The cheers that erupted in the last Republican debate when it was suggested that the uninsured should be left to die if there was no guarantee that they could pay their bills has led to some soul searching, as well as interesting questions posed about the responsibilities we, collectively, have to each other - or whether any such responsibilities exist.
From Ezra Klein: Why libertarianism fails in health care.
It’s all well and good to say personal responsibility is the bedrock of liberty, but even the hardest of libertarians has always understood that there are places where your person ends and mine begins. Generally, we think of this in terms of violent intrusion or property transgressions. But in health care, it has to do with compassion.
We are a decent society, and we do not want to look in people’s pockets for an insurance card when they fall to the floor with chest pains. If we’re not going to look in their pockets, however, we need some answer for who pays when they wake up — or, God forbid, after they stop breathing — in the hospital. And though it sounds nice to say that charities will pick up the slack, any hospital system in America will tell you that even with Medicare and Medicaid assuming much of the burden for the most intractable and expensive cases, charities are not capable of or interested in fully compensating the medical system for the services needed by the un- or underinsured.
From Andrew Sullivan: Indecent.
