As long as you are willing to state for the record that you think spending money on health care is more important than a balanced budget, I am fine with that.
Ok, as long as you're willing to say that you think health care is important enough to tax people for, that is acceptable. I'm not willing to say that, personally, but it's a coherent stance.
Defense from sources outside the country Defense from sources inside the country (policing) Travel and shipping infrastructure Preferential relations for US entities abroad (both individuals and companies) Educational resources ...
We have a solution for that problem, and that solution is private health insurance. Yes, it needs a massive overhaul, but I don't think government control of healthcare is the answer. Nor do I think medicare or medicaid is the answer.
So why tax for the items on your list rather than privatizing them?
Not trying to come off as hostile or aggressive. I am curious about how you see healthcare as being different from education, infrastructure or internal defense. Or at least understand where you see how healthcare benefits from privatization but not the other items on your list.
A national volunteer military is essential for national defense, and replacing it with private mercenary groups would be both inefficient and dangerous. The same is true of police. Education could be privatized, but it would mean an entirely non-standardized education system, which eventually would hurt the country (you want our students, as they enter college, to all be within a general band of ability and knowledge).
For health care, innovation and discovery are important, and thus a revenue motive is important. In addition, to be perfectly honest, unequal medical services should be the norm, as it is impossible to economically provide top medical service to everyone. Therefore, we need a system where you get what you pay for. Sadly, our current system is trying to be mostly equal and still make a profit, which doesn't work.
There are other ways to motivate besides revenue. For instance, public schools systems to innovate and discover new ways to teach, and they are hardly profit driven. They do this when the expectations placed on them are raised (recognizing, of course, that the US educational system still leaves a lot to be desired). And most Universities require tenured professors to continue with research and publication (whether or not the level they are required to do so is another debate
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I should state, for full disclosure, that my compromise position on health care is the public option. A system where truly top-notch care is available for a price, and maintenance care is available for everyone for a modest fee is an acceptable solution for me, even if the modest fee is subsidized by the government for the truly downtrodden.
Profit-driven science works, but it has problems. That puts it basically in the same boat as everything else humans do. :) But consider companies like Intellectual Ventures, who are doing some awesome stuff, and most of it is slated toward improving the world, but it's driven by a revenue motive and venture capital.
So we have overlap in where we are willing to compromise. We probably would quibble on the details of what should and should not be covered under maintenance care. But then give and take, adjustment and evolution are good things in my book. *smiles*
Oh, and realize there is a difference between my ideals of what I would want to see and what I am pragmatically willing to accept as minimum standards *smiles*
So you think privatizing education would hurt the country...but not healthcare? WTF?
You don't think that innovation and discovery are important, too? One of the purported reasons that education is so fucked up is because there's no profit motive for it. Teachers get paid less than they are worth for what they do and how hard they work all day, and there's no incentive to fund educational research. If your argument that standardized education is more important than that (and college freshman are already NOT within a general band of ability and knowledge - and there's a difference between inner city schools and kids from top publics, and there's a reason that the average reading level in the U.S. is an 8th grade one), then why isn't a standard level of health and care important as well?
The problem with private health insurance is that there is no natural market incentive for private insurers to cover the very sick and/or medically risky. If you were a private insurer, what benefit would you get from covering a middle-aged person with diabetes or a young person with HIV? Private health insurance has shown itself not to be a solution on its own (at least not without regulation), because health insurers are more concerned with their bottom line than they are with the health of the people they insure.
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Defense from sources outside the country
Defense from sources inside the country (policing)
Travel and shipping infrastructure
Preferential relations for US entities abroad (both individuals and companies)
Educational resources
...
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What sense is paying for all of those other things if everyone in your country is sick and dying?
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Not trying to come off as hostile or aggressive. I am curious about how you see healthcare as being different from education, infrastructure or internal defense. Or at least understand where you see how healthcare benefits from privatization but not the other items on your list.
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For health care, innovation and discovery are important, and thus a revenue motive is important. In addition, to be perfectly honest, unequal medical services should be the norm, as it is impossible to economically provide top medical service to everyone. Therefore, we need a system where you get what you pay for. Sadly, our current system is trying to be mostly equal and still make a profit, which doesn't work.
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Profit-driven science works, but it has problems. That puts it basically in the same boat as everything else humans do. :) But consider companies like Intellectual Ventures, who are doing some awesome stuff, and most of it is slated toward improving the world, but it's driven by a revenue motive and venture capital.
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Interesting company. Thank you for the link.
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You don't think that innovation and discovery are important, too? One of the purported reasons that education is so fucked up is because there's no profit motive for it. Teachers get paid less than they are worth for what they do and how hard they work all day, and there's no incentive to fund educational research. If your argument that standardized education is more important than that (and college freshman are already NOT within a general band of ability and knowledge - and there's a difference between inner city schools and kids from top publics, and there's a reason that the average reading level in the U.S. is an 8th grade one), then why isn't a standard level of health and care important as well?
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