Jack wrote:
"Libertarian legacy?
Ron Paul's campaign manager, 49, dies uninsured,
of pneumonia,leaving family $400,000 debt of medical
bills.
What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which
abhors the idea of universal health care."
mo
http://tinyurl.com/5davpe
So this guy freely chooses a life without health insurance (and if he's
good enough to be Ron Paul's campaign manager then it's most certainly a
choice he's made rather than having forced on him), something bad
happens because of his free choice, and this makes all of libertarianism
bad?
That's an interesting world view you have, there.
I would say that it validates the libertarian notion that we all get to
make our choices and suffer (or enjoy) the consequences. Then anyone
who's watching us, and is smart, benefits by learning from our mistakes.
Now that I've ****ed off all the extremists on the left, I'm going to
**** off the rest of the extremists by saying that health care is one of
those things that I don't think should be denied to folks of limited
means just because they don't have lots of $$. If we're going to assume
a moral responsibility for an emergency room to take care of the
indigent at great expense when they get _really_ sick, then it's just
downright stupid of us not to help keep them from getting to that point.
Since I find the notion of refusing to give someone proper emergency
care just because they don't have the resources to pay, I have to
support giving that same someone proper pre-emergency care somehow.
There are many, many things that work very well being handled by a
completely free market. But while I'm not wise enough to say just _how_
health care should be handled, I am convinced that a policy of "no
bucks, no care" is not at all the right way to go.
I will say that Japan's notion of health insurance -- where everyone is
required to have it, and you get subsidized if and only if you're poor
-- makes sense on the surface. I have no clue how well it would
translate to the US culture and legal structure, but what I've heard of
it seems to be good.
--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at
http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html