4 ms·
It's telling that people aren't willing to contend with the corollary of "free education" and "free healthcare": limited capacity. Edit: I should probably me
by omginternets 3y ago
It's telling that people aren't willing to contend with the corollary of "free education" and "free healthcare": limited capacity.
Edit: I should probably mention that I'm generally in favor of state-funded education, for a variety of reasons.
- owenmarshall 3y agoHealthcare capacity in the US is a function of your ability to pay for it. We contend with limited supply today, we just kick the limited supply to groups of people who by and large aren't posting on this website.
- omginternets 3y agoYes... I agree. I'm not sure what your point is?
- owenmarshall 3y agoWhen I've heard this argument advanced before, it's had the subtext that "limited capacity is not a problem today but becomes one in other contexts" I made the assumption that's what you were hinting at.
- omginternets 3y agoAh, I see. No, my point is rather that countries with public education/healthcare/etc have historically restricted access to these services in some reasonable way. For instance, you can only pursue one degree on the state's dime in France. Or, you can't access public healthcare if you are not a legal immigrant. Things like that.
- BobaFloutist 3y agoWhy does it work in other countries? I know we have a larger population, but surely that applies just as much to our ability to scale up supply as it does to the inherent increase in demand? The United States is uniquely bad at covering the costs of health care and education, compared to its economic peers. Why is that?
- omginternets 3y ago>Why does it work in other countries? Of course it works in other countries; public education, like public healthcare, is an extremely good idea. This having been said, there are currently heated debates in most of Western Europe about the economic feasibility of educating every citizen to a post-secondary level, let alone every immigrant. Moreover, in France (the European country I know best), you are generally permitted to obtain one state-funded degree, and not two. The point here is simply that a discussion of publicly-funded higher education has to be accompanied by some discussion of limitations.
- elteto 3y agoWe definitely need a complete overhaul of the US health system, but we don't just "have a larger population". The largest countries in Europe by population (after Russia) are Turkey and Germany with with 85M and 84M, respectively. The US has 331M. That is almost ~4x! When we say it works in other countries, most of the time we are referring to Europe. And most countries in Europe are tiny in comparison. The US is the 3rd largest country by population. This is not to say that the US problems are unsolvable, but they will definitely require unique solutions.
- BobaFloutist 3y agoSure, I agree that they will require unique solutions, but the general trend of economies of scale providing efficiency benefits suggests to me that the biggest problems are political rather than logistical.
- djur 3y agoPublic universities in the US do have admission requirements and yearly admission limits. I'm not sure where this idea that they don't comes from.