5 ms·

Hard reality: a thing is worth exactly what another is willing to pay for it.

abstractbill 14y ago
In which case, a cure for any terminal condition is worth an infinite amount of money given that people would, if you required them to, generally give you all of their money and any more that they could borrow, beg, or steal.
- coldtea 14y ago
  Exactly. And if left to the "the market should be totally free / now give the banks a state bailout and use the state military to ensure we get cheap resources from abroad" proponents that's exactly what would happen.
  - AutoCorrect 14y ago
    and if left to "we should all be treated fairly/you have to pay for MY health care" proponents would mean ... sorry, what was the question again? Nope, didn't add to the argument at all...
    - derleth 14y ago
      > we should all be treated fairly/you have to pay for MY health care How about "we should all be treated fairly/you have to pay for MY military"? Is that fair?
      - AutoCorrect 14y ago
        actually, it is. What is not good is the use being made of the military by the former and current CIC's.
        derleth 14y ago
        > actually, it is. Why is a socialized military fair when a socialized healthcare system would not be?
    - coldtea 14y ago
      Well, I'm not for "you have to pay for MY health care". I'm for: "you have to pay to build a sustainable health care system that encompasses the whole of society, including YOUR health care, and I don't care if you are a rich prick who doesn't care about others".
      - AutoCorrect 14y ago
        you mean, you're for enforced servitude. I get it - slavery is back in style, because that's what it is when you take from one person to give to another, no matter what the relative positions of the two persons are.
        derleth 14y ago
        Enforced servitude is when I'm forced to work to make money to fund your military.
        coldtea 14y ago
        >you mean, you're for enforced servitude. No, I'm for democracy with the full original meaning of the word (as in ancient Athens), which includes a full list of obligations from each and every citizen to his city-state and all of his fellow citizens. The word for individual that didn't want to contribute to their state, in ancient Athens, was "idiot" (literally: private), and it meant both the "private citizen" (a citizen involved only in his private affairs) and the imbecile. That's where we got the word "idiot" from, and I find it very appropriate. >I get it - slavery is back in style, because that's what it is when you take from one person to give to another, no matter what the relative positions of the two persons are. No, it very much matters what the relative positions of the two persons are. It makes all the difference in the world. For example, the rich slave owners in the South should not just have their slaves freed. They should also have had to share their estate between their slaves (the very persons that were the unpaid source of his wealth until then). That way we wouldn't have to wait until 1950 to end segregation, nor we would have the problem of piss poor black families going forward (and the crime that goes with that), or Jim Crow laws.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  It's the "steal" option which is causing much consternation.
  - derleth 14y ago
    I will consider it theft if and when the government stops using MY money to fund YOUR military.
coldtea 14y ago
Harder reality: with collective political action (including lawmaking) you can force anyone to provide you the same service for less that what he asks (if the raw cost of the service permits it). And some services --like health-- are so crucial for the community and human dignity that they shouldn't even be left unregulated outside mass democractic control in the first place. The same way we don't let the "market decide" what drugs are OK to be sold (e.g by letting the people "freely" choose to buy some experimental or dangerous snake-oil stuff).
OGinparadise 14y ago
Hard reality: a thing is worth exactly what another is willing to pay for it. How about putting a gun to the doctors forehead and demanding free treatment for my loved one? Oh wait, there is a state and there are laws, we're not exactly a Wild, Wild West. Some laws regulate certain things, medical care can be one of them
- rayiner 14y ago
  Pretty much. People too easily forget that the most basic human freedoms are not life and property. Those are creatures of law. The most basic human freedoms are the innate right of every animal to kill what it can and take what it wants.
  - dctoedt 14y ago
    Change that to "... the innate right of every animal to try to kill what it can and take what it wants" and you're spot on. And that of course is a big advantage of law (and custom): We don't get into these contests of brute force quite so much.
rosser 14y ago
Being willing to pay a certain price is not the same as being coerced — if not extorted — into paying that price. "Pay $X or you'll die" isn't about willingness.
derleth 14y ago
> Hard reality: a thing is worth exactly what another is willing to pay for it. Harder reality: I'm willing to pay precisely zero dollars American for the military.
rodgerd 14y ago
That's funny, because pretty much every other OECD country pays less for healthcare and, by every objective metric, gets better results. But most other OECD countries haven't confused "paying for insurance" with "paying for healthcare", either.
jlarocco 14y ago
On almost any other topic I'd be the first to agree with you. But people aren't buying this kind of medical care voluntarily, and that throws a lot of capitalist idealism out the window. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why normal supply and demand aren't quite applicable for medical care. Imagine a person having an accident that injures them and knocks them unconscious. They don't pick the ambulance service, they don't pick the hospital they go to, they don't pick which doctors work on them, etc. But they still get the bill for all of it.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  > But people aren't buying this kind of medical care voluntarily, ... The subject of the article most certainly did choose M.D. Anderson voluntarily. That hospital is famous as a spare-no-expense luxury resort institution. They could certainly have gone an oncologist in any large city and got treatment that was nearly as good.
- danielweber 14y ago
  I use that ambulance example myself. It's a pretty good visualization of why we can't put all of the health care system under a free market. However, there are parts of it that can be. (And even for the instances where you really have no choice, price visibility could still provide some cost containment.)

In which case, a cure for any terminal condition is worth an infinite amount of money given that people would, if you required them to, generally give you all of their money and any more that they could borrow, beg, or steal.

coldtea 14y ago
Exactly. And if left to the "the market should be totally free / now give the banks a state bailout and use the state military to ensure we get cheap resources from abroad" proponents that's exactly what would happen.
- AutoCorrect 14y ago
  and if left to "we should all be treated fairly/you have to pay for MY health care" proponents would mean ... sorry, what was the question again? Nope, didn't add to the argument at all...
  - derleth 14y ago
    > we should all be treated fairly/you have to pay for MY health care How about "we should all be treated fairly/you have to pay for MY military"? Is that fair?
    - AutoCorrect 14y ago
      actually, it is. What is not good is the use being made of the military by the former and current CIC's.
      - derleth 14y ago
        > actually, it is. Why is a socialized military fair when a socialized healthcare system would not be?
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Well, I'm not for "you have to pay for MY health care". I'm for: "you have to pay to build a sustainable health care system that encompasses the whole of society, including YOUR health care, and I don't care if you are a rich prick who doesn't care about others".
    - AutoCorrect 14y ago
      you mean, you're for enforced servitude. I get it - slavery is back in style, because that's what it is when you take from one person to give to another, no matter what the relative positions of the two persons are.
      - derleth 14y ago
        Enforced servitude is when I'm forced to work to make money to fund your military.
      - coldtea 14y ago
        >you mean, you're for enforced servitude. No, I'm for democracy with the full original meaning of the word (as in ancient Athens), which includes a full list of obligations from each and every citizen to his city-state and all of his fellow citizens. The word for individual that didn't want to contribute to their state, in ancient Athens, was "idiot" (literally: private), and it meant both the "private citizen" (a citizen involved only in his private affairs) and the imbecile. That's where we got the word "idiot" from, and I find it very appropriate. >I get it - slavery is back in style, because that's what it is when you take from one person to give to another, no matter what the relative positions of the two persons are. No, it very much matters what the relative positions of the two persons are. It makes all the difference in the world. For example, the rich slave owners in the South should not just have their slaves freed. They should also have had to share their estate between their slaves (the very persons that were the unpaid source of his wealth until then). That way we wouldn't have to wait until 1950 to end segregation, nor we would have the problem of piss poor black families going forward (and the crime that goes with that), or Jim Crow laws.
ctdonath 14y ago
It's the "steal" option which is causing much consternation.
- derleth 14y ago
  I will consider it theft if and when the government stops using MY money to fund YOUR military.

coldtea 14y ago

Harder reality: with collective political action (including lawmaking) you can force anyone to provide you the same service for less that what he asks (if the raw cost of the service permits it). And some services --like health-- are so crucial for the community and human dignity that they shouldn't even be left unregulated outside mass democractic control in the first place. The same way we don't let the "market decide" what drugs are OK to be sold (e.g by letting the people "freely" choose to buy some experimental or dangerous snake-oil stuff).

OGinparadise 14y ago

Hard reality: a thing is worth exactly what another is willing to pay for it. How about putting a gun to the doctors forehead and demanding free treatment for my loved one? Oh wait, there is a state and there are laws, we're not exactly a Wild, Wild West. Some laws regulate certain things, medical care can be one of them

rayiner 14y ago
Pretty much. People too easily forget that the most basic human freedoms are not life and property. Those are creatures of law. The most basic human freedoms are the innate right of every animal to kill what it can and take what it wants.
- dctoedt 14y ago
  Change that to "... the innate right of every animal to try to kill what it can and take what it wants" and you're spot on. And that of course is a big advantage of law (and custom): We don't get into these contests of brute force quite so much.

rosser 14y ago

Being willing to pay a certain price is not the same as being coerced — if not extorted — into paying that price. "Pay $X or you'll die" isn't about willingness.

derleth 14y ago

> Hard reality: a thing is worth exactly what another is willing to pay for it. Harder reality: I'm willing to pay precisely zero dollars American for the military.

rodgerd 14y ago

That's funny, because pretty much every other OECD country pays less for healthcare and, by every objective metric, gets better results. But most other OECD countries haven't confused "paying for insurance" with "paying for healthcare", either.

jlarocco 14y ago

On almost any other topic I'd be the first to agree with you. But people aren't buying this kind of medical care voluntarily, and that throws a lot of capitalist idealism out the window. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why normal supply and demand aren't quite applicable for medical care. Imagine a person having an accident that injures them and knocks them unconscious. They don't pick the ambulance service, they don't pick the hospital they go to, they don't pick which doctors work on them, etc. But they still get the bill for all of it.

Daniel_Newby 14y ago
> But people aren't buying this kind of medical care voluntarily, ... The subject of the article most certainly did choose M.D. Anderson voluntarily. That hospital is famous as a spare-no-expense luxury resort institution. They could certainly have gone an oncologist in any large city and got treatment that was nearly as good.
danielweber 14y ago
I use that ambulance example myself. It's a pretty good visualization of why we can't put all of the health care system under a free market. However, there are parts of it that can be. (And even for the instances where you really have no choice, price visibility could still provide some cost containment.)