[ExI] Healthcare and governments thinking long range

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 3:30 AM, Stathis Papaioannou<stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/6/22 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
>
>> ### There is not a shred of evidence that government controlled health
>> care is better than provided privately, in fact, all reliable evidence
>> points the other way (plastic surgery, lasik, Singapore). But, you
>> prefer not to see it, and cling to meaningless fakery (international
>> outcome comparisons between various flavors of government control)
>> that is trumpeted up as evidence. And then you compare us to Marxists.
>> Go figure.
>
> Most public health systems won't pay for plastic surgery and lasik
> except under special circumstances. In fact, most private health
> insurers would not fund unlimited access to plastic surgery either, on
> the grounds that it isn't really "health" care.

### Yeah, doesn't this tell you something? Huh? Why does cutting
tissue to make you pretty get better and cheaper all the time, while
cutting the same tissue to make you live longer or healthier gets more
and more expensive? Can you connect the dots?

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>
> Singapore has an extensive public health care system. They have means
> testing for certain public hospital services:
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Singapore).

### Read it again (pay attention to the terms "catastrophic care" and
"medical savings account"), compare to predominantly
government-controlled programs elsewhere, do an extrapolation and
think over its implications.

------------------

 Hong Kong
> also has an extensive public health system. These countries have
> traditionally been ideologically committed to the free market.

### There is no "free market ideology", just being reasonable.

-------------------
Why do
> you think they don't just make all health care completely private? The
> answer would seem to be, Because they are pragmatic enough to realise
> that at least some government involvement in health care is important.

### Because even Singaporeans are not smart enough - but they are
smarter than most, so their government involvement in everything,
including health care, is lower than in other places.

Rafal