[ExI] Charity vs. the Dole/was Re: Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA]

[Dan]

On Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:03:30 AM Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com wrote:
>2009/7/21 Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it>:
>> Rafal Smigrodzki ha scritto:
>>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 8:49 AM, Mirco Romanato<painlord2k at libero.it> wrote:
>>>> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto:
>>>>> 2009/7/17 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:
>>>>> Charity won't reliably cover everyone.
>>>
>>> ### I didn't write that.
>>
>> He didn't write that government plans will reliably cover everyone.
>> He did?
>
> It was I who wrote it, not Rafal as the >>>'s suggest.

The >s don't reveal things correctly here, but no matter.

That charity won't reliably cover everyone remains to be proved and depends on what's meant by "reliably." Under a coercive system, no everyone is necessarily covered either. Again, coercive systems don't escape the scarcity problem. They, too, have to economize on scarce resources. Yes, the marketing whizes for socialized healthcare can say there'll be universal coverage of high quality, but there's always going to be a trade off -- though the trade off in such case will be made politically. So, one could just as reasonably say public healthcare won't reliably cover everyone -- again, allowing that "reliably" is not precisely defined. (And, I submit, any precise definition of it would be arbitrary -- along the lines of the "just price" of the Middle Ages. I.e., it tells us more about the subjective values of the person making the definition than about any rock solid criterion for deciding the issue.)

Regards,

Dan