Northern Subverbia: Anybody who tells you that...

Friday, February 22, 2008

Anybody who tells you that...

...socialized medicine and the attached idea that you have a right to medical care akin to, say, your "right" to freedom of expression doesn't explicitly make slaves of the care providers is lying.

And this story is the proof.

Nurses who quit face criminal charges

Prosecutors say the nurses' resignations - without notice - on April 7, 2006, jeopardized the lives of children at Avalon Gardens in Smithtown, where some of the patients are on ventilators and required constant monitoring.

None of the patients suffered ill effects, but an indictment alleges the nurses knew their sudden resignations would make it difficult to find replacements. Their trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 28.

3 comments:

Chimera said...: Oh, where to start...?

Maybe with the idea that you can force anyone to do a job for which he is qualified, whether he wants to do it or not?

Or with the idea that you can force anyone to remain at a job where he is being mistreated?

How about the idea that you can actually endanger the life of someone who is already terminally ill? Not to lessen the dire status of the patients, but they're going to die soon anyway -- who's gonna get charged with criminal negligence when they do?

Americans are so rah-rah on Free Market politics and economics. Much more so than Canadians. Until it comes time for them to pay the Free Market a Fair Wage and abide by humane working conditions.

Jeez, I sould just like a raving socialist, don't I?; 12:51 p.m., February 23, 2008
Ron said...: Well, me...I'm not rah-rah on free market economics and politics, I'm simply rah-rah on being free and the market politics and economics of *that* just naturally follow.; 5:10 p.m., February 23, 2008
Mike said...: chimera,

Don't mistake what happens in the US with a "free market" - there are as amny, if not more government regulations in medicare down there as we have in Canada, only they favour the big insurance companies and big pharma.

I think of a "free market" like Ron and - likely as not - like you: where the individual workers as well as the consumers have choice. Meaning that there are no state enforcement of CMA or Provincial Medical association cartels on membership, which purposely keeps the number of practicing doctors low and is largely responsible for the current doctors shortage (even while qualified doctors from Pakistan, India or China drive cabs).

Its about reducing the barrier to entry to hospitals and insurance can be run as not-for profit or cooperative manner, rather than solely by corporations (the Conservative vision of "free market"). Imagine a Shouldice Clinic hospital (not-for profit) or your union or professional association offering not-for-profit private insurance; 6:07 a.m., February 26, 2008

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"In your efforts to reduce government, aim for zero. If you ever get there and don't like what you see, I guarantee that it will be the easiest thing in the world to pick up the nearest telephone and have another one established on the very next day." Robert LeFevre (1970) quoted by Billy Beck

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"[F]or all he's really worth to Objectivism today, That Woman might as well never have devoted a single line to Ragnar Danneskjold" - Billy Beck

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"Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good." John Stuart Mill

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Fire two. "Unknown Pilot

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"Though my heart may be left of center, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy. This is the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that leads to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself. The essence of life is infinitely and mysteriously multiform, and therefore it cannot be contained or planned for, in its fullness and variability, by any central intelligence."--Vaclav Havel

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"If I have a right to be free at all, I have a right to be free right here where I am, and right now." - Me.

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"You might think that we can find an alternative to markets, that markets are a political tool that can be chosen or rejected. They're not. They operate at all times and in all places, and always by the same laws. They are the given that your political positions are tested against." - Kyle Bennett

Friday, February 22, 2008

Anybody who tells you that...

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