News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by HarryHirsch on Wednesday June 01, 2016 @09:09PM (#11819636)
Wonderfully contrarian? I'd disagree, in fact I'd maintain that what the lady does is not science. How can you argue medical ethics, a subject firmly rooted in observable, shared reality, from first principles and then disregard outcomes? If you intend to do science uou can't omit to check dogma against reality, perhaps those dogmata are no good at all to describe the world.

Very telling is another publication of hers, about Obamacare. From the abstract: "Though states are morally required to provide citizens with access to affordable health care, states must also take care not to violate important economic liberties .. ." Where do the "economic liberties" even come from? Everyone knows that US healthcare costs are an outlier in the civilized world, and the ostensible goal of Obamacare was to fix that. And if we have to talk about the principle of economic liberty we also have to consider the observable phenomenon of decision fatigue.

This is not science, this is libertarian apologetics. There is a purpose for that but it needs to be clearly distinguished as such.

Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by brbsix on Wednesday June 01, 2016 @09:23PM (#11819690)
> states are morally required to provide citizens with access to affordable health care

There may be other indications (I haven't checked), but that statement doesn't sound even remotely libertarian. The moral requirement to provide affordable health care is a positive right (something that obliges action). Contrast this to a negative right, something that obliges inaction, such as free speech or private property. Libertarians generally don't acknowledge positive rights (unless by contract, but then we're talking about something else).

Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by HarryHirsch on Wednesday June 01, 2016 @09:49PM (#11819805)
I didn't check much either, but "economic liberty" is amongst the libertarian shibboleths.
Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by TTPrograms on Thursday June 02, 2016 @12:07AM (#11820299)
So your opinion of an unrelated argument was driven by the association of this author's separate work which contains an idea that's associated with an ideology you oppose? That's like an (ad hominem)^3. On the face it doesn't appear unreasonable that a state should protect some aspects of a free economy - disagreement with that would imply disagreement with the fundamental capitalist economics of western nations.

"we also have to consider the observable phenomenon of decision fatigue"

Are we just talking about random things now?

Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by programmarchy on Thursday June 02, 2016 @02:21AM (#11820714)
Economic liberties means choice and competition in a market without state-enforced monopolies. US healthcare costs are an outlier because the state enforces insurance cartelization. Obamacare was a gift to insurance corporations, forcing everyone to buy their product. It's inelastic demand at gunpoint, so of course prices are going up.

Look back at the history of healthcare to see economic liberty in action when we had a workers' self-organized healthcare. People formed friendly societies, worker cooperatives, and lodges creating a welfare system that was organized from the bottom up. It was well-organized, affordable, and voluntary.

That all started to change as progressive legislation was introduced in the guise of social reform, which built up the state capitalist bureaucracy and slowly eroded people's rights to self-organize and provide each other with mutal aid. Instead people were forced to depend on the centralized state/corporate welfare system. And here we are today, and things are only getting worse.

The healthcare crisis is a problem of artificial scarcity, enforced by the state regulatory regime which upholds the insurance monopoly and suppresses people's rights to self-organize.

> The large corporation and centralized government agency do not exist just as discrete individual organizations. Beyond a certain level of proliferation, such large organizations crystalize into an interlocking system. Even the small and medium-sized firm, the cooperative, the non-profit, must function within an overall structure defined by large organizations. [1]

[1] https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/C4SS-The-Healthc...

Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by HarryHirsch on Thursday June 02, 2016 @08:58AM (#11822045)
They sold us the healthcare-for-fee model back in the 1970s and 1980s, and that failed to contain healthcare costs. They are trying HMOs now in Switzerland, and it doesn't work to contain costs. Universities with large medical schools should be in a position to serve as integrated providers, yet you see rarely see them offer such plans to their employees. These are observations from reality.
Re:Amphetamine use in America's workforce by epalmer on Thursday June 02, 2016 @06:21AM (#11821428)
Well stated. Thanks.