5 ms·

> Imagine all the things we could get done if people donated only 1/3 of what our taxes currently are, and we just shit-canned the notion of taxes. About a thi

> Imagine all the things we could get done if people donated only 1/3 of what our taxes currently are, and we just shit-canned the notion of taxes. About a third as much, and this is assuming that people actually donate that much, which as a rule they don't, not even where people don't pay taxes.

mothballed 1y ago
Even if they paid private enterprises and didn't donate, they could recreate much of government functions, this time not under a monopoly with a captive buyer. I presume many people would want many of those services even if they chose to buy rather than donate them.
- notahacker 1y ago
  You tried that with healthcare. Turns out lots of people want to buy it, it just costs a large multiple of what everyone else in the world pay because actually a bunch of private sector middlemen doing the same adminstrative roles the government does isn't automatically more efficient.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    We did not try eliminating government from healthcare. In fact many of the high cost of private payments arise from regulation or a tragedy of the commons situation introduced by government (i.e. ER required to take everyone but with no answer how to pay).
    - notahacker 1y ago
      Even if we just let the pesky poors die, the US healthcare system would still be more expensive on a per use basis than the rest of the world. Now sure, the absolute amount spent would probably be lower if we just assumed that people that couldn't produce paperwork to prove they could fund their ER visit didn't deserve to live. If you prefer zero taxes and zero life expectancy for anyone unfortunate enough to need lifesaving treatment they can't afford, that's a perfectly valid preference. It's just intellectually dishonest to frame an argument that it's inefficient to let poor people live as an argument everyone would get more care if it wasn't for the pesky government paying for it.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        Wait which is it. We have a "private" system where we save "the pesky" poor and regulate licensing, insurance, provide medicare/medicaid, have a quasi-public system for ER where private payers fund those who won't pay, or we don't? You just switched entirely to some soap box about why we actually do have a bastardized private-public system and then damned me for pointing out the very false basis that you presumed because it was "intellectually dishonest" for me to point out your argument was intellectually dishonest. Your premise was we have some kind of private system; my thesis is the uncovered poor would be better off with that than whatever it is we have now where they can maybe go to the ER "free" but otherwise pay a gazillion dollars in regulatory and other imposed costs if they actually try to get some prophylaxis. If you want to say universal healthcare could be better than whatever we have now -- sure I won't disagree with that. Right now we have about the worst imaginable public-private bastardized system replete with deep regulatory capture. >If you prefer zero taxes and zero life expectancy for anyone unfortunate enough to need lifesaving treatment they can't afford, that's a perfectly valid preference ... this is not my thesis at all, as you're relying on "can't afford" being at the level it is now where the poor are being billed for all manner of things they wouldn't be in an actually private free market and you're also relying an an absurd premise there will be no charity or any other options for them. For instance, in the Philippines I could just walk into a private pharmacy and buy penicillin essentially no questions asked to treat strep throat on the private market for ~half a day's local wages. (Yes Philippines have public healthcare and hospitals but you're not gonna get that meaningfully in some rural barangay). In USA it takes me 1-2 days wages to treat strep throat because I must go to a doctor to write me magic piece of paper that say I will not go in a cage for having a prescription drug, pay all his regulatory overhead, pay regulatory overhead for a lab, then go to a highly regulated pharmacist and then buy my antibiotics from probably the highest-barrier industry in the US through an anointed company and supply chain blessed by the government. I am much better off having cheap, but non-free antibiotics to treat strep than having to wait until it becomes Scarlet Fever and going to the ER for "free" or being taxed into oblivion to get "free" antibiotics that are then administered in the most bloated and uncompetitive way by government to the point I give up other necessities to pay the tax.
        1y ago

mothballed 1y ago

Even if they paid private enterprises and didn't donate, they could recreate much of government functions, this time not under a monopoly with a captive buyer. I presume many people would want many of those services even if they chose to buy rather than donate them.

notahacker 1y ago
You tried that with healthcare. Turns out lots of people want to buy it, it just costs a large multiple of what everyone else in the world pay because actually a bunch of private sector middlemen doing the same adminstrative roles the government does isn't automatically more efficient.
- mothballed 1y ago
  We did not try eliminating government from healthcare. In fact many of the high cost of private payments arise from regulation or a tragedy of the commons situation introduced by government (i.e. ER required to take everyone but with no answer how to pay).
  - notahacker 1y ago
    Even if we just let the pesky poors die, the US healthcare system would still be more expensive on a per use basis than the rest of the world. Now sure, the absolute amount spent would probably be lower if we just assumed that people that couldn't produce paperwork to prove they could fund their ER visit didn't deserve to live. If you prefer zero taxes and zero life expectancy for anyone unfortunate enough to need lifesaving treatment they can't afford, that's a perfectly valid preference. It's just intellectually dishonest to frame an argument that it's inefficient to let poor people live as an argument everyone would get more care if it wasn't for the pesky government paying for it.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Wait which is it. We have a "private" system where we save "the pesky" poor and regulate licensing, insurance, provide medicare/medicaid, have a quasi-public system for ER where private payers fund those who won't pay, or we don't? You just switched entirely to some soap box about why we actually do have a bastardized private-public system and then damned me for pointing out the very false basis that you presumed because it was "intellectually dishonest" for me to point out your argument was intellectually dishonest. Your premise was we have some kind of private system; my thesis is the uncovered poor would be better off with that than whatever it is we have now where they can maybe go to the ER "free" but otherwise pay a gazillion dollars in regulatory and other imposed costs if they actually try to get some prophylaxis. If you want to say universal healthcare could be better than whatever we have now -- sure I won't disagree with that. Right now we have about the worst imaginable public-private bastardized system replete with deep regulatory capture. >If you prefer zero taxes and zero life expectancy for anyone unfortunate enough to need lifesaving treatment they can't afford, that's a perfectly valid preference ... this is not my thesis at all, as you're relying on "can't afford" being at the level it is now where the poor are being billed for all manner of things they wouldn't be in an actually private free market and you're also relying an an absurd premise there will be no charity or any other options for them. For instance, in the Philippines I could just walk into a private pharmacy and buy penicillin essentially no questions asked to treat strep throat on the private market for ~half a day's local wages. (Yes Philippines have public healthcare and hospitals but you're not gonna get that meaningfully in some rural barangay). In USA it takes me 1-2 days wages to treat strep throat because I must go to a doctor to write me magic piece of paper that say I will not go in a cage for having a prescription drug, pay all his regulatory overhead, pay regulatory overhead for a lab, then go to a highly regulated pharmacist and then buy my antibiotics from probably the highest-barrier industry in the US through an anointed company and supply chain blessed by the government. I am much better off having cheap, but non-free antibiotics to treat strep than having to wait until it becomes Scarlet Fever and going to the ER for "free" or being taxed into oblivion to get "free" antibiotics that are then administered in the most bloated and uncompetitive way by government to the point I give up other necessities to pay the tax.
      - 1y ago