03/23/10 Paris, France – The French media reports the passage of the health care reform bill as though it were the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, Americans have finally entered the modern world, they seem to say. Now, Americans have access to health care as a matter of right.
We’re suspicious of anything the French papers think is a good idea; they’re as bad as The New York Times.
That people think they have a “right” to health care just goes to show how little people think at all. “Rights” only make sense when they can be applied universally, without causing a “wrong” to someone else. You can have a right to own property, for example, because everyone can enjoy the right under the same terms and conditions. You can have a right to say what you like too…as long as everyone can say what he likes. But if you have the right to a cat scan, someone must have an obligation to make the machine…to put it in service…to run it…to maintain it…to offer it to you…and to interpret the results, etc. Who is this poor slave who has been shackled to your service?
According to the advertising, the health care bill is supposed to work miracles. It is supposed to reduce businesses’ health care costs, reduce the federal deficit, and lower insurance premiums. Of course, it will do none of those things.
“Now we’re really screwed,” says Jules, 22. “All you baby boomers are going to get more health care freebies and my generation is going to have to pay for it. Not only that, I’m going to have to buy health care insurance for myself.
“And the country is going down the tubes, too. It’s going to be just like every other government boondoggle program. It’s going to cost a fortune and make things worse. You know, I can’t believe they passed that bill. It was outrageous. They bribed everyone to get the bill passed. And even then, they couldn’t get Republicans to vote for it.”
France has a system of public health care that seems to work fairly well. On the two occasions when we’ve needed it…we found it efficient and dignified. One time, we were taken to the hospital in an ambulance; the local doctor thought we were having a seizure, a stroke or a brain tumor. It turned out to be an inner ear infection…but the service was good. No waiting. No problems. We were given tests…and it went away. Another time, Edward’s front teeth were knocked out in an accident while playing with the boy next door… He was rushed to hospital where the teeth were surgically re-implanted. Again, everything went well.
But France is not the USA and the French system is not at all what the Obama team has come up with.
The French system works as well as it does because the French are very critical, intolerant and demanding…of themselves as well as each other. At least, they used to be…
It is still rare to see a very fat person in France. People are expected to take care of themselves. They are expected to eat properly. Unlike the English, they do not drink to excess. And unlike Americans, they do not shoot each other on street corners. The concept of behaving “correctly” applies to ones’ health as well as to everything else. People are expected to act correctly – that is, in ways that do not put too much strain on the public health system.
What’s more, there is little ambulance-chasing by lawyers in France. Doctors and hospitals do not live in fear of lawsuits…and, in our experience, pharmacists give out advice, and medications, fairly freely.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning
Bill Bonner
Since founding Agora Inc. in 1979, Bill Bonner has found success and garnered camaraderie in numerous communities and industries. A man of many talents, his entrepreneurial savvy, unique writings, philanthropic undertakings, and preservationist activities have all been recognized and awarded by some of America's most respected authorities. Along with Addison Wiggin, his friend and colleague, Bill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. Both works have been critically acclaimed internationally. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning. Dice Have No Memory: Big Bets & Bad Economics from Paris to the Pampas, the newest book from Bill Bonner, is the definitive compendium of Bill’s daily reckonings from more than a decade: 1999-2010.
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Land of the free.
“But if you have the right to a cat scan, someone must have an obligation to make the machine…to put it in service…to run it…to maintain it…to offer it to you…and to interpret the results, etc. Who is this poor slave who has been shackled to your service?”
But the person who make the machine, services it and runs it has the same right to a scan that you do.
You use owning property as a “right.” Well what about the people who place the home on the market, write the deeds, inspect the home, notorize the paperwork. Are they shackeled to your service because of this? No, because they are able to buy property also.
Basic health care IS (should be) a right to all people.
Bill – you’ve done it again… you manage to say in one sentence what it takes most to say in an entire volume of books… another instant classic
ma – but you also PAY for those services you desribed when you purchase the property and there is an understanding that those services are needed when purchasing property SO you havent incurred any cost on the rest of society
Who PAYS for to make the machine, service it and run it? NOT the person who recieved FREE care… the rest of society PAYS in the form of higher taxes
oh, and please dont bring your “lower deficits” argument either… it is hogwash to the highest degree!!
Basic health care IS a right, as long as the person receiving the care pays for it.
What’s next? Housing! Surely everyone has the right to a place to stay, warm and dry. It is outrageous that we allow people to be homeless. A chicken in every pot, I say, and a nice, warm, well lit place to eat it, too!
The trouble with all these “rights” is that, being “rights”, they come regardless of the recipient’s ability to pay. So the cost escalates. We will survive only to the end of our debt rope. When will that be? Perhaps about ten years from now, I’m guessing.
Exactly–the US healthcare bill is nothing like European healthcare. The US bill is just a backdoor bailout of the insurance companies. Now you will be required to buy their lousy product. I wish there was a law compelling people to buy my crummy goods. Meanwhile, I’m a little tired of all this carping about someone getting something that they didn’t “pay” for. There is a surplus of everything; our system is failing to distribute it properly–and some folks would rather deny the product to others because they don’t have enough money.
so Bill, it seems that your point is not against the bill in itself…but against other US problems still to be solved (people looking to sue, people not knowing how to eat properly…)
Bill, I read you everyday. Good stuff! This article sums up everything I now realize–the people deserve the government they get. If there is greed and abuse and disrespect among the people, that is exactle whom they will permit to govern them.
Jeff Hilton
It is still rare to see a very fat person in France. People are expected to take care of themselves. They are expected to eat properly. Unlike the English, they do not drink to excess. And unlike Americans, they do not shoot each other on street corners.
Why on God’s Green Earth did you move back to the U.S.? Get me out of here!!!
whoa!
somebody took a swat at a hornet’s nest
George Doddington said
Basic health care IS a right, as long as the person receiving the care pays for it.
What’s next? Housing! Surely everyone has the right to a place to stay, warm and dry. It is outrageous that we allow people to be homeless. A chicken in every pot, I say, and a nice, warm, well lit place to eat it, too!
The trouble with all these “rights” is that, being “rights”, they come regardless of the recipient’s ability to pay. So the cost escalates. We will survive only to the end of our debt rope. When will that be? Perhaps about ten years from now, I’m guessing.
——————————
Since your argument against a safe place to sleep and food is the financial cost maybe we should look at things in the federal budget that don’t need to be there instead of slinging the typical “it’s pork!” meaningless arguments. We could probably find enough true waste to pay for a large portion if not all of this.
Think about this for a second. If you had no place to live, how would you find a job? All employers require a place of residence now thanks to anti-immigration and homeland security rules (unless they’re out to pay under the table or other shady deals). How can you do your first day of work if you’re too weak from starvation to stand?
There are people that want to take advantage of the system. That’s just human nature. Just like there’s some that would rather mug you for your $50 instead of spending a day working. However that percentage of people is tiny in reality.
I believe that well run social programs can be implemented and protected from the majority of grifters ( no system is perfect). Maybe if Democrats and Republicans spent their time working together instead of trying to destroy each other and their favoured programs we’d have an efficient and well liked social services.
I’m quite certain that if a close friend of yours asked you for help you would give them the help you can. Why should it be any different for someone that you don’t know? Having the government handle it is far more efficient than every one of us with resources interviewing, checking up on, and working with every person in need that walked up to us and asked for help. Plus there’s the benefit of your friend being able to avoid begging for a favour from you directly.
Rights without responsibility result in irresponisble behavior.
Healthcare is NOT a right but a service, good, product. It’s provided presumably by another entity and to burden that entity with YOUR healthcare with nothing expected in return is UNJUST (justice being a function of proper result for proper action). So the question is to what degree do we want an unjust society and in the case of millions of uninsured being provided healthcare gratus I would say that the potential an unjust outcome is great.
The proper term for what the conceptually challenged call a health care ‘Right’ is “entitlement” which is paid for by the enforced obligations of others. I call it “Mandatory altruism.”
I’ve blogged a dozen posts over the last year regarding funding this altruism if we must
“Any government provided health care can and should be financed by not just taxing cigarettes, but alcohol, nitrates, junk food, soft drinks, and more (maybe even TV remotes and computer & video games and couches) That distributes the cost over the broadest number of payers and simultaneously reduces care cost by discouraging consumption of detrimental products.
This would also encourage consumption of healthy products. E.g. raising the cost of chemical laden animal and vegetable produce makes organic produce more price competitive and would promote an expansion of home based agriculture.”
The most common objection is “Nobody tells me what to eat.”
So, fine, but then pay for your own health care.
Brian Wolfe re ”well run social programs”
There is the old saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.” What’s left out of that is he needs a net and a boat.
Now a good social program (or better yet, an ethical private lender) would provide, the fish, the lesson and the net and boat which would then be paid for over time by a percentage of the catch. This is, of course a loan for production.
What has gone wrong with our socio-economic condition is the lending to the fish consumers to patronize the fisherman.
Excerpt from:
http://takeamericaforward.com/economy/amount-economic-expansion-built/
THE AMOUNT OF ECONOMIC EXPANSION BUILT ON ADVANCED CREDIT WILL BE FOLLOWED BY AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE AMOUNT OF ECONOMIC CONTRACTION.
Bill,
You and your son should realize that this “right” to medical care was established along with an obligation to help pay for it by carrying medical insurance. Yes, he will have to purchase it, at least by age 26. Was he considering going without medical insurance, in the U.S.? That’s like Russian roulette, except when you lose it’s slow bankruptcy rather than sudden extinction.
We democrats would have liked a solution more like France’s, but the “public option” was left out to placate republicans and conservative dems. (Who wound up opposing the whole idea anyway.)
The bill can’t be called perfect; like any major piece of legislation, it resembles a camel designed by two committees. But it’s a good start. The nation probably can’t afford it- can we afford anything at this point? But it’s a better reason to print money than bailing out banks or starting wars.
“The nation probably can’t afford it…But it’s a better reason to print money than bailing out banks or starting wars….
Clear thinking.
We’ll go broke sooner or later, whatever it takes. I’m putting my wager on sooner.
“But if you have the right to a cat scan, someone must have an obligation to make the machine…to put it in service…to run it…to maintain it…to offer it to you…and to interpret the results, etc.”
This is a fallacious argument. Universal health care – Hello, I am a Canadian…. – does not contain any such obligation. What it DOES say is that if a person cannot afford a CAT scan then if one is available they will get a CAT scan. The government is not obliged to provide more equipment to cover an insane desire by every person to have a CAT scan.
The American legislation is so unbelievably far from the model of Universal health care extant in Canada and the EU that most Canadians would shudder at the thought of being burdened with it. Prior to the introduction of Medicare in Canada, we heard all the same arguments…. Pinko Commies taking over, the economy will collapse, etc etc…. but the reality is this: top costs for any Canadian is $56/month, and below a certain level (annual taxable income of about $30,000) it’s free.
The fear that such health care will somehow cause an economic implosion can only be the dollar rants of insurance companies who are all doing very well. Sure it’s a game-changer, but given what has been happening with taxpayer bailouts, the game needs changing!
A fundamental right is whatever a society deems important enough to extend to all/most of its citizens, like the right to vote, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, and a host of others.
We have a Constitution to declare our rights protected from and by the government. But we have the right to change this document when we need to. So we can declare for ourselves anything we feel we needs to be protected. Healthcare is one of many things we could declare as a right. Not all rights need to be protected by the Constitution, so if We the People, through our elected officials, decide that we have this right and the corresponding responsibilities, then we do. End of story. Just like we have the right to free speech and the responsibility not to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, we have collectively declared healthcare a right.
Disclaimer: I am a Constitutional conservative, but I do believe the public benefits from universal healthcare and from free access to information (i.e. intellectual property reform and free access to higher education)… but I also think Constitutional amendments are probably in order.
62,793,432 people live in France.
308,931,000 people live in the United States of America.
How can a federal program efficiently provide health care to 309 million people? We really should stop directly comparing ourselves to these small countries.
Americans do _not_ shoot each other on street corners. Certain subcultures in America do. The vast majority do not, even ones who are proficient with a firearm.
John Mackey answered your blog post title best: “Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America.”
The French drink as much as the English according to the amount of alcohol consumed. If you use the word “English” to include the peole of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland? then may wish to check this website of the stats for liters of pure alcohol consumption by country. http://www.socrata.com/government/Alcohol-Consumption-Per-Country/hj43-2bpj
HEALTHCARE IS 100% A RIGHT FOR EVERY CITIZEN IN THIS COUNTRY IF THEY CAN PAY OR NOT!!! IT IS A “MORAL ISSUE” ANY ONE OF THESE PEOPLE THAT ARE AGAINST IT WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY IF THEY LOST THEIR JOB, GOT SICK, AND WAS BANKRUPTED BY ALL THE BILLS! OR IF THEY WERE TOLD TO DIE ON THE CORNER BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT PAY! OUTRAGEOUS!!! INSURANCE COMPANIES HAVE KNOWN FOR DECADES PEOPLE CANT AFFORD IT YET THEY RAISE THE COST LEAVING 50 MILLION WITH NOTHING!!!! OTHER COUNTRIES THAT ARE POORER THAN THE US HAVE CARE FOR ALL! PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE FOR EVERYONE! EVEN THOSE THAT CANT PAY! SO IS POLICE, FIRE DEPT, ECT. WE ALREADY HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE FOR MILLIONS, WHY NOT FOR ALL?? MEDICARE-COVERS MILLIONS
MEDICAID-COVERS MILLIONS, VETERANS-COVERS MILLIONS, STATE & GOVERNMENT LEADERS-COVERS THOUSAND!!! EXPAND IT FOR ALL!