From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 28 2005 - 17:32:24 BST
Mark, Arlo,
I suspect Mark is right about the vagueness of the term "life-saving"
in this particular debate, so not sure any conclusion is possible.
My point however is the term "a moral society composed of
fully-informed individuals" is another idealised but never to exist
myth. Even if they / we could be fully informed, it would be fully
informed with contagious and convenient myths, no closer to truth than
common sense and gut feel or more intuitive knowledge of direct
experience, or an individual knowledge of how things actually work.
Don't expect knowledge (truth) to arrive at our doorsteps from "out
there" via some presumed "information conduit". There isn't one.
Ian
On 7/28/05, Arlo J. Bensinger <ajb102@psu.edu> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> > msh 7-24-05:
> > I guess I don't see how the term "life-saving services" is in anyway
> > vague.
>
> [Arlo]
> Nor do I. My point with Platt was to agree that there are some health services
> that are not life-saving. Boob jobs and Viagra, for example. I realize that
> you've never argued these things be provided "free", but I wanted to get that
> herring out of the way upfront.
>
> There are also areas in between what I've called "life saving" and "life
> enhancing", of course, such as "rehabilitation" and "screenings". Neither
> immediately threaten the life of the individual, but both benefit society (by
> protecting individuals, and allowing them to return to productivity). So
> perhaps this particular way of looking at the spectrum is not as good as
> another. I choose it because I don't think anyone can deny that "life saving"
> is outside the MOQ.
>
> In a recent reply to Platt, I've asked him if the MOQ supports the idea that a
> majority should be able to "vote away" life-saving services from any citizen.
> Certainly, I do not think it does. This is why I think a Moral Society would
> use community taxation to provide life-saving services. But this is merely a
> less thorough way of stating your position, I realize that.
>
>
> [MSH on who decides what is life-saving]
> Seems pretty straight-forward to me: a doctor, or community-level panel of
> doctors should be the arbiters. Hospitals already provide such panels. Of
> course, there's the problem of wealth and power corrupting the panel's
> decisions, but that's true even of the Supreme Court, which, after all, is
> packed with political appointees. In a moral society, the battle against
> corruption will be waged separately by, among other things, allowing a
> fully-informed (MOQ-inspired) public to oversee institutional decision-making.
>
> [Arlo]
> I don't think we are in any disagreement. I posited the idea a Supreme Court
> only to emphasize that (1) life-saving services should be denied to any
> individual by a majority vote, (2) hospitals and HMOs tend to value the
> almighty dollar more than individual lives, and (3) elected officials will
> pander to the majority and business. Your idea of a community-level panel of
> doctors sounds reasonable, although I'd be cautious that this panel makes it
> decisions based on sound medical practice that values lives over profit.
>
>
> > [Platt continues]
> > Some will opt by democratic vote to tax themselves for more health
> > services than others. If an entire nation votes for universal health
> > services, so be it.
> >
> > msh 7-24-05:
> > Unfortunately, this ignores the corrupting influence of corporate
> > wealth over our putative democracy and its sources of information.
> > Such influence has been well-documented in this thread and elsewhere
> > on the list. In 1993, when the Clinton administration took a few
> > faltering steps toward developing a more equitable system of health
> > care, their efforts were blown out of the water by millions of
> > dollars of propaganda coming primarily from the health insurance
> > industry. So, instead of rational debate of the issue, voters saw
> > thousands of commercials asserting that a national health plan was
> > some kind of, gasp, socialism. Remember those "Harry and Louise"
> > commercials?
> >
> > So, again, in a moral society composed of fully-informed individuals,
> > it's hard to imagine that US voters would not have gone in the
> > direction of every other industrialized nation on earth.
>
> [Arlo only adds]
> Which bring us right back to the need to critically evaluate information and
> information sources. :-) And why a "majority vote" should never be able to deny
> life-saving services to any individual.
>
> I'm sure you'd agree, that in a society standing on the MOQ, no majority vote
> would ever do such a thing.
>
> Arlo
>
>
>
>
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