Do You Think Obama is a Socialist... Do You Care?

[Sqrl]

akuma587 said:

Sqrl said:

I'm not misframing it in the slightest - I'm highlighting the part that concerns me the most, namely the agenda being pushed by liberals for nationalized healthcare.  I would certainly agree there is more to it than what I covered but I wasn't done (as I mentioned in the "(snip)" excerpt) and I don't have to talk about the whole issue to talk about some of it - that rule wasn't in the memo anyways.

In any case, capatalism and free markets are not about peak effeciency at all costs, that would be centralized government planning.  Its about acheiving effeciency through natural selection - a process whereby you might experience enefficient forms and periods but by allowing the market to choose the path forward you acheive effeciency again while avoiding the pitfalls that come with allowing an agenda to shape the market.

This is why the auto-bailout is an affront to capatalism and free markets - the people and the market voted with their dollars to say NO to these corporations and the bailout declares that vote null and void in the name of "saving jobs".  And then the same people decry capatalism - see they had to save those jobs!  It doesn't work!  No - you had to let those jobs go away and let the market set the direction is what you needed to do.

So...why has the healthcare market continued to become more inefficient for the past 50 years?  I don't really see how that is an isolated incident of inefficiency.

And why should the government provide police protection and national defense but not healthcare?  Why should the government require driver's license but not regulate healthcare? 

No one ever said people have a constitutional right to healthcare.  I mean you don't have a constitutional right to wear red t-shirts, eat peanut butter, or drive a Toyota Corolla.  There is nothing that stops the government from taking those rights away and banning that activity.  You are mischaracterizing the debate.

I mean do insurance companies have a constitutional right to drop people from their health plans after they have been paying for 20 years?  Do they have a constitutional right to arbitrarily refuse to offer certain people healthcare?  Do hospitals have a constitutional right to charge people without insurance more money than those with insurance?  Are those rights worth protecting?  Why can't the government take those rights away?

And what does an auto-bailout have anything to do with healthcare?  Why can the government order multi-billion dollar fighter jets but not offer people healthcare?  Doesn't your argument really consist of that you don't want the government to do?

I mean should we just get rid of the Food and Drug Administration and not regulate any food that comes into our borders or is sold in stores?  That's intervention in the free market.  We should just let natural selection weed out the companies who produce tainted food and weed out the consumers who are too stupid to buy the more expensive food and die from it. 

Should we let companies dump toxic waste on people's front lawns?  That's intervention in the free market.  We should weed out those companies by letting angry mobs retaliate against them and punish the people stupid enough to live in those neighborhoods with those companies.

Should we stop printing money and revert to a barter system?  Printing money and having a central bank is intervening in the free market.  We should cut out the middle man and let people trade their goods and services for the goods and services they want.

All of those things make the market more efficient.  So why can the government do those things but not get involved in healthcare?  The Constitution says that the government can regulate interestate commerce.  There is nothing in the Constitution the Founding Fathers drafted that stops them.

If you think the healthcare market is an example of free market practice and non-government interference then we've been living in different realities. Otherwise the healthcare situation is an example of how badly we need a freer market applied there (granted there is no simple uniformity and some areas need to be less controlled while others could use more oversight - but the point is intended on the whole).

The government provides police proctection and national defense because those are explicit powers granted by the constitution.  Healthcare is not.  Whether or not they can or should require a drivers license is not something I've talked about so the point is moot - but comparing the aquisition of a license to exhibit ones proficiency with a vehicle to the instantiation of government run healthcare, or even government involvement in it, is patently absurd.

Yes there are people who believe and advocate healthcare as a right, many of the men and women in congress for example - thus it is very relevant to the discussion and an aspect worth discussing.

The auto-bailout has to do with the free market...as I explicitly stated (ie "This is why...") in the post after you brought up the market and efficiency. .

The rest of your post is sleight of hand, intentional or not.  On the one hand you try to push me into the Laissez-faire corner hoping to get pushback on it so you can use it to come back at me on the "gee whiz why can't government get involved in healthcare" point you've made right after.  The whole point - the fundamental point that I've been making to begin with - is that I'm vehemently opposed to government CONTROLLED healthcare.  At no point have I ever said I was against the government touching it at all.  In fact in my reply to you I made clear my biggest concern on this issue is that of a government run system which IS being pushed by many liberals.  Once the concept of nationalized healthcare is dead and buried by all parties the topic of the bredth and depth of government involvement in various sectors is the next debate, and a vast topic in its own right that I've yet to even address thus far.

Just to clarify:

• Do you think healthcare is a right?
• Do you believe a public option would lead to single payer?

I know you want to push into that aspect of the debate but I'm not heading there until the nationalized option is off the table completely.