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Your focus on universal healthcare is understandable, but misguided. America has more doctors and more hospital beds per capita than Europe does. This is one o

Your focus on universal healthcare is understandable, but misguided. America has more doctors and more hospital beds per capita than Europe does. This is one of the reasons that Europe has seen more coronavirus cases and more deaths per capita than America - their healthcare system is starved for resources. I am in no way claiming that the American healthcare system is perfect, but I don't see universal healthcare as a panacea, because we are seeing in real time that it is not. As far as what my stance on healthcare is: I think healthcare is a unique market where there is rarely the ability for you as the patient to make an informed decision about your medical care. In other words, a free market approach is not entirely feasible. I think a system similar to our school system would be ideal: publicly operated hospitals available for little to no charge, with the freedom to start a private hospital that has to compete with the public ones. This would mean high quality care at reasonable prices all around. This has always been my stance. I've met libertarians who agree and disagree with me, but I can defend my stance using libertarian "first principles". So I think it's fair to call it "true libertarian" philosophy. A libertarian is not a republican, and a libertarian is not an anarchist. A libertarian simply believes that individual rights should be protected. That should not be such a controversial statement.

DonHopkins 7y ago
Democrats believe individual rights should be protected too. It isn't a controversial statement, and libertarians don't have a monopoly on that, despite their straw man mischaracterizations of other political parties, and their mistaken but fanatical belief that health care and access to education aren't individual rights worth protecting. Your replies are full of other gross mischaracterizations and misstatements of fact, but I won't fall for the old Gish Gallop. But most noticeably, you don't contest the fact that Rand Paul has made his career fighting tooth and nail against universal health care and sabotaging and dismantling Obamacare and fucking over people with pre-existing conditions, and that he is a hypocritical menace to society for downplaying the risk of Coronavirus, while as a trained physician exposed to a highly contagious virus, knowingly, cruelly, and heartlessly spreading it himself FOR A WEEK, right? Which perfectly fits the libertarian stereotype. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/rand-paul-coronavirus-test-reckless/608593/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/rand-pa... >Rand Paul Has More Than a Cold >The senator from Kentucky was worried enough to get tested. But while he waited for the results, he kept going to work, the gym, and the pool. >By inadvertently spreading the coronavirus around the U.S. Capitol for at least a week, Rand Paul has turned the world’s greatest deliberative body into the nation’s highest-profile vector for the spread of the pandemic. >The senator from Kentucky was worried enough about being exposed to the virus that he got a still-hard-to-obtain test for it. But while he was waiting for the results, he decided to keep showing up to the Senate. He went to group lunches with his Republican colleagues, took the Capitol elevators, talked with reporters, and worked out in the somehow-still-open Senate gym. Yesterday morning, he was doing laps in the pool there. >[...] There’s no question that Paul got special treatment. He got a test that others want and can’t get, and he got it despite having no symptoms—something the president has explicitly said people shouldn’t be doing. He got it as a United States senator, which means that he got it on a taxpayer-funded government health-care plan. Everyone else, including those who might be fighting for a ventilator in the coming weeks, can wait. Now what were you saying about the stereotype of libertarians not being fair?
fignews 7y ago
> America has more doctors and more hospital beds per capita than Europe does. This is one of the reasons that Europe has seen more coronavirus cases and more deaths per capita than America - their healthcare system is starved for resources. Judging from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospita... your assertion is false.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what I meant by "Gish Gallop"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop More telling is how reluctant he is to defend Rand Paul's indefensible and stereotypically libertarian antics, how not once has he mentioned his name, and how he pretends he didn't read anything about him I wrote.

DonHopkins 7y ago

Democrats believe individual rights should be protected too. It isn't a controversial statement, and libertarians don't have a monopoly on that, despite their straw man mischaracterizations of other political parties, and their mistaken but fanatical belief that health care and access to education aren't individual rights worth protecting. Your replies are full of other gross mischaracterizations and misstatements of fact, but I won't fall for the old Gish Gallop. But most noticeably, you don't contest the fact that Rand Paul has made his career fighting tooth and nail against universal health care and sabotaging and dismantling Obamacare and fucking over people with pre-existing conditions, and that he is a hypocritical menace to society for downplaying the risk of Coronavirus, while as a trained physician exposed to a highly contagious virus, knowingly, cruelly, and heartlessly spreading it himself FOR A WEEK, right? Which perfectly fits the libertarian stereotype. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/rand-paul-coronavirus-test-reckless/608593/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/rand-pa... >Rand Paul Has More Than a Cold >The senator from Kentucky was worried enough to get tested. But while he waited for the results, he kept going to work, the gym, and the pool. >By inadvertently spreading the coronavirus around the U.S. Capitol for at least a week, Rand Paul has turned the world’s greatest deliberative body into the nation’s highest-profile vector for the spread of the pandemic. >The senator from Kentucky was worried enough about being exposed to the virus that he got a still-hard-to-obtain test for it. But while he was waiting for the results, he decided to keep showing up to the Senate. He went to group lunches with his Republican colleagues, took the Capitol elevators, talked with reporters, and worked out in the somehow-still-open Senate gym. Yesterday morning, he was doing laps in the pool there. >[...] There’s no question that Paul got special treatment. He got a test that others want and can’t get, and he got it despite having no symptoms—something the president has explicitly said people shouldn’t be doing. He got it as a United States senator, which means that he got it on a taxpayer-funded government health-care plan. Everyone else, including those who might be fighting for a ventilator in the coming weeks, can wait. Now what were you saying about the stereotype of libertarians not being fair?

fignews 7y ago

> America has more doctors and more hospital beds per capita than Europe does. This is one of the reasons that Europe has seen more coronavirus cases and more deaths per capita than America - their healthcare system is starved for resources. Judging from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospita... your assertion is false.

DonHopkins 7y ago
Yes, that's exactly what I meant by "Gish Gallop"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop More telling is how reluctant he is to defend Rand Paul's indefensible and stereotypically libertarian antics, how not once has he mentioned his name, and how he pretends he didn't read anything about him I wrote.