I’m replying to Vern Humphreys.
I’ll admit my epithet ‘social darwinism’ was more a rhetorical remark than a means of classification.
The NHS is in serious financial trouble. But I would contend that its most serious flaws are managerial, not philosophical. There are too many administrators, eg middle managers.
That is what always happens in such situations! Here in the US we spend more on “poverty programs” by several fold than we would spend if we simply sent every poor person a check to bring them up above the poverty level.
It is inherent in the beast.
And yet Canadian doctors are leaving Canada and Canadian hospitals are closing.
But anyone legally visiting or residing in Britain have access to health care. No money required. My National Insurance premium each month, taken from my paycheque, is invested to that end.
Look at the two sentences I bolded. Does not the second sentence contradict the first.
I’ll see you and raise you this. There are folk graduating medical school with consultant qualifications (specialists in American idiom) and leaving for America, etc to find jobs. That is tragic and wrong. But I seriously wonder how many long for a system that would allow them to apply the best medical technology Britain has to offer (and it is rather adequate I can assure you) for ‘the least of these’, gainfully employed, indigent, alien, or otherwise. Insofar as they do it for them they have done it for Christ.
The cold, hard fact is, they are leaving. The wondering about how they would enjoy a perfect system is pointless – because the
imperfections in the system are driving them out.
A cup of water to preserve a life is quite akin to an appendectomy, or insulin to treat diabetes (a ‘pre-existing condition’ not covered by many legal insurance plans in America, if I’m not mistaken?)
I don’t see your point – “pre-existing conditions” are simply subject to a time where they cannot be covered by a
new policy. You can’t go without health insurance all your life, pocket what you would pay in premiums, and then the day you’re diagnosed with diabetes buy a policy and expect coverage – that wouldn’t be fair to the other insured.
So if you skated, paying no preminums for years, it is only fair you pay for the early months of your treatment – the later months
will be covered by your new policy.
Let me point out that insulin is a drug, not a treatment. Here’s what drug price controls have done for us.
Drugs are cheaper in Europe and Canada because the American consumer is forced to bear the whole burden of drug Research and Development, while other nations get a free ride. In effect, if an American company refuses to sell a new drug at their prices, they take the American patent and assign manufacturing rights to one of their own companies (paying a tiny royalty.)
Cost controls destroy the ability of companies to recoup their costs in R&D. In 1990, before introducing cost controls, Europe as a whole outspent the US by 60% in R&D. By 2000, though, they had thrown away their lead and were spending 40% less than the US.
Cost controls in Canada killed competition in their drug industry. As a result, generic drugs are more expensive in Canada than in the US. Twenty-one of the top 27 best-selling generic drugs cost more in Canada than in the US. And the combined price for all 27 was 37% higher in Canada than in the US!
The way to get drug costs down for everyone is to make Canada and the European nations bear their fair share of R&D costs, and take the burden off the American consumer. This would also allow Canadian and European drug companies to re-start their own R&D programs and dramatically speed up the development of new, life-saving drugs.
Was that Kant’s philosophy too?
