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Comment by warfangle | Hacker News Reader

And why should healthcare cost money? That's pinning quality of health to how much money you make.

And that's just plain immoral.

Well, let's look at the alternatives. If we don't want people to have to pay for the services they use, we can let people enslave doctors. Or, we can steal from every citizen in the whole country and use the resulting money to pay the doctor. This second option would be called "single payer," and it is my preferred policy, but it does not seem to be obviously morally different from enslaving doctors or obviously morally preferable to requiring people to pay for the services they use.

Or, and I'm going out on a limb here, and we could have a thing called a "democracy", where we jointly decide to pay for health care for everybody. And then we could come up with some sort of system for sharing out the costs of the joint project in a more-or-less equitable fashion.

Right, this is what I proposed. We should democratically agree to use the threat of violence to steal money from everyone to pay for medical services for everyone.

Theft implies unwillingness. So sure, in the sense that paying your share of a group meal you ordered is theft, yes.

More like: we agree together to set up a society, then people in it have to follow the rules. If you don't like that, there are rules that let you change the rules.

"equitable"? That's a 100% subjective term. Of course if someone else is paying it's equitable. If you're paying for someone else, it's not.

Actually, if somebody else is paying for me, that's inequitable. I like to pay my way.

That something is subjective doesn't mean that it's unknowable. Justice is subjective, but that doesn't mean we should abolish the courts and the police. Those institutions will never be perfect, but we can nonetheless always work toward perfection.

First off the courts and police have nothing to do with health care. Secondly, the courts don't dispense "justice", and judges will tell you that first thing as you arrive for jury duty. They dispense the law.

Justice is 100% subjective, but we have a reasonably good system for it. Equitable is also 100% subjective, and it is equally possible to pursue it.

We call it a justice system, but it's not. It's a legal system. That was my point. Once you start trying to dispense justice you fail.

So? We have sewage systems, but their purpose is health. Imperfect systems are how we work toward ideals.

We evaluate the legal system in large part by whether the outcomes are just. For example, the revision of the three strikes law in California is happening because a number of people have received obviously unjust sentences. And we got the law in the first place because many people thought that letting serial offenders free to harm people again was unjust.

"Equitable" is another one of those ideals, and that it is just as subjective as justice or health. But we can work toward it.

Which is the greater moral disservice - a set price, to be paid for by a non-profit, heavily regulated healthcare org -- or letting people die because they can't afford to go to a hospital that isn't overrun by MRSA?

It's not clear to me what you are proposing. Particularly, the source of funding in your proposal seems to be something like "A miracle occurs, and then the healthcare org is sufficiently funded to pay for people's health care."

One could just as easily ask "Which is the greater moral disservice - a global food distribution network that ensures every person will have safe sustenance, or letting people starve because of regional droughts, tyrannical governments, and currency speculators?" but the question does not apparently lead to any actionable policy decisions.

Why should food cost money? Why should shelter cost money? Why should heating oil cost money?

Because those industries work better when they do*

Just like health care works better when it is provided by a single payer.

* In the case of shelter, temporary shelter for those who need it is also provided free of charge, but that is not the normal situation for most people.

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