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This is a clip of him defending universal healthcare. At the end he admits that he supports europeon socialism! Anybody that watches him, knows that he is not about liberty and freedom, he is just into permissiveness, if they disagree with him they are "stupid."
Its because its readily available to anyone who wants it, without their ability to pay.
That wasn't a libertarian ideal either, mandating that private ER's must take all patients regardless of their ability to pay, without setting up a system to pay for it. And a Republican President signed that into law.
Thats why I've said there are really two choices. Have a universal, single payer system that is limited in scope to life threatening illness, or repeal the emergency medical treatment act and allow hospitals to turn people away. Then if hospitals over charge or do non essential procedures to pad their pockets, you file suit and put an end to that lunacy.
Maher is for the universal healthcare system because he realizes that most Americans would never stand for folks being turned away and dying in the streets.
I know much of why health care costs are so high. You won't like this but I have been watching Medicare and its effect on the whole thing for the full 13 years I have been on Medicare. Groups of bureaucrats sit in state capitols and tell care givers how much they will pay for old people and it is just over 50% or what they ask for these days. They then chop down the insurance companies for people who have insurance. If Medicare had been run a bit more realistically this wouldn't have happened.
We have those bureaucrats in charge of Medicare and not you people want to put 15 more of them over the whole damned thing. Fail.
I know much of why health care costs are so high. You won't like this but I have been watching Medicare and its effect on the whole thing for the full 13 years I have been on Medicare. Groups of bureaucrats sit in state capitols and tell care givers how much they will pay for old people and it is just over 50% or what they ask for these days. They then chop down the insurance companies for people who have insurance. If Medicare had been run a bit more realistically this wouldn't have happened.
We have those bureaucrats in charge of Medicare and not you people want to put 15 more of them over the whole damned thing. Fail.
I heard somebody saying the reimbursement rate is 80% now, then as Obamacare is enacted, it will go to 66%, then to 1/2 of that. Baby boomers are just starting to retire. We got big trouble comin, until we can get Obummer out of office. Until then, we can't defund it, because He will just veto our bill anyways.
When Obamacare kicks in, the local doctor will close up shop, because he is so overwhelmed with patients, he is exhausted or in need of time off. He has lost incentive to keep the doors open anyway, because now his services are part of a labor pool, with limited compensation. A gov't body now makes the decisions for him. He has been reduced to a virtual gov't slave for social justice. Who is going to want to be a doctor in that system? It won't be our best and brightest.
I heard somebody saying the reimbursement rate is 80% now, then as Obamacare is enacted, it will go to 66%, then to 1/2 of that. Baby boomers are just starting to retire. We got big trouble comin, until we can get Obummer out of office. Until then, we can't defund it, because He will just veto our bill anyways.
That has been less than 50% for most services and the last thing I saw from Medicare showed the surgeon getting less than half of what he asked for since Obamacare kicked in. I don't think I will be with that man much longer for my endoscopys if I can even get them with Medicare.
Then I would classify you as an anarchist, not a libertarian.
There is a difference. Libertarians believe that some government structure is needed, but should stay removed from daily lives of every citizen.
RE: your prior reply to kaimuki
Certainly an appropriate label, except that libertarianism is arguably not mutually exclusive with anarchism. It is merely a very particularized form of it which specifically distinguishes it from other kinds of anarchists who hold quite different beliefs (i.e. the "left" anarchists, not to put too fine a point on it).
What you describe is best left understood as minarchism, which is merely a degree of libertarianism.
Philosopher Robert Nozicks well known political theory book from the 70's, Anarchy, State, and Utopia(written partly as a counter to another [even more] famous 1970's book by philosopher John Rawles - A Theory of Justice) lays out the case for minarchism and attempts to define what the contours of government should be, largely revolving around matters of justice.
That, however, is simply the minarchists conception of liberarianism. Not everyone "buys into" that limited government framework Nozick laid out. Of course, lots of people want government bigger... much bigger... but there are those that swing the other way and say it is perfectly within the libertarian framework of ethics to support less than the Nozickean size of government, perhaps even extending all the way to zero (hence libertarian anarchists - as differentiated from mutualist anarchists, communist anarchists, libertarian-socialist anarchists, etc...).
Libertarianism isn't about size of government so much as it is about a specific framework of ethics, just the same as communism, progressivism, liberalism, conservatism, socialism, Georgism, geoism, and many other -ism are not really about government per se'... they are first and foremost about the ethics of human interaction. Arguably none of the aforementioned specifically mandate government at all. They are, first and foremost, an ethical theory by which humans are to live with respect to how rational actors are expected to interact with each other. The ethics delimits the boundaries of Rights under all of those -isms. Where government comes in relates to praxis issues, which is quite distinct from the ethical issue. Unfortunately, people don't understand that praxis and the moral/ethical framework are quite distinct matters, and that government is rarely mandated by the moral philosophy itself, but rather is simply humans imperfect attempt to get people (to force them) to comply with the ethical framework, and to help resolve disputes, should they occur.
The philosophy of ethics is about substance (substantive issues), not form. Whereas the praxis of governance is about constructing a form that is subordinate to the specific substance. The form itself isn't even all that important, as it could take on countless forms of myriad variety. The form merely has to be subordinate to (has to comply with) the tenets of the substance.
Hence, why libertarianism is not about government (nor is any other-ism), it is simply about the rules by which human beings are supposed to interact with each other. The fact that people often don't comply with the "supposed to" is where the praxis comes in. It doesn't come in to play because it is part and parcel of the ethics itself.
Last edited by FreedomThroughAnarchism; 07-15-2011 at 09:56 PM..
Thats right, but they legally can not turn them away until they determine that they are ok.
And if they had a universal pay system, then they wouldn't have to go the ER thats so expensive, they could see a local doctor.
I agree that more open competition is good, but when its mandated care, its not competition.
Or they could go to one of the walk-in-clinics, or docs-in-a-box as they are called which are not ERs but are open until 10 or 11 pm or are 24 hours and provide urgent care. These places usually accept cash and are far cheaper than an ER, but ironically, it's the insured paying patients who usually go to them. Medicaid patients will still show up to an ER because it's no skin off their teeth, they're not paying anything so they plain don't care.
Except that he's not very funny. I think he's more like an unfunny clown.
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The fact that people often don't comply with the "supposed to" is where the praxis comes in. It doesn't come in to play because it is part and parcel of the ethics itself.
