Libertarian Healthcare

[1edwood79]

I'm a libertarian nurse. Ask me anything.

[ixchel]

Hello?

[ATTACH]21558[/ATTACH]

[ShaneTeam]

[ATTACH]21558[/ATTACH]

Hey ixchel,

Gee, thanks. Now I can't get that song out of my head.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I'm not a new nurse or libertarian. I am new to allnurses. And yes ask me anything.

Just tell us, Dude.

Make your points already.

Is this how you train people?

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

That's true ... Private companies have collected quite a bit for quite a while for public jobs. The drive to privatize services needed and paid for by everyone - like health, defense, transportation, sanitation - is as old as capitalism. As is deregulation. Behold the state of those services today. As a taxpayer, I can't say I'm all that impressed by the private sector's performance.

But, to answer your question, the government fits in by keeping the predators - both public and private - in check. It's there to ensure that those private companies do the jobs they were hired to do with a minimum of damage to the rest of us.

Unchecked private enterprise inevitably leads to fraud, perjury, disease and pointless destruction. I refuse to pay them more for the privilege of cleaning up their messes. Much cheaper, in my view, to prevent the mess in the first place. That's why I want government in there.

What if some gov workers and elected people are the predators?

[MunoRN, RN]

That's why they're employed by the people. We can hire and fire them as necessary.

[heron, ASN, RN]

What if some gov workers and elected people are the predators?

Then they need to be dealt with, too, especially when the self-serving civil servants are profiting from sweetheart deals with vendors leaving taxpayers and consumers to pay for it all.

Health care is not a fairy tale with white knights battling evil villains so everyone lives happily ever after. When this much money is involved and with a captive customer base, abuses are going to happen on all sides. It's human nature.

What I take issue with is the fantasy of "free market" solutions for the problems of healthcare delivery. Profit-driven healthcare has been around for decades and failed abysmally. And government over-regulation is largely an attempt to address the most egregious private-sector scams (upcoding, double billing and billing for goods/services not provided, that kind of thing.)

It's no coincidence that one of the earliest for-profit hospital chains - Columbia/HCA - was found guilty of one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes in US history. That investigation started a scant 30 years after the corporation first went public, so the fraudulent behavior likely started quite a bit earlier.

And we're supposed to believe that deregulation and privatization will produce different results in the future from what it's already accomplished over the last 50 years? Really?

[Farawyn]

Hey ixchel,

Gee, thanks. Now I can't get that song out of my head.

Yes. She does this me, too, at 0300. I wake up singing some random song and then, OH, ixchel sent me another song at 0300 that I must have listened to in my sleep!

Night nurses!!!

*facepalm*

[heron, ASN, RN]

Yes. She does this me, too, at 0300. I wake up singing some random song and then, OH, ixchel sent me another song at 0300 that I must have listened to in my sleep!

Night nurses!!!

*facepalm*

Yup - and you wouldn't have us any other way. Life would be too boring...

[ShaneTeam]

So, who are night shifters?

[heron, ASN, RN]

Moi ... 43 years licensed with more than half of that on nights, the rest on 3-11. Won't touch days ... too many suits in my face.

[ShaneTeam]

I get the feeling this is a dying thread. But I just can't let it fade into history. I mean, how many times do threads come along that can NOT be derailed? See, a question, so I am not OT.

[ixchel]

Yes. She does this me, too, at 0300. I wake up singing some random song and then, OH, ixchel sent me another song at 0300 that I must have listened to in my sleep!

Night nurses!!!

*facepalm*

Oh, please, you love it.