US Health Care

[Anarchological]

"A great many laws in a country, like too many physcians, is a sign of weakness and malady", according to Voltaire. Frederic Bastiat said "Government is that great fictitious entity wherein everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else." Both of these comments relate to the new US health care bill.

When something is subsidized, more of it is produced, as happened with health services under Medicare, so it is likely that under the new system the US will be involving many more people including bureaucrats in the health care industry, and that it will create more "weakness and malady"in the US economy, making life harder for most people. Believing that the new system will be terrific requires the magical thinking that Bastiat' described.

These are just a couple of points that anarchists might ruminate on to help us get a grip on reality and act accordingly. There's not a chance in hell that we can influence the government, but we can try to "tend our own gardens", as Voltaire also said.

The upside is that the results may be so expensive that the US may have to rein in its foreign legion and give the rest of the world a little peace.

[Jawn Disease]

I dunno, man. The US has the unhealthiest population and the most expensive health care in the industrialized world, and I'm pretty sure there's a link -- the profit motive. If the profit motive is eliminated, fewer unnecessary procedures will be carried out, there will be less motive to pitch super unhealthy products to Americans, maybe they'll start taking care of themselves a bit more without all the propaganda telling them to live like their arteries are made of Teflon, maybe they'll need fewer doctors, and hopefully fewer people will be employed in the whole ridiculous 'insurance industry'. However it looks like Obama has successfully opted for the worst of both worlds, so yes you're probably looking at the same horrific system that already exists, just with more bureaucrats.

As for it being too expensive... The federal government in the US spends more on war than all 50 states' total budgets combined... I don't know if that's going to change any time soon, more likely you'll just have shittier health care.

Universal free health care is the way to go, if you're gonna have a government. Yes I'm biased because I'm Canadian... but hey, it works, and it works well.

[saru]

I'm new to anarchism. Can you explain to me what is the anarchist alternative to universal health care?

[Jawn Disease]

Free continuing education, which means more doctors and chemists, and the elimination of the profit motive, which means cheaper and more plentiful drugs produced by worker-run factories.

[saru]

Thanks. Makes sense so far. Do you disagree with Anarchological that we're going to have too many physicians?

[Jawn Disease]

There's no such thing as too many doctors.

Ideally everyone would be continuously learning and so would have two, three or more 'degrees' or certifications. We'd have a fifth or more of the population with a good grasp on medicine. They wouldn't be full-time doctors unless they wanted to be, but in an emergency you could count on someone knowing how to stitch you up, apply anaesthetic, do CPR, reattach fingers, whatever the case may be. Doctors in hospitals wouldn't be working such long arduous shifts because there would be others around to replace them.

People always say things like, 'well do you want doctors to be payed the same as plumbers?' the only real difference between a good doctor and a good plumber is about 4 years of school and 100,000 dollars in debt. get rid of the debt, make the school free, and all the plumbers can be doctors too. I know I would want to learn as much as possible about everything if I had the chance.

[saru]

That's really interesting. I've thought about the possibility of having a similar thing for farming. Where there would be a lot of people who knew how to farm, but most would only do it part time. I know a lot of farmers already take part-time jobs off the farm already because it's hard to keep up with all this corporatization of farming.

[Jawn Disease]

Actually, yeah, that's going to be completely essential. Every household is going to need to grow at least SOMETHING, and people in rural areas are going to need to go back to actually farming the land instead of having massive green lawns with GRASS growing on 'em.

[jack]

Anarchological is Tom Palvin, I'm not just being a dick, see his account on ABC.

[Jawn Disease]

Bahaha for real?

[Anarchological]

saru,
Back in the 1950's doctor's would make house calls, but since instituting Medicare and Medicaid, requiring Certificates of Need to build new hospitals, the explosion of lawsuits raisng doctor's insurance costs, and so on, the cost of seeing a licensed doctor has skyrocketed.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield is supposedly a not-for-profit insurance company, and I've read about co-operatives in the Mid-West that offer insurance, but it's not free, and not even that cheap. It seems that the only way to actually reduce costs is to get the state entirely out of the way, including it's licensing of doctors and other health professionals, and letting people decide for themselves who they want to see for care. This would offer the greatest number of choices for everyone.

Instead of all doctors and nurses requiring long-term studies of all aspects of medicine, people would have the choice to see specialists, as Jawn Disease said. One specialist might only have experience in x-raying and treating broken bones and sprains, for example, A person might turn to him or her if they fell fell and suspected that they broke their elbow. Or, an experienced nursing assistant could build up a general practice wtihout a medical degree, but might refer a person with chronic, untreatable, headaches to a brain specialist, who might then refer them, if necessary, to a brain surgeon with an advanced medical degree. Anarchists want less authoritarian state intrusion in their sex lives, in how they build their houses, and in everything else, including health issues. In Ecuador, among other places, people are treated like free adults, and don't need to see licensed doctors for prescription drugs. They can buy anything they want over the counter, and can ask a druggist, or whoever they want to, about what to use and how to use it.

In the meantime, while the state still rules, it makes sense for anarchists to accept every grant and every benefit the state provides, including medical care, while at the same time hoping that it goes broke so it doesn't have to be smashed by force.

[saru]

actually farming the land instead of having massive green lawns with GRASS growing on 'em.

Haha, exactly. And not just in rural areas. I'm from the suburbs, and there are plenty of green lawns people could grow food on there.

These ideas sound good.

[AndyMalroes]

"A great many laws in a country, like too many physcians, is a sign of weakness and malady", according to Voltaire.

Wow and chomsky said, "One can, of course, take the position that we don't care about the problems people face today, and want to think about a possible tomorrow. OK, but then don't pretend to have any interest in human beings and their fate, and stay in the seminar room and intellectual coffee house with other privileged people. Or one can take a much more humane position: I want to work, today, to build a better society for tomorrow -- the classical anarchist position, quite different from the slogans in the question. That's exactly right, and it leads directly to support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc. That is not a sufficient condition for organizing for a different and better future, but it is a necessary condition. Anything else will receive the well-merited contempt of people who do not have the luxury to disregard the circumstances in which they live, and try to survive."

[Guest]

When you say you want "support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulations" are you advoacting support for the US empire? Who do you want to enforce these regulations? I can't tell what you propose in terms of the state/empire.

[AndyMalroes]

That question is what the quote just critiqued, in simpler terms Chomsky was saying, at the present time we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water, yes as anarchists were opposed to all forms of hierarchy but until we can dismantle coercive hierarchies or create better alternatives, don't be afraid to use the state to help people.