Neo linked these 3 articles on health care. The only one I really read and didn't just skim over was the hoppe article - which, as admittingly most things Hoppe I have a natural reservation towards, for better or worse. I plan on reading the other two articles within the week.
Just curious as to what you guys think of health care in relation to these three articles.
Hoppe:
http://mises.org/daily/3643
Other two
http://library.mises.org/books/Kel%20Kelly/The%20Case%20for%20Legalizing%20Capitalism.pdf (start on 192)
http://mises.org/daily/5496/
[P.S. this is William]
Just in case your wondering I seem to have very large reservations about short term co-ordination problems on most forms of radical policy recommendations. In fact, it seems odd to even advocate such things to me. If a system is "dead" it will have collapsed under its own weight.
Economics =/= policy, and I may go so far as it doesn't have a way to clearly think about "real" policy in such a univeralist "abstract" sense.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
As I stated before I think that policy should generally be instituted as slowly as possible, or at least with the greatest forewarning possible.
"I may go so far as it doesn't have a way to clearly think about "real" policy in such a univeralist "abstract" sense."
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that to properly judge policy all relevant parts of the specific issue must be taken into consideration and that we can't cast all encompassing praxeological judgments? Or something else?
all relevant parts of the specific issue must be taken into consideration and that we can't cast all encompassing praxeological judgments?
Exactly. It's impossible to know all the pieces in play. At all times, all are "unique" and kaleidoscopic in their shifts and drifts. The "subsidy threads" can't be that linear to follow - there are too many competing actors, institutions, and expectations in play to make any clear intelligible "short term" recommendation for the overall economy of things - particularly in any "meta" sense.
If I wanted to get realy really bold, I might argue in a certain context a so called "market" recommended policy could be just as "interventionist" as anything else, particuary when thinking about short term co-ordination.
Furthermore, when in the short term the private sector can not coordinate for certain needs due to estabilished custom ,expectation, and something like an "obvious demand problem" (something like an externality; black death for an extrem over-arching example) it seems rather obvious that certain radical implementations of free market policy may not be the best coarse for action at the given time with the given facts at play. There comes a time when you have to say the apparatus and expectations simply are probably not extant in the private sector.
So when Hoppe says this:
Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased promote carelessness.....
I don't think I know what he means. To goto a bit of a sidebar: as far as the treatment of certain diseases, epidemics, etc is concerned, I just don't think it is thecase that a subsidized treatment for a disease will necessarily create more diseases. Though it will create the treatment of more diseases.
And for argument sake let's say Hoppe is right in the case of what's being subsidized - what if it very bluntly is the case of a "subsidy for treatment". And in this case that's ALL you care about - a subsidy of treatment will create more treatment, consequences be damned.
Along with what you stated about slow implemation - I think the interesting question here would be would I rather have Th UN, The USA, Illinois, or Chicago being able to dictate and think about this - and why. As well as what to do when the apparatus in place runs obviously and specifically against what would be (so the claim goes) an obviously better ong term coordinating process.
1. We cannot condemn ourselves to inaction due to ignorance. Simply because we do not know FOR CERTAIN, that action X will result in outcome Y does not mean that it is not quite likely. The market may indeed be kaleidoscopic, but life is kaleidoscopic, and we do not allow this to prevent us from making any decisions. Indeed, to make a contextually amusing analogy, every time that a patient undergoes a complicated surgical procedure there's a chance that he might not survive, yet this does not prevent those in the medical field from not performing such actions.
2. I think we both agree that sudden policy implementations could be negative, indeed it's hard to argue that policies which are sudden, no matter how positive or negative the policy is inherently, will cause a most likely negative shift in the entire system. This is exactly part of the reason why the government doing anything tends to suck. You don't want to have an institution with a wallet trillions of dollars deep being able to make sudden decisions, or the possibility of sudden decisions.
3. As for Hoppe's remarks upon subsidies, I think that he's right for the most part. So long as the subsidy isn't given directly in a money equivalent then then subsidies aren't nearly as binding, but this does not mean that they do not increase the incentive for one to consume. A large part of the problem with the medical care industry, insofar as I understand it (which, because I'm Neodoxy and I'm awesome is, of course, a whole lot) is because with the current system in place there's relatively little willingness to actually conserve your healthcare consumption if you're on insurance or being subsidized by the government. If the state is paying for a huge amount of your healthcare, then you have more and more incentive not to care about how much healthcare you actually consume. If there's a higher quality healthcare you consume, it doesn't matter whether or not you're actually sick, there's an incentive to consume more healthcare to enact these improved results.
4. "I think the interesting question here would be would I rather have The UN, The USA, Illinois, or Chicago being able to dictate and think about this - and why. As well as what to do when the apparatus in place runs obviously and specifically against what would be (so the claim goes) an obviously better long term coordinating process."
I'm sorry, I don't understand this question you're posing here. Could you reiterate?
5. 1,100th post.
We cannot condemn ourselves to inaction due to ignorance. Simply because we do not know FOR CERTAIN, that action X will result in outcome Y does not mean that it is not quite likely. The market may indeed be kaleidoscopic, but life is kaleidoscopic, and we do not allow this to prevent us from making any decisions. In
That is what I was getting at. I just don't see "eliminate subsidies to the sick and unhealthy" as a proposition that can be anything but equal to any other suggestion with no context. And in our (America's) current situation I don't think I even see it as a preferable immediate solution.
Could you reiterate?
I'll get back to this - I'm just real tired now, so I'm done for the night
It won't create more diseases. It will create more demand on healthcare services. You don't need an increase in disease levels for that to occur. In the case of risky behaviours that result in diseases, where someone else picks up the tab to cure them, in that case it certainly can incentivise their proliferation.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
It will create more demand on healthcare services.
I'll grant you this, though I still say there can be far too many factors involved to say this. At the moment, I am holding this view less tenable.
Either way, my point was sometimes someone may actually want to create more demand for healthcare services and say consequences be damned. That is my main thrust. To be clear, what I DON'T think can be done, is for anyone to systemize any real long term plan - because there is nothing to systemize - it's playing with fake numbers and graphs, etc and in the long run is going to be a parasite on people; and it is interesting we have to deal with this, and the effects it has.
As to my point on UN, USA, Illinois, Chicago: My main point is to look at what one would intuitively think would allocate such "externality" or "public" services the best in our given situation. I think it's an interesting thing to think about, and while I think in almost all cases I could see myself semi-radicallly favoring state or city defederilization - I am not so sure this is so clear cut in ALL regards.
No, if you are performing economic analysis you are not concerned with other factors when analysing the subsidisation of a specific good. "Other" factors can always be at work, it isn't what you are trying to analyse though. Hence why economists tend to preface their statements with the ceteris paribus qualifier.
I'm saying Hoppe is not performing economic analysis- he is out of scope when he suggests policy proscriptions, hence why it does not necessarily work.
I think one at this point is more inclined and better off to look at "ideal type" institutions in play and see what could possibly be happening.
He is utilising economic reasoning to arrive at them, nonetheless. I am not sure what you mean by "ideal type" institutions.