4 ms·

The first country that does that, I'm going to move to and make a $1,000,000 treatment that doesn't work and wait for the first idiot to get the government to p

The first country that does that, I'm going to move to and make a $1,000,000 treatment that doesn't work and wait for the first idiot to get the government to pay for it. People need to appreciate how hard fraud is to circumvent in anything where government largesse is involved.

fzeroracer 9y ago
A large amount of countries already exist that do that. Cancer treatments can easily cost that amount depending on the cancer, never mind some of the more esoteric diseases. You argue that it's easy to 'fraud' the government in this case, ignoring the amount of regulation and steps that have to be taken in order for a treatment to actually be put into practice. And you conveniently ignored my point on how what you suggested is essentially advocating for people to die if a treatment is too expensive.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  You're not getting my point. I never said governments shouldn't pay for medical care. I'm saying there's a line where it needs to stop, and asking where it should be drawn. Sure, let's pay for cancer treatments. How much, exactly? I posited a hypothetical scenario, which can get extremely real if we start looking at real situations of benefits fraud, and asked you how we should deal with that. Are you really saying that the government should just pay whatever I want to charge for my service that doesn't work? If it does work, can I charge the government whatever I want to provide it? What you're not understanding here is that this, and every other example of asking the government to do things, is manipulable by humans and thus is an adversarial process. Because the government isn't God, it doesn't have truly unlimited resources.
  - fzeroracer 9y ago
    Your question posits a scenario that is fairly rare, and assumes that it's common enough that it's an issue. You again ignored my direct rebuttal in the parent comment as well, which was that there is large amounts of regulation that goes into making sure that a treatment actually works and is effective. The original argument was never about 'should the government pay for fringe treatment that is not confirmed to work' but rather 'should the government pay for people who have fringe diseases or issues'. Your hypothetical scenarios and arguments have been drifting from the latter and into the former.

fzeroracer 9y ago

A large amount of countries already exist that do that. Cancer treatments can easily cost that amount depending on the cancer, never mind some of the more esoteric diseases. You argue that it's easy to 'fraud' the government in this case, ignoring the amount of regulation and steps that have to be taken in order for a treatment to actually be put into practice. And you conveniently ignored my point on how what you suggested is essentially advocating for people to die if a treatment is too expensive.

vinceguidry 9y ago
You're not getting my point. I never said governments shouldn't pay for medical care. I'm saying there's a line where it needs to stop, and asking where it should be drawn. Sure, let's pay for cancer treatments. How much, exactly? I posited a hypothetical scenario, which can get extremely real if we start looking at real situations of benefits fraud, and asked you how we should deal with that. Are you really saying that the government should just pay whatever I want to charge for my service that doesn't work? If it does work, can I charge the government whatever I want to provide it? What you're not understanding here is that this, and every other example of asking the government to do things, is manipulable by humans and thus is an adversarial process. Because the government isn't God, it doesn't have truly unlimited resources.
- fzeroracer 9y ago
  Your question posits a scenario that is fairly rare, and assumes that it's common enough that it's an issue. You again ignored my direct rebuttal in the parent comment as well, which was that there is large amounts of regulation that goes into making sure that a treatment actually works and is effective. The original argument was never about 'should the government pay for fringe treatment that is not confirmed to work' but rather 'should the government pay for people who have fringe diseases or issues'. Your hypothetical scenarios and arguments have been drifting from the latter and into the former.