The True Cost of Piano Lessons

Who is John Galt? ^ | 09/11/2009 | "John Galt"

[cpurick]

Obama said, "...in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick."

Now, a statement like that should ring alarm bells. Because if you're really sick -- too sick to work, for example, and sick for a long time -- then even with free healthcare a prolonged disability will easily leave you bankrupt.

All of this makes me question the benefits of guaranteeing that nobody be bankrupted by medical costs. In particular, I'm reminded of free-market economist Friedrich Hayek, and what he called "absolute security."

You see, Hayek was not opposed to social safety nets. He argued that a wealthy society can afford to provide "limited security" to its citizens who fall on hard times. But Hayek warned repeatedly against "absolute security" -- that is, against "the security of a given standard of life, or of the relative position which one person or group enjoys compared with others."

What Hayek cautioned against, specifically, was guaranteeing that people would not become poor.

Limited security -- welfare; a safety net for those who are already at the bottom -- is within a free society's reach. But absolute security, as Hayek saw it, leads to tyranny. You cannot promise people that they will never lose their wealth; that their station in life is secure -- not without sacrificing someone's freedom.

So when Obama asserts as a national priority that "no one should go broke because they get sick," I fear for our liberty.

[Berlin_Freeper]

In the old days people had large families and counted on each other for help. Between you family and your friends and your neighbors and your fellow church members you had a safety net of people that together were called a community.

These days, the selfish Left doesn't want to be bothered helping out but rather be left alone and have strangers forced to help through the government.

[AndyJackson]

In the old days people had large families

But in the new days, with population pressures all over, and folks electing to have children at a rate that barely replaces the population, even now in the favelas of the third world, this is no longer a viable social arrangement, and others must be found.

For Conservatives to be taken seriously they have to start living in the real world as it exists and not harken back to some past that is irrelevant.

[AndyJackson]

the benefits of guaranteeing that nobody be bankrupted by medical costs

If medical services operated in a free market, then this would be much less likely, because services would be provided at a cost that the market could bear, and the unbearable costs of obtrusive bureaucrats - I mean all the private bureaucrats as well as the public ones - could not be born, nor could the legal costs of our litigious society.

[Berlin_Freeper]

George W Bush had the right idea with his “compassionate conservatism”. So the idea is viable, it just has to be recognized and appreciated. Your lack of any other suggestions has failed to change my mind.

[Berlin_Freeper]

"If medical services operated in a free market, then this would be much less likely, because services would be provided at a cost that the market could bear..."

The article makes clear:
if you're really sick -- too sick to work, for example, and sick for a long time

So free market value is not really the consideration here, but rather serious long term help that can be provided best by a community such as I have already described for you.

[BenKenobi]

I don’t see voluntary charity as inferior to involuntary taxation. How much more would people give if they got all their paycheques back, and could decide where their money was to be spent?