Comments on: They’re penetrating the bureaucracy!

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:10:32 +0000

He’s a neoliberal billionaire. He’s in favor of a congestion tax that would charge delivery vans and pick-up trucks with tools and workers [I used to work out of a truck] nearly 3 times the rate for a limousine. He’s a kinder gentler Giuliani: making Manhattan a cleaner safer oasis of wealth.
That being said, kinder and gentler means a lot; but not enough.

By: c.l. ball

c.l. ball — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:54:44 +0000

Insurance companies have free will and just choose to do bad things because they’re greedy.

Which is why no morally correct person ever uses them.

By: engels

engels — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:58:04 +0000

Fwiw I think seriously comparing people who want government action on obesity to Nazis is extremely stupid, but not offensive. Explicitly typing up that particular slogan is what I thought was tasteless.

By: abb1

abb1 — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:04:44 +0000

He’s a self-made billionaire. Whatever he is, I suspect he’s a technocrat who’s convinced he can fix everything.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:15:48 +0000

It wasn’t me, that was Slocum.
There were and are Jewish fascists but Bloomberg ain’t one of them. Monarchist maybe, but not fascist.

By: phil

phil — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:24:32 +0000

Seth: just a guess, but it’s generally rude to attribute Nazi slogans to Jewish politicians.

By: SG

SG — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:28:57 +0000

Joshua, I think your understanding may be wrong. There was a brief flurry of concern about this in NZ when an old alcoholic was denied a liver transplant in favour of a young person, under an explicit policy of rationing. But that`s a special case anyway, livers being rare regardless of our healthcare system (though I imagine libertarians would have some amusing workarounds for that problem).

In Australia you get whatever healthcare you need at whatever age. I don`t think I`ve ever heard of a national health care system which rations treatments by age. My grandfather (who recently died, in case any libertarians were planning on making nasty comments about paying his taxes) received all the necessary care at the ripe old age of 86, and that included major abdominal surgery. That was in the UK.

I think you should go look over your understanding of nationalised health care a little, Joshua. I think it might be slightly overburdened with stories of the evils of socialism.

By: hymie

hymie — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:14:57 +0000

Why is it taken as gospel truth that height is the preeminent measure of health?

The top five countries with the longest life expectancies:

Andorra
Macau
San Marino
Japan
Singapore

None of these strike me as having citizens with above average height.

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:05:06 +0000

As a health care provider, my wife works with both private insurers and state run insurance program for poor children. The state insurance program is by far the worst in terms of delaying and denying coverage. They demand ‘more information’ to justify paying for a particular treatment but won’t specify what information it is that they need (just ‘more’). They resolutely refuse to provide clear guidance as to what is required to approve particular treatments.

Slocum, that just means that wherever you live has a stupid way of arranging their state system. In Australia, the doctor decides what is to be claimed for (Duh!) and each procedure, surgical or whatever, is assigned a number and the hospital or surgery just transmits the number to Medicare to get the rebate.

Of course, this is being steadily dismantled by the Howard government so soon we’ll live in the US nirvana where you can get free heathcare (after a fashion) after you’ve spent $300,000 on your cancer treatment and filed for bankruptcy.

By: Slocum

Slocum — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:34:45 +0000

Wow. I think that might possibly be one of the most tasteless remarks I have ever seen on this blog.

Really? Health Nazi jokes are completely beyond the pale then?

Btw Slocum you’re off-message; nationalised health care causes TERRORISM.

Actually, taking everything into consideration, I’m in favor of universal health insurance. But I think that the benefits are being vastly oversold and the costs and problems seriously underestimated. The U.S. cannot transplant the health system of any other country. The process of putting a deal together is going to involve a lot of horse-trading and result in pork and (successful) rent-seeking. It’s not going to save money any time soon. And there will be no differences in infant mortality or lifespan (or height), since the lack of universal health insurance is just an important causal factor. And there’s going to be a lot of buyer’s remorse (a substantial percentage of people are going to be less satisfied than they are now).

By: engels

engels — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:01:57 +0000

Btw Slocum you’re off-message; nationalised health care causes TERRORISM.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:49:15 +0000

One day, everybody will agree with me.

One glass at a time.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:34:11 +0000

One more comment:
Strengthening community is not strengthening the nanny state.
The nanny state and liberalism generally conflates pity with concern. Pity reproduces power relations, concern lessens them.
To give another example closer to home: the research and professional model of academia imported from the sciences into the humanities (naturalism again) reinforces relations of authority while the fast fading pedagogical model opposes them (big-shots with an elite corps of acolytes don’t cut it).

What’s neoliberal about the liberal arts?

By: Joshua Holmes

Joshua Holmes — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:02:50 +0000

sg@60,

What is the Australian health policy towards people 80+ looking for healthcare? As I understand it, most of the national health services simply refuse most serious treatments for people over the age of 80+, whereas in America, we expect that our Medicare will pay for every last second of life.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:15:39 +0000

I shouldn’t have ended with that much snark. So sue me, I was drunk.
I began with a two word sentence agreeing with yabonn; the screenwriter didn’t sound like a progressive to me either.

On the larger point, the question is not the behavior of corporations as such but the behavior of their employees, who one would think should show a divided loyalty, to their employer and their own sense of appropriate moral behavior as social beings.

Strengthen community and you will strengthen individuals’ sense of social obligation, creating a counterforce to the urge to maximize. Obviously, quite obviously, contract and market theory are irrelevant at this level. What is relevant is the context in which they are applied. Arguments that begin from rules of contract begin with individualism and individuals in opposition to one another; but Individualism can not argue against itself. And again of course individualism is the basic element for most of the posts on this site.

The European model is first a social model, not legal and not economical. Those who try to bring scientific clarity to social thought, who are fans of a naturalist epistemology are unwilling or unable to see their logics as anything but foundational. But naturalism is the intellectualism of nerds. And how are nerds not a product of their time?
If you assume freedom, you’ll lose what little of it you have. Individualists are all alike. How many more trusims and taglines can I offer?
But to you they’re not trusims yet.