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> Do go on. Why is dying due to an explicit action any more of a free choice than dying of an explicit inaction?

Because one is coercion and the other is simply an economic system. Which by the way is also used for all the other necessities of life too. How about food?

The whole point of a free market is competition, so if you were at least arguing for emergency situations there's be something to talk about since it's rather hard to shop around. But we'd still need to compare it to how well the government handles economics of emergencies. So far we have the govt driving up the cost of emergency care by requiring the ER to provide primary care for everyone without insurance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine

I provided two examples of a coercive economic system. Just because it's an economic system doesn't make it any less coercive. The dictate is clear. A free market requires a voluntary participation of both the buyer and the seller. Threat of death is not voluntary participation, so it is not a free market. In a car crash you are not in a position to negotiate or make providers compete for your business.

In functioning systems the government drives down the cost of emergency care by setting the price and insuring everyone, and the results are clear. Canada's health care system costs $5447 USD, and Americas costs $10224. That's basically all I'll say about that.

Other necessities like food are in fact subsidized or socialized.

- The freeways? Socialized.

- The schools? Socialized.

- The police? Socialized.

- The fire stations? Socialized.

- The army? Socialized.

- The post office? Socialized.

- Healthcare for 40% of Americans? Socialized. (Medicare, Medicaid, VA). Medicare is socialized medicine. [1]

Food is also very much provided for if needed. SNAP and food banks provide socialized food to the poor. Americans pay less for food than anyone else on earth in no small part because the Farm Bill subsidizes production of corn and soy to the point these staples are sold at below cost to end users.

Either way that's a distraction and a red herring. Americans pay less for food than anyone else and more for medicine than anyone else. Eyes on the prize here, and stop carrying water for the insurance companies taking advantage of you :) All we're talking about doing is moving the percent of Americans covered by socialized medicine up from 40% to 100%.

> - Healthcare for 40% of Americans? Socialized. (Medicare, Medicaid, VA). Medicare is socialized medicine.

> Americans pay less for food than anyone else and more for medicine than anyone else.

Is your point then that food is cheap because it is socialized at a 100% rate as you want healthcare to be? Or that your references to socialism are all red herrings?

Poor people can get free healthcare the same ways they get free food, Govt programs and charities. Food banks are private charities, by the way.

You are not defining coercion properly. It means force or threats of force.

Freeways are not a necessity of life, though we are certainly coerced into paying for them. At least they aren't as expensive as that Army you mentioned. Apparently you define all government spending as socialism, making the only other possible form of "govt" anarchy itself?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialization_(Marxism)

> Is your point then that food is cheap because it is socialized at a 100% rate as you want healthcare to be? Or that your references to socialism are all red herrings?

My point is food is cheap because the government intervenes, it's not a free market as you make it out to be, and yes food is provided to those in need. However, there aren't many in need in no small part because food is already the cheapest in the world in the US. That's not an exaggeration [3].

If medicine were the cheapest in the world in the US then nobody would be calling for its socialization. The current system is an abject failure. The food market, while I disagree with it, would likely be defined as a success.

I'm saying that in other countries with socialized medicine costs are controlled far better. Medicare controls costs far better than the private sector. Canada's system costs half as much, covers everyone and is ranked better along basically ever major axis. Life expectancy is declining in the US. Healthcare in the US is among the worst in the OECD and far more expensive. [4]

I'm saying that it's not as big a leap as you make it out to be, and that there's lots of precedent, domestically and abroad.

> You are not defining coercion properly. It means force or threats of force.

Coercion (/koʊˈɜːrʒən, -ʃən/) is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner by use of threats or force. Threats or force. Pay up or get out and die is a threat, IMO, levvied by the system.

But even if you choose not to take that definition - it remains true (the only thing I've been arguing) that health care is not a voluntary contractual agreement but one taken out of necessity on an uneven playing field. This makes healthcare not a free market under most circumstances.

> Apparently you define all government spending as socialism, making the only other possible form of "govt" anarchy itself?

"In the theoretical works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and subsequent Marxist writers, socialization (or the socialization of production) is the process of transforming the act of producing and distributing goods and services from a solitary to a social relationship and collective endeavor." [1]

Socialization in a primarily capitalist economy is defined as taking a for-profit institution and transforming it into an institution collectively funded and carried out for the public benefit. If the government owns and operates a service for the public benefit it is a socialized service. It is socialism - well, democratic socialism/social democracy. It is not incompatible with freedom, or democracy, or private property rights.

Yes, these are all socialized services. Explicitly yes for Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE. [2]

The alternative to socialized services are privately owned and operated businesses. Not anarchy, necessarily, but libertarianism.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine

[3] https://www.ibtimes.com/us-spends-less-food-any-other-countr...

[4] http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/health-at-a-glance...

So food is cheap because the govt intervenes, ignoring the giant private market, and healthcare is expensive because of the private market, ignoring the massive govt intervention. How convenient.

"Threatening to not perform a service for someone" is not coercion, and does not invalidate a free market. A market is a place where scarce products can be exchanged between buyers and sellers who meet at an agreed upon price. The ability to refuse service is a prerequisite for having a market and the idea of private property itself, not some kind of unexpected flaw. The fact that something is scarce may well be problematic for some who cannot afford to outbid others who can afford it, but no system eliminates scarcity. Ask Venezuelans, who I am sure you were dying to talk about, what happens when you try to overcome scarcity with price fixing and free money. You simply achieve shortages.

In the 1980s the US did not have a 40 percent socialized system. The fraction of people on medicare was far less. Yet it was not the most expensive system in the world then. The US system is definitely failing, but it isn't the 300-year old market system that is causing it.

> So food is cheap because the govt intervenes, ignoring the giant private market, and healthcare is expensive because of the private market, ignoring the massive govt intervention. How convenient.

The only thing convenient is you not addressing my point :) The government intervention is a desparate attempt at not letting people die of disease and pestilence literally outside a point of care. You're asking for a dystopian hellscape. And that's what much of the last 300 years was with respect to medical care.

> In the 1980s the US did not have a 40 percent socialized system. The fraction of people on medicare was far less. Yet it was not the most expensive system in the world then. The US system is definitely failing, but it isn't the 300-year old market system that is causing it.

Yes it is.

Canada had a similar system until the 1970s, and it was bad. Then it switched over and things got better. America remained on the private system and it just got worse and worse.

Venezuela is totally and utterly irrelevant to this conversation. There are so many functioning systems with socialized medicine (all of Europe, especially the Scandinavians, Canada, Taiwan, etc, etc), Venezuela is an outlier and not even worth discussing. It's a failed state.

Whether you call it coercion or a power differential (you will die, the insurer or provider won't) this precludes a voluntary meeting of the minds necessary in a free market. Period.

> The alternative to socialized services are privately owned and operated businesses. Not anarchy, necessarily, but libertarianism.

Privatizing these would mean anarchism as there's no longer a monopoly on force.

>- The freeways? Socialized.

>- The schools? Socialized.

>- The police? Socialized.

>- The fire stations? Socialized.

>- The army? Socialized.

>- The post office? Socialized.

Ah yes who can forget the Armed Postal Forces and the Teachers Brigade. The Fire Fighters Battalion really whipped the enemy in Iraq. It's strictly not true that privatizing these would risk losing a monopoly on force.

It's not anarchy to pay the fire department to put out your fire. It's libertarianism. Just like paying your doctor to splint your leg.

Even if I agreed with you, whether it risks losing the monopoly on force or not doesn't make it any less a socialized service.

This might be a fun read for you: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...

8note 2008 days ago

Coercion is simply an economic system too?

I tell you to do work, and if you don't I shoot you. It's just economics; I'm trading not shooting you for your labour and everyone comes out happy

unishark 2003 days ago

No, economic systems are a superset of systems with coercion, and also include systems without coercion. So when I said "simply" an economic system, I meant lacking in coercion. Your example includes both. Also it's silly to call it trade.

Were you making an analogy for the economics of socialized medicine with the forcing of labor?