Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable

From: MS (mikesc_at_iname.com)
Date: 02/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 21:35:01 GMT

robert j. kolker wrote:
>
>
> sinister wrote:
>
>> Unless you want to continue buffing up your reputation as a rabid
>> anti-empiricist, please provide links to any evidence that the main
>> empirical claim in the article---that the VHA is now providing
>> high-quality health care---is wrong.
>
> High quality in comparison to what? Who made the determination. By what
> objective criteria? Why should I believe this?
>
> Even granting the point there is no assurance that the government will
> supply high quality care nationwide to everyone. Governments have a very
> bad record in quality and efficiency.
>
> Let me ask you a question. Would you like the entire food production and
> distribution system of the counry government run? Would you expect to be
> as well fed? Do you want the workers in the local food store to be
> government employees? If government is so great why not have it run
> everything?

Who said government was "so great"? Another strawmen? There
are some sectors (few) of the economy that require government
involvement -- health care is one of them. Study the roles
information asymmetry, externalities, and uncertainty play in
the health care sector.

Arrow (Nobel Laureate) published an article, "Uncertainty and
the Welfare Economics of Medical Care" about these
characteristics in a 63 edition of the AER. However, if you
cannot understand the Washington Monthly, the AER is going to
give you trouble. Even if it is from 1963.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable
    ... Who made the determination. ... > supply high quality care nationwide to everyone. ... > distribution system of the counry government run? ... off, overall, if the government ran health care. ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable
    ... >> Unless you want to continue buffing up your reputation as a rabid ... > Even granting the point there is no assurance that the government will ... > supply high quality care nationwide to everyone. ... See also "the public goods problem". ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable
    ... >> Unless you want to continue buffing up your reputation as a rabid ... Private hospitals. ... >supply high quality care nationwide to everyone. ... >distribution system of the counry government run? ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable
    ... Even granting the point there is no assurance that the government will ... supply high quality care nationwide to everyone. ... Do you want the workers in the local food store to be ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Why socialized medicine is inevitable
    ... Who made the determination. ... >Even granting the point there is no assurance that the government will ... >supply high quality care nationwide to everyone. ... Would you like the entire food production and ...
    (sci.econ)