Total brain fart on my part. Subways are often overcrowded and that was in my head, so I was thinking about congestion on the subways, not the roads. I feel dumb now.
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Thing is: government is involved in paying for healthcare. If weāre going to have that, it arguably follows that the government have flexibility in seeking to control the costs.
Well, maybe government shouldnāt be involved in healthcare.
Healthcare is one of those classic cases where the individual is too powerless and the companies (hospitals and insurance) are too powerful for a free market to work.
And in some cases, the individual is stupid (why buy insurance when Iām healthy kind of stupid)
Still, I doubt investing in a few government run groceries is going to make anyone eat more healthy
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As a Canadian, thatās not the driver.
The driver here is that people should have a fundamental human right to healthcare. Even arguably, equal healthcare for all. Maybe thatās too Canadian though.
Not really interested in hearing arguments from people who think healthcare isnāt a fundamental human right. My mindās kinda made up on that.
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Why not?
If healthcare is a fundamental human right, and you are the only person who has the genetic material to donate a kidney to a stranger, should you be made to donate the kidney to the stranger?
Suppose the stranger is not a sympathetic one (didnāt work even when they were able to, or maybe shoplifted a bunch of times as an able bodied adult, or maybe both)
Just a fun question
Or suppose that with a 90% tax rate they could provide enough medical care to prolong peopleās lives to age 140, but people would still be mostly infirm and have low quality of life, would you agree to such a deal?
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I donāt believe healthcare is a fundamental right. Itās a product, and must be paid for like any other.
Itās a utility, and like other utilities only works well when government regulates it
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Among other things I donāt think we will simply let children and babies die, so I think the government would need to be involved that much. Otherwise maybe we could let it be private.
It would be pretty weird if adults were frequently dying from lack of money, though I suppose no weirder than people dying of measles.
For old people, sure, but I think your argument is far more compelling in a place like the UK where you could make an actuarial case for some offsetting savings. I think in the US thatād be pretty slim considering we only like universal healthcare if youāre old.
Medicaid and ACA premium subsidies are a thingā¦and even if the focus were just on Medicare, that is a not-insignificant expense, and dietary decisions made early in life have a profound impact on whether you have chronic, expensive health conditions when you reach Medicare eligibility.
Iāll admit that I might be a bit more sensitive on this point because the concern my inner libertarian has with government involvement in healthcare funding is a belief that such involvement invites government involvement in private life due to incentives created by virtue of expense management.
Yes, government should be as small as possible. People are far too accepting of the government parenting them.
Not to say we canāt have reasonable exceptions but the default position should be power rests with the people.
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Mamdani had told this story about how after 9/11, his aunt was too scared to ride the subway because she wore a hijab, and thought sheād be attacked.
This was looked into. He has only one aunt, and she lived in Tanzania at that time. Pictures of her show that she doesnāt wear a hijab. So he made it up.
When confronted about this, he now claims that he was talking about his fatherās cousin, but he declined to provide a name.
This is the guy who claims to be a ātruth-tellerā who is taking on the establishment. Heās just a lying sack of **** like all other politicians.
I read that Iran doesnāt have a kidney shortage because people were allowed to sell their kidneys there.
There are many things wrong with Iran, but lack of kidneys isnāt one of them.
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Gonna get me a slice of Cosa Nostra Pizza delivered promptly by a deliverator.
Do you share that view with respect to education through high school?
Aunt, or auntie, because auntie is a very loose term.
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Urdu for example has five different words for aunt depending on the particular relationship.
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Iām fine with providing services to children and disabled folks, who canāt provide for themselves. Re: education, basic skills, absolutely, because that enables folks to earn a living when theyāre older. But things like free college, that were a huge cause for a while? Absolutely not. Iām not even a big fan of government sponsored loans for college degrees, which often turn out to be useless. Iād much prefer that these go towards trade schools, so that people learn skills that are actually useful.