Free Health Care vs Free Food and Water

[c9]

Paul Wells raises a simple question that I don't have a good answer for: if we consider food and water and health care all essential to life, why is there no government monopoly over food and water, but there is over health care?

I strongly support the idea of government-paid-for and you-can't-buy-better health care, but I'm very interested in hearing arguments that make me rethink my position. Mostly, I'm concerned that:

• Groups of people screw stuff up (in government we call this bureaucracy and red tape, but it exists in business too) but in government the overall goal is different than in a business (very roughly: "help" instead of "profit").
  
• A business is legally obligated to make money for shareholders, while governments don't have that restriction. This is not a bug, it's a feature.
• A so-called two-tier system (where the rich folk can buy faster care) would cause the better medical professionals to go where the money is, and then the care would worsen in quality and speed for the rest of the population.

So anyway: does this mean that I should support socialized food and water in addition to medicine? I don't know. But it's interesting to think about.

I haven't seen SiCKO yet, but hope to soon. I'm not really the target audience though.

Comments

[canuckotter.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Joel's roommates would be delighted to argue with you on this topic. :-)

Personally... I'm divided. Free, public health care is a great idea, but it costs a TON of money. Money doesn't grow on trees, and we've got a hundred thousand other things that we could be doing with that money -- including other things that are strictly for the public good, such as better-funded agricultural research, alternative fuel production, remotely-intelligent public transit, and so on. And considering how badly the public health care system fails when you start pulling money out of it for all those other things, it makes me a little cautious about just saying "No, only free health care is allowed!"

I'm pretty sure I've heard that there are some European countries (or possibly Australia?) that have public/private health care partnerships that reduce the public cost and actually improve the quality of service all around, even for strictly public health care. But since I don't remember where exactly I heard that or what country(ies) were being talked about, it probably doesn't mean much.

[c9.livejournal.com]

The USA is basically the last western democracy to not have some form of universal health care. But every country does it differently, and there are lots of pros and cons.

I'm quite open to the idea of private clinics hospitals in which the government pays for the services, but I don't know enough about how it all works to really judge proposals unfortunately.

It's interesting that you say "other things that are strictly for the public good". Is universal health care not for the public good? I do get that you can't start ranking all this stuff or you'll go nuts. :)

[canuckotter.livejournal.com]

For the last bit... I was comparing those options with things like tax cuts, or sports team subsidies, or expanded highways, or more military spending, or other things that people have asked the government to spend money on that are more of a benefit to large groups of individuals rather than society as a whole.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Ahh, gotcha.