First post here,
I was in an argument with my father and grandfather about free market healthcare and I simply didn't have the knowledge to persuade them and I'm now coming to you guys for help. Any links or books would be greatly appreciated!
Welcome to the Mises Forum!
Be sure to check the newbie thread for forum tips and how-tos.
Sick in America with John Stossel
M.Friedman on Healthcare - Mayo Clinic (1978)
Re: Healthcare, Let's Help Each Other
How to Fix Health Care Without Spending a Dime — Part 1, Part 2
Socialized Health Care and the Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
"Alice in Health Care" — (individual publishings: Part I, II, III, IV)
"The 'Costs' of Medical Care" — (individual publishings: Part I, II, III, IV)
Why ObamaCare Will Fail: A Reading List
The Myth of Free-Market Healthcare
100 Years of US Medical Fascism
The Free Market: Four-Step Health Care Solution
A Free-Market Guide to Healthcare
Myth & Fact About U.S. Health Care
Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics
How the Experts Are Wrecking Healthcare (more articles by same author, all on health care)
Krugman, Health Care , and the Free Market
The Health Insurance Market Is Not Free
Universal Healthcare
Free market for health care?
That oughta get you started
Nice, JJ.
I would like to draw your attention to this paragraph (Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics):
Friedman noted that 56 percent of all hospitals in America were privately owned and for-profit in 1910. After 60 years of subsidies for government-run hospitals, the number had fallen to about 10 percent. It took decades, but by the early 1990s government had taken over almost the entire hospital industry.
We hardly have a free market system. Don't bother defening it too much.
Thanks for the responses, guys!
Wheylous, I wasn't defending our system I was advocating a true free market healthcare system as opposed to a government run one.
I hope you stick around to learn a lot more. We have tons to teach!
I plan to! Thanks for the warm welcome!
Here are some helpful discussions from the past, y'know so you can be "ready" :P :
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/11586.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/17749.aspx
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/28256.aspx
And an informative and intriguing article from THE Mr. Roderick Long:
http://praxeology.net/libertariannation/a/f12l3.html
(in all serious when I say "ready" I don't mean for you to memorize the responses from those threads, I just mean that it's good to see the differing opinions of clever people who post here, though I'm sure you don't need the lecture. With all due respect, I only say it because a lot of people getting into Ron Paul/ Libertarianism, from what I've seen on the internet, regurgitate uninformative platitudes that serve only to further fortify the barriers between right and left, such as: "wasteful bureaucracy", "pesky regulations", etc.)
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
I would like to add that my father and grandfather are by no means athiests. They support mostly libertarian ideals in regards to the economy and the government, but they believe the free market doesn't work in healthcare.
Just don't want you guys thinking my family are a bunch of socialists lol.
gilaltom3:they believe the free market doesn't work in healthcare.
Definitely take notice of Wheylous' point, and that presented by many of the sources I provided. We do not have anything close to a free market in health care. So if they are using the US as their evidence for their claim, then you can actually show that they are alleging a non-free market doesn't work in health care.
Otherwise, they'll need to demonstrate some other example.
I would press them for specifics...Have them give you actual points and examples of how exactly the free market doesn't work. Then when (i.e. if) they present you with anything, you can quite easily show how what they are describing is not a free market. If you get through even half those resources in my post, you should be able to do this with ease.
They don't use our system as an example of a Free Market system. I also used the argument you stated in the first paragraph of your reply.
They mostly used the "shopping around when you need open heart surgery" argument. I simply did not have a reply to that. I'm sure after looking through these resources I'll find my response.
I'm not just here to win this argument. I legitimately enjoy economics, and want to become more knowledgable.
I don't quite get it. They acknowledge that our system is not a free-market one, and has not been in their lifetime, yet claim the knowledge that the free-market in healthcare won't work? Ask them for specifics maybe?
And what is this: "shopping around when you need open heart surgery" a rebuttal to? If I were you I would ask them nicely what exactly their point is in saying such a thing.
gilaltom3:I'm not just here to win this argument. I legitimately enjoy economics, and want to become more knowledgable.
Hehe...just last week:
Government Medical 'Care': Turning Qualified Doctors Into Waiters
In regards to the "shopping around" thing, it is simply saying that costs remain low and quality remains high in a free market because you can shop around for goods and services. Their argument is that when you are laying on the ground dying and have to have surgery immediately you can't exactly find the best cheap to quality ratio in a doctor, you just get the surgery.
gilaltom3:In regards to the "shopping around" thing, it is simply saying that costs remain low and quality remains high in a free market because you can shop around for goods and services. Their argument is that when you are laying on the ground dying and have to have surgery immediately you can't exactly find the best cheap to quality ratio in a doctor, you just get the surgery.
a) Irrelevant, as, in a free market overall cost would be lower and quality would be higher. So even if you end up paying the highest price for the lowest quality in a free market, your care would still be better quality and lower price than what you're getting now.
b) What percentage of administered medical care is "laying on the ground dying, need surgery immediately"? This is a common tactic of people with weak arguments. They'll take one specific case (or type of case) and then use it as an argument against an entire philosophy.
It's akin to the Nirvana fallacy that often gets invoked. Like I was saying here, the default position is often “Oh you think that’s going to solve everything? How are you going to stop this? And what about that? Your proposal isn’t any good at all. People would still die, there would still be poor people, there would still be murders, and this would still be Earth instead of Heaven. So try again.”