Sorry, I encountered unexpected delays in writing (but not in reading). I have been deeply delving into a lot of primary source and secondary source material concerning the Atonement and also concerning distributism, social teaching and economics. I am leaving town tomorrow for 10 days, but I look forward to hitting the grindstone here as soon as I get back. Blessings to you all, and may God be praised!
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3 comments
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August 2, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Martin T.
The burning question in my mind is if not Obama’s health plan then what? Good medicine is out of reach for too many.
August 2, 2009 at 7:38 pm
syzygus
I fear that I am not competent to propose an alternative to the present system, but I fear that whatever “compromise solution” the plutocrats on both sides of the Senate are crafting will make “good medicine” even more out of reach for even more people. As with “public education,” I advocate totally open competition, as an initial strategy, and reaction in the form of regulation later if necessary.
August 3, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Reginald de Piperno
Since medical care is a scarce resource, it is subject to the law of supply and demand. The President and his advisors favor a rationing scheme for apportioning medical care among those who want it, but this a terrible substitute for allowing the free market to apportion it: its effects will be to create shortages (because government will set price controls on medical care), demolish the quality of care that is generally available (because the quality of legally available goods always suffer under a price control regime), and restrict the availability of genuinely good medical care to an ever smaller elite (because they possess the necessary resources to obtain it). I do not see how any good long term outcome is possible. We have all the evidence we need – in the last century – to unequivocally demonstrate that centralized economic planning does not work. But that is what Obama’s plan is all about.
Furthermore, I suppose it’s time to buy stock in printing presses, because the only way that they’re going to be able to “afford” to add yet another multi-trillion dollar boondoggle to the federal budget is going to be by creating the money out of thin air. The consequences for our economy will be dire as money is sucked out of every other activity for the sake of funding this monstrosity…unless, of course, they prefer to avoid that abyss by simply price-controlling the problem away (in which case, go back to my first paragraph and repeat the whole process).
This catastrophe in the making is an inevitable consequence of the refusal to accept the iron law of supply and demand: if they reduce the price of medical care, demand will increase.
The way to deal with the problem is not by reducing the price of medical care. The way to deal with it is to increase the supply of available medical care: we need more doctors and nurses. With a greater supply of good medical care available, prices necessarily will go down (in the absence of either guild or governmental meddling, anyway).
If this option isn’t feasible, then we’re going to be forced to deal with the high cost of medical care – or shoddy care. There just aren’t any other alternatives.
Okay, there are my thoughts upon that subject…
Peace,
RdP