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Who expects medicine to be free because they cost nothing to replicate? There is a large group pushing for Health Care to be free. This includes medicine.

dagw 9y ago
Well no. Some people are pushing for health care to be free to the end user. That is something very different.
goseeastarwar 9y ago
Universal health care still costs money, it just comes out of your wallet differently.
- wayn3 9y ago
  For a lot of people, the cost of universal healthcare comes out of other peoples wallets. Germany has arguably the best, but certainly the free-est (in the sense that you are free to choose which doctor to see and what kind of treatment to receive), universal healthcare system. The premiums of almost 40% of the adult population are very close to 0. They don't pay for that. Other folks do. Enjoy those people voting for more free shit.
  - Arizhel 9y ago
    Yes, and Germany has a significantly higher quality of life than the US. You think that's a bad thing somehow?
    - stass 9y ago
      And how did you measure that?
      - wayn3 9y ago
        Thats measured by the fact that we dont have 30 million opioid addicts who turn to hard opioids becaue seeing a doctor is way too expensive.
        favorited 9y ago
        Health insurance cost is not what caused the heroin flood in American streets, though the health care industry certainly played their part. People were seeing doctors who were over-prescribing opiates, making them cheap and readily available. The DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Administration) cracked down and suddenly these highly addictive prescription opiates were severely constrained, which increased demand for cheap heroin. Now heroin has replaced prescriptions as the cheap and readily available opiate.
        wayn3 9y ago
        And why did they over-prescribe opioids? Because getting surgery was prohibitively expensive? Doctors, in general, are doctors because they wanted to be doctors. Some of them may be in it for the money, but if you are really in it for the money, you become a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, not a primary care physician in Buttfuck, Idaho - where all the rural heroin epidemic victims are. Sure, some countries hand out opioids more freely than others, but in spain, Codeine is prescription free. Walk into a pharmacy, say you want codeine, you get codeine. I don't see an opioid epidemic in spain. If ease of access was the driving factor behind opioid abuse, spain should be all about opioid abuse. Codeine may not be the most potent opioid in the universe, but it is what it is. I think its the surgery thing. Because if you fuck up your spine and are in perpetual pain and also cant work anymore which just makes the problem worse because then you cant even afford the morphine, maybe taking the morphine isnt such a bad idea.
        Arizhel 9y ago
        I'm not so sure about the surgery thing. I think it's really depair: in rural places in America, the economy is devastated. It's exactly why Trump was elected: he promised to bring all the jobs back (even though he won't, and can't even if he wanted to). Poorly-educated American ruralites can no longer have a decent quality of life, and frequently can't even find a job. They're not willing to move to the cities, so they get addicted to various drugs instead. You're not seeing it in Europe because you don't have a gigantic portion of your population that's unemployed like we do. (Our official unemployment numbers are complete lies.)
    - wayn3 9y ago
      Thats what irks me about these statements. Nowhere in my post did I even allude to the fact that I may consider this a bad thing. Not remotely. I'm just stating a fact. People get a bunch of welfare. The one thing I do have a problem with is that europe has managed to engineer its population into a situation in which the majority of folks are forced into positions where they can't move out of welfare even if they wanted to, in a reasonable fashion. In my opinion, both healthcare and internet access have achieved utility status.
      - dwaltrip 9y ago
        > Enjoy those people voting for more free shit. This sentence has a ton of negative connotations, so yes you did allude that it may be a bad thing. Sorry, had to call you out.
  - ksk 9y ago
    Too bad for those people, but healthcare is a fundamental human right.
    - wayn3 9y ago
      I agree, but who defines what a fundamental human right is? Healthcare is man made and not universally accessible even in places like the US. What makes it a fundamental human right? The fact that it says so in the constitution of some countries doesn't make it a fundamental human right. Is it a fundamental human right like the fact that you can think whatever you want? Because thats a god given ability that nobody can take away. Healthcare is just a modern luxury. You might call it necessary, but healthcare didnt really exist even 60 years ago. People died of really silly little things just 60 years ago. What makes it fundamental?
      - ksk 9y ago
        >Healthcare is man made and not universally accessible even in places like the US. Yeah, the world sucks in many ways. Good thing we haven't lost our will to fight that. >Healthcare is just a modern luxury. Oh your kid was born with cancer and you're poor? Tough luck, no "luxurious" healthcare for you! >You might call it necessary, but healthcare didnt really exist even 60 years ago. People died of really silly little things just 60 years ago. And 60 years from now, even fewer people are going to die from really silly little things. What isn't a right now, might become a right in the future. We would call that called progress. >What makes it fundamental? Because our evolved brains can contemplate the morality of our actions. A world where health care is a fundamental right is _MORE MORAL_ than a world without. Rights, laws, rules, the constitution, etc are all abstract ideas that we created to serve us. We get to change them at any point to make them more in line with modern expectations.
        xixi77 9y ago
        This is all good, but still -- I am not sure that something that relies on resources provided by other people can be called a "fundamental right": for one, there will always be a question of exactly how much healthcare access is a right. And even if people agree on a number, what if the required resources are not available in the same amount any more? Are people's rights now violated, and if so, by whom?
  - ddingus 9y ago
    Those other folks paying do get the benefit of a well educated, healthy, stable, low crime society. One can look at health care type spending as a cost, or an investment. The cost argument generally boils down to "voting in free shit." From the point of view of those able to pay, it is free to those who aren't. From the point of view of those not paying, they see others getting wealthy, and able to get wealthy for their efforts and a productive, capable society. The investment view boils down to demand, which also presents two ways: One way is demand not backed by liquid dollars. People want and need stuff, but cannot participate in the markets for lack of buying power. The other way is demand backed by liquid dollars, real, effective buying power. The more of the non participating demand there is, and the more it goes unmet, that society experiences generally lower standard of living, instability, higher crime, etc. We want real demand, people able to participate in the markets. Investments in the people do that, which frees dollars for them to spend, and it improves their capability, improving on their ability to produce. You may ask how an economy grows. When people take risks and borrow, banks make new money as the risk is valued. The investments in people help to improve real demand, which lowers risk, increases success. Each success increases the money supply, and that increase is backed by the value created when the risk was taken. In a very real sense, "free shit" is actually a smart investment everyone does benefit from, even those paying.
    - wayn3 9y ago
      You could at least try to be aware of the fact that Keynes' theory is not fact - and should not be presented as such. Forcing someone to pay for someone elses expenses is application of force. "For the greater good" is immoral. Read Harry Potter :D The full, maxed-out tax burden of living in germany approaches 70%. Thats too much. It is immoral, and applies to people who make more than roughly 65k a year. Not a lot of money. And they get to keep 1/3rd of it. People really really don't want to hear that, but the remote freelance economy is coming. Its just software engineers now. Maybe itll be mechanical engineers next. Finance people, really have no reason to be in offices either. Countries will lose the ability to trap us in their tax exploitation schemes and we will leave. I already do. Renegotiate or lose your productive work force. People think germany cant fail. Germany is oh so great with its amazing education system. Volkswagen can't shit out more than 20 electric cars by 2020. It takes approximately one Elon to shit all over everything the German tech sector has achieved in 20 years. Starting a company here? Absolutely not going to happen. Germany is a great place when you're poor. I got approached by a recruiter the other week. I have 11 years of experience across a whole bunch of stuff. I make 200k+ a year contracting, for american companies who value their engineers. This recruiting lady calls me up, wants to recruit me. I play along just for fun. Tell her roughly what I'd consider. Goes back and forth. 3 calls. Comes back with a "salary matrix". Salary matrix says 11 years of experience gets lumped together with 6 years of experience and pays out 46k a year. Please. Germany has a better standard of living? Completely agree. 100%. If you take a look at the entire population, I agree. But to me, personally, there are a lot of places that would love to have me, and shower me in tax rebates and decades of tax free living. They compete for me. And they are winning this fucking war. And I dont know what Germanyi s going to become once its alienated all its engineers. What do all the blue collar folks do when the engineers are gone? I'm not sure. I'm not into politics. I really can't tell you. Only thing I can tell you is that they've lost me. And I really liked it here. But fucking me out of 70% of my money and then being told that I should be grateful for it has lost me. At least show some respect. Even if its for the greater good. You can still appreciate the people who make the greater good possible. And yes, it is 70%. I have done the math. Income tax, social security that I will never benefit from, VAT on top of that and a myriad of smallish taxes and fees and shit amount to roughly that. I understand that theres free education. And I benefitted from that. Sure. But if you assume that I'm going to pay ridiculous amounts of money for 50 years, by choice, just because I was born into a system that is the way it is, sorry, thats not going to happen. If you want to hold that I against me, I'm going to hold against the system that I was forced into military service, which is essentially slavery, and if anyone ever decides to drop a bomb onto germany, I'm expected to act as cannon fodder for the "military".
taneq 9y ago
Pushing for healthcare to be state funded, not free. No-one expects pharmaceutical R&D to be purely philanthropic.

dagw 9y ago

Well no. Some people are pushing for health care to be free to the end user. That is something very different.

goseeastarwar 9y ago

Universal health care still costs money, it just comes out of your wallet differently.

wayn3 9y ago
For a lot of people, the cost of universal healthcare comes out of other peoples wallets. Germany has arguably the best, but certainly the free-est (in the sense that you are free to choose which doctor to see and what kind of treatment to receive), universal healthcare system. The premiums of almost 40% of the adult population are very close to 0. They don't pay for that. Other folks do. Enjoy those people voting for more free shit.
- Arizhel 9y ago
  Yes, and Germany has a significantly higher quality of life than the US. You think that's a bad thing somehow?
  - stass 9y ago
    And how did you measure that?
    - wayn3 9y ago
      Thats measured by the fact that we dont have 30 million opioid addicts who turn to hard opioids becaue seeing a doctor is way too expensive.
      - favorited 9y ago
        Health insurance cost is not what caused the heroin flood in American streets, though the health care industry certainly played their part. People were seeing doctors who were over-prescribing opiates, making them cheap and readily available. The DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Administration) cracked down and suddenly these highly addictive prescription opiates were severely constrained, which increased demand for cheap heroin. Now heroin has replaced prescriptions as the cheap and readily available opiate.
        wayn3 9y ago
        And why did they over-prescribe opioids? Because getting surgery was prohibitively expensive? Doctors, in general, are doctors because they wanted to be doctors. Some of them may be in it for the money, but if you are really in it for the money, you become a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, not a primary care physician in Buttfuck, Idaho - where all the rural heroin epidemic victims are. Sure, some countries hand out opioids more freely than others, but in spain, Codeine is prescription free. Walk into a pharmacy, say you want codeine, you get codeine. I don't see an opioid epidemic in spain. If ease of access was the driving factor behind opioid abuse, spain should be all about opioid abuse. Codeine may not be the most potent opioid in the universe, but it is what it is. I think its the surgery thing. Because if you fuck up your spine and are in perpetual pain and also cant work anymore which just makes the problem worse because then you cant even afford the morphine, maybe taking the morphine isnt such a bad idea.
        Arizhel 9y ago
        I'm not so sure about the surgery thing. I think it's really depair: in rural places in America, the economy is devastated. It's exactly why Trump was elected: he promised to bring all the jobs back (even though he won't, and can't even if he wanted to). Poorly-educated American ruralites can no longer have a decent quality of life, and frequently can't even find a job. They're not willing to move to the cities, so they get addicted to various drugs instead. You're not seeing it in Europe because you don't have a gigantic portion of your population that's unemployed like we do. (Our official unemployment numbers are complete lies.)
  - wayn3 9y ago
    Thats what irks me about these statements. Nowhere in my post did I even allude to the fact that I may consider this a bad thing. Not remotely. I'm just stating a fact. People get a bunch of welfare. The one thing I do have a problem with is that europe has managed to engineer its population into a situation in which the majority of folks are forced into positions where they can't move out of welfare even if they wanted to, in a reasonable fashion. In my opinion, both healthcare and internet access have achieved utility status.
    - dwaltrip 9y ago
      > Enjoy those people voting for more free shit. This sentence has a ton of negative connotations, so yes you did allude that it may be a bad thing. Sorry, had to call you out.
- ksk 9y ago
  Too bad for those people, but healthcare is a fundamental human right.
  - wayn3 9y ago
    I agree, but who defines what a fundamental human right is? Healthcare is man made and not universally accessible even in places like the US. What makes it a fundamental human right? The fact that it says so in the constitution of some countries doesn't make it a fundamental human right. Is it a fundamental human right like the fact that you can think whatever you want? Because thats a god given ability that nobody can take away. Healthcare is just a modern luxury. You might call it necessary, but healthcare didnt really exist even 60 years ago. People died of really silly little things just 60 years ago. What makes it fundamental?
    - ksk 9y ago
      >Healthcare is man made and not universally accessible even in places like the US. Yeah, the world sucks in many ways. Good thing we haven't lost our will to fight that. >Healthcare is just a modern luxury. Oh your kid was born with cancer and you're poor? Tough luck, no "luxurious" healthcare for you! >You might call it necessary, but healthcare didnt really exist even 60 years ago. People died of really silly little things just 60 years ago. And 60 years from now, even fewer people are going to die from really silly little things. What isn't a right now, might become a right in the future. We would call that called progress. >What makes it fundamental? Because our evolved brains can contemplate the morality of our actions. A world where health care is a fundamental right is _MORE MORAL_ than a world without. Rights, laws, rules, the constitution, etc are all abstract ideas that we created to serve us. We get to change them at any point to make them more in line with modern expectations.
      - xixi77 9y ago
        This is all good, but still -- I am not sure that something that relies on resources provided by other people can be called a "fundamental right": for one, there will always be a question of exactly how much healthcare access is a right. And even if people agree on a number, what if the required resources are not available in the same amount any more? Are people's rights now violated, and if so, by whom?
- ddingus 9y ago
  Those other folks paying do get the benefit of a well educated, healthy, stable, low crime society. One can look at health care type spending as a cost, or an investment. The cost argument generally boils down to "voting in free shit." From the point of view of those able to pay, it is free to those who aren't. From the point of view of those not paying, they see others getting wealthy, and able to get wealthy for their efforts and a productive, capable society. The investment view boils down to demand, which also presents two ways: One way is demand not backed by liquid dollars. People want and need stuff, but cannot participate in the markets for lack of buying power. The other way is demand backed by liquid dollars, real, effective buying power. The more of the non participating demand there is, and the more it goes unmet, that society experiences generally lower standard of living, instability, higher crime, etc. We want real demand, people able to participate in the markets. Investments in the people do that, which frees dollars for them to spend, and it improves their capability, improving on their ability to produce. You may ask how an economy grows. When people take risks and borrow, banks make new money as the risk is valued. The investments in people help to improve real demand, which lowers risk, increases success. Each success increases the money supply, and that increase is backed by the value created when the risk was taken. In a very real sense, "free shit" is actually a smart investment everyone does benefit from, even those paying.
  - wayn3 9y ago
    You could at least try to be aware of the fact that Keynes' theory is not fact - and should not be presented as such. Forcing someone to pay for someone elses expenses is application of force. "For the greater good" is immoral. Read Harry Potter :D The full, maxed-out tax burden of living in germany approaches 70%. Thats too much. It is immoral, and applies to people who make more than roughly 65k a year. Not a lot of money. And they get to keep 1/3rd of it. People really really don't want to hear that, but the remote freelance economy is coming. Its just software engineers now. Maybe itll be mechanical engineers next. Finance people, really have no reason to be in offices either. Countries will lose the ability to trap us in their tax exploitation schemes and we will leave. I already do. Renegotiate or lose your productive work force. People think germany cant fail. Germany is oh so great with its amazing education system. Volkswagen can't shit out more than 20 electric cars by 2020. It takes approximately one Elon to shit all over everything the German tech sector has achieved in 20 years. Starting a company here? Absolutely not going to happen. Germany is a great place when you're poor. I got approached by a recruiter the other week. I have 11 years of experience across a whole bunch of stuff. I make 200k+ a year contracting, for american companies who value their engineers. This recruiting lady calls me up, wants to recruit me. I play along just for fun. Tell her roughly what I'd consider. Goes back and forth. 3 calls. Comes back with a "salary matrix". Salary matrix says 11 years of experience gets lumped together with 6 years of experience and pays out 46k a year. Please. Germany has a better standard of living? Completely agree. 100%. If you take a look at the entire population, I agree. But to me, personally, there are a lot of places that would love to have me, and shower me in tax rebates and decades of tax free living. They compete for me. And they are winning this fucking war. And I dont know what Germanyi s going to become once its alienated all its engineers. What do all the blue collar folks do when the engineers are gone? I'm not sure. I'm not into politics. I really can't tell you. Only thing I can tell you is that they've lost me. And I really liked it here. But fucking me out of 70% of my money and then being told that I should be grateful for it has lost me. At least show some respect. Even if its for the greater good. You can still appreciate the people who make the greater good possible. And yes, it is 70%. I have done the math. Income tax, social security that I will never benefit from, VAT on top of that and a myriad of smallish taxes and fees and shit amount to roughly that. I understand that theres free education. And I benefitted from that. Sure. But if you assume that I'm going to pay ridiculous amounts of money for 50 years, by choice, just because I was born into a system that is the way it is, sorry, thats not going to happen. If you want to hold that I against me, I'm going to hold against the system that I was forced into military service, which is essentially slavery, and if anyone ever decides to drop a bomb onto germany, I'm expected to act as cannon fodder for the "military".

taneq 9y ago

Pushing for healthcare to be state funded, not free. No-one expects pharmaceutical R&D to be purely philanthropic.