insurance industry/insert untenable proposal of your choice here]."
If you don't have health insurance, and still believe in a free market, then you don't need my help rebutting this argument. I do, however, have a policy that's quite comprehensive. I have not had a health problem to date that hasn't been paid for largely by my insurance company. When I was in the ER a few years ago with a fainting fit, I paid about $500 on a total $4,000 bill. When I developed heel pain during marathon training last year, I paid a $15 copay for each visit I made to the sports medicine specialist or to my physical therapist, and the insurance company took care of the rest. When I had upper respiratory infections earlier this year, I paid my primary care physician $10 and my pharmacy $5 for the generic antibiotics; again, the insurance company paid my doctor the remainder of his fee.
"See," my liberal friends say, "you're lucky because you have good insurance. Why shouldn't everyone else be in that position?"
Well..."good" by whose standards? Not mine.
Back in 2007, I gave a breakdown of why all that coverage is not, in fact, a good deal for me. I am young and in excellent physical condition. I don't smoke, rarely drink, and maintain a healthy weight. So I don't consume a lot of healthcare resources. Even when you add in what my physical therapy last year cost, I (and my employer, on my behalf) have still put much more money into the system than I have gotten out of it. My policy covers all sorts of extras, like addiction counseling and hospice care, that I'm unlikely to use any time soon, if ever. I'd much rather spend a lot less money on a catastrophic-coverage policy, pay for my own anticipated healthcare expenses (like birth control and doctor visits), have some money put away for unanticipated but non-catastrophic expenses (such as last year's physical therapy), and have the catastrophic coverage available for when there is a true emergency. That would be good insurance for me. Instead, I get a cookie-cutter policy -- because the government has, through force, "encouraged" my employer to buy me more coverage than I need at the expense of my salary.
So no, dear liberals, I don't have "good" insurance. I have fairly comprehensive insurance -- but it costs my employer a lot more money than it's worth to me. How is that "good"? A free market would generate more individualized solutions -- one of which would work best for me, another of which would work well for someone with a chronic condition.
And just because I work for an employer that provides me with comprehensive coverage, it doesn't mean that I, or anyone else, owes such coverage to those who can't or won't get it for themselves. There is no right to health insurance, to health care, nor to any good or service that has to be produced by others.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
I promise to blog on the healthcare speech eventually
Right now I can only plead exceptional busyness at work (which will continue tomorrow). I'll try and get to it this weekend!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
I've always thought Medicare should go away...
...and maybe it will in the not too distant future. Buried in this New York Times article about how Democrats seem intent on ramming universal health care down our throats, regardless of the protests, is this statement:
Whether or not Mr. Obama gets the kind of comprehensive bill he is hoping for, Dr. McClellan said, Congress is all but certain to take up health legislation by early next year to fix a measure that would impose a draconian 21 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors.
What on earth does Congress think is going to happen if they do this? Doctors are already unhappy with Medicare reimbursement rates. So maybe Medicare will start to disappear -- because more and more doctors are going to shrug and refuse to accept Medicare patients.
Of course, if that happens, Obama will be quick to denounce such doctors as lacking in the appropriate selfless public spirit. It will be truly chilling if he then tries to introduce legislation requiring doctors to accept Medicare patients.
And, by the way, as to the main point of the NYT article -- I've read a similar analysis elsewhere, that political expediency will cause Democrats, even Blue Dog types, to rally behind their Fearless Leader because of how the party got decimated after HillaryCare was defeated. It's time to reiterate to your senator and representative that it will NOT be politically expedient to inflict this disaster on Americans -- that if universal health care is foisted upon America, you will be voting them out of office.
Whether or not Mr. Obama gets the kind of comprehensive bill he is hoping for, Dr. McClellan said, Congress is all but certain to take up health legislation by early next year to fix a measure that would impose a draconian 21 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors.
What on earth does Congress think is going to happen if they do this? Doctors are already unhappy with Medicare reimbursement rates. So maybe Medicare will start to disappear -- because more and more doctors are going to shrug and refuse to accept Medicare patients.
Of course, if that happens, Obama will be quick to denounce such doctors as lacking in the appropriate selfless public spirit. It will be truly chilling if he then tries to introduce legislation requiring doctors to accept Medicare patients.
And, by the way, as to the main point of the NYT article -- I've read a similar analysis elsewhere, that political expediency will cause Democrats, even Blue Dog types, to rally behind their Fearless Leader because of how the party got decimated after HillaryCare was defeated. It's time to reiterate to your senator and representative that it will NOT be politically expedient to inflict this disaster on Americans -- that if universal health care is foisted upon America, you will be voting them out of office.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Awaiting Der Fuehrer's speech
Tomorrow our Fearless Leader will mount the bully pulpit to address Congress and make another push for healthcare "reform." Lots of negotiation has been going on in the meantime, including a new proposal by Senator Baucus. Baucus's bill, although lacking a "public option," still makes my head want to explode. Let's do a little rephrasing here:
- "The proposal...would impose new fees on some sectors of the health care industry, but none on individuals." Rephrased: The proposal would impose fees insidiously on individuals, because the insurance companies, medical device manufacturers, and clinical labs on which the taxes are imposed would have to pass those costs on to their customers, or else go out of business.
- "The plan, circulating among some committee members of both parties, would also offer the option of lower-cost insurance, with protection only against the costs of catastrophic illnesses, to those 25 and younger." Rephrased: Once you hit the ripe old age of 25, no matter how healthy you are, you will be forced to fund health care for the sick and elderly because you'll have to purchase more coverage than you need or want.
- "In addition, it would provide basic Medicaid coverage to millions of low-income people who are currently ineligible for the program, but the benefits would be less comprehensive than standard Medicaid." Rephrased: Yet another entitlement program is to be enlarged at the expense of the successful.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Pharmacists and their consciences
In his Podcast #78, Dr. Leonard Peikoff addresses a questioner who wants to know whether an Arizona law prohibiting pharmacists from refusing to dispense birth control, condoms, or other contraceptive items is good or bad. Dr. Peikoff's response was that the law is bad -- because no one has the right to use government force to get a merchant to carry or not carry a particular item. Dr. Peikoff says that this is true no matter how badly one needs the item in question -- simply refusing to fill a prescription for contraception is not the same as forcing a woman to have a baby against her will.
I agree with the principle Dr. Peikoff is applying here -- that need, no matter how great, does not trump individual rights. However, I think Dr. Peikoff was answering the question: Should the owner of a pharmacy be required to dispense contraception to anyone who asks? But I'm pretty sure the law in question is intended to protect individual pharmacists who refuse contraception to customers and who also refuse to refer the customer to another pharmacist or pharmacy.
The law should not protect a pharmacist who refuses to dispense contraception from losing his job. If the pharmacy carries birth control pills, condoms, etc., presumably it means for customers to purchase them. A pharmacist who refuses to allow customers to do so is, then, in conflict with his employer's policy, and it is the pharmacy's right to fire him -- or it should be. It's illegal in this country to fire someone on the basis of religious beliefs. That's a violation of rights, but there it is -- and in areas where it is legal for a pharmacist to refuse to dispense contraception, then employers' hands are tied should they hire a religious employee who can then damage the pharmacy's business.
On the one hand, two wrongs don't make a right. On the other hand, it's unlikely that we can get the unjust "anti-discrimination" laws repealed any time soon, and if the government is going to screw someone over, I frankly prefer that it be religious zealots than that it be business owners. So, given that context, is the Arizona law good? I'd like to hear your thoughts, as I haven't worked this one out on my own yet.
PS: I don't plan to drop back to my old (in)frequency of blog posting any time soon -- there's just too much to talk about right now! My week-plus of hiatus simply reflects my having been on vacation. I'll be back to my usual loudmouthed self soon!
I agree with the principle Dr. Peikoff is applying here -- that need, no matter how great, does not trump individual rights. However, I think Dr. Peikoff was answering the question: Should the owner of a pharmacy be required to dispense contraception to anyone who asks? But I'm pretty sure the law in question is intended to protect individual pharmacists who refuse contraception to customers and who also refuse to refer the customer to another pharmacist or pharmacy.
The law should not protect a pharmacist who refuses to dispense contraception from losing his job. If the pharmacy carries birth control pills, condoms, etc., presumably it means for customers to purchase them. A pharmacist who refuses to allow customers to do so is, then, in conflict with his employer's policy, and it is the pharmacy's right to fire him -- or it should be. It's illegal in this country to fire someone on the basis of religious beliefs. That's a violation of rights, but there it is -- and in areas where it is legal for a pharmacist to refuse to dispense contraception, then employers' hands are tied should they hire a religious employee who can then damage the pharmacy's business.
On the one hand, two wrongs don't make a right. On the other hand, it's unlikely that we can get the unjust "anti-discrimination" laws repealed any time soon, and if the government is going to screw someone over, I frankly prefer that it be religious zealots than that it be business owners. So, given that context, is the Arizona law good? I'd like to hear your thoughts, as I haven't worked this one out on my own yet.
PS: I don't plan to drop back to my old (in)frequency of blog posting any time soon -- there's just too much to talk about right now! My week-plus of hiatus simply reflects my having been on vacation. I'll be back to my usual loudmouthed self soon!
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