[Arlo] But, like I said, no matter the World Health Org report, or the figures provided in comparison, or NEJM articles and studies... for me the issue is simple, who lives and who dies should not be decided by wealth.
[Ben] I think this point is key, as it suggests that this discussion is focussing on the wrong topic--specific pieces of data--when there's a more fundamental disagreement at hand. I imagine that Platt could make a somewhat opposite claim--it's not individual news stories or studies that make him support privatized health care; it's the fact he sees public health care as an infringement or property rights and an inefficient institution. Your premise is that life and death should not be decided by wealth. I disagree, though I know at one point I would have agreed. Allow me to attempt to explain what changed my mind. For starters, wealth's effect on life expectancy extends beyond the realm of health care. Poor people tend to work riskier jobs. They live in more dangerous neighborhoods. Often, they eat less healthy foods. So the tie between wealth and life expectancy would continue even if health care was allotted with no regard to wealth. I recall reading studies showing that even when they have equal health care packages, poor people tend to receive worse care--they don't pester their doctors enough; they don't know the right questions to ask, etc. So my feeling is that if you wanted to eliminate the link between wealth and life expectancy, you'd have to eliminate wealth inequality altogether. The problem I have with left-wing arguments is that they focus too much on inequality and not enough on poverty. Poverty is a problem. Poverty kills people and leads people to live horrible lives. But poverty is not caused by the wealth of others; it has existed throughout mankind. If you could eliminate wealth inequality in medieval France, you'd still incredible poverty by any modern standards. Life expectancy even of French nobles was considerably lower than that of poor Americans today. There are two ways to combat poverty; one is to redistribute wealth within a society and the other is to create greater wealth. The problem is that these two objectives often conflict. Redistributing wealth requires raising tax rates. Higher tax rates create a reduced incentive for innovation and hard work. The Canadian policy of preventing rich people from buying more health care--which your position seems to support--reduces the incentive on Canadians to work hard or to choose particularly demanding jobs. My position is not as extreme as Platt's; I support some amount of wealth redistribution, ideally through an Earned Income Tax Credit. But I don't think we can, or should, arrive at a situation where wealth does not affect life expectancy. I'm more interested in seeing poor people live longer than I am in seeing a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor's life spans. _________________________________________________________________ Exercise your brain! Try Flexicon. http://games.msn.com/en/flexicon/default.htm?icid=flexicon_hmemailtaglineapril07 moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
