The Gaming Den

The arsehole theory of healthcare works quite well for non-communicable conditions. Lets face it, if you don't want to die of cancer maybe you should get a rich daddy next lifetime.

Actually there are still good reasons to treat the poor in those circumstances.

Cancer, especially certain forms of cancer, ain't so common. In fact a LOT of medical conditions are relatively rare. Much like rich people themselves.

If we didn't treat the poor on the rare occasions the rich got sick with many many conditions doctors would be all like "fuck it, we don't know how to treat that shit, we get maybe 1 patient decade with that one"

And medical care is like a functional car manufacturing industry. You need experienced practiced workers, major infrastructure, support industries, etc... it takes decades (at the very least) to get a nation up to scratch on building high quality cars. And if you aren't making hundreds and thousands of cars in the process you will NEVER get your ultra rich high quality sports car.

How long do you think it takes to get a nation up to scratch to treat your rich man's rare form of skin cancer? How many hospitals, patients, doctors, nurses, medical equipment firms, universities, etc...

So if you are rich, and you get a non communicable disease AND it is a disease that ALL the rest of your rich guys who can actually pay for treatment get so the limited available pool of skilled health professionals actually knows how to deal with it then, and only then (and maybe not even then) you might be better off in arsehole economics.

But you probably aren't and it doesn't matter if you die from dysentery next week anyway.

PhoneLobster wrote:Actually there are still good reasons to treat the poor in those circumstances.

Cancer, especially certain forms of cancer, ain't so common. In fact a LOT of medical conditions are relatively rare.

Yeah it's true.

Treating more people means that you can have specialists in given diseases and conditions, and having specialized treatment generally means that it's better.

I would like to take a brief moment aside to point out that only a matter of days ago Tzor was assuring us all that he was an expert in the matter and there was NO MAJOR ECONOMIC CRISIS.

Just felt the importance of pointing that one out at this juncture.

PhoneLobster wrote:Actually there are still good reasons to treat the poor in those circumstances.

Cancer, especially certain forms of cancer, ain't so common. In fact a LOT of medical conditions are relatively rare. Much like rich people themselves.

Just buy poor children as test subjects. Its win win, the parents get cash and rich people can get a cancer cure.

Wow, this is really easy. All you have to do to come up with user pays health care systems is think up how to be the biggest arsehole possible and do that.

Draco_Argentum wrote:

PhoneLobster wrote:Actually there are still good reasons to treat the poor in those circumstances.

Cancer, especially certain forms of cancer, ain't so common. In fact a LOT of medical conditions are relatively rare. Much like rich people themselves.

Just buy poor children as test subjects. Its win win, the parents get cash and rich people can get a cancer cure.

Wow, this is really easy. All you have to do to come up with user pays health care systems is think up how to be the biggest arsehole possible and do that.

Wildly ineffective. Cancers don't just happen, you don't infect people with them. They are a statistical occurrence. If you want to be good at treating a specific kind of cancer, you want to try treatments on as many incidents of those cancers as exist - which happens to be all of them.

So since you provide the best care to each individual person by providing your best care to every single person, it is trivial to see that you gain nothing by holding back treatments from anyone, at which point you're demonstrably better off treating everyone and collectivizing the costs.

Asshole medical practices don't work. Statistically they are simply ineffective. Morally indefensible is one thing, but it's hard to argue with a lack of success.

-Username17

Hey, if these user pays people can't afford to develop a cancer cure maybe they should fuck off and die of cancer. Which they won't because they are hypocritical asshats.