Socialism

[smscotten]

All the NAP is saying is that no-one has a right to order anyone else around or coerce anyone into doing something they don't want to do.  Or rob someone.  Murder them.  etc

Look, the principle is all well and good as an abstract principle. But how do you get along with people that don't agree with it? Do you have the right to order or coerce them into behaving the way that you think they ought to? You said that a legal system ought to be founded on that principle.

So lets say there are ten people in your town, and your town has no law. All ten of you are gathered in the center of town and you say, "hey, here's this great principle! It's self-evident!" Now what? Does the fact that you said it was self-evident mean everyone will agree with you? So you write it down and say, "this will be the foundation of our legal system." And the other nine say, "waitaminnit, I never agreed to that. Take your legal system and shove it."

The principle has no legitimacy in action because you have no right to seek recourse against those who don't live by that principle. In fact, you have declared that you have no right to seek recourse. You can't make someone believe that no-one has a right to order anyone else around. What are you going to do, order them to believe it?

No, you get the ten people and say, hey, we need to have some system here. If we can agree on what the rules are, can we agree to follow those rules? If those people say no, you probably ought to live somewhere else. If they say yes, then you start the process of making rules about how to make rules. You agree on those things, and then you bring up your awesome self-evident principle and make a case for it being enshrined into your town's law. By now you have a standard for how something gets made into law. Maybe it's 51%, maybe it requires two-thirds of the votes, maybe your town requires total unanimity. If it passes this vote then you are all in agreement. If it doesn't you can get on your moral high horse and get out of town, or else find some way to live with these people who don't agree with your principle.

These are all self-evident truths.  If you think you can prove otherwise then go ahead.   The only reason people think otherwise is because of historical tradition.  But when you examine the evidence of these historical traditions, like the constitution for example, you find they are as false as most other traditions are, such as slavery.

OK, so you are the ultimate authority on what is right and what is wrong, and nobody else gets a say? Sorry, you are basically saying that everyone is entitled to their opinions but only your so-called self-evident truth matters. I don't recognize your authority in this matter. I might agree with you, but not because you say so.

imo, it is reckless to go around saying that if everyone thinks something therefore it is as good as being true.  Good men and women of any age need to stand up for the truth and give no excuses.  It's the only thing ultimately that has advanced the well-being of humanity as a whole.  Freedom and truth provides people with opportunity.   Bad and untrue traditions bind our hands and hold back progress.

Oh good god, now you think I'm saying that people shouldn't stand up for what they believe in? Are we even having the same conversation?

[NewLiberty]

All the NAP is saying is that no-one has a right to order anyone else around or coerce anyone into doing something they don't want to do.  Or rob someone.  Murder them.  etc

Look, the principle is all well and good as an abstract principle. But how do you get along with people that don't agree with it? Do you have the right to order or coerce them into behaving the way that you think they ought to? You said that a legal system ought to be founded on that principle.

Is there some example of how exactly would that work? Would those that are not agreeing to the NAP be advocating a right to initiate aggression?  Or are they simply claiming that there is some necessary or moderate aggression which ought be exempted from the general principle?
It might just be the point that one ought NOT get along with those that don't agree with it.

[hlynur]

perhaps off-topic with the last argumentation but i feel the urge to add my two satoshis...

imo socialist influences in modern democracy are very healthy and hold a society more "together" depending on the subject.
In some parts privatization simply just makes things worse what can be see by many examples around the world.
(e.g. privatization of water in latin america or the energy sector in US)
Privatization is nearly always followed by aims of turbocapitalism to get the most profit out of something with the lowest investment of money.
As long as there is no serious competition that drives progress and innovations it's for the disadvantage of the people.

Water, Food, Electricity, Education, Health and Housing are basic needs of a society and every imbalance or shortage in its supply will disrupt social cohesion and split the society more and more.

I learned that the hard way with health when I realized after an accident with some serious operations that in a country without national health insurance
I would have payed more than 50000€ for my welfare and been in debt easily for the next ten years.
The ongoing discussion in US when Obama introduced national health insurance was totally irrational for me.

Most people that are questioning the benefits of a socialist system must look back in their life if they ever were in a situation where they had to rely on it.
When you hang around with guys from the underclass you suddenly realize how their environment became much worse in the last decade.
At least in my country capitalist outgrowth got more and more extreme which resulted in much more temporary employment, lack of places for children's daycare, expensive housing space,
shrinking minimum wage and the overall degeneration of a lot of services that were originally driven by the state.
Socialism is a passable way to keep some systems balanced in our society.

Besides I think most of us are living a luxurious life comparable to the upperclass in times of the roman empire.
Only difference is that we managed to outsource most of our slavery to third-world-countries.
out of sight, out of mind. but that's another story...

[smscotten]

All the NAP is saying is that no-one has a right to order anyone else around or coerce anyone into doing something they don't want to do.  Or rob someone.  Murder them.  etc

Look, the principle is all well and good as an abstract principle. But how do you get along with people that don't agree with it? Do you have the right to order or coerce them into behaving the way that you think they ought to? You said that a legal system ought to be founded on that principle.

Is there some example of how exactly would that work? Would those that are not agreeing to the NAP be advocating a right to initiate aggression?  Or are they simply claiming that there is some necessary or moderate aggression which ought be exempted from the general principle?
It might just be the point that one ought NOT get along with those that don't agree with it.

I agree. But do you have the authority to stop them by yourself? If you are the only one in town with the NAP idea, do you get to impose that idea on the rest of the people in town?

I'm saying that it doesn't matter how right I think I am, that I do not get to dictate my individual ideas of morality on all the people around me. That the rules of society (laws) have to be predicated on the beliefs of the people in that society.

And before someone jumps all over that, I do NOT mean that everyone in town has to be a Lutheran. I mean that the laws are a reflection of the common ground of beliefs about right and wrong. Most of us can agree on it being not OK to kill other people, and so it is against the law. Hawkeye is saying that the beliefs of the people in a society should have nothing to do with the law, that people cannot be trusted with their own values and morals and that HIS set of morals should be imposed on everyone else. I disagree.

We all also may be getting hung up on the context of the word "should." If we predicate the question on the premise that I am part of a society that has a voice in what the laws are, when asked whether the NAP ought to be the law, I'll probably say yes (depending on specifics of wording in front of me, details of the practical ways it is implemented, etc but yeah, I'd agree that that should be a fundamental legal principle.) But is that the most important part of the entire legal system? No, to me the most important and vital part of a legal system is that it ought to have the legitimacy of being the product of or at least the approval of the people it governs. I'd even go so far as to say that without that legitimacy, the principle of non-aggression is not even possible.

Somehow that means I'm in favor of slavery or gaybashing or some such crap. Well, that's news to me.

[smscotten]

The ongoing discussion in US when Obama introduced national health insurance was totally irrational for me.

You may have missed some crucial information. The Affordable Care Act is not national health insurance, and it is not nationalized or socialized medicine. It is not even socialism, as people have claimed. It is a law requiring people to have health insurance at higher rates than ever before. The government is not providing that insurance. The same insurance companies that played a big role in getting us in this mess, now they get a lot more money than ever before. We do not have the option to decline their services or only sign up for a catastrophic high-deductible plan while paying for our regular services out of pocket. It is not a law to help people, it is a law to make enormous insurance and pharmaceutical corporations even wealthier than they are now.

If it were actual socialism, I would have supported it. I don't think that eg single payer is the right path, but I would have been completely OK with giving the "public option" a try to see what happens. The Affordable Care Act is just a scam to get the friends of Democrats richer. So, please understand that it's not just about Americans hating health or any such nonsense.

[hlynur]

The ongoing discussion in US when Obama introduced national health insurance was totally irrational for me.

You may have missed some crucial information. The Affordable Care Act is not national health insurance, and it is not nationalized or socialized medicine. It is not even socialism, as people have claimed. It is a law requiring people to have health insurance at higher rates than ever before. The government is not providing that insurance. The same insurance companies that played a big role in getting us in this mess, now they get a lot more money than ever before. We do not have the option to decline their services or only sign up for a catastrophic high-deductible plan while paying for our regular services out of pocket. It is not a law to help people, it is a law to make enormous insurance and pharmaceutical corporations even wealthier than they are now.

If it were actual socialism, I would have supported it. I don't think that eg single payer is the right path, but I would have been completely OK with giving the "public option" a try to see what happens. The Affordable Care Act is just a scam to get the friends of Democrats richer. So, please understand that it's not just about Americans hating health or any such nonsense.

thanks for stuffing another hole of my dangerous half-knowledge.   didn't follow that in the news too deeply.

seen from that new perspective that is in fact an obvious case of companies getting their trimmed laws to profit from the people.
Man I'm glad that sector didn't get too much out of hand in germany. Though we have stuff like immunization schedules advised by governments, and lots of laws in favor of pharmaceutical companies to fill their pockets,
but at least health insurance runs really good and is paid directly by employer indepently from the loansystem. so like this employers would go on warpath if they have to pay more.
(as a freelancer health insurance is quite expensive though...around 200€ depending on your business).
There's still a big difference between treatment with national or private health insurance but the overall standard is really good.
I just couldn't believe my eyes when i saw some documentary lately where dentists provided free treatment for american citizens because they simply couldn't afford it.

The more i think about it the more i doubt that a similar insurance system would function in the USA. I often underestimate the sheer scale of it as a country with its socioeconomic differences in many regions.

[smscotten]

thanks for stuffing another hole of my dangerous half-knowledge.   didn't follow that in the news too deeply.

Well, don't worry, I only stuffed it full of more dangerous half-knowledge. ACA has a lot of other provisions in it; there is a lot more to it than I described or could describe. And you're 100% right that the debate in the US is pretty insane. Republicans didn't want ACA because it is socialism (even though it isn't) and Democrats wanted it because if it failed it would mean the Republicans won the fight. So it really didn't matter how good or bad the bill was. The talking points are the same no matter what. Republicans calling Democrats socialists and Democrats calling Republicans meanies.

The more i think about it the more i doubt that a similar insurance system would function in the USA. I often underestimate the sheer scale of it as a country with its socioeconomic differences in many regions.

One of the biggest problems we have is that health insurance isn't insurance. Health insurance is a subscription. People here expect that if they have a full time job, they will never pay for any medicine or doctor's bills, aside from a nominal co-payment.

I pay my doctor out of pocket, and I have conversations with him about what the most cost-effective treatment is. Very often an older medicine is just as effective as a newer medicine but with a higher risk of side effects. If I go with the cheaper version I save hundreds of dollars every month and get just as good care. With health plans, doctors write out prescriptions for the newest, most expensive drugs because they aren't paying for it and the patient isn't paying for it, so you may as well get the absolute best option.

In the US, if you start talking about cost-effective medicine people freak out like it means cutting corners and getting shoddy care. But because I pay out of pocket, I get to make reasoned choices about the health care options in front of me and I'd like to think that I'm not making the whole health care charliefoxtrot here in the US worse than it already is.

Because very few people have to be concerned about prices and healthcare costs don't hit their paychecks in a visible way, costs skyrocket with medical waste. The doctors prescribe the most expensive stuff because it's the best, the patients don't complain because it costs them the same $10/month either way, the pharmaceutical companies love it because they're selling the primo expensive stuff and taking it to the bank. The insurance companies don't care because they just pass the higher costs on to higher monthly premiums, and the employer doesn't care (the employer probably cares, but it doesn't hit home) about the higher insurance rates because they have to pay the increase or be seen as "cutting back the health benefits" and besides, the employer can just give everyone a smaller raise next year so it doesn't hit their bottom line. The patient, well, the patient just keeps getting more and more of their paycheck going to health coverage, but it comes out of their check before they receive the check so it's hard to miss what you never had.

Unless people start paying for their own health care, this cycle will never end and eventually the country will be basically a "company town" where we all work for the health care industry. ACA guarantees us this future. If ACA required people to carry only minimal, high-deductable insurance (something that is actually insurance) it wouldn't be nearly as bad. But the minimum requirements mean that we'll never have the opportunity to directly pay for our regular doctor visits or medicine again.

And that's something people here in the US don't understand: paying someone to pay your regularly occurring bills is a bad idea, whether that someone is your employer, a commercial entity, or the government. I have insurance on my motorcycle. If I crash it, I'll be paid some money so that I can buy another one. I hope I never crash my motorcycle, but I have a plan in place to protect me financially in case it happens. I do NOT have an "insurance" policy where I pay a monthly fee for my gasoline. Why not? Because I know I'm going to buy gasoline. In order to offer me such a policy, the issuer would have to charge me more than I would pay at the pump, or else go out of business. There is no way that that could be a good deal for me. But people just don't seem to get that when it comes to, say, their annual checkups.

TL;dr: there is a lot more wrong with the US's health care system than attempts at socialism.

[Rassah]

If you're one of those arguing for property rights sans regulations, you really need to formulate your arguments against the material presented in a post I made some time ago, but bears repeating, apparently, over and over. I quote the post verbatim here.

Content of post follows, including quoted remarks from the person I was responding to:

Sorry, but that post is pretty much trash. Aside from apparently not understanding what a trophic cascade is (you said  "Their [the wolf's] elimination resulted in a deleterious effect on the ecosystem services, due to the removal of a trophic cascade effect." when the result is actually an exacerbation NOT elimination of the trophic cascade, which results larger than normal ripples and damages multiple ecosystems in the cascade) the extremely TL;DR post said pretty much absolutely nothing about how it's best to preserve such environmental structures. All you have done is claim, as part of your opinion or wish, that such structures should be preserved, with no reason as to why, and much of the methods you have mentioned have been and are used by private property owners, as well as public.
So please stop pointing to that text as if it's some sort of a great argument for government-based environmental protection. It's not. It's a waste of people's time, masked in big words and oversized paragraphs.

[Rassah]

No, they should be based on the non-aggression principle. Support in that is the only opinion. From there everything is logical and consistent.

The non-aggression principle is illogical in itself. It is the epitome of subjectivity. It says that regardless of the consequences, there should not be violence. It says that violence cannot be justified, which is a subjective, and opinionated view.

Sorry, but, if that is what you believe, then you have no idea what the non-aggression principle is, and the rest of your argument is pretty much not relevant.

[Rassah]

I'm not arguing against the non-aggression principle. I'm arguing against one person being able to dictate that the non-aggression principle—or any other principle—be enshrined in law. Saying that a principle is self-evident is one thing; all that really means is that it is a matter of faith and which cannot be proven, but we believe it so we call it axiomatic. Saying that we hold this truth to be self-evident is another thing. That is stating that the group has come to consensus about the axiomatic nature of that principle.

Law, by its very nature, is aggressive, and thus can't be the NAP itself. Thus it's a non-aggression principle, not a non-aggression law that we want.

I'm going to do something weird and compare the NAP to our favorite currency:
The NAP is basically a fundamental concept, upon which many rules and agreements can be built on. All it is, is just the understanding that "I will not initiate aggression against you, but will defend myself if you initiate aggression against me." (Which, by the way, does not mean "deadly force," you anti-NAP freaks! It could be as simple as yelling, "Git off mah lawn!") Like Bitcoin, it doesn't need a government to exist; all it needs is a person to hold such a belief. Each person who follows the idea that they shouldn't initiate force, that others shouldn't initiate force against them, and that they will defend themselves against force, is essentially like a single node in a NAP system. Other laws can be passed that try to interfere with this system, such as laws that take away your land, property, or life, but since the NAP is a distributed principle held by individuals, those laws are, on the whole, as effective as financial regulation law are for Bitcoin.
So for NAP to exist, it doesn't have to be enshrined into law and enforced by a government. It can, and is, enforced by individuals already (if you respect other's stuff and defend your, you already follow the NAP), and only needs more "nodes" to come to understand it and accept it in order to grow.

[FirstAscent]

If you're one of those arguing for property rights sans regulations, you really need to formulate your arguments against the material presented in a post I made some time ago, but bears repeating, apparently, over and over. I quote the post verbatim here.

Content of post follows, including quoted remarks from the person I was responding to:

Sorry, but that post is pretty much trash. Aside from apparently not understanding what a trophic cascade is (you said  "Their [the wolf's] elimination resulted in a deleterious effect on the ecosystem services, due to the removal of a trophic cascade effect." when the result is actually an exacerbation NOT elimination of the trophic cascade, which results larger than normal ripples and damages multiple ecosystems in the cascade) the extremely TL;DR post said pretty much absolutely nothing about how it's best to preserve such environmental structures. All you have done is claim, as part of your opinion or wish, that such structures should be preserved, with no reason as to why, and much of the methods you have mentioned have been and are used by private property owners, as well as public.
So please stop pointing to that text as if it's some sort of a great argument for government-based environmental protection. It's not. It's a waste of people's time, masked in big words and oversized paragraphs.

Oh my god you're a fucking idiot trying to find something wrong with material you have no understanding of. I'm not even going to waste my time with someone like you. See here: http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/trophic-cascades-across-diverse-plant-ecosystems-80060347

Please, move to Somalia already.

[dominicus]

thanks for stuffing another hole of my dangerous half-knowledge.   didn't follow that in the news too deeply.

Well, don't worry, I only stuffed it full of more dangerous half-knowledge. ACA has a lot of other provisions in it; there is a lot more to it than I described or could describe. And you're 100% right that the debate in the US is pretty insane. Republicans didn't want ACA because it is socialism (even though it isn't) and Democrats wanted it because if it failed it would mean the Republicans won the fight. So it really didn't matter how good or bad the bill was. The talking points are the same no matter what. Republicans calling Democrats socialists and Democrats calling Republicans meanies.

The more i think about it the more i doubt that a similar insurance system would function in the USA. I often underestimate the sheer scale of it as a country with its socioeconomic differences in many regions.

One of the biggest problems we have is that health insurance isn't insurance. Health insurance is a subscription. People here expect that if they have a full time job, they will never pay for any medicine or doctor's bills, aside from a nominal co-payment.

I pay my doctor out of pocket, and I have conversations with him about what the most cost-effective treatment is. Very often an older medicine is just as effective as a newer medicine but with a higher risk of side effects. If I go with the cheaper version I save hundreds of dollars every month and get just as good care. With health plans, doctors write out prescriptions for the newest, most expensive drugs because they aren't paying for it and the patient isn't paying for it, so you may as well get the absolute best option.

In the US, if you start talking about cost-effective medicine people freak out like it means cutting corners and getting shoddy care. But because I pay out of pocket, I get to make reasoned choices about the health care options in front of me and I'd like to think that I'm not making the whole health care charliefoxtrot here in the US worse than it already is.

Because very few people have to be concerned about prices and healthcare costs don't hit their paychecks in a visible way, costs skyrocket with medical waste. The doctors prescribe the most expensive stuff because it's the best, the patients don't complain because it costs them the same $10/month either way, the pharmaceutical companies love it because they're selling the primo expensive stuff and taking it to the bank. The insurance companies don't care because they just pass the higher costs on to higher monthly premiums, and the employer doesn't care (the employer probably cares, but it doesn't hit home) about the higher insurance rates because they have to pay the increase or be seen as "cutting back the health benefits" and besides, the employer can just give everyone a smaller raise next year so it doesn't hit their bottom line. The patient, well, the patient just keeps getting more and more of their paycheck going to health coverage, but it comes out of their check before they receive the check so it's hard to miss what you never had.

Unless people start paying for their own health care, this cycle will never end and eventually the country will be basically a "company town" where we all work for the health care industry. ACA guarantees us this future. If ACA required people to carry only minimal, high-deductable insurance (something that is actually insurance) it wouldn't be nearly as bad. But the minimum requirements mean that we'll never have the opportunity to directly pay for our regular doctor visits or medicine again.

And that's something people here in the US don't understand: paying someone to pay your regularly occurring bills is a bad idea, whether that someone is your employer, a commercial entity, or the government. I have insurance on my motorcycle. If I crash it, I'll be paid some money so that I can buy another one. I hope I never crash my motorcycle, but I have a plan in place to protect me financially in case it happens. I do NOT have an "insurance" policy where I pay a monthly fee for my gasoline. Why not? Because I know I'm going to buy gasoline. In order to offer me such a policy, the issuer would have to charge me more than I would pay at the pump, or else go out of business. There is no way that that could be a good deal for me. But people just don't seem to get that when it comes to, say, their annual checkups.

TL;dr: there is a lot more wrong with the US's health care system than attempts at socialism.

Behold, read above an impractical, this-size-fits-me, health-meme of an opinion.

So little time for so many logical holes. Not a single paragraph, impressive self-serving cluelessness.

Well, let's start here: you seem to have left out the humiliating suffering of almost 2 Million citizens...sorry, 1.7 Million US households that declare bankruptcy EVERY YEAR at the inability to cover their healthcare expenses.  Many of them carrying the high-deductible traps or self-pay you feel so giddy about.  15 million others will deplete their savings to cover medical bills. Another 10 million will be unable to pay for necessities such as rent, food and utilities because of medical bills.

Do you intend to sell the notion that this "issue" will be solved when larger proportions of citizens go WITHOUT insurance?  At least I'm glad you jumped first.

For everyone else that might've found the above post interesting, but still be coachable about it, the difference between vehicle insurance and health insurance should be easy to comprehend: while your scooter has a known value at any point in time, a limited value both you and your insurance company can agree it's better to declare a total loss, no such cap actually exists for humans, especially for loved ones.  By law, no one can decide you're a total loss until the most emotionally involved human being decides to kill you.  Are there any parallels in the commercial insurance world to this?  No, human healthcare is in a category of its own.

Irrespective of whatever downward cost pressure may be obtained with your localized self-pay-want-to-haggle strategy, or your willingness to do research and become a pseudo-doctor that can fake "informed decisions" about which medications you take, or take trips to Thailand for the kidney transplant, when it comes to pulling the plug on your wife or your daughter, most people are inclined to do quite the opposite of haggling.

Healthcare and education....two aspects of life you really, really are best advised not to skim on.

[smscotten]

So for NAP to exist, it doesn't have to be enshrined into law and enforced by a government. It can, and is, enforced by individuals already (if you respect other's stuff and defend your, you already follow the NAP), and only needs more "nodes" to come to understand it and accept it in order to grow.

Yeah, OK. So I'm still on board with the NAP being a principle that I at least generally support and adhere to (there is some disagreement as to the specific interpretation and that sounds just fine.) I have not stated any opposition to the NAP as a principle. 

I was never arguing that the NAP should or should not be a part of a system of laws; I was saying that in order for it to be part of a system of laws, it either must be a principle that is widely held by the people who live under those laws or else it has to be dictated from outside, which would itself not be in keeping with the NAP. So I stand by my earlier statement: first a system of laws should generally reflect the values of the people who live under those laws, second it would be nice to include that principle in a system of laws, as that would be a symptom of good (in my opinion) values in a society.

[NewLiberty]

I agree. But do you have the authority to stop them by yourself? If you are the only one in town with the NAP idea, do you get to impose that idea on the rest of the people in town?

How authority accrues and is maintained is another interesting question.
The notion that majority rules (and can contravene an ethical principle) likely has many limits. 
Ought majority rule be the absolute measure for how and when to violate fundamental ethics?

There are some great benefits to cooperation, tolerance, and community efforts.  To what extent is there justification to make those efforts compulsory (possibly violating NAP) rather than voluntary (adhering to NAP).
Does accruing authority make that justification stronger or weaker?

[smscotten]

Well, let's start here: you seem to have left out the humiliating suffering of almost 2 Million citizens...sorry, 1.7 Million US households that declare bankruptcy EVERY YEAR at the inability to cover their healthcare expenses.  Many of them carrying the high-deductible traps or self-pay you feel so giddy about.  15 million others will deplete their savings to cover medical bills. Another 10 million will be unable to pay for necessities such as rent, food and utilities because of medical bills.

Wow. That's what you took away?

OK, first the fundamental problem is that costs are too high. All the rest of what you're talking about stems from that simple fact. If costs were lower, there would be fewer bankruptcies etc.

Second, I have no idea how you got this from what I wrote:

Do you intend to sell the notion that this "issue" will be solved when larger proportions of citizens go WITHOUT insurance?  At least I'm glad you jumped first.

No. Carrying insurance, which insulates you from catastrophic or severe expenses is good. It is something everyone should have. Carrying a health plan that insulates you from every expense and makes every decision cost-neutral, on the other hand, is a terrible idea. It guarantees that you will pay more for your healthcare than you would have without it.

It's simple math. REALLY simple math. I'm going to use round numbers that of course will vary from person to person but which have come from my own shopping for my own health plans.

A health plan that does not cover an annual checkup is $450/month. A health plan that does cover a single annual checkup (with a $25 copay) is $500/month. That means that for your annual checkup you will pay an extra $625. A doctor's office visit with complete physical will cost between $50 and $150, depending on where you go. Paying $625 for a $150 doctor's visit is stupid. Better plan? Get the most expensive general practitioner you can find and go three times a year out of pocket. Even better plan? Find a doctor you like and trust and go once a year, paying out of pocket, and leave the "office visit" line item off your policy.

Even if you have employer-provided insurance (I do not) if you think that money isn't coming out of the maximum that your employer would pay you, you're wrong.

Obviously where to set your deductible is a personal choice and will depend on income levels and other expenses. You ought to realistically assess what would be catastrophic and what would be inconvenient. If a $500 medical expense would bankrupt you and cause your family to starve to death, you probably ought to have a $250 deductible. If a $2000 expense would be a big problem but you could manage with a payment plan with the hospital or whatever, then a $2000 deductible isn't such a bad idea and will save you a hefty amount of insurance premiums.

For everyone else that might've found the above post interesting, but still be coachable about it, the difference between vehicle insurance and health insurance should be easy to comprehend: while your scooter has a known value at any point in time, a limited value both you and your insurance company can agree it's better to declare a total loss, no such cap actually exists for humans, especially for loved ones.  By law, no one can decide you're a total loss until the most emotionally involved human being decides to kill you.  Are there any parallels in the commercial insurance world to this?  No, human healthcare is in a category of its own.

Do I need to explain to you what an analogy is?

Do you agree that there is a difference between a plan that pays for regular, predictible, ongoing expenses and one that covers you for unexpected expenses? Insurance is about spreading the risk pool out, regardless of the kind of insurance it is. An annual checkup has no risk to spread. If your policy covers something that you know you're going to spend every year, then all you are doing is paying extra to the insurance company to get them to write the check instead of you.  

Irrespective of whatever downward cost pressure may be obtained with your localized self-pay-want-to-haggle strategy, or your willingness to do research and become a pseudo-doctor that can fake "informed decisions" about which medications you take, or take trips to Thailand for the kidney transplant, when it comes to pulling the plug on your wife or your daughter, most people are inclined to do quite the opposite of haggling.

OK, just stop lying about what I wrote. Please.

[smscotten]

How authority accrues and is maintained is another interesting question.
The notion that majority rules (and can contravene an ethical principle) likely has many limits. 
Ought majority rule be the absolute measure for how and when to violate fundamental ethics?

It gets complicated, but I say yes, so long as the majority is talking about non-specific principles. The set of rules should be slow enough to change so as not to be distorted by momentary fads. I submit that the ethical principle does not exist without the people to think of it. So long as people have general consensus about these principles and there are checks in place to slow sudden implementation without wide support, there is not much to fear from an informed electorate. But even with an uninformed electorate there is less risk than trusting the definition of punitive law to a very small group of people without accountability to the people that law is supposed to serve.

[NewLiberty]

the difference between vehicle insurance and health insurance should be easy to comprehend: while your scooter has a known value at any point in time, a limited value both you and your insurance company can agree it's better to declare a total loss, no such cap actually exists for humans, especially for loved ones.  By law, no one can decide you're a total loss until the most emotionally involved human being decides to kill you.  Are there any parallels in the commercial insurance world to this?  No, human healthcare is in a category of its own.

This is inaccurate.  Health insurance is very much like insurance in general.  It is an actuarial exercise, and "value of human life" is an input to the calculus.

There is much argument and science that goes in to setting the value.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808049,00.html

Governments also use this for deciding on policy and cost effectiveness.  Sometimes they change the value of it.  Sometimes that makes news.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/epa-value-of-life-changes-_n_812105.html

If you have worked in the health or life insurance industry, this would not be a point of issue.  It is very well understood, many articles in each of the major journals discuss it.
http://library.soa.org/search.aspx?go=True&q=human+life+value&page=1&pagesize=10&or=True

Notwithstanding this, you are certainly correct in that whether a caregiver chooses to attempt uncovered heroic efforts to preserve a life beyond what insurance will cover is an individual decision, and rarely an easy one.

[J603]

No, they should be based on the non-aggression principle. Support in that is the only opinion. From there everything is logical and consistent.

The non-aggression principle is illogical in itself. It is the epitome of subjectivity. It says that regardless of the consequences, there should not be violence. It says that violence cannot be justified, which is a subjective, and opinionated view.

Sorry, but, if that is what you believe, then you have no idea what the non-aggression principle is, and the rest of your argument is pretty much not relevant.

Please explain to me what I said that was wrong, instead of acting condescending.

I guess I should have phrased that better. I understand why you would argue- after all the NAP says that self defense is ok (or at least it does recently; it hasn't for thousands of years). But here's the thing: When is self-defense be justified? If someone is trying to kill you, and they will not stop until they themselves are dead, at what point does self defense end and aggression begin? It is entirely based on the subjective view of the person "defending" himself. If the defender kills the attacker, they have committed greater violence, and thus they've stopped following the NAP.

That's why the NAP is illogical. The only way in which you could truly follow it would be to do nothing to defend yourself, or to avoid conflict in general. If you think that the NAP can justify self defense, then what's the point? You're saying that you're not going to run around killing everything unless they attack you. Congratulations, that's a philosophy that only rabid dogs have a problem with.

[NewLiberty]

No, they should be based on the non-aggression principle. Support in that is the only opinion. From there everything is logical and consistent.

The non-aggression principle is illogical in itself. It is the epitome of subjectivity. It says that regardless of the consequences, there should not be violence. It says that violence cannot be justified, which is a subjective, and opinionated view.

Sorry, but, if that is what you believe, then you have no idea what the non-aggression principle is, and the rest of your argument is pretty much not relevant.

Please explain to me what I said that was wrong, instead of acting condescending.

I guess I should have phrased that better. I understand why you would argue- after all the NAP says that self defense is ok (or at least it does recently; it hasn't for thousands of years). But here's the thing: When is self-defense be justified? If someone is trying to kill you, and they will not stop until they themselves are dead, at what point does self defense end and aggression begin? It is entirely based on the subjective view of the person "defending" himself. If the defender kills the attacker, they have committed greater violence, and thus they've stopped following the NAP.

That's why the NAP is illogical. The only way in which you could truly follow it would be to do nothing to defend yourself, or to avoid conflict in general. If you think that the NAP can justify self defense, then what's the point? You're saying that you're not going to run around killing everything unless they attack you. Congratulations, that's a philosophy that only rabid dogs have a problem with.

The killing the madman logic trap.  Good.
There are other logic traps as well (the famous trolly-cart where you can switch the rail to kill fewer folks, but switching it to kill someone is an act of aggression, so greater harm would be the outcome of zero aggression)

The resolution to these seems to be that the non-aggression principle provides guidance for the best outcomes.  That the notion of "moral authority", at least in degree, seems to rest on how clearly those outcomes are best, and how much aggression is needed to achieve those outcomes, with a very strong preference for none at all, and a high bar to any initiation of aggression.

The socialist's claim appears to be that creating cases of everyone suffering, for some outcome that benefits everyone (whether or not they agree to either undergo the suffering, or whether they agree the outcome is a benefit) is an acceptable degree of moral authority.  Provided the responsibility for creating these sufferings is spread among a sufficiently large number of people (such as voters).

Where this tends to fail (sometimes but not always) in real world is in the administration of the benefits, and the costs of doing so: balancing the flexibility of the benefit (for efficiency) with the arbitrariness of managing that flexibility (spawning corruption opportunities).

[J603]

The killing the madman logic trap.  Good.
There are other logic traps as well (the famous trolly-cart where you can switch the rail to kill fewer folks, but switching it to kill someone is an act of aggression, so greater harm would be the outcome of zero aggression)

Well, in the case of the trolly, wouldn't the non-aggressive way be to not touch the rails? After all, you didn't put the people there... But by switching the rails, you've killed people that otherwise would not be killed. A better situation would be that you can either choose to kill the would-be murderer, saving the people on the tracks, or do nothing. But even if you chose to do nothing, it is not your fault, and you have followed the NAP.

Edit: You basically said what I said in the quotation. I wasn't reading carefully...

The "madman" logic trap makes more sense because in this situation, the defender is directly involved and has to make a decision. Their life, and the life of the attacker, will be changed depending on the action they take. One way or another a death will be their fault.

And logic trap or not, it only proves that the NAP is illogical. And what is the point of following an illogical philosophy that is basically impossible to follow?

The resolution to these seems to be that the non-aggression principle provides guidance for the best outcomes.  That the notion of "moral authority", at least in degree, seems to rest on how clearly those outcomes are best, and how much aggression is needed to achieve those outcomes.

Does it provide the best outcome, though? Take the revolution against Apartheid in South Africa. Initially, Mandella preached non-violence. He acted similar to Gandhi or MLK. What did his non-violence accomplish? Nothing. Then, once he started bombing government buildings, South Africa started moving towards equality.

The socialist's claim appears to be that creating cases of everyone suffering, for some outcome that benefits everyone (whether or not they agree to either undergo the suffering, or whether they agree the outcome is a benefit) is an acceptable degree of moral authority.  Provided the responsibility for creating these sufferings is spread among a sufficiently large number of people (such as voters).

Well, that's why I dont agree with socialism.