When I did my knee surgery, I thought a lot about all the whiners that medical treatment is a human right on par with freedom of speech and should be “free”.
Conversely, they will look at you and say with a straight face “Google and Facebook have built gigantic businesses and they are free to use so medicine which is more important should be free.” That ignores the fact that when you use both platforms they are mining all kinds of personal data on you that you are giving away, then monetizing it through ads and other streams of revenue. Wait until they sink their teeth into artificial intelligence. It is super flimsy logic that the virtue signalers use all the time.
Freedoms have very different costs and opportunity costs. Very different. Air is free. Water isn’t. We need both to live. Why isn’t water free?
In addition, if you turn the entire medical system into “free”, who runs it? If you say the government then it is not free because taxpayers pay for it and the government will pick and choose what can get done, when it gets done, and who can get it done.
Hence, a fully competitive open medical system would be better than any centralized one.
We don’t have free and open competition in medicine today. Not at all. Not in any part of the medical stack. However, in areas where we see some free market competition, the innovation is robust and costs go down. I am thinking in terms of some elective plastic surgery or ophthalmology surgery.
Here I was at a remote surgical center. They do that for a few reasons. One to service more people in more places but also because in a specialized center rather than a centralized one-size-fits-all hospital setting they are more efficient and can get people in and out faster with better care.
I looked at the people that worked there. They engaged in specialized education to be able to do what they did. Every single person in the room had an expertise that they trained for, and when put together equaled a greater sum.
If you pine and holler for free medical care, you are making a claim on the labor of someone else. Essentially, you are asking them to enslave themselves to you for some unobjective greater good.
These days I am hearing the good “current things” are
slavery and re-education of people that the elite don’t agree with
segregation is good
grades are bad
advanced math and science courses are discriminatory
okay for the government to censor free speech
it is okay for the government to partner with corporations and disenfranchise political opponents
it is okay for the government to use its power to target political opponents even if using that power is unconstitutional
it is okay for people who aren’t citizens to vote in elections, and have that vote count
that guns need to be controlled
that criminals should be released with no bail
limits to free speech
directed competition rather than free and open competition
harmful drugs should be freely distributed and used
camping and pooping on city streets/parks is a benefit.
to be chosen by race/creed/sexuality/sex more important than merit
that boys can play girl’s sports
Somehow I don’t agree.
"Free" Healthcare in Canada has it's drawbacks. I have a friend who is an experienced ER nurse in the largest hospital in the province talking about a patient she attended who passed away during a 33 hour wait in one of the three ERs in the city. Free healthcare is metered with the priority being limited resources and provincial budgets. Healthcare workers from orderlies to nurses to specialists are all government employees. Healthcare system decisions are bureaucratic and budget issues, not quality or quantity of care.
It works fine as long as you don't get seriously ill or require an expensive procedure. Hip and knee replacements have wait lists of multiple years. Scheduling an MRI can take months for a diagnostic scan, potentially delaying a critical or terminal diagnosis by months. I can schedule and pay out of pocket for an MRI at a clinic in North Dakota within days and then be told by a Manitoba physician that they are unable to read the MRI because it's from outside the system.
It's "free" if you have a quality of life to appreciate it or survive long enough to continue paying the taxes that support everyone's free healthcare.
Great observations Mr Carter! Freedom doesn't seem to have the same meaning anymore.