this is actually an easy one. I read it all, but there's nothing really there.
Practical Philosophy, Again:
Here we have Megan throwing a massive amount of words to try to obscure the fact she isn't addressing the issue at hand at all. She maintains the fiction that only governments can ration, and in no way addresses the fact that insurance companies ration health care. Rationing is bad, in this case, and the market is good, in every case, therefore the market cannot ration, and a free market health care system is inherently superior.
I'm not going to bother with her complete lack of understanding of the word philosophy, as I'm glad she can't even figure out how to approach the field, myself.
There is this to laugh at, tho
I've already discussed what I think will happen to new medical technology and prescription drugs under a more comprehensive government system. For the same reason: prices are very useful things. And contra the liberals who keep saying I am maintaining this belief in the face of overwhelming evidence, we in fact have overwhelming evidence for two things:I'd just like to pause and note that there are no links which I have failed to reinsert here. She used italics in her assertion, that's more than enough.
1. National health care systems control the prices of inputs, especially the prices of inputs produced by corporations: medical technology and drugs.Which is why countries with government run health care have better outcomes for lower costs.
2. Price controls lead to shortages and other suboptimal results that decrease the general welfare, even though they may very well benefit some specific people.
People talking about how Europe is not paying its "fair share" of drug development costs have the problem wrong. Drug companies charge what the market will bear. Drugs wouldn't be any cheaper here if Europe dropped its price controls. What we would have is more drugs. But this is a hidden cost. And governments almost always prefer hidden costs to explicit ones. It's just electoral logic.And here we see the goalposts beginning their migration southwards, signaling summer is nearing its end. If it wasn't for Europe giving people health care we'd already have a cure for AIDS, but only Megan knows that so it's a hidden cost.
One thing we never lack for here at FMM is a sense of purpose.
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8 comments:
No way you read that! You're just ad libbing! Not that there's any chance you're wrong, but still!
I can read very fast, and there's no actual content in it to pause and consider, just lots of Megan framing her own dingleberries on her wall.
"And contra the liberals who keep saying I am maintaining this belief in the face of overwhelming evidence..."
Uh, that would be Susan, who noted that McMegan's claim was SWAG (and not good SWAG at that), or maybe John Holbo (whose understanding of logic, philosophy, and reasoning isn't "practical" enough for her libertarian sensibility, it seems) or Thomas Levenson or John Cole (who linked to Levenson) or here?
I can't even claim to have called her an idiot; all I did was cite a press release from Health Affairs entitled "Europe Has Expanded Its Lead Over The United States In Pharmaceutical Research Productivity" and left conclusions about her argument to the reader.
Ken, I am writing on that press release tomorrow. McArdle distracted me with all that gun lunacy.
I still can't believe she finally admitted her data was imaginary. Naturally, that makes no difference to her present arguments.
Hoooooooly living fuck:
There is no per-se right to health care, since "health care" is not a thing
There is no per-se right to life/free speech/speedy trial, because none of those are things, but a shifting collection of arrangements, relationships and processes with amorphous boundaries.
That's all I can take on an empty stomach, be back later.
Megan is accusing this Holbo fellow of having a simplistic view?!?!
"John Holbo, who is, I believe, a professor of philosophy, seems to believe that you can develop a philosophical opinion on a policy issue without reference to particulars."
Please, Megan. Without reference to particulars is the closest thing to style your writing exhibits.
I've decided to use my morbid curiosity as to how this person is paid to write as a force for good. Every time Megan writes something headsmackingly stupid, I'm going to put a quarter in a jar. At the end of each month, I will donate the contents to charity. This post alone has raised almost five dollars already.
And now she's going on about linguistics. Now I barely remember my philosophy, but by Saussure, I know my linguistics, hence the following comments:
Actually, um, would anybody please explain to me what the flying fuck she's talking about? What's 'the former' and the 'latter' in No. 2? All I do understand is that she's talking about the various meanings of the word "rationing", especially the difference between the technical usage and the common usage. But why does she say that John Holbo argues that for rationing to occur, someone must be in control of 100% of the resource in question? As far as I can tell, he doesn't say anything of that sort. And where does her WWII example come in?
Also, how can health care be rationed, since it's not a thing (like, say, flour, meat, gasoline), but, and I quote, 'a shifting collection of goods and services with amorphous boundaries'?
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