Libertarianism and autism

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This is the big problem with libertarianism. It rejects the very idea of "ensuring" that severely disabled people are cared for at all, leaving it entirely up to the whims of rich people to decide which charities, if any, are fashionable enough for them to donate money to. Indeed a prime tenet of libertarianism is that maximizing the freedom of the rich to do what they want with their money is ever-so-much-more important than ensuring that anyone else's needs are met.

Most libertarians believe that the only valid functions of government are police, military, and courts.

Then there are the more extreme libertarians, "anarcho-capitalists," who reject the idea of a state entirely, preferring instead what amounts to a return to feudalism, in which the state is completely replaced by security guards and private armies hired by rich people, or by corporations, or by property-owners' associations.

All I can say is, yuck!

And, obviously, not in the best interests of most of us here on WP.

It’s impossible to run a modern health service as a charity any idea how much one of those MRI machines cost let alone cancer drugs etc..

The health specialists and doctors who pays them? or are they expected to work as volunteers too?

The idea stopped being plausible from the Middle Ages.

Also private organizations in health care is very controversial with drug price costs being one of the main issues

Not arguing. I just think it's interesting that your counter arguments here center on medical care and pharmaceuticals.

Some of us don't think the current medical model of care actually heals people or is worth the $ spent. Let's admit it, people get MRIs and CT scans like they get their teeth cleaned, or more so?

Our medical system serves the priests (doctors) in the temples (hospitals) and requires a sacrifice (body parts and blood-letting). Which is really a type of idolatry if you think about it.

I am not an expert at political ideologies or anything, but the best fit for me personally is freedom and minimal government; law enforcement to prevent others from encroaching on my freedoms, and limited taxation. Is that Libertarianism? It might be.

When I mention charity, I mean it only for those who would be unable to pay for their healthcare. The rest would have to pay themselves. They wouldn't have to buy an MRI machine, neither pay a doctor's wage. They would just need the money to pay a private hospitals fee. For the rest of us it wouldn't be that expensive without government interference. In the link below there is an explanation of how the government's interference can resault in bad quality of services and higher prices, from the man himself, Milton Friedman:

https://www.forbes.com/2009/06/18/milto ... d7b2006118

Milton Friedman sees any and all "third party" payments as the problem.

It seems to me that the real problem, here in the U.S.A., is that there are so MANY different insurance companies, with so MANY different kinds of insurance policies, that getting reimbursed is a huge pain in the butt for doctors' offices. It would be much simpler and more efficient, for doctors' offices at least, if there were just one government agency for doctors to get reimbursements from. Then the doctors' offices wouldn't have to spend nearly as much money just on "billers," whose job it is to apply for the reimbursements.

I am really unable to provide technical arguments about why a centralised health system is inefficient, like Milton Friedman would. There is a quote of him that I really like and I think that pretty much sums up why any government undertaking is inefficient.

"(1) When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it. (2) When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on. (3) When a man spends someone else's money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn't care at all how much he spends. (4) And when a man spends someone else's money on someone else, he does't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you."
-Milton Friedman

This last one is how government Health care works.

Yes you may be on to something here to a certain extent all this health care and more people getting sicker. More people getting diabetes as a good example but think food and modern eating habits is to blame here



Sounds good to me would add a gov that stopped playing world policeman too

I don't advocate a centralized health system like the British NHS. I advocate centralization of payment for healthcare, but not centralization of healthcare itself.


These principles are valid up to a point, but there are many situations in which they are vastly more-than-completely swamped out by other realities such as (1) economies of scale and (2) the extreme economic inequality of today's society.

I hear you. But what I have learned from being in the medical field is that charges are hyperinflated, especially when billed to a third-party payor. Insurance companies are overcharged by providers/hospitals but at least they do provide some protection between the consumer and provider since this relationship is unequal (meaning the provider basically has a desperate patient 'over a barrel'). This protection is evidenced on an estimation of benefits (EOB) statement something like, "you are not responsible for this amount".

If we switch billing to the government only as a single payer......whew. It brings on a socialist form of government which maybe not all of us are ready for. As Ron Paul says, the government is so inefficient, it costs 3x as much for the government to do anything as is really required.

Plus, going to a single-payer system (government) eliminates the competition that insurance companies naturally provide and creates a monopoly which history has shown is never good for the consumer. I submit that we would just end up paying more, through taxes, than we would through our current insurance premiums.

No. The answer lies in transitioning from costly invasive medical procedures and our dependence on surgery and diagnostics to a more wholesome, preventative and natural approach>live healthier to prevent chronic problems, and learn a more natural approach to healing and staying healthy. This requires some ethical discussions about how much we are willing to spend on the last year of life......which is the costliest time, and usually the least satisfying time in a person's life, in my opinion.

The simplest way to get rid of these hyper-inflated payments would be to have the government as a single payer, with set fees for each specific type of medical procedure. Because the government would be the single most powerful player, medical providers would be forced to accept the government's terms. At the same time, a single-payer system would ALSO be much more convenient (hence less costly) for medical providers than hassling with ten gazillion different kinds of insurance policies from ten gazillion different insurance companies, each with its own sets of rules.


It would still be far less "socialist" than the vast majority of the world's wealthiest countries.

For more arguments for a single-payer system, see Economists in Support of a Medicare for All Health Care System on the website of National Nurses United.


That's true for some things but certainly not for everything. There are some things the government can do more efficiently than anyone else. Depends on the particular kind of thing.


Another overgeneralization. The above is true for many kinds of things, but not everything. Some things are natural monopolies.


Many mainstream economists would disagree. Again, see the above-linked article.


This would be very helpful, yes, but should NOT be relied upon as the entire answer.

A more "preventative and natural approach" would require (in today's highly inter-dependent world) stricter government regulation of the food industry -- another area in which the U.S.A. lags behind other developed countries.

It looks like we just have a difference of opinion about how much power a central government should have. I prefer less control to a central government and more control to local government and the people, and you sound like you prefer a stronger central government with less local control.

Either way, a shift should occur away from highly interventive medical care to more preventative care, which has been set in motion but takes a while to implement. Human beings' bodies will fail into the 7th and higher decades and I for one am against spending the bulk of monies in the last year or two of life for folks who will not get the bang for their buck anyway. I am also against spending millions of dollars per year on chemotherapy 'treatments' for one person which are of questionable benefit. I don't need my government to decide that though because the larger government gets the more room for corruption. I think the people should decide that at a grassroots level, where they each have more power.

I want to be left alone by other people, and the state has been harassing and threatening me for my entire life, and even stalked and kidnapped me once (military conscription), causing trauma by robbing me of my freedom.

I guess it's only natural I became a libertarian. Because all these actions by the state against me are a violation of the non-aggression principle.

We have never had bodily autonomy anywhere in the US. Try selling one of YOUR organs and see how that works.

Libertarianism excludes the government from being responsible for its citizens' wellbeing apart from when another person infringes on your rights.  This translates that if a citizen has no job, money, or food, the Libertarian government will sit and watch you die without any form of intervention.  This principle, in the long run, aims at exterminating individuals who are not economically productive . . . such as about half (?) the people on the Autism spectrum.

[opinion=mine]

Ayn Rand would rise from her grave and dance the fandango if any government ever became purely Libertarian.

[/opinion]

Governments in the west used to be libertariam. See president Coolidge or the British administration of Hong Kong. Nobody died. In contrast to that see todays blue states with their skid raws and the homeless crisis.

Depends on what you mean by libertarianism. Traditional libertarianism was associated with opposition to illegimate authority whereas modern libertarianism is supportive of private tyranny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1MrbSNeLBw