National Health System (2 Viewers)

[jb_nc]

O
Yes, because the AMA restrict the supply of doctors making it harder to train them. If we had competing standards and less regulatory burden, there might actually be more doctors and better access to cheaper health care.

hahahah

The market will decided because they more patients they kill the less likely they will be to attract new patients.

GENIUS

 

[volition]

The business is inclined to offer good service because of the THREAT of hurting/killing a patient and losing business. They don't have to actually go and kill a patient for the market to work.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Ok well first off, if thalidomide is so bad and govt approval is so necessary, then why did the US FDA approve it? That wiki article says it got approved...

Did you read the article? It was released because testing around the world was minimal, and only the strict testing offered by the head of the FDA prevented its release and the eventual discovery of its teratogenic effects. Extensive testing by the FDA was the only thing that discovered the deadly effects of the drugs and saved thousands of babies.

Tough to say really, because you never hear so much about cases where people die because they couldn't get access to a drug that could've helped them.

Testing and application delays have dramatically increased the cost of health care and made it unaffordable for the majority of the world and also has stifled investment in many drugs due to the large approval costs.

edit: just stumbled on this article. Get the FDA Out of the Way, and Drug Prices Will Drop by By Gary S. Becker
It's particularly important because the US companies are bearing a disproportionate burden of creating new drugs, being the richest companies. It'd make a lot of sense to reduce a bit of the burden on them and let them get down to R+D.

Yes, but the effects of NOT testing drugs is deadly. Deadly! Yeah, maybe the delay of a new cancer drug like gardasil (which I thought was rushed onto the market myself) might cost a few lives down the track, but as coarse as that sounds it's nothing compared to the lives lost as a result of masses taking a deadly drug. You're playing with peoples lives here for the sake of cash and an ideology which is deadly in this situation.

But yes, I believe that it's a bit silly to outsource the development of drugs to corparations when it could easily be handled by government run universities.

Yes, and in saying that it's not sustainable, I'm saying that the system will just crash and burn when you just have this huge influx of people who come in and take the benefits without paying for it. Sure, you might think its 'nice' to just help everybody(by stealing!), but the reality is that nothing comes for free, and it's costing them a lot of money. Families need their money too ya know. Even the rich need their money or else their money won't go into investing into newer and better technologies, instead it'll get sucked into the black hole that is the govt.

The black hole which has prevented thousands of dangerous drugs from making it into the market because of extensive testing? :rofl:

There's more than enough wealth in the US to cover basic healthcare for all of Mexico, I'd say. Just tax Bill Gates (who is a humanitarian, so I shouldn't pick on him too much) total worth of about 9/10's its total and he'd still be able to live on 5,900,000,000, which is a whole...98333 times more than what my family earns in a year. Take the taxed money and invest it into helping people to live, rather than die. I know that you wouldn't say that "robbery" is worse than murder...

Initiation of violence is immoral! Why doesn't anybody understand this?

Oh I agree, but letting people die for the sake of keeping your precious, precious cash in your cold, clammy, Bondi Beach hands is even more immoral.

Ok now this looks a lot like an ad hom to me.

It's rather hard not to engage in ad hominem thingos with you sometimes, considering some of your ideas...

 

[volition]

Did you read the article? It was released because testing around the world was minimal, and only the strict testing offered by the head of the FDA prevented its release and the eventual discovery of its teratogenic effects. Extensive testing by the FDA was the only thing that discovered the deadly effects of the drugs and saved thousands of babies.

Ok do you have anything to show that the FDA does this commonly? Or is this just the isolated case where the FDA did actually help? Because I'm more inclined to believe that while this is a good example for you, for the most part the FDA just stifles innovation.

I mean, what's to say that the world would never have known? What if a competing firm would have done some research into the drug to try and discredit Thalidomide? Or created a newer/better/cheaper drug without the harmful side effects?

Yeah, maybe the delay of a new cancer drug like gardasil (which I thought was rushed onto the market myself) might cost a few lives down the track, but as coarse as that sounds it's nothing compared to the lives lost as a result of masses taking a deadly drug.

Well we have to compare this to the innovation that we've now lost by making it harder for new drugs to be developed.

Keep in mind that lots of the new drugs that do come out are privately researched, not public. So we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot here.

But yes, I believe that it's a bit silly to outsource the development of drugs to corparations when it could easily be handled by government run universities.

Govt funded universities will undoubtedly squander the money on some other mickey mouse drug that will never come to fruition. There's no profit motive, and without that, there isn't anywhere near as much drive to create something useful for society.

There's more than enough wealth in the US to cover basic healthcare for all of Mexico, I'd say. Just tax Bill Gates (who is a humanitarian, so I shouldn't pick on him too much) total worth of about 9/10's its total and he'd still be able to live on 5,900,000,000, which is a whole...98333 times more than what my family earns in a year. Take the taxed money and invest it into helping people to live, rather than die.

I think there's something I need to explain here:

When you think about these ultra-rich people(and even just rich people in general), what do you think their money is held in? I reckon you imagine most of this money/'value' is held in the newest cars, the best mansions, jets, yachts and other consumer goods.

It'd probably come as a surprise to you that their money is typically overwhelmingly invested in means of production! This capital, produces the goods which we buy, and progressively brings about more and more supply of goods for us to buy. It is both making goods we buy cheaper, and making us get paid more for our labour. It is also by extension, being invested in researching and developing new things to make our lives better.

So yeah, I don't know if you've thought about this before, but their money is not just existing in a vacuum somewhere. We don't need to take it away from them and invest it, it's already invested in things that help us.

 

[volition]

lol, you're quite crazy and are either a) four years old or b) a sociopath

Well leaving the ad hom aside for now, the system where a doctor/hospital is then shunned for hurting a patient would be much preferable to the system now where people die(or perhaps are shunned by nurses at Royal North Shore Hospital while miscarrying) and are still forced to pay for it.

I might be putting all this stuff crudely, but its because I'm tired of seeing the same failures happen over and over. What kind of system is it where failure is rewarded with extra funding and no promise or commitment to improvement?

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Ok do you have anything to show that the FDA does this commonly? Or is this just the isolated case where the FDA did actually help? Because I'm more inclined to believe that while this is a good example for you, for the most part the FDA just stifles innovation.

Yes, I do, and you can find them all here.

http://www.fda.gov

I'm not going to bother fishing out more examples because I'm uber-confident that a couple million examples are to be found out there. Protecting lives from wacky drugs finding their way onto the marketplace is a very, very important responcibility that I wouldn't like to see abolished, or even put into the hands of a private firm...

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by stifling innovation either. I mean, new chemicals are found/manufactured, tested and then sold. There's no more or no less innovation to be found in a private or public firm that makes drugs, none. The scientist goes through uni, gets a job some place then plays around with some chemicals until they find their new drug. The only difference is that private firms, owing to their lust for $$$, might rush things through the testing process - but luckily, the government is there to make sure that these companies don't overlook vital safety constraints. I guess I concede that public firms probably would go a little slower, theoretically, but I'm not at all convinced that slowly developing a drug so we don't get another thalidomide or elephant man drug (summary: private firm skipped over safety checks; test subjects dying of leukemia) is an entirely bad thing.

When you think about these ultra-rich people(and even just rich people in general), what do you think their money is held in? I reckon you imagine most of this money/'value' is held in the newest cars, the best mansions, jets, yachts and other consumer goods.

It'd probably come as a surprise to you that their money is typically overwhelmingly invested in means of production! This capital, produces the goods which we buy, and progressively brings about more and more supply of goods for us to buy. It is both making goods we buy cheaper, and making us get paid more for our labour. It is also by extension, being invested in researching and developing new things to make our lives better.

So yeah, I don't know if you've thought about this before, but their money is not just existing in a vacuum somewhere. We don't need to take it away from them and invest it, it's already invested in things that help us.

Mmmhmm, but couldn't this wonderfully useful capital be invested in one big firm that would then distribute the benefits equally, rather than on a lopsided scale? You know...the government?

 

[volition]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by stifling innovation either.

The stifling innovation thing is the increase in costs of how much it costs to get a new drug out into the system. Also because they only have a limited time to be able to sell the drug(FDA approval takes ages), they have to charge a much higher price to recoup their costs.

There's no more or no less innovation to be found in a private or public firm that makes drugs, none.

Well not just that, a govt is less likely to be able to 'pick the winner' in terms of choosing the right technology/drug to pursue.

Why? Because it lacks distributed information.

Mmmhmm, but couldn't this wonderfully useful capital be invested in one big firm that would then distribute the benefits equally, rather than on a lopsided scale? You know...the government?

What is distributed information? It's all the little things that people know. But often they don't have the incentive to tell other people about it. eg. when you know that a company is going to experience high profits in the future because you know that what it's investing in is a good industry or whatever... you should BUY that stock on the stock market or, purchase a call option on the stock, or any kind of action like this. Likewise, if you think the company is going down, it makes sense to SELL the stock or buy a put option on it etc.

When you do this, you are contributing your information to the price. An efficient market will help the price remain accurate in this way. If you're interested in the subject, check out the Efficient Market Hypothesis, or Prediction markets. You might also find the Wisdom of Crowds an interesting read. They generally work pretty well, because all the people gambling/investing in them generally have good knowledge of what they invest in, and they're prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

Anyway, the point is, without the use of distributed information, the govt cannot apportion its money so well. This is because there is no way to "increase your stock holdings" in a non-listed firm such as a govt owned one. The only influence on govts is one vote every 3 years, as opposed to the market where not only do you have much much more choice, you can choose how much you want to invest in something and it operates on a much faster time schedule (some changes have almost instant effects on the price of a stock). This kind of information can't be represented by a 1 and a 2 on a ballot sheet.

Also, there's no way for a govt firm manager to "pretend that the money he's investing is his own". Without this, his preferences will be skewed, he may be more inclined to take up a more risky position than what a private company in the industry would support. When you take up more risk than you can handle for example, you can easily lose money.

So it is actually the govt distribution of things within businesses that is lopsided, not the markets.

Anyway, I hope you found that interesting.

 

[jb_nc]

Well leaving the ad hom aside for now, the system where a doctor/hospital is then shunned for hurting a patient would be much preferable to the system now where people die(or perhaps are shunned by nurses at Royal North Shore Hospital while miscarrying) and are still forced to pay for it.

I might be putting all this stuff crudely, but its because I'm tired of seeing the same failures happen over and over. What kind of system is it where failure is rewarded with extra funding and no promise or commitment to improvement?

Like I said, if you don't have insurance and don't have the money in a private system, you're kicked to the curb.

SOUNDS GREAT.

 

[jb_nc]

hay guys if a crime is commited against you in anarcho-capitalist nirvana, hope you paid for the private police and the private justice system to bring the perps to trial, then you can pay for the private prison to keep them locked up

don't forget the private firefighters tax cause your house is just going to burn the fuck down if you haven't paid

and you won't be allowed to drive on roads either unless you PAY

so essentially, it's like government except you pay private companies for every minute detail in your life.

SOUNDS GREAT

 

[volition]

Like I said, if you don't have insurance and don't have the money in a private system, you're kicked to the curb.

SOUNDS GREAT.

Not yet, there's still private charity. Don't forget that in a free market people will earn a lot more(growth will be faster, they also won't be getting taxed to the nose) and if as you say, everybody cares about other people's welfare, then surely they would donate to private charity to help out the poor.

How does it work that: People all vote to be forced to give money to the poor, but then suddenly if there were no govt, nobody would give to the poor?

 

[jb_nc]

triple post but

if you truely believe those things you are absolutely so far removed from mainstream australian socitey you live in la-la-land

 

[jb_nc]

Not yet, there's still private charity. Don't forget that in a free market people will earn a lot more(growth will be faster, they also won't be getting taxed to the nose) and if as you say, everybody cares about other people's welfare, then surely they would donate to private charity to help out the poor.

How does it work that: People all vote to be forced to give money to the poor, but then suddenly if there were no govt, nobody would give to the poor?

all i know is that if im sick dr ron paul will operate on me for free sounds cool

ron paul: the white supremacists candidate

 

[volition]

hay guys if a crime is commited against you in anarcho-capitalist nirvana, hope you paid for the private police and the private justice system to bring the perps to trial, then you can pay for the private prison to keep them locked up

Once again, if you can't afford this kind of stuff, then there's still going to be private charity.

As for the prisons thing, its not a definite thing that criminals would go to prison, in anarcho-capitalist society they may just be kicked out of society or made to pay restitution for their crimes. Unless the private police can get the criminal to voluntarily come and work with them to pay off the debt. Don't forget, these Dispute Resolution Organisations(DROs) will have contracts governing many things in society such as water, food, bank accounts etc. So being kicked out of society is actually a bad thing because it means people are less inclined to do business with you/won't do business with you at all if you're dangerous.

But yeah, basically if DROs have contracts to keep people safe, then effectively it would pay for them to run prisons and just to generally deal with the criminal threat.

so essentially, it's like government except you pay private companies for every minute detail in your life.

With the exception of not having your rights infringed upon, and the economy growing so much faster that everybody would be better off.

if you truely believe those things you are absolutely so far removed from mainstream australian socitey you live in la-la-land

That fact that it's not a commonly held belief is not something that makes it wrong. I've only recently become anarcho-capitalist and it's because the immorality/illogic of majority rule is starting to dawn on me.

 

[jb_nc]

Once again, if you can't afford this kind of stuff, then there's still going to be private charity.

private policing charity: helping your family get justice they can't afford when you're murdered

As for the prisons thing, its not a definite thing that criminals would go to prison, in anarcho-capitalist society they may just be kicked out of society or made to pay restitution for their crimes. Unless the private police can get the criminal to voluntarily come and work with them to pay off the debt. Don't forget, these Dispute Resolution Organisations(DROs) will have contracts governing many things in society such as water, food, bank accounts etc. So being kicked out of society is actually a bad thing because it means people are less inclined to do business with you/won't do business with you at all if you're dangerous.

With the exception of not having your rights infringed upon, and the economy growing so much faster that everybody would be better off.

That fact that it's not a commonly held belief is not something that makes it wrong. I've only recently become anarcho-capitalist and it's because the immorality/illogic of majority rule is starting to dawn on me.

lol ok im sure criminals would be voted off the island like survivor

it sounds like this insane society would consist solely of rich, white males.

 

[volition]

all i know is that if im sick dr ron paul will operate on me for free sounds cool

ron paul: the white supremacists candidate

There's no argument here! You're just posting ridiculously quick for no good reason.

private policing charity: helping your family get justice they can't afford when you're murdered

Look if you really think society is so violent, just look at your interactions now! Do you enforce your interactions with other people via violence?

Look guys, just look at yourselves, YOU are an example of a microcosm of an anarcho-capitalist society. You don't make people pay you against their will, you don't throw people in jail, you don't make your wife marry you at gunpoint!

People fundamentally are capable of acting peacefully, it just takes a bit of rational thought to realise that majority rule is illogical/immoral.

it sounds like this insane society would consist solely of rich, white males.

Look there's no reason to be saying this. You should realise that if I were truly that bigoted and egotistical, then saying that would have no effect on me. It would not help at all in shaming me, if it were the case that I was that egotistical then I wouldn't care.

You're saying this purely because you KNOW that I'm not like that (hence theres no point saying it, its untrue), and you know that it hurts me to say these things about me.

I'm just trying to find the answers where I feel that the current solution is unworkable/immoral. If you're willing to actually have rational discussion and prove me wrong, then I am only too happy to be proven wrong. But if you can't do that, please don't resort to attacking the person.

 

[jb_nc]

People fundamentally are capable of acting peacefully, it just takes a bit of rational thought to realise that majority rule is illogical/immoral.

there are no criminals in australia

there are no gays in iran

 

[volition]

there are no criminals in australia

there are no gays in iran

Ok look yes there are bad people in society, but Im saying that that isn't the general case. Just think of your interactions with society and tell me if you know people who regularly use violence in their everyday interactions.

I certainly don't know people like this.

 

[A High Way Man]

fucking loling aside, volition tbh i think you're a bit naive
i imagine the society u posit to be like the one in blade runner
its not very friendly

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

The stifling innovation thing is the increase in costs of how much it costs to get a new drug out into the system. Also because they only have a limited time to be able to sell the drug(FDA approval takes ages), they have to charge a much higher price to recoup their costs.

Yeah but we've already seen that rushing drugs onto the market is kinda deadly, so meh. $$$ v lives.

What is distributed information? It's all the little things that people know. But often they don't have the incentive to tell other people about it. eg. when you know that a company is going to experience high profits in the future because you know that what it's investing in is a good industry or whatever... you should BUY that stock on the stock market or, purchase a call option on the stock, or any kind of action like this. Likewise, if you think the company is going down, it makes sense to SELL the stock or buy a put option on it etc.

When you do this, you are contributing your information to the price. An efficient market will help the price remain accurate in this way. If you're interested in the subject, check out the Efficient Market Hypothesis, or Prediction markets. You might also find the Wisdom of Crowds an interesting read. They generally work pretty well, because all the people gambling/investing in them generally have good knowledge of what they invest in, and they're prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

Anyway, the point is, without the use of distributed information, the govt cannot apportion its money so well. This is because there is no way to "increase your stock holdings" in a non-listed firm such as a govt owned one. The only influence on govts is one vote every 3 years, as opposed to the market where not only do you have much much more choice, you can choose how much you want to invest in something and it operates on a much faster time schedule (some changes have almost instant effects on the price of a stock). This kind of information can't be represented by a 1 and a 2 on a ballot sheet.

Also, there's no way for a govt firm manager to "pretend that the money he's investing is his own". Without this, his preferences will be skewed, he may be more inclined to take up a more risky position than what a private company in the industry would support. When you take up more risk than you can handle for example, you can easily lose money.

So it is actually the govt distribution of things within businesses that is lopsided, not the markets.

Anyway, I hope you found that interesting.

Oh I found it interesting but incredibly unlikely and moreover irrelevant. I would have imagined that pharmaceutical companies are incredibly coveruppy about their business and hence wouldn't divulge too many corparate secrets, leading this 'consumer justice' (as I'll dub it) to be kinda random and moot. I mean, I could be wrong there.

But even so, it seems outrageous to me to relate any of that to a drug company in the first place. As I said, the researchers in uni's have an interest (and judging by the USyd website, they're all pretty varied interests) so they sit down and research it. Any intelligent and moral organisation is going to put their money into all areas of research - I don't see why they'd do it any other way. Private firms on the other hand, as you've said, are concerned with the $$$ so they might, say, take their precious, precious cash and invest it all into cold & flu tablets because they make the most money, but won't nessecarily save the most lives. This is in direct contrast with what I said earlier about private and public organisations being identical, so I concede that I was wrong. No, it seems apparent now that private firms would put their money not nessecarily into where lives could be saved, but where dollars could be made. And hey hey, there's one of my biggest problems with the whole idea of privatisation.

Not yet, there's still private charity.

Yes, because the private citizen is always concerned about charity. :rofl:

*walks past bum in Redfern*

 

[KFunk]

And no-one will as thats how the system has been designed, its how the doctors have been taught at universities across Australia. Save your skins first - forget you are a doctor, first save yourself.

I believe this is what they are taught at universities - save yourselves first.

The problem not only exists with Hospital management, but with the doctors/nurses are trained as well.

Perhaps it comes in at a later point in my education but thus far I haven't encountered this.