I do like to have my views challenged. I don't feel like I have ignored your arguments, they have just been difficult to find. Up until this last post, which is much more interesting, your previous posts said little more than "you're wrong and you're a retard" multiple times. There was no logic and no actual points in them. I am not upset by your language, some guy on the internet calling me stupid is not going to spoil my day, but I don't think it is appropriate or reasonable.

-"I told you that I support public funds providing healthcare--from the free market--for those with legitimate need. This is drastically different from government-provided care where government bureaucrats, not the free market, determine what care is available"
-"Let the free market decide, is my position."

I think you have misunderstood me here. My point was that in the case that the government funds safety net cover for the poor they have to spend money to do so and they will only have a finite budget of money to spend. This is true whether the cover for the poor is supplied through a public health service or purchased from the free market. My argument on this point was not a criticism of the free market or an advocacy of a state provided public health service. Even if only providing health cover as a safety net for the poor the government, as a consumer, has to choose which medical treatments to fund and which not to. In the case that only safety net provision is supplied for the poor the government still needs a method to decide how much money it is willing to spend on the patient, presumably depending on patient wealth, severity of disease and prognosis (and differences in prognoses between different treatment options, which may also cost different amounts). This is a problem faced by the state whether it is providing the care or purchasing the care, it is not a matter of private vs public health care. I don't know exactly how it works but health care insurance providers must also have to make the same judgment when deciding which treatments they will fund and which they won't. I highlighted a system for making or guiding this decision, which you have dogmatically criticised but you have not backed any alternative.

It is not arrogant or immoral to say that infinite amounts of money can't be spent on treating patients. A limit has to be set somewhere and I don't think it is arrogant or immoral to say that the limit should be different for different patients depending on expected prognosis. It would be strange if the health provision budged was split evenly between each treatment regardless of patient, so that someone with a broken finger was afforded the same budget as someone with brain cancer. You have implicitly accepted this by saying that you only think the state should fund catastrophic cases for those who can't afford the treatment or insurance themselves. However you have criticised as immoral and arrogant the suggestion of a decision making system without actually suggesting a more moral or less arrogant system yourself. I'm not arguing about whether care should be universal or not or who should pay for it, I'm arguing about how much should be spent on it. I know I have repeated myself here but I am trying to make my point as clear as possible.

Yes, number of years left to live is tied to age, that is why I chose an example involving an 80 year old and a 20 year old. However the point was not about their age, it was about their expected life spans based on expected life span and the patient's own health condition, so when it appeared I had been misinterpreted I tried to clarify the point. I take your point that lifestyle factors such as alcohol intake do have a correlation with life expectancy. If a patient had chronic liver disease (whether caused by alcohol or not) on top of their other illness (I used lung cancer as the example but it is unimportant) that would and should impact on what the best treatment options are because it would likely impact on the patient's prognosis. However I am uneasy about using the knowledge that a patient drinks alcohol in a treatment decision because that would mean the government (or the insurance company!) not just telling people how to live their lives but blackmailing them to behave a certain way, which is of course a loss of freedom!

"The level of taxation you propose by a government-run healthcare system faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar exceeds what I support in government-provided funds for the legitimately poor. If you want citations for this simple fact, you're probably 12 and I'm happy with you thinking I haven't made a legitimate argument. Such a level of taxation inherently limits freedom, which I take issue with. Rather than justify such a loss of freedom, you're just pretending that magically subsidies for the poor require as much money as an entire government-run healthcare system. zzz"

Obviously a government funded universal healthcare system is more expensive than just funding treatment for the poorest, I didn't claim that wasn't true and I don't want citations for it. I take your point about freedom being inhibited by higher taxation but my point was it is a matter of degree. You are still suggesting that some tax money should be spent on healthcare to fund healthcare for those poorest x%. This still costs money for taxpayers and inhibits their freedom, OK maybe not as much as a government funded universal health care system but if I was of the political persuasion to argue that there should not be any safety net for the poor I could use the same argument to criticise even the least generous care for the poor. You are therefore implicitly accepting that there is a certain amount of personal freedom that tax payers should give up to gain a certain amount of benefit to society or to the poorest sections of society or just to clear their own consciences. The important thing though is where the line is drawn, and how you decide where to draw it. I've offered a suggestion but you haven't although I have been trying to press you into specifying something. How would you decide (1) how much tax payers should be willing to spend on other health care for other people (2) who is entitled to that subsidised or free health care (3) how would you decide how much of your finite pot of taxpayer money you are willing to spend on each patient?

"Yes, you are. Your "group of experts" is, as I said, "government bureaucrats." And them deciding what is a "good value" is them making decisions which the free market, ie the consumer, can make better than they can. Calling government bureaucrats "experts" is an appeal to authority; it doesn't negate the fact that you are, in fact, supporting taking away decisions from consumers in the free market in favor of government bureaucrats rationing care."

What I have been talking about is the case where the government is the customer, how much they are willing to spend is independent of the state of the market because it depends how much money is available to them and their total obligations. When does someone stop being an expert and start being a bureaucrat? If an expert cardiologist assessed the effectiveness of a new treatment for a particular heart condition and made recommendations on its use as a result, would he/she then be a bureaucrat? Would they still be a bureaucrat the next day when they were extending someone's life by performing a complex operation? Decisions are only made by bureaucrats if you ask bureaucrats to make the decisions.

"Amerika (again, as very flawed as its healthcare system is) makes far more advances in medicine than Cuba and North Korea and many broke-ass European countries combined. Advances in medical care are a good thing. I like them. You obviously don't care about them."

I do care about advances in medical science. I am in fact a scientist who works in a healthcare related field. In medical science as well as in many other fields the USA does lead the world, but this is multi-factored and actually depends a lot on the amount of money invested into academic bodies such as universities to make funds available for research and the fact is that the USA has the richest universities in the world funded in a large part by generous donations from alumni. To suggest that advances in medicine science are down to the system of private health care provision is disingenuous.

To suggest that capitalism rewarding results doesn't advance medicine is ridiculous.

Stop trolling. You can't be serious.....

first ill start off by saying your a dick, second there is an obvious incentive to having repeat customers rather than a permanent fix to a problem. there is also an incentive to an over the top approach. simply name calling doesnt make things a fact. most of your previous post was one again name calling without any solid points to it. besides arguing that the consumer is the customer rather than the goverment with...

"The government provides the funds, the consumer is the consumer. They can choose any private healthcare they like. The free market provides the best that that level of funding can provide. This is invariably more than government bureaucrats can provide in state-run healthcare systems."

when you go on to say that... "All the government determines is the level of financial aid they provide the poor in purchasing insurance."
which then makes them a consumer as this takes money.

"Consumers and the free market make this decision, with consumers getting more for their money than under any socialized system such as yours" can we get some proof here? as in a capitalist environment the obvious incentive is profit, how do we know that we are getting more for our moeny without calculating every possible outcome of our health and the statisical costs spread over a vast sum of people? whereas a non-profit design would obviously be more efficient with proper management if there was no need for a profit margin. though corruption and loopholes destroy this often.

Are we talking about american lives or european lives? I'd imagine american lives are worth more because they are stored in much, much larger physical containers.

I'm bowing out of this one, it's seemingly impossible to get a constructive conversation going.

I just hope my boss doesn't find out that my academic qualifications have been questioned by so high an authority.