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The same argument can be used to justify any keeping any sort of zombie business around. The local sawmill has been loss making for years, but shuttering it wou

by gruez 1y ago

The same argument can be used to justify any keeping any sort of zombie business around. The local sawmill has been loss making for years, but shuttering it would mean losing the main source of jobs for the area. That's arguably worse than losing access to healthcare, because most people can survive without access to healthcare, but most can't survive a month without a paycheck. So why not keep it around? Maybe the local/state/federal government should chip in as well to keep it running? Of course, there's probably a reason why the business in question is faltering. Either it's being mismanaged, or the market conditions can't support the business any more. Letting it limp along might be the politically expedient thing, but it doesn't fix the underlying issue. Moreover, in the case of a market issue being the cause, not fixing it means there won't be competitors to take its place, which is basically a way to guarantee a "too big to fail" situation. To be clear, I'm not suggesting the area go without a hospital because the market conditions aren't right, it's that the government should fix the problem with rural hospitals (or whatever) rather than letting a bunch of zombie hospitals limp around.

ceejayoz 1y ago
It’s not that I don’t understand the free market laissez faire position. It’s that I find the position sociopathically tone deaf.
- gruez 1y ago
  >It’s that I find the position sociopathically tone deaf. So is closing down the local sawmill and putting hundreds/thousands out of a job.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    Except this is more like closing every job in an area, and not for lack of demand.
const_cast 1y ago
Healthcare is not, and will never be, a free market. Applying free market dynamics to it just does not work. It's bad reasoning. People are quick to jump to free market reasoning because it's quick, easy, and requires little to no thought or nuance. But step number 1 is you have to prove said market is a free market. And, if it's not, you then have to prove forcing it to be a free market is not only possible, but beneficial for society as a whole. Nobody does that though, because it's hard. So they just hope if they skip the most fundamental part of free market reasoning that nobody would notice. No, we notice.
- mindslight 1y ago
  > People are quick to jump to free market reasoning because it's quick, easy, and requires little to no thought or nuance ... to defend something that is broken, because it assuages their belief in the just world fallacy. I would say that we could actually use more freer market dynamics for many aspects of healthcare. But they need to be appropriately applied to areas where there are specific problems that can actually be fixed with things like more transparency, patient choice, etc - AND NOT in ways that merely justify the existence of problems or even exacerbate them!

by gruez 1y ago

ceejayoz 1y ago

It’s not that I don’t understand the free market laissez faire position. It’s that I find the position sociopathically tone deaf.

gruez 1y ago
>It’s that I find the position sociopathically tone deaf. So is closing down the local sawmill and putting hundreds/thousands out of a job.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  Except this is more like closing every job in an area, and not for lack of demand.

const_cast 1y ago

Healthcare is not, and will never be, a free market. Applying free market dynamics to it just does not work. It's bad reasoning. People are quick to jump to free market reasoning because it's quick, easy, and requires little to no thought or nuance. But step number 1 is you have to prove said market is a free market. And, if it's not, you then have to prove forcing it to be a free market is not only possible, but beneficial for society as a whole. Nobody does that though, because it's hard. So they just hope if they skip the most fundamental part of free market reasoning that nobody would notice. No, we notice.

mindslight 1y ago
> People are quick to jump to free market reasoning because it's quick, easy, and requires little to no thought or nuance ... to defend something that is broken, because it assuages their belief in the just world fallacy. I would say that we could actually use more freer market dynamics for many aspects of healthcare. But they need to be appropriately applied to areas where there are specific problems that can actually be fixed with things like more transparency, patient choice, etc - AND NOT in ways that merely justify the existence of problems or even exacerbate them!