[ExI] EP and Peak oil

[Damien Broderick]

At 08:07 PM 4/1/2008 -0500, Max wrote:

> >What I'm reeling from consciously at the moment is the proven
> >my-poverty-creating absence in the USA of the sort of medical health
> >system, funded from taxation together with private insurance, that
> >would support me in Australia.##
>
>...You're right. The US medical care system is
>seriously messed up. But why do you reflexively assume more
>government is the answer?

I've lived both there and here within the last decade. I was able to 
afford crucial pharmaceuticals there and I could expect that if a 
medical crisis afflicted me I wouldn't be ruined. (And yes, of course 
I have insurance.)

>I expect you'd be willing to grant that the
>US system is very very far from a free market.

Max, I assume you haven't been following this sub-thread. I don't 
just "grant" this--it's exactly what I (and PJ Manney) have been 
saying repeatedly. The collusion between government and corporations 
is one reason.

>Are you sure that a
>true free market in medical care wouldn't be a major improvement.

I don't know. I have reason to suppose that an Aussie-style system 
would be a major improvement (for me and many other people in the 
USA) over what you have here now. Obviously I'd hope that it might be 
improved in turn. But when I read assertions about how a true free 
market would beat the socks off anything else, I'm reminded of 
classic Trotskyist communists--"Oh, the Soviet Union's just totalist 
state capitalism, not *real* marxism, which has never been tried... 
but when it does, we'll see paradise, you betcha."

>might spur me to finally put together a piece (for my brand spanking
>new blog) on what steps toward such a system might be.

Please do, would be interesting!

>of course, U.S. doctors are SO smart about health economics that
>we should take this as the ultimate argument, right?

Clearly not; but I seem to recall many times when the 
counter-argument has been supported by previous polls showing that 
doctors until recently *disapproved* of national health schemes. I 
find the change of heart informative.

Damien Broderick