Comments on: Don’t Break What’s Working in Health Care: Economist Glen Whitman on Medical Innovation

By: megarational

megarational — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:30 +0000

By the way, you …
By the way, you quoted some “changes” that have occurred over the last 25 years. Why didn’t you mention changes like h.c. insurance premiums continuing to increase faster than wages, or the increases in the number of Americans w/o h.c. insur. , or the change that continues with another 14,000 Americans losing h.c. insurance every day?

By: hsfbunny

hsfbunny — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:29 +0000

A Big Mac is food. …
A Big Mac is food. You need food in order to live.

Don’t eat, you die.

Don’t get a skin cancer treatment, you die.

The market responds to both products exactly the same. They are intrinsically identical.

The free market, and technology has made food incredibly affordable

540 calories for $1 dollar!

Ask a starving African what is more important: a Bic Mac, or a skin cancer treatment.

A starving man will pounce on a Big Mac like it was delivered by God himself!

By: hsfbunny

hsfbunny — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:29 +0000

Oops.. to be more …
Oops.. to be more clear on the last line..

A police officer (gov agent) finds a woman being raped, and kills (delegated gov use of violence) the attacker, the officer has acted virtuously.

By: hsfbunny

hsfbunny — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:29 +0000

Wrong.

You right …
Wrong.

You right to self defense is always virtuous, even when delegated to someone else.

An individual can delegate to government their right to self defense as a third party, to act on their behalf.

Just as small woman would be physically unable to defend herself from a large thug.

She can hire an armed security guard to protect her life/property.

A police officer (gov agent) finds a woman being raped, and kills (delegated gov use of violence) the the attacker is acting virtuously.

By: hsfbunny

hsfbunny — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:29 +0000

Over the past 50 …
Over the past 50 years the government has increasingly regulated, paid for, or incentivized health care.

The correlation is this: government interferes in health care… prices go up.

Prices went up, so government interferes some more.. prices go up again… and on, and on..

This has continued to where we are today.

Smart enough to plan your health care utopia, but too stupid to figure this out?

How about this? Leave me the alone.

Oh but you cant, you needed me to pay for it.

By: hsfbunny

hsfbunny — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:29 +0000

To quote you “save …
To quote you “save money & provide universal access with a single payer system”.

Single payer totally destroys the free market.

So which is it genius?

Single payer, government monopoly?
Highly regulated, what we have today?
Free market, dead seance 1930?

By: megarational

megarational — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:28 +0000

And as to a Big Mac …
And as to a Big Mac, or any other MacDonald burger, being food there is some debate on that.

By: megarational

megarational — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:28 +0000

still haven’t heard …
still haven’t heard your solution.
By the way, Big Mac’s have gotten more expensive as they continued to shrink in size. Irrelevant I know, but irrelevant and simplistic seems to be what you are all about.

By: megarational

megarational — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:28 +0000

And your preferred …
And your preferred solution was what?

By: megarational

megarational — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:23:28 +0000

d) proceed with …
d) proceed with some of the other cost saving measures in the h.c. bills, such as increased focus on preventative care & supplier reimbursements models based on successful treatment of a condition as opposed to the number of tests & procedures done, & (e) continue to study other systems for any aspects that are effective.