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Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Dalrymple has an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal on the topic of universal health care.
If there is a right to health care, someone has the duty to provide it. Inevitably, that “someone” is the government. Concrete benefits in pursuance of abstract rights, however, can be provided by the government only by constant coercion.

People sometimes argue in favor of a universal human right to health care by saying that health care is different from all other human goods or products. It is supposedly an important precondition of life itself. This is wrong: There are several other, much more important preconditions of human existence, such as food, shelter and clothing.

Everyone agrees that hunger is a bad thing (as is overeating), but few suppose there is a right to a healthy, balanced diet, or that if there was, the federal government would be the best at providing and distributing it to each and every American.
...
Moreover, the right to grant is also the right to deny. And in times of economic stringency, when the first call on public expenditure is the payment of the salaries and pensions of health-care staff, we can rely with absolute confidence on the capacity of government sophists to find good reasons for doing bad things.

The question of health care is not one of rights but of how best in practice to organize it. America is certainly not a perfect model in this regard. But neither is Britain, where a universal right to health care has been recognized longest in the Western world.

Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for medical treatment if they are physically able to do so.

The government-run health-care system—which in the U.K. is believed to be the necessary institutional corollary to an inalienable right to health care—has pauperized the entire population. This is not to say that in every last case the treatment is bad: A pauper may be well or badly treated, according to the inclination, temperament and abilities of those providing the treatment. But a pauper must accept what he is given.

Universality is closely allied as an ideal, ideologically, to that of equality. But equality is not desirable in itself. To provide everyone with the same bad quality of care would satisfy the demand for equality. (Not coincidentally, British survival rates for cancer and heart disease are much below those of other European countries, where patients need to make at least some payment for their care.)

In any case, the universality of government health care in pursuance of the abstract right to it in Britain has not ensured equality. After 60 years of universal health care, free at the point of usage and funded by taxation, inequalities between the richest and poorest sections of the population have not been reduced. But Britain does have the dirtiest, most broken-down hospitals in Europe.

There is no right to health care—any more than there is a right to chicken Kiev every second Thursday of the month.

10 comments:

Chris A said...

If the government comes up with some kind of universal healthcare system, I can almost guarantee it will be used for eugenics. How do I know this? Well, first of all, history. People used to be forcibly sterilized in this country, but that became suspiciously unpopular after WWII. This is also one of the most pragmatic approaches when there is a limited number of resources that must be divided among an entire populace.

The first ones to get left out will be the elderly. The value of their lives is cheapened in light of the prospect of having to provide care to younger, more productive members of society. This is the most obvious argument that has already been made during the current healthcare debate.

Another thing is "family planning" - in other words negative eugenics via birth control or the termination of pregnancies, whether voluntary or otherwise. The taxpayer will be much more entitled to an opinion on the value of the life of the unborn if it somehow "infringes" on their own "right" to healthcare. Then obviously, due to the fact that the government will be married to the healthcare industry in an unholy fascist union, you will see much more leniency with respect to medical liability. Many of the pharmaceutical industries are already immune from prosecution with respect to vaccine related injuries. Kathleen Sebelius just signed a document ensuring that H1N1 manufacturers will be immune from prosecution in and when their untested vaccines kill people. Never mind the fact that their vaccines contain all kinds of animal DNA, mercury, chemical preservatives, and human aborted fetal tissue (dead babies in other words), if your kid's brain swells and they die, you won't recoup anything from your loss, unless they throw you a bone from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. You'll be lucky if they don't accuse you of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

So if someone feels compelled to "accidentally" spike your flu shot with two live strains of Avian Flu like Baxter did, too bad if your kids die. Hey, everything happens for a reason, and it actually worked together for good because now we have enough medical care to go around for the rest of us.

Dave Hodges said...

Totally off topic, sorry.

A few weeks back you had a Mark Steyn quote that basically said something to the effect of, "This is the first culture where obesity is associated with poverty."

Actually, that's false. Obesity has been associated with poverty for hundreds of years:

History of Obesity

It's an hour long, but it beats reading his 500-page book.

The fundamental problem is that most people have the wrong idea about what obesity is and what causes it.

Chris A said...

Dave,

I've watched a good deal of that video, and it confirms what some of the ideas I have had about obesity. But I have to say that there are still a lot of unanswered questions in my mind. Perhaps he addresses them later, and I haven't gotten that far yet.

One thing is that show "Biggest Loser", the reality show where all these obese people are put on strict diet and exercise programs. The object is to lose as much weight as possible week to week so you don't "fall below the yellow line", meaning you aren't in danger of getting voted off the show. I don't watch a lot of reality TV, but I must admit I really dig this show. Anyway, nearly all of these people lose incredible amounts of weight if they stay on the show for very long, and that happens within a relatively short amount of time. So how is it that these guys lose upwards of 100 pounds using conventional (albeit quite extreme) methods if genes and/or malnutrition are predominant factors? Perhaps healthier diet and exercise trigger the kinds of hormonal changes that make this possible. I don't know. At any rate, with as many seasons as they've gone through, we're looking at a pretty substantive scientific sample of people with various genetic makeups, etc.

But here's another thing. We all know of those people who are chronic overeaters who never leave their beds because they are too fat. You know and then they knock out a wall of their home so they can remove them from it when they die or whatever. Anyway, you never hear of any skinny over-eaters like this. Just a thought. There must be a cause and effect relationship between their obesity and their over-eating, be it a calorie surplus or hormonal changes brought about by lifestyle. Perhaps there they have a genetic propensity towards these kinds of hormonal changes, and their over-eating triggers this. I don't know.

Anyway, thanks for posting that video. It is very interesting. I'll watch the rest of it later.

Dave Hodges said...

"Perhaps healthier diet and exercise trigger the kinds of hormonal changes that make this possible."

Bingo! The answer lies in carbohydrates.

"There must be a cause and effect relationship between their obesity and their over-eating, be it a calorie surplus or hormonal changes brought about by lifestyle."

Yes, but like Gary says, saying that overeating causes obesity is like saying that alcoholism is caused by over drinking. It doesn't actually explain causation.

And as he also explains, people don't get obese because they're overeating. They're overeating because they're body is not properly regulating "delta-E" - the energy difference.

Finish the video when you get the chance - he will answer most of your questions.

Darius said...

I haven't had time to watch the video yet, but one point should be made. The relative "poor" in this country are very different than the absolute poor in the third world; which I think is the point of Mark Steyn's quote. Our poor are not starving-to-death poor, so they have to deal with obesity. Whereas the REAL poor of the world, such as in Africa, obesity is the last thing you'll ever find with them.

Thus, our country is the first country to have obesity considered a marker of being poor... because there is almost no such thing as absolute poverty here. You go into a poor American's shanty and you still find two TV's, three cell phones, and an X-box. Oh, and they have two cars, one of which is a BMW. I've seen this time and again. That ain't impoverished.

Dave Hodges said...

"Whereas the REAL poor of the world, such as in Africa, obesity is the last thing you'll ever find with them."

This is exactly what I'm talking about. He shows Nigerian tribes in the nineteenth century plagued with severe obesity.

"Thus, our country is the first country to have obesity considered a marker of being poor"

False again. Many primitive Native American, African, Samoan, Aboriginal cultures have shown the exact same signs of poverty and obesity. Watch the video.

"You go into a poor American's shanty and you still find two TV's, three cell phones, and an X-box. Oh, and they have two cars, one of which is a BMW. I've seen this time and again. That ain't impoverished."

Fine, America's poor aren't actually poor. I won't argue with that.

But we're not talking about whether or not Americans are really poor. We're talking about whether poverty and obesity have anything to do with each other. You and Mark Steyn say no.

History tells a different story.

Darius said...

That's wrong. My dad grew up in Nigeria. He said you never once saw a fat Nigerian. Just think about all the pictures we see... everyone is skinny, other than the distended bellies you see on some of the children because of malnutrition, not obesity. This guy is a quack if he thinks the third world impoverished are obese.

Darius said...

I've met some Nigerians... the ones who could be accused of being overweight are the ones who can afford good diets. The poor are skinny like nothing else. Same goes for Mexico and Venezuela, two other places where I have seen poor people. Not a fat person among them. Just think about it... the richest country in the world is also the fattest. Does that sound like poverty causes obesity? I think this guy must have obesity and malnourishment confused.

Dave Hodges said...

"That's wrong. My dad grew up in Nigeria. He said you never once saw a fat Nigerian."

The study in the video shows photographs of poor obese Nigerian women. You can contest the scientific evidence based on your father's anecdotes if you want, but that's hardly good practise.

"Just think about all the pictures we see... everyone is skinny, other than the distended bellies you see on some of the children because of malnutrition, not obesity."

Yes, in extreme cases this is the situation. But I'm not talking destitute. I'm talking poor. I didn't say on the brink of starvation. I said poor. Remember Mark Steyn's quote as well. He said poor. So let's not mix our terms up here.

"This guy is a quack if he thinks the third world impoverished are obese."

Well, if you're not going to look at the data, I don't know exactly what to tell you. Anybody who is deprived of all foodstuffs will eventually shrink up and die emaciated. But obesity is, and has been, a common trait amongst poor people for a very long time. It is not just recently, and it is not just America. The whole point is that Mark Steyn is following a recent trend of people who are ignoring a large corpus of scientific data that links poverty and obesity.

If you want to say that Americans aren't really poor, I'm not going to contradict that. We're one of the most affluent peoples in the world.

If you want to say that people on the brink of starvation and those held in concentration camps are skinny, again, no argument from me.

But allow me to restate this once more without getting sidetracked: poverty and obesity have long gone hand-in-hand.

Chris A said...

Darius, you really should watch the video. Mexico is actually mentioned as well. I still haven't finished watching it, but I can say from the photographic evidence and other data already presented, that poverty and obesity have coincided historically, and it is well documented.

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The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel The Main Thing
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
Overcoming Sin and Temptation
According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible
Disciplines of a Godly Man
Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem
When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves
The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
Respectable Sins
The Kite Runner
Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak
Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
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Show Them No Mercy
The Lord of the Rings
Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass
The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
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