[n4r9]

In "The Road to Serfdom":

> There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom. .... There can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. ... Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individual in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.

[roenxi]

That doesn't read like support for universal government funded healthcare. He's talking insurance in the more traditional meaning of the word where it involves unexpected catastrophes as opposed to the weird modernism in healthcare where it means paying for things that are likely to happen (or even volunteered for).

Eg, that quote doesn't involve government covering medical costs for someone in their old age.

He might even have been excluding things like catching the flu, seeing the doctor and needing a week off work since he's talking about things people could not make adequate provisions for on their own.

[freen]

Look, you doubted that the quote could be sourced.

Maybe check your epistemology: perhaps other folks know more and better?

[n4r9]

Yeah, there are going to be differing interpreations of "common hazards of life" and "adequate provision". But it certainly sounds like he's advocating state-funded healthcare for e.g. cancer, which is very different to what many modern libertarians believe.

[roenxi]

Maybe; he is advocating for a safety net. But I note he didn't say that either and, being an economist, he would probably have had the standard reservations - what exactly is the upper limit of care being provided to someone for "cancer"? It is very vague. If people still sometimes die of cancer when spending $X there is always room to spend $X+1 until the money runs out. No entity in existence can cover that sort of cost. If we lose the lighthouse of the free market pricing then it isn't at all clear how we'd work out what is reasonable.

The "genuinely insurable risks" and "few individuals can make adequate provision" comments he made in that quote are serious caveats on what he said. He clearly isn't advocating for what would be called universal state-funded healthcare in the modern context. He appears to be talking about a bare-bones public insurance scheme [0] for certain rare events where he didn't go into detail on what he thinks is reasonable to cover. I'd like it if everyone reverted to that sort of scheme, any English speaking country could get a tax break if they went back to that sort of system. The expectation would be that most people don't use it.

[0] Actual insurance, not this modern scheme of branding a welfare system as "insurance" to fake that it is financially responsible.

[n4r9]

> what exactly is the upper limit of care being provided to someone for "cancer"? It is very vague.

It is light on detail but that feels tangential to me? Much like private insurance schemes, state healthcare systems necessarily have a limit on care/expense.

> He clearly isn't advocating for what would be called universal state-funded healthcare in the modern context ... He appears to be talking about ... certain rare events

He uses terms like "common hazards of life", "the case of sickness", and "comprehensive social insurance". I find it hard to believe this doesn't include assistance for the most common health issues like arthritis, diabetes, cancer, and so on.

[roenxi]

We're talking about one vague paragraph in a book that was making a lot of heavy arguments against any level of government planning. It isn't at all clear he was talking about any of those specific things.

"common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision" does not technically include arthritis, diabetes, cancer and so on. Most people can make adequate provisions against those things. The median wage in the west is north of $50,000 - that is a huge amount of slack available for saving for the likelihood of sickness.

And insurance in that passage probably means actual insurance. The modern conception of universal government funded healthcare is a long way from that.

If you focus on specific phrases I'm certainly happy to admit it is a reasonable read. The issue is in context of the entire sentences and, indeed, the nature of the book itself it isn't the most likely meaning of the passage. He's not advocating for universal, government funded healthcare in the sense that it gets used in modern everyday conversation.

[freen]

What, pray tell, is Hayek in fact advocating for in that section?

[n4r9]

I'm inclined to a different interpretation of "common hazards" and "adequate provision" but otherwise don't massively disagree, so would be happy to leave it there. My takeaway is that Hayek falls somewhere inbetween universal state-funded healthcare (as in say the UK) and modern US libertarianism. I confess to not knowing that much about him before this discussion but I would have suspected him lying much closer to "modern US libertarianism" on this topic than I now believe. So it's been enlightening, thank you.