Everyone who is a professional in counting crowds has provided an estimate of 100,000 persons or less attending this event. All of the estimates you are using were made by people who have no experience or expertise in estimating crowd sizes.
The only reason the size of the crowd matters is because there has been so much duplicity from the TP crowd regarding attendance. The only credible sources are the independent sources, which universally reported attendance of 100,000 or less.
I really don’t think you do yourself any favors by pretending that this gathering was massive – it was large, but it hardly indicates any sort of significant electoral shift. This gathering of fringe elements serves to remind progressives that we must remain vigilant – but overstating the size of the crowd only proves how little the right cares for factual information.
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Right and Wrong on Healthcare
1. When it comes to health insurance, collectivism is the nature of the beast. There is no insurance without it. Calling an incentive a disincentive is also rather perverse. Without tax breaks for employer provided health care, millions more would do without coverage. That’s no solution. What do you have against socialism, anyway?
2. Medicare represents a vast improvement in living standards for most elderly persons. A broader public plan would likewise represent a vast improvement in living standards for most currently uninsured persons. The benefit of socialized medicine for cost control, access to care, and patient outcomes is well supported by the state of health care in Europe.
3. The chimera of “affordable individual health insurance” is not an argument.
4. The problems you have identified with private for-profit insurance are related to the perverse incentives of profit in this sector. Health insurance should be a non-profit enterprise, as should police and fire protection. People die in the current system so that others can make more money. This is a perversity that would not exist without the profit motive. Don’t try to blame socialism for the collateral damage inherent in a capitalist system. That’s just sad.
5. The bottom line is that the market is not the best answer to every problem, despite your protests to the contrary. “Socialism” in the form of pooling our resources is sometimes the best solution, and government is sometimes a very good mechanism for this. There is a reason that we have a government, and it is to do what the market cannot. Effective and affordable health care for all Americans will not happen without further government action. It is perverse for a government that has publicly funded fire and police systems designed to protect the property of all citizens to be restrained from providing the corollary services to protect the very lives of the people.
Neither pure socialism nor pure capitalism is desirable. In the case of health care, socialist solutions are the best solutions.
2. Medicare represents a vast improvement in living standards for most elderly persons. A broader public plan would likewise represent a vast improvement in living standards for most currently uninsured persons. The benefit of socialized medicine for cost control, access to care, and patient outcomes is well supported by the state of health care in Europe.
3. The chimera of “affordable individual health insurance” is not an argument.
4. The problems you have identified with private for-profit insurance are related to the perverse incentives of profit in this sector. Health insurance should be a non-profit enterprise, as should police and fire protection. People die in the current system so that others can make more money. This is a perversity that would not exist without the profit motive. Don’t try to blame socialism for the collateral damage inherent in a capitalist system. That’s just sad.
5. The bottom line is that the market is not the best answer to every problem, despite your protests to the contrary. “Socialism” in the form of pooling our resources is sometimes the best solution, and government is sometimes a very good mechanism for this. There is a reason that we have a government, and it is to do what the market cannot. Effective and affordable health care for all Americans will not happen without further government action. It is perverse for a government that has publicly funded fire and police systems designed to protect the property of all citizens to be restrained from providing the corollary services to protect the very lives of the people.
Neither pure socialism nor pure capitalism is desirable. In the case of health care, socialist solutions are the best solutions.
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