On 3/16/2010 4:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 16 March 2010 01:39, Bruno Marchal<marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
...
I may disagree. There is a quasi-universal reason for which health should be
a public care, or at least a matter of making heathy people to provide the
money. Why? Because if you don't force the healthy people to provide money
to the medical system(s), then, it will be in the survival interest of the
medical systems that there are as many unhealthy people as possible. The
results will be like making efficacious and cheap medication illegal, and
encourage, by making legal, medications which are inefficacious and
unhealthy.
You could argue that would be the case with many privately provided
services; a mechanic should not be motivated to fix your car, for
example. Despite this obvious bias, mechanics still fix cars because
(apart from honesty and professional standards) they will not get
repeat business if the cars they fix keep breaking down: their
competitors who do a better job get the business instead.
I think Bruno's example is not just hypothetical. Observe the ubiquity
of homeopathy, healing touch, acupuncture, and other "alternative"
medicines. Efficacious and cheap medication hasn't been made illegal,
but inefficacious and expensive medication has been made legal.
Brent
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