"I'll take deeply ridiculous wingnut analogies for $500, Alex."

[babylonsister]

http://firedoglake.com/2009/07/15/wsj-editorial-the-government-doesnt-fix-our-cars-so-why-should-it-provide-universal-health-care/

WSJ Editorial: The Government Doesn’t Fix Our Cars, So Why Should It Provide Universal Health Care?
By: Blue Texan Wednesday July 15, 2009 10:30 am


I'll take deeply ridiculous wingnut analogies for $500, Alex.

People who seek the services of auto mechanics want car repair, not "auto care." Similarly, most people who seek the services of medical doctors want body repair, not "health care."

We own our cars, are responsible for the cost of maintaining them, and decide what needs fixing based partly on balancing the seriousness of the problem against the expense of repairing it. Our health-care system rests on the principle that, although we own our bodies, the community or state ought to be responsible for paying the cost of repairing them. This is for the ostensibly noble purpose of redistributing the potentially ruinous expense of the medical care of unfortunate individuals.

Pretty silly.

I can choose to repair my car's A/C, based on what I think that's worth to me -- a cost-benefit analysis. Even though it's hot in Austin, I could make the assessment that, given my car's age and mileage, it's not really worth repairing its A/C. So I can decide to put up with the heat.

On the other hand, I cannot subject getting treated for pancreatic cancer to a similar cost-benefit analysis, because my life has a value to me that I cannot quantify. And while I can simply get another car, I cannot get another body. Therefore, I would pay anything to fix my body. My Jeep, not so much.

This is the essential problem with for-profit health care. How do you place a monetary value on your life, or the life of a loved one? Also, I'd venture to guess that if 60% of Americans went bankrupt fixing their cars, almost no one would own them.

Other than that, perfect analogy there, Dr. Szasz.

And who is this Dr. Szasz, you ask?

Together with the Church of Scientology, Szasz co-founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), in 1969, to help clean up the field of human rights abuses. He remains on CCHR's Board of Advisors as Founding Commissioner, and continues to provide content for the CCHR. In the keynote address at the 25th anniversary of CCHR, Szasz stated: "We should all honor CCHR because it is really the organization that for the first time in human history has organized a politically, socially, internationally significant voice to combat psychiatry. This has never been done in human history before."

Just the kind of guy we want setting health care policy in this country.

[pscot]

1. By extension

The government regulates our driving and registers our cars, so why not our guns? I kind of like it.

[ContinentalOp]

2. So I guess he's in favor of requiring everybody to buy health insurance?

Just like we require everyone to buy auto insurance? :shrug:

We're also required to pay taxes on our cars (annual registration fees) and usage fees (gas taxes) that help subsidize the entire system of roads, and other infrastructure that allows us to actually use our cars.

So I'll have to assume he's also in favor of every American paying a body tax that can help subsidize health care programs and government funded medical research.

[madmom]

3. Not to mention there is a lot of competition in the car repair business. Why are they

afraid of a little friendly(or not) competition? If we can't afford to fix our car we have other options, can we borrow or rent another body, can we body-pool, is there such a thing as public body sharing as in public transportation?

[mitchum]

4. Dr Szaszhole is not very bright

[izzybeans]

5. Szasz surely is off his rocker.

A far cry from his work with Goffman in their attempts to humanize the psychiatric industry.

He seems to have grown paranoid of "state power" in his old age. I'm surprised he's still alive.

I think he took Aldous Huxley a bit too literally.

[orwell]

6. Bad analogy...

...use of a car is still elective. Forfeiture of your life is not. In fact, hospitals would lose their license if they failed to stabilize a patient with life threatening injuries. Therefore we all bear the cost of mandated triage in higher premiums, pharmaceutical costs, and direct medical costs due to the 40+ million uninsured.

[Common Sense Party]

7. "I would pay anything to fix my body" Perhaps now you would.

Later in life, you won't. You will, indeed, do a cost-benefit analysis and decide if that expensive, lengthy procedure or treatment is really worth the price, if there's just a 60% it will increase your lifespan by a year or two.

[crickets]

8. Oh, but government does take into account that not everyone *has* a car or is able to drive.

Hence public transportation.

[Odin2005]

9. Wow, he totally defeated his argument by going nuts himself.

:rofl:

Christ, there is a middle ground between pill-pushing and thinking the delusions of schizophrenics are a valid opinion.

[Johonny]

10. it's not about you

sure you might break down. But they can always get a replacement for you. It's about them. As long as they have health care what happens to you doesn't bother them. So in their mind you are just like a car, light bulb or dish rag.