Basic Minimum- don't have a cow?

Basic Minimum, don't have a cow?

i am one to push for all who work to get a basic minimum.

i've used examples like a giant on earth who tries to claim everything to the exclusion of everyone else to make my example. i think the following example i've used is best.

back in the day, the frontier days... if you wanted a surgery, you would simply give the doctor, at most, a cow, and he'd do it for you.

i've used this example before, somewhat facetiously, so i thought i'd bring it pu again as i got no major response.

do people have access to the cow metaphorically today?

if the average cost for a surgery is 14k and the average open heart is 100k, and we consider these to be pretty basic, then a working person to me should be able to get it. so, there should be catostrophic subsidies for those who need it from the government.

now, we can build into this things like the requirement to save in health tax accounts etc for yourself etc, and that if you make more you're more responsible to save etc. and we don't need insurance for all and paying for everytime ya go to the doctor. but that doesn't really say the thigs that matter.

but, to say no help at all.... when say all those 30 belows out there couldn't afford it primarly... is at least not addressing my metaphor.
(arguably this could apply to manys but it gets more gray)
by the time you're 20, you should be able to afford a cow. i don't think most 20 year olds could practically speaking.

if you disagree with me, but have no substantial methaphors back at me, won't you at least explicitly acknowledge that you don't think it's just to have the government do this, and ulitmately then don't care that that happens at least in the sense that of governmental help?

also... i used this point with that giant on earth but it's applicable here.... if we deny the earth etc to people to take at will and as much as they want with laws of claims and such.... aren't we responsbile for ensuring that at the least everyone has a basic cut to it?

It sounds that the basic metaphor is this: back in the day everyone had cows and you could trade a cow for services thus meaning said service was available to everyone. As time went on, this service started to cost more and more and more cows until you needed a whole herd, which most people cannot afford or even have.

You contend that the government should step in and provide extra cows to people that do not have enough for this service. I contend that this would actually make things worse. Let's say I'm a provider of this service, and I need to charge 2 cows to stay in business. Maybe the cost of defending my cows from unruly people has gone up (lawyers). It's unfortunate, but hey I need to make something or there's no point to providing my service. Now the government steps in and says "Poor people cannot afford your service. Charge them 1 cow and I'll make sure you get the difference".

So now, I am getting a lot of cows from both people and the government. Unruly people see me with a lot of cows, and try to steal them more often. So I have to hire more security and my costs go up. It's cool though, the government will give me more cows to cover it. Maybe I'll even *say* my costs went up. More cows for me.

Now the question is: where does the government keep getting all these cows from? By taxing the people that it is trying to help.

one incidental problem with your argument is the assumption that lawyers are causing the problem. do you know how much the typical doctor pays in malpractice insurance? a small fraction of his salary. do you know how much a doctor on average makes? 160000, 100k just starting out. if surgeons as the topic of this, much much much more. if you're going to blame anything, blame the existance insurance for giving the rich an enticement to have insurance, use it more than natural, then make the demand so high it sucks for everyone else. if you're going to blame someone, blame the AMA.... they haven't opened medical schools since the 80s, while the population has continued to climb, and talented individuals are being denied access to the schools. blame doctors too, as they are the ones all too happy to reap the benefits from people's pain. people often lodge that argument at lawyers, but it could jsut as easily be lodged at doctors-you don't see them doing this stuff for cheap. it's too easy to blame lawyers, but it's not even them that's much of the problem.

now, with that said. there's still the main point about demand being too much such that it'd just drive the cost of services up even more. one, is that surgeries aren't something that are as common as just going to the doctor. two, if the copay is high enough, the patient will have an incentive to shop around and make it effective. so, if the costs do go up bc of the gov induced demand, it won't be as much bc of those two reasons.

the main point is that... if there are tons of people with tons of cows, and a doctor will be his blood sucking self, in the bad way, and charge more, then that is just what it will take to ensure everyone has a basic minimum. the playing field will be more leveled.

we can regualte insurance, regulate doctors, regulate any bad effects we want, not necessarily paying out if you don't like the idea of paying- the main idea is we do something- the cow is more the act of getting care than it is having the money to pay for it. but if we do pay out, we can still regulate bad consequences.

those who can't pay represent a minority, the young and poorer. if say this is 10% of the population, and this cause costs to go up ten percent, then it's still cost permissive for the others to go, it just costs more, and maybe they won't go as much. but now, everyone can go.

it strikes me as you're finding a theory to justify a preconseived notion that you dont want to help them. not that you're finding theory and seeing that helping them would be not economically doable so you don't want to. the reason i think this, is because it seems pretty apparent to me the effects wouldn't be that bad. can you give specifics like i did, how you claim it's as bad as you say?