Society For The Prevention Of medical Mass Murder

[DrZoidberg]

There are plenty of decent systems in practice. I can't set a upper limit on how much money I am willing to pay for such a system, and I can't provide minimal acceptable standards for the quality of care. Neither of those things changes my argument that people have a right to decent healthcare. Your insistence that my moral framework be quantitative is a bizarre red herring.

Not everybody will get decent healthcare. Not in any system. What socialist healthcare system have done is figured out what lives are worth saving and which lives aren't and done a cost benefit analysis and reached a conclusion. Not everybody gets saved. Some people are left to die. Even in Sweden.

That's a discussion we need to have. Sweden isn't a paradise of free healthcare. It's a smart system. But it's fucking far from perfect. Some people here don't get good treatment, because they suffer from stuff that's too expensive to fix, or which is doubtful will work.

There's no health care system that helps everybody. There's always ways you need to qualify for it.

It pisses me off when lefty's make blanket statements about everybody's inalientable rights that just aren't true. Healthcare is a constant weighing of who it is worthwhile to save and who isn't. Saying that everybody has a right to decent healthcare completely ignores that. It's platitudes which can impossibly come true.

 

[bigfield]

Not everybody will get decent healthcare. Not in any system. What socialist healthcare system have done is figured out what lives are worth saving and which lives aren't and done a cost benefit analysis and reached a conclusion. Not everybody gets saved. Some people are left to die. Even in Sweden.

I'm not chasing your goalposts for what qualifies as decent.

It pisses me off

Who gives a shit.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I'm not chasing your goalposts for what qualifies as decent.

No, you're spouting the standard dumb leftist platitudes that makes liberals come across as stupid

 

[Bronzeage]

There are plenty of decent systems in practice. I can't set a upper limit on how much money I am willing to pay for such a system, and I can't provide minimal acceptable standards for the quality of care. Neither of those things changes my argument that people have a right to decent healthcare. Your insistence that my moral framework be quantitative is a bizarre red herring.

Not everybody will get decent healthcare. Not in any system. What socialist healthcare system have done is figured out what lives are worth saving and which lives aren't and done a cost benefit analysis and reached a conclusion. Not everybody gets saved. Some people are left to die. Even in Sweden.

That's a discussion we need to have. Sweden isn't a paradise of free healthcare. It's a smart system. But it's fucking far from perfect. Some people here don't get good treatment, because they suffer from stuff that's too expensive to fix, or which is doubtful will work.

There's no health care system that helps everybody. There's always ways you need to qualify for it.

It pisses me off when lefty's make blanket statements about everybody's inalientable rights that just aren't true. Healthcare is a constant weighing of who it is worthwhile to save and who isn't. Saying that everybody has a right to decent healthcare completely ignores that. It's platitudes which can impossibly come true.

Perfection is always the enemy of the adequate.

There was a time when life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, weren't inalienable rights, but a few of got together and said, "Why not?" If life is an inalienable right, why not a healthy life, too?

Healthcare has never been about keeping everyone alive for the longest possible time, although some people think it is. It's about living a life with some quality. This means value judgments will be made. Sometimes the judgment is easy, sometimes it is not.

Are some people in Sweden denied care and die, because there are't enough tongue depressors to go around? If not tongue depressors, what is the shortage?

 

[Bomb#20]

I take it your opinion is that Americans have a right to decent health care, not just a privilege, and their right trumps rich people's right to their property. And I take it your opinion is that if you don't have something, so you grab it from somebody else, and then when you try to grab even more from him he sees you coming and tries to hang onto what he has left instead of just letting you have it, then it's his holding onto it that's the cause of whatever problem you have that you were counting on grabbing his stuff to solve for you. Do I have that right?

Assuming I have that right, which moral theory are you relying on to conclude the former, and which theory of causality are you relying on to conclude the latter?

"...Americans have a right to decent health care..."

All humans have inherent value. Everyone has a human right to health. Universal public healthcare provides a means by which a country can provide that right to its inhabitants. The USA has the resources to implement that means.

If health is a human right, a right of everyone, because all humans have "inherent value" (whatever the heck that is), then how the bejesus do you figure you can possibly justify our government confiscating people's resources in order to provide health to Americans?!? Even poor Americans are usually more able to exercise their right to health by themselves than most of the humans on this planet. Same goes for Australians. So if a human right to health trumps property rights, that means you don't get to make rich people pay to cure you, even if you're a poor Australian. You get to try to cure yourself as best you can with whatever you have left after the inherent value authorities have made you help cure others, using some of your money along with most of rich people's money to send doctors to South Sudan or wherever they're most needed. Countries that have the resources to provide a right to health to their inhabitants aren't where taxpayer-financed doctors are most needed.

"...their right trumps rich people's right to their property."

Humans have a variety of motivations: we have fundamental, physiological needs such as air, water, food and shelter. We have a need to be safe from violence and other hazards that can kill or seriously harm us; we have psychological needs, such as social contact and peace; we also have a desire to achieve self-esteem and self-actualisation. These needs are all part of the human condition.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs represents the way in which humans tend to prioritise their needs.

The physical wellbeing is a basic need, therefore the right to physical wellbeing is a basic human right.

That's an is-to-ought transition. I doubt you can justify it; but we'll let that pass. You are relying on the premise that one person's need for X trumps a different person's need for Y provided humans tend to prioritize type X needs over type Y needs. Let's suppose your premise is correct. Well, humans tend to prioritize their lives over their body parts -- faced with a choice of dying or losing a leg, most people will opt for amputation. Therefore, your premise implies that one person's right to life trumps a different person's right to his body parts.

So how many kidneys do you have?

Humans do not have a need for property per se. The right to property exists as a means for esteem and self-fulfillment, and the rights to esteem and self-fulfillment are subordinate to the right to physical wellbeing.

That's just factually incorrect. Humans do have a need for property per se -- the right to property exists as a means for physiological and safety needs. Just examine societies that abolished the right to property. They turned into police states where nobody had any safety from a government without rule-of-law; and most of them had famines.

 

[Bomb#20]

I take it your opinion is that Americans have a right to decent health care, not just a privilege, and their right trumps rich people's right to their property. ...
Assuming I have that right, which moral theory are you relying on...?

People form societies for their mutual benefit. Working co-operatively, with everyone sacrificing some of their own immediate interests for the good of the whole, a higher standard of prosperity and security, at lower overall cost, can be gained for everyone.

Think of society as a co-op; a family, with everyone chipping in for the good of the whole, and everyone benefiting.

A totally free, self-centered life would likely be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, to quote Hobbs.

You say that as though co-operation is a binary variable -- either everyone sacrifices whatever of their interests you put on the to-be-sacrificed list, or else there's no co-operation at all and everybody is solitary. It's a continuum. Practically everyone will be better off with some compromise between at one end anarchy and at the other end Hobbes demanding the absolute social control of his dreams and getting it by threatening people with anarchy. So why should I think of society as a family? Why shouldn't I think of it as a society? It isn't a family.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Not everybody will get decent healthcare. Not in any system. What socialist healthcare system have done is figured out what lives are worth saving and which lives aren't and done a cost benefit analysis and reached a conclusion. Not everybody gets saved. Some people are left to die. Even in Sweden.

That's a discussion we need to have. Sweden isn't a paradise of free healthcare. It's a smart system. But it's fucking far from perfect. Some people here don't get good treatment, because they suffer from stuff that's too expensive to fix, or which is doubtful will work.

There's no health care system that helps everybody. There's always ways you need to qualify for it.

It pisses me off when lefty's make blanket statements about everybody's inalientable rights that just aren't true. Healthcare is a constant weighing of who it is worthwhile to save and who isn't. Saying that everybody has a right to decent healthcare completely ignores that. It's platitudes which can impossibly come true.

Perfection is always the enemy of the adequate.

There was a time when life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, weren't inalienable rights, but a few of got together and said, "Why not?" If life is an inalienable right, why not a healthy life, too?

Healthcare has never been about keeping everyone alive for the longest possible time, although some people think it is. It's about living a life with some quality. This means value judgments will be made. Sometimes the judgment is easy, sometimes it is not.

Are some people in Sweden denied care and die, because there are't enough tongue depressors to go around? If not tongue depressors, what is the shortage?

In Sweden who you are is irrelevant. Or how much money you have. Only your medical needs matter. There's all manner of factors that are counted. Age is a factor for instance. Giving an organ transplant to an old person is less worthwhile then an organ transplant to a young person. The young person will get more use out of it. Stuff like that. There's biases in the system against smokers and fat people. The hospital system are each year given a bag of money and told to figure out how to spend this as wisely as possible. When the money is gone, the money is gone.

Cancer is a good example. You can do a lot for a cancer patient. But when we get to the more complicated cases the costs go up exponentially. If you are extremely rich in USA, you will get better treatment than in Sweden. In Sweden if you've got a very aggressive cancer you're more likely just given a bag full or morphine and told to make the best of the time you have left. No matter how much money you have.

I have a very wealthy friend who had moved to USA. His child got leukemia. He had to move back to Sweden, because he couldn't afford the treatments. So you really need to be extremely rich before USA is a better country for health care than Sweden.

 

[bigfield]

"...Americans have a right to decent health care..."

All humans have inherent value. Everyone has a human right to health. Universal public healthcare provides a means by which a country can provide that right to its inhabitants. The USA has the resources to implement that means.

If health is a human right, a right of everyone, because all humans have "inherent value" (whatever the heck that is), then how the bejesus do you figure you can possibly justify our government confiscating people's resources in order to provide health to Americans?!? Even poor Americans are usually more able to exercise their right to health by themselves than most of the humans on this planet. Same goes for Australians. So if a human right to health trumps property rights, that means you don't get to make rich people pay to cure you, even if you're a poor Australian. You get to try to cure yourself as best you can with whatever you have left after the inherent value authorities have made you help cure others, using some of your money along with most of rich people's money to send doctors to South Sudan or wherever they're most needed. Countries that have the resources to provide a right to health to their inhabitants aren't where taxpayer-financed doctors are most needed.

I must admit that I'm stumped. Very few human rights are realisable when one state is burdened with the obligation to provide for the entire world's population. Healthcare for all is a desirable goal, but I think it's unreasonably burdensome while we lack the political structure to set up an effective system of that scope and scale.

I guess it shows that utilitarianism is useful as a guide to domestic policy but creates unreasonable demands when applied at a global scale.

That's an is-to-ought transition. I doubt you can justify it; but we'll let that pass. You are relying on the premise that one person's need for X trumps a different person's need for Y provided humans tend to prioritize type X needs over type Y needs. Let's suppose your premise is correct. Well, humans tend to prioritize their lives over their body parts -- faced with a choice of dying or losing a leg, most people will opt for amputation. Therefore, your premise implies that one person's right to life trumps a different person's right to his body parts.

So how many kidneys do you have?

I see your point, and I recognise that there's something missing from my reasoning to avoid such unreasonable demands on people. As I said above, utilitarianism is useful for public policy, but perhaps there needs to be some provision that avoids the need to inflict serious pain on one person in order to prevent slightly more pain in another person. There's considerable difference between confiscating a person's property and confiscating their organs.

Humans do not have a need for property per se. The right to property exists as a means for esteem and self-fulfillment, and the rights to esteem and self-fulfillment are subordinate to the right to physical wellbeing.

That's just factually incorrect. Humans do have a need for property per se -- the right to property exists as a means for physiological and safety needs. Just examine societies that abolished the right to property. They turned into police states where nobody had any safety from a government without rule-of-law; and most of them had famines.

I see your point about the need that property rights serve, but my point was that they exist as a means, not as an ends.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I guess it shows that utilitarianism is useful as a guide to domestic policy but creates unreasonable demands when applied at a global scale.

It does? As far as I know, no country has ever attempted to apply utilitarian policies in practice. I haven't even seen any concrete plan on how it's supposed to work out in the real world. To my knowledge nobody has even tried.

Whenever utilitarian principles are applied, what it means is that people are expected to use their common sense and intuition to make moral judgement calls. None of it is tallied or compared. Ie, it's not Utlitiarian at all. It's just guessing.

The only thing that was ever attempted of Bentham's ideas was his prisons. I think all have been abandoned today, because the theory was wrong.

Here's Bentham's own algorithm for calculating pleasure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus

Any moron should be able to see the problem with it. It's calculating without values to calculate. It's adding something to something, then subtracting something. Something is the result.

How about we stop pretending that Utilitarianism makes any sense at all?

 

[bigfield]

I guess it shows that utilitarianism is useful as a guide to domestic policy but creates unreasonable demands when applied at a global scale.

It does? As far as I know, no country has ever attempted to apply utilitarian policies in practice. I haven't even seen any concrete plan on how it's supposed to work out in the real world. To my knowledge nobody has even tried.

Whenever utilitarian principles are applied, what it means is that people are expected to use their common sense and intuition to make moral judgement calls. None of it is tallied or compared. Ie, it's not Utlitiarian at all. It's just guessing.

The only thing that was ever attempted of Bentham's ideas was his prisons. I think all have been abandoned today, because the theory was wrong.

Here's Bentham's own algorithm for calculating pleasure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus

Any moron should be able to see the problem with it. It's calculating without values to calculate. It's adding something to something, then subtracting something. Something is the result.

How about we stop pretending that Utilitarianism makes any sense at all?

You've made several posts arguing that utilitarian principles cannot be applied to real-life ethical decisions. But when considering whether "Americans have the right to decent health care", the only utilitarian principle that need apply is the fundamental idea that making people happy is good.

Your criticisms of Bentham's felicific calculus are quite valid, but entirely irrelevant, since I do not need Bentham's calculus to make sense.

What makes any UHC a good thing? I'd say that there are several reasons: more people are healthier and happier; fewer people are burdened by medical debt; a healthier workforce produces more. And it comes at a reasonable burden to taxpayers. The various benefits of UHC boil down to the same thing: it provides greater utility than the private healthcare alternative. I'd be surprised to find anyone who supports UHC yet considers it to have less utility than the private alternative they're trying to replace.

 

[untermensche]

Perfection is always the enemy of the adequate.

There was a time when life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, weren't inalienable rights, but a few of got together and said, "Why not?" If life is an inalienable right, why not a healthy life, too?

Healthcare has never been about keeping everyone alive for the longest possible time, although some people think it is. It's about living a life with some quality. This means value judgments will be made. Sometimes the judgment is easy, sometimes it is not.

Are some people in Sweden denied care and die, because there are't enough tongue depressors to go around? If not tongue depressors, what is the shortage?

It is also about recognition of the distinction between rights and privileges.

Do we say healthcare is a right or a privilege?

What we say says a lot about our morality and how we feel about our fellow man.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It does? As far as I know, no country has ever attempted to apply utilitarian policies in practice. I haven't even seen any concrete plan on how it's supposed to work out in the real world. To my knowledge nobody has even tried.

Whenever utilitarian principles are applied, what it means is that people are expected to use their common sense and intuition to make moral judgement calls. None of it is tallied or compared. Ie, it's not Utlitiarian at all. It's just guessing.

The only thing that was ever attempted of Bentham's ideas was his prisons. I think all have been abandoned today, because the theory was wrong.

Here's Bentham's own algorithm for calculating pleasure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus

Any moron should be able to see the problem with it. It's calculating without values to calculate. It's adding something to something, then subtracting something. Something is the result.

How about we stop pretending that Utilitarianism makes any sense at all?

You've made several posts arguing that utilitarian principles cannot be applied to real-life ethical decisions. But when considering whether "Americans have the right to decent health care", the only utilitarian principle that need apply is the fundamental idea that making people happy is good.

Your criticisms of Bentham's felicific calculus are quite valid, but entirely irrelevant, since I do not need Bentham's calculus to make sense.

What makes any UHC a good thing? I'd say that there are several reasons: more people are healthier and happier; fewer people are burdened by medical debt; a healthier workforce produces more. And it comes at a reasonable burden to taxpayers. The various benefits of UHC boil down to the same thing: it provides greater utility than the private healthcare alternative. I'd be surprised to find anyone who supports UHC yet considers it to have less utility than the private alternative they're trying to replace.

That's irrelevant because that's not the discussion. There's a contention between the left and the right. Both agree that health care is great. Both agree that everybody should have access to health care. The only disagreement is on who should pay for it and how can we get as much bang for the buck. How about focusing the conversation on the stuff that the left and right disagrees on?

The right typically argues that UHC is bad because it leads to a waste of money. It will lead to an abuse of the system and lots of unnecessary doctors visits. They also worry that doctors might abuse the system and milk it for money.

The main problem of any government funded program is to make sure that money isn't wasted. In a free market solution the buyer has an incentive not to buy things unnecessarily. It will then, according to the theory, lead to lower prices, and therefore better value health care.

BTW, I don't agree with any of this. But if you want to convince anybody on the right with your arguments, you should perhaps focus on how UHC is better value care and less wasteful? Because that's what conservatives worry about.

If you just talk in general terms of how great it is that everybody gets health care or that it should be a basic human right, you will be, correctly, identified as a flake with your head in the clouds expecting free hand outs. Nobody is going to listen.

I hope I'm getting my point across this time.

 

[LordKiran]

Perfection is always the enemy of the adequate.

There was a time when life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, weren't inalienable rights, but a few of got together and said, "Why not?" If life is an inalienable right, why not a healthy life, too?

Healthcare has never been about keeping everyone alive for the longest possible time, although some people think it is. It's about living a life with some quality. This means value judgments will be made. Sometimes the judgment is easy, sometimes it is not.

Are some people in Sweden denied care and die, because there are't enough tongue depressors to go around? If not tongue depressors, what is the shortage?

It is also about recognition of the distinction between rights and privileges.

Do we say healthcare is a right or a privilege?

What we say says a lot about our morality and how we feel about our fellow man.

The difference between 'right' and 'privilege' is largely imaginary. The only legal distinction is that one is slightly harder to take away from you. Not impossible though, just harder.

 

[LordKiran]

You've made several posts arguing that utilitarian principles cannot be applied to real-life ethical decisions. But when considering whether "Americans have the right to decent health care", the only utilitarian principle that need apply is the fundamental idea that making people happy is good.

Your criticisms of Bentham's felicific calculus are quite valid, but entirely irrelevant, since I do not need Bentham's calculus to make sense.

What makes any UHC a good thing? I'd say that there are several reasons: more people are healthier and happier; fewer people are burdened by medical debt; a healthier workforce produces more. And it comes at a reasonable burden to taxpayers. The various benefits of UHC boil down to the same thing: it provides greater utility than the private healthcare alternative. I'd be surprised to find anyone who supports UHC yet considers it to have less utility than the private alternative they're trying to replace.

That's irrelevant because that's not the discussion. There's a contention between the left and the right. Both agree that health care is great. Both agree that everybody should have access to health care. The only disagreement is on who should pay for it and how can we get as much bang for the buck. How about focusing the conversation on the stuff that the left and right disagrees on?

The right typically argues that UHC is bad because it leads to a waste of money. It will lead to an abuse of the system and lots of unnecessary doctors visits. They also worry that doctors might abuse the system and milk it for money.

The main problem of any government funded program is to make sure that money isn't wasted. In a free market solution the buyer has an incentive not to buy things unnecessarily. It will then, according to the theory, lead to lower prices, and therefore better value health care.

BTW, I don't agree with any of this. But if you want to convince anybody on the right with your arguments, you should perhaps focus on how UHC is better value care and less wasteful? Because that's what conservatives worry about.

If you just talk in general terms of how great it is that everybody gets health care or that it should be a basic human right, you will be, correctly, identified as a flake with your head in the clouds expecting free hand outs. Nobody is going to listen.

I hope I'm getting my point across this time.

This makes sense to me. It's why it annoys me when the various left-leaning pundits I occasionally watch go off on unproductive vague moralistic platitudes regarding single payer. The people who need to hear what Single payer can do for them aren't anymore impressed by vapid platitudes than you are, Cenk Uyghur, or Jimmy Dore, or...I dunno David Packerman?

 

[untermensche]

It is also about recognition of the distinction between rights and privileges.

Do we say healthcare is a right or a privilege?

What we say says a lot about our morality and how we feel about our fellow man.

The difference between 'right' and 'privilege' is largely imaginary. The only legal distinction is that one is slightly harder to take away from you. Not impossible though, just harder.

The practical difference is not imaginary.

If something is a privilege no measures by the government are necessary.

if something is a right the government has an obligation.

 

[Bomb#20]

If passed, Trumpcare will cause many to die who otherwise would live. A number of experts have pointed this out, yet the Republicans ignore them. So yes, it is murder. Calling it what it is may be harsh, but it is correct to do so. This all has a moral dimension, and using harsh language to avoid mass deaths that will occur because of the policies is in order.

I already asked which theory of causality you're relying on to conclude this; and here you are offering proof-by-repetition. So I'll just have to answer for you. You are evidently relying on the theory that if somebody is sick, and he's going to die unless somebody buys him the medical care he needs, and nobody buys it for him, then when he dies, what killed him wasn't his disease but was rather somebody who could have bought him the medical care, and didn't. To most people, that's a counterintuitive theory of causality. Normal people don't call not jumping into a river to save a drowning man "murder", or "killing him", or even "causing his death". They call it "failing to save him". But no doubt you feel this is quibbling over words, and the guy is just as dead either way.

Every year millions of people in the third world die who who would have survived if somebody in the first world had bought them the medical care they need. Do you give away every dollar you earn above subsistence level to a medical charity, to save as many sick people as you can? If you don't do that, then every time you keep some of your money and you could have used it to save somebody's life, and he dies, the theory of causality you're basing your accusation on says you caused that person's death, and yes, it's murder. Do you agree with that theory? Are you a murderer?

 

[bilby]

If passed, Trumpcare will cause many to die who otherwise would live. A number of experts have pointed this out, yet the Republicans ignore them. So yes, it is murder. Calling it what it is may be harsh, but it is correct to do so. This all has a moral dimension, and using harsh language to avoid mass deaths that will occur because of the policies is in order.

I already asked which theory of causality you're relying on to conclude this; and here you are offering proof-by-repetition. So I'll just have to answer for you. You are evidently relying on the theory that if somebody is sick, and he's going to die unless somebody buys him the medical care he needs, and nobody buys it for him, then when he dies, what killed him wasn't his disease but was rather somebody who could have bought him the medical care, and didn't. To most people, that's a counterintuitive theory of causality. Normal people don't call not jumping into a river to save a drowning man "murder", or "killing him", or even "causing his death". They call it "failing to save him". But no doubt you feel this is quibbling over words, and the guy is just as dead either way.

Every year millions of people in the third world die who who would have survived if somebody in the first world had bought them the medical care they need. Do you give away every dollar you earn above subsistence level to a medical charity, to save as many sick people as you can? If you don't do that, then every time you keep some of your money and you could have used it to save somebody's life, and he dies, the theory of causality you're basing your accusation on says you caused that person's death, and yes, it's murder. Do you agree with that theory? Are you a murderer?

It depends upon duty of care.

A government in a representative democracy has a duty of care towards its citizens; Failing to adequately care for them, to the point where they die needlessly, is far more serious than merely 'failing to save', and meets the definition of 'murder' in at least some jurisdictions.

I have a duty of care to provide food, shelter and medical care for my minor children; But I have no such duty to strangers - If I fail to feed a child in Sudan, and he starves to death, then that's not considered a crime; But if I fail to feed my son, then it is a very serious crime.

Government has more of a duty of care towards its citizens than towards non-citizens; and has less of a duty to care for non-resident non-citizens than to care for resident non-citizens - if only because the acceptance of the rule of law and the payment of taxes creates an obligation to provide some kind of reciprocal provision. It is debatable whether the governmental duty of care to its citizens is as broad as the duty a parent has to his children, and if not, what exactly the limits might be. But it's clear to me that a resident of a nation state is, to some extent, a dependent of that state, with a just and reasonable expectation that the state will assist him in various ways, in exchange for his giving up some of his freedom and/or his earnings to the state.

The USA is unique amongst the OECD nations in not considering the provision of health care to its citizens as a part of its duty of care; This is part of a wider pattern of callous disregard by the US Government for the welfare of its people.

 

[Bomb#20]

I already asked which theory of causality you're relying on to conclude this; and here you are offering proof-by-repetition. So I'll just have to answer for you. You are evidently relying on the theory that if somebody is sick, and he's going to die unless somebody buys him the medical care he needs, and nobody buys it for him, then when he dies, what killed him wasn't his disease but was rather somebody who could have bought him the medical care, and didn't. To most people, that's a counterintuitive theory of causality. Normal people don't call not jumping into a river to save a drowning man "murder", or "killing him", or even "causing his death". They call it "failing to save him". But no doubt you feel this is quibbling over words, and the guy is just as dead either way.

Every year millions of people in the third world die who who would have survived if somebody in the first world had bought them the medical care they need. Do you give away every dollar you earn above subsistence level to a medical charity, to save as many sick people as you can? If you don't do that, then every time you keep some of your money and you could have used it to save somebody's life, and he dies, the theory of causality you're basing your accusation on says you caused that person's death, and yes, it's murder. Do you agree with that theory? Are you a murderer?

It depends upon duty of care.

You appear to be claiming you can get from an "ought" to an "is". How does that work? By what line of reasoning do you conclude that the factual question of whether X causes Y turns on a moral judgment of who has which duties?

 

[bilby]

It depends upon duty of care.

You appear to be claiming you can get from an "ought" to an "is". How does that work? By what line of reasoning do you conclude that the factual question of whether X causes Y turns on a moral judgment of who has which duties?

The question is not whether X causes Y. It's whether X can be justly claimed to cause Y, which is a question of opinion, not fact. I'm going from an ought to an ought.

People who consider themselves to be moral ought to believe that the government ought to support the health of its citizens. Because in my opinion, those who do not are fucking evil cunts.

 

[bigfield]

You've made several posts arguing that utilitarian principles cannot be applied to real-life ethical decisions. But when considering whether "Americans have the right to decent health care", the only utilitarian principle that need apply is the fundamental idea that making people happy is good.

Your criticisms of Bentham's felicific calculus are quite valid, but entirely irrelevant, since I do not need Bentham's calculus to make sense.

What makes any UHC a good thing? I'd say that there are several reasons: more people are healthier and happier; fewer people are burdened by medical debt; a healthier workforce produces more. And it comes at a reasonable burden to taxpayers. The various benefits of UHC boil down to the same thing: it provides greater utility than the private healthcare alternative. I'd be surprised to find anyone who supports UHC yet considers it to have less utility than the private alternative they're trying to replace.

That's irrelevant because that's not the discussion. There's a contention between the left and the right. Both agree that health care is great. Both agree that everybody should have access to health care. The only disagreement is on who should pay for it and how can we get as much bang for the buck. How about focusing the conversation on the stuff that the left and right disagrees on?

The right typically argues that UHC is bad because it leads to a waste of money. It will lead to an abuse of the system and lots of unnecessary doctors visits. They also worry that doctors might abuse the system and milk it for money.

I don't think that would be the appropriate response in the context of this thread. Firstly, this a is thread about the morality of UHC. Secondly, Bomb#20 raised a clear objection to UHC: that taxpayers should not be required to pay for it because such a system requires that we take property from some people to provide healthcare for others.

It would be wrong to respond to that objection by arguing that UHC is cost-efficient. No matter how much bang you get for your buck, the state is still paying for the healthcare of some by confiscating property from others. The appropriate response is to address the objection and argue why it is wrong (assuming that's one's position).

I recognise that many on the right object to UHC on the grounds that the private sector is more efficient--that's a popular argument among neoliberals in Australia--but answering their objections doesn't respond to the objection raised in this thread.

The main problem of any government funded program is to make sure that money isn't wasted. In a free market solution the buyer has an incentive not to buy things unnecessarily. It will then, according to the theory, lead to lower prices, and therefore better value health care.

BTW, I don't agree with any of this. But if you want to convince anybody on the right with your arguments, you should perhaps focus on how UHC is better value care and less wasteful? Because that's what conservatives worry about.

If I was writing a blog article or a top-level comment on Reddit, then I agree that it makes sense to focus on the audience's most common objections. However that doesn't apply when someone asks a specific question about the morality of using taxation to fund healthcare.

If you just talk in general terms of how great it is that everybody gets health care or that it should be a basic human right, you will be, correctly, identified as a flake with your head in the clouds expecting free hand outs. Nobody is going to listen.

I got a response from the person who raised the objection. Not the response I had hoped for but that is entirely my own fault for presenting an invalid argument.

I hope I'm getting my point across this time.

I understand your motivation, but I don't think it's right to focus on typical objections when a specific objection is presented. Bomb#20 is not representative of the political right and it doesn't make sense to address him as a neoliberal if he isn't one.