“The American people ARE NOT going to be willing to have people dying on the street in front of the hospital because they don’t have insurance.”
Which of course has never been the situation in the US. Regardless of how many times this claim has been made, we can see from history that it did not happen before health insurance became the norm and it will not happen if we are ever able to remove government from the market.
“What is indisputable, I believe, is that we spend more than any other country, and yet many Americans don’t have ready access to medical care when they need it.”
Completely false. Either you are purposely lying or you are an unwitting dupe to the left’s argument for central planning. I challenge you to name ONE American citizen that was not able to acquire medical care when they needed it.
“The whole purpose, economically speaking, of a “health care system” is to spread the cost of the total system out over the entire population.”
The purpose of any industry is for product or service providors to be motivated to make a profit. Period. That purpose does not change with the title of the industry. The Insurance industry is certainly a voluntary transfer of risk between two parties, but it is not spreading a specified cost.
As soon as you start “spreading the cost of a total system over the entire population” you have nothing but collectivism. That breeds lowered accountability by individuals and it increases costs. Name one example where collectivism has improved the way of life for those involved. BTW, a hippie commune is to small to be a significant example.
“What will not and cannot work is guaranteed availability to every citizen, without enforced contribution from all citizens.”
Yes, you can FORCE contribution to a system, or to put it more plainly you can take money from everyone vie the barrel of a gun. However, you will never be able to gaurantee availabilty to anyone, let alone every citizen, unless you are willing to force producers (doctors, nurses, etc.) to actually do specific work tasks. Eventually you must then force “competent students in the department of education” to enter “the department of vocations” to become a nurse or doctor, etc. Our name is Equality 7-2521
Your examples of other countries “that are not that bad” are only able to survive because we have been their beacon on a hill. Without our HC industry, you will see collapsing dominos throughout the world.
I hate to ask a personal question, but I am compelled. How old are you? I am suspecting that you are to young to have much experience with collectivists and their ideas....
Correct. However, the reason it doesn't happen today is because there are federal laws requiring hospitals to treat all emergency patients regardless of their ability to pay. With of course federal, state and local government subsidies to the hospitals involved, or they go out of business.
I believe some of your claims are flatly untrue. You claim, apparently, that nobody in America has ever gone without needed medical care, regardless of whether they have insurance or not. I assume you carry insurance yourself.
Why? If having it or not makes no difference in the care you will receive, why do you bother to cough up the rather large sum each year to be insured.
While I'm a huge fan of the free market, those who try to apply free market principles fully to health care fall into a logical trap. They claim that Obamacare is insupportable because it will add 25M or 50M (or whatever the number is) of new health care consumers to the system, without increasing the support system that provides that care. This is absolutely true.
However, by making this statement they are agreeing that this same 25M or 50M people are presently not being provided the health care they need.
BTW, I'm surprisingly old. As stated, I dislike statism and collectivism, but I recognize that true free market principles, for cultural and political reasons, are NOT going to be fully applied to health care. Given this fact, then it behooves conservatives not to insist on going down with the free market ship, but rather to fight for the most efficient and least liberty-destructive system that we can achieve.