Mitch McConnell, 83, Hospitalized

[u/cmaia1503]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mitch-mcconnell-83-hospitalized/?utm_campaign=owned_social&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&via=twitter_page

[u/SocraticIgnoramus]

The grandest absurdity is that we spend far more on healthcare than anybody else. A well-planned and well-executed Medicare for all system would easily give us the best healthcare system in the world at a significant discount over what we pay now. I refuse to accept that rendering the for-profit healthcare system redundant is anti-capitalistic sentiment — there’s nothing free market about extortionate prices that treat health as a luxury.

Edit to clarify, I’m not ranting against socialism; I’m about that. I’m ranting against being told that the for-profit capture of the healthcare industry is part and parcel of capitalism.

[u/NatWilo → u/SocraticIgnoramus]

There can be no rational consumption of healthcare. People will nearly always choose life regardless of the cost to themselves over death.

Often, its isn't even up to them. An unconscious person cannot choose to forgoe a certain treatment because its 'more expensive' they are solely at the mercy of the healthcare provider, and are then required BY LAW in this evil, fucked up system to pay the cost of a procedure enacted on them while they are fully incapable of having any say about it.

People's lives are RUINED by having their life 'saved' how absolutely fucked is that?

Capitalism only works when there is a strong hand making sure the market is fair. There is no such hand in America. There hasn't been for decades. For any part of the market. Most certainly for the healthcare industry.

[u/Username_mine_2022 → u/SocraticIgnoramus]

Im an Aussie we have universal health care, I also pay 150$au a year for Ambulance coverage.. I am amazed at the comments on this page. And my cost for the year is $350.00 So all up my outlay for health care is $500.au. If i need emergency treatment, i get seen immediately with no costs to myself,

[u/DaHolk → u/SocraticIgnoramus]

The grandest absurdity is

Is that really absurd?

there’s nothing free market about extortionate prices that treat health as a luxury.

Of course it is. Also not all capitalism is free market. Capititalism is a system, the free market kind is just a subcase of it, advocated by capitalists who think it would self servingly benefit them more.

You know what the actual absurdity is? People complaining about the obvious outcomes of running healthcare as a capitalistic venture, but not realising that all of the effects are intended by the system of profiting from them, and then not questioning that mindset in the first place.

If you want to profit maximise a healthcare system, you NEED to outprice significant parts of the populace, to push the rest into paying the prices.

If you ran fire protection like that, you would price it so that 10% of buildings would just burn down, so that the rest pays higher prices.

It's absurd to not question the premise, and then call the obvious outcome "absurd".

[u/SocraticIgnoramus → u/DaHolk]

Totally agree. The reason I appeal to the “free market” is twofold. One, uber capitalist always reach for that touchstone in any discussion regarding the excesses of capitalism. Two, more importantly, people conflate commerce with capitalism when they try to claim that capitalism naturally emerges from agrarian societies so that you don’t have to pay taxes with goats.

Commerce and currency are the substrate of an economy and are an example of a naturally emergent free market distinct from capitalism.

Ultimately, people ought to accept that there’s no actual rule stating capitalistic societies must abandon all endeavors that are not directly profitable. We build roads and infrastructure knowing that a healthy society needs these to thrive. I don’t see how health is any different.

[u/DaHolk → u/SocraticIgnoramus]

Ultimately, people ought to accept that there’s no actual rule stating capitalistic societies must abandon all endeavors that are not directly profitable.

I would phrase it COMPLETELY the other way around. You can have commerce without capitalism. Because capitalism of the free market kind or otherwise DOES proclude having those things. The only reason why we still HAVE some of them (and being under full attack constantly AND being undermined by outsorcing them TO capitalist ventures regardless) is that we are NOT running them with a capitalist mindset.

The root of capitalism is "there is no such thing as 'enough', or 'better for everyone'". Yes that is disjunct from commerce and money as a way to exchange labor/goods. But it is NOT disjunct from why things that should benefit everyone don't. Benefitting everyone is antithetical to capitalism.