Brewsters MillionsFollow

Ok, I build a house 4 miles out of town. I want water pumped to my house from the resevior in town. I call the private water company, they lay the line and charge me many dollars and wallah, I have water. Next, someone else builds a house two miles from town but along the same road as me. The new person wants water piped in from the reseviore in town. The guys calls the waterline company, they lay him a line, he pays them, gets his water. Everyone is happy right.

What about when the 10th neighbor builds and wants water. The waterline company will happily lay another line. I mean they're getting a few thousand bucks for each line right. Now we have ten pipes in the ground, all running beneath the same road.

Can you see where having some non-biased, non-profit making third party, stepping in and coordinating some line sharing would be tremendously efficient?

It's really pretty simple. We run our families like little goverments because it's efficient. We have communal meals, and share space, hand-me-down clothes, etc.



Edited, Sep 12th 2008 6:17pm by Elinda

Here's another scenario that points out the unjustness (or freeloader issue).

Same neighborhood. My house 4 miles out of town. My neighbor 2 miles out of town. It snows. I call the private snow plow company.

They say "heck yeah, we can plow your road so you can get into town. It'll cost $50/mile (that's resonable)"

Trying to be efficient, I call my neighbor and ask if he wants to split payment on the first two miles of road. My neighbor tells me, he doesn't plan on going anywhere, doens't need the road plowed, and will not pay a dime.

Ok, well I need the road plowed, so I go ahead and fork out the two-hundred bucks, the plow truck comes through and plows. I jump into my car to drive to town, and lo and behold, there's my tight-wad neighbor driving down the road I just paid to have plowed.

I was referring to the quality of doctors, not the "system." Americans pay more because we receive the best. Doctors come to our schools from around the world to learn and train and stay on the very cutting edge of medicine. Just as in any other field, the closer you get to the best, the more expensive it is. I noticed Canada is even ranked above the U.S. on the list you linked. You should talk with some of the citizens with serious illnesses that require the best treatment and see how they feel about their "free" healthcare.

Your scenario assumes the road is publicly owned, yet the responsiblity to take care of it is not. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either the two people are in an agreement to pay for the road, which should include maintenance such as plowing, fixing potholes, etc. or the road is privately owned. Since the average individual resident does not have the means to own his own road, the road would likely be provided by a private business and would be taken care of by that private business.



I'm sorry, I thought you said:





If someone allows their biological waste onto someone else's property, this would be comparable to poisoning their water. Situations like this are exactly what a government is needed for. Keep in mind I do not advocate anarchy, just capitalism.

Yes, for simplicity sake I did assume the road was publically owned. You think private businesses should own the land, build the roads, and sell us the right to drive on them? Wow, so the hospital (privately owned as you'd like) is over a small mountain of granite from your neighborhood. The road company, not seeing a profit in blasting out a road to the hospital, decides against building it.

Interesting fantasy world you live in.

You think people should be forced to build a road over a mountain because you don't want to move closer to the hospital or go to a closer one? I'm glad I don't live in your world.
Not even our most liberal figure heads would dare to dream so big......yet.

Your vote, even if not for one of the two-party candidates, is not worthless. If an ever increasing percentage of people are voting for a third party, eventually it may become viable.




Edited, Sep 12th 2008 8:24pm by Elinda

So the latter then, gotcha.

Actually, you made a comment towards me first. I pointed out the main theme of Gbaji's post and was curious why the argument needed to go any further. You wanted to start giving scenarios to see if I was going to give consistent arguments and back it up based on the statement I thought had the most relevence from Gbaji. I have been consistent. There is no need to be upset with me just because I do not keep an open mind. I monitor everything that is tossed towards it. If somebody wants to try to put their trash in, I will refute it.

Hate to come off heartless. If this were the case with someone I knew I would do what I could to help. However, this person could have easily gotten a job and saved money to be prepared for this situation, or seek assistance from a local church or charity organization. There is no need to have the government take the money from someone's paycheck to pay for it. Or you could always gamble and pay a monthly fee for a private company to insure you in case a serious illness occurs. There are many more rational options besides forcing other people to pay for your misfortune/ignorance/carelessness/etc.

The government pays 100% of the healthcare cost. I never paid a dime in my life for healthcare (other than taxes of course)
It doesn't mean that the government owns the hospitals and other health services. The system here is the same as in the U.S. It's a private business. The difference is in the coverage. The government here provides insurance to every citizen. So basicaly we've cut the insurance companies out of the loop while keeping the actual healthcare system private.

Edited, Sep 12th 2008 7:19pm by feelz

You should read the methodology used in that ranking though. It's meaningless if you don't:




You'll notice that 3 out of the 5 indicators used for the ranking are essentially measuring how socialist the medical system is (how well distributed it is within the population as a whole). That's kind of a bogus ranking if you're trying to determine whether socialist health care systems provide better quality care, isn't it?

I took his statement to be about the actual quality of the care, not the quantity.