In the discussion of what the government should or shouldn't do, medical coverage is said to not be a necessity.  If it isn't a necessity, what is it?  

Cato Instutite argues that necessity is futile:

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2001/7/morreim.pdf

This will pop up from time to time.  And comes up when people say stuff like, "Why you complaining, you have an emergency room!"

I'm not sure you understood the Cato thing. Medical coverage as a necessity =/= medical necessity.

as you can clearly see from this picture health and body are very unimportant to people.  you can tell by how they put it at the bottom of the list.  what we really need is more religous involvment in our government to bring morality to our people..

This is why I like living in Canada. Taxed up the ass, but hey, free medical care.

I have lived with out healthcare for 15 years now and i haven't had any issues. Never been turned away by a doctor, i am still in good health, I have had all my dental work done. Doesn't seem to be a neccessity for me. I know I can't live with out food, shelter, and water for that long.

It's one of many ways to pay the costs of the necessity - medicine. As with every other necessity (food, shelter, etc) there is cost involved. It just so happens that the existence of insurance and its collaboration with legislation, acts as a deviant monopoly on the medium through which payment for the necessity (healthcare) is made. This allowed doctors to name the price for the service, and to provide UNnecessary treatments and diagnoses in order to get money from the insurance company. In response, insurance companies limited the coverage to just the necessities, and refused to pay anything the doctor wished to be performed. This in turn, inflates the cost of healthcare, and those who do not want health insurance (and wish to pay with cash) are coerced to get health insurance to act as a reasonable payment for the necessity -- healthcare. What Cato is likely arguing, is for a system where insurance is not the primary means to purchase healthcare (much like we don't have food insurance and we use loans and morgages to obtain living property.) Cato wants all of healthcare to be like eyecare, where pricing is subjected to market competition, and consequently doctors and insurance companies can't inflate costs for the various reasons they do. Notice how quickly lasik surgery falls, and how consistenly cheap contact lenses are regardless of whether or not you buy them at walmart or your optrician's office. That's because the market determines pricing and demand, not the insurance industry nor the doctor. Ultimately, Cato would argue that insurance would not exist as a monopoly on the means of payment if government didn't create laws which allows this, and rather than giving government more control we should take away what control is already there, thereby introducing a free market, and making healthcare (a necessity) as affordable as shelter and food.

Basically it's an argument that insurance is not a necessity, while healthcare is.

Giving everyone 100% medical coverage is an impossibility. It's too expensive to do everything to save someones life.  I think pretty much everyone understands that... and there isn't a level where medical care isn't not a necessity.

It's just largely a matter of what you think is most fair.

A system where everyone has access to the same level of care, and anything above that amount that's too expensive is deemed unnecessary, leading to a slowdown and disincentives to medical research.

Or a system where people pay for the level of care they can afford (or can't afford if they care more about their health then going bankrupt) which leads to incentives to medical research and incentives to hospitals and doctors to constantly be upgrading their equipment even when the benefits only add a percentage point or so to survivability while greatly increasing the cost of treatment.


Me, I prefer the second model, in the long run it saves lives. Were we to live in an alternate universe where the US had healthcare like Europe after WW2, I think you'd find healthcare for both Europe and here would be worse off technologically.

While if you go to an alternate universe where Europe matched our healthcare system? Healthcare Technology would be greater. The rich would live a lot longer then the poor, but the poor would likely outlive the average person today.

As it is now... Europe more or less just copies the US technological advances, picking up better models every 4-5 adjustments now.  If the US wasn't buying every adjustment model though?   I imagine we'd find a lot of technology would stangant at "good enough" territory.

The argument CATO would make is that you can stop differentiating when something is or is not a need.  I was trying to reach for one example here, and it was a bit of  a stretch to find something.

And individuals will say that emergency rooms = sufficiency.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_12/027194.php

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001571.htm

What is a medical necessity outside of someone needing medical help?  I don't see anyone say the person has a "BMW necessity".  A BMW is a not a necessity.

My story is, before I was on Medicaid, I was getting free healthcare at a clinic.  I needed surgery on my back.  They were unable to pay for the anastesia. I was about to get Medicaid and then get the surgery paid for.  Without the surgery, I would of been laid up like a cripple for life, unable to work and in pain.  But, because of the delays in getting the surgery done, I likely have permanent nerve damage to my foot (I have numb spot there).  So, I can see you getting basics, but not sure how you would go about getting surgery, if you needed it, following what you follow.

Since obama had been in office i pay more for less coverage...