Posted on 08/31/2009 12:24:57 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
Judging by some of the responses I've received to the previous posts in this health care series, I think it's important to make it clear that the illustrative features I talked about in my last post are not suggested components of some government run health care scheme. I oppose the government takeover of the health sector. It should also be clear from the ideas I've outlined that I oppose perpetuating the third party payer system in any form, whether as a single payer government run approach, or in continuation of the existing private corporate structure. One of the keys to improving the health sector's cost efficiency is to restore the responsible decision-making role of individual payers, so that price signals in the health market once again reflect the aggregate response of buyers to the sufficiency, quality and cost efficiency of the goods and services available to them in the health marketplace.
The ideas presented are also intended to illustrate possible ways of activating another key to cost efficiency, which involves recognizing that those who seek the health sector's ultimate product (health) also play a critical role in producing it. Like production workers in any other economic sector they must accept their responsibility for carefully and efficiently executing their part in the production process. And like other production workers, they need a work environment that offers tangible incentives for them to do so.
Unfortunately the discussion of health care reform has bogged down because of proposals based on outdated nineteenth and twentieth century concepts of economic activity. According to these concepts, the world is divided between workers and owners, managers and resources (including human resources), producers and consumers. By contrast, the paradigm of twenty-first century economic activity has begun to emerge most distinctly on the internet. The very concept of networking outruns the dialecticism of the past. The components of a network are at one and the same time consumers and providers of information. As conduits for its flow, they also modify, redirect and reshape its contents for different purposes, in a way that defies and transcends the distinction between consumption and production. On this account, the very idea of 'ownership' has to acquire new flexibility, so as not to interfere with the flow, modification and exchange of information that creates the network's activities and their economic value.
Social networking internet activities like Facebook are a good illustration of this new reality. The people who turned the Facebook software engine into a profitable enterprise mainly depend on advertising for their revenues. In a sense, such sites are like fairgrounds or expositions. Because they generate a large flow of visitors businesses will pay for the privilege of advertising their goods and services to the passing crowds. However, who produces the shows and other activities that attract the crowd? It's the visitors themselves. They gather in order to show off to one another, with photos, videos, writings, conversation etc. To be sure, just as the performing artists in other media (TV or the theater for example) enjoy what they do, the performers on the social network get pleasure (entertainment value) from their participation. But they also provide the attractions that gather the crowd. They are at one and the same time performers and spectators, producers and consumers, workers who own and manage an enterprise that is, in many respects, identical with themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at loyaltoliberty.com...
The abortion issue is key.
Senior citizens, including Democrats, are already alarmed
that rationing will be forcing them into hospices with limited care.
Mandatory "end of counseling" and abortion funding also figure into this.
"We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life— the unborn—without diminishing the value of all human life." - Ronald Reagan
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