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From a moral standpoint in the USA the international megacorp will say "Oh, your health is worth anything to you? Hmm. Howabout everything you got minus $1" Like a semi-kind mugger. Its not a free market. Pay up or die, sucka!

In the UK the .gov will fight for you instead of the corporation so you pay a fair price. The UK gov is under no life and death pressure to pay up or die, and they have regulators who are educated and understand the market. It is a much free-er market than the USA market.

Arguably what he's coughing up in hotel fees and surcharges and taxes and hotel prop tax is Exactly how a visitor should be paying for medical care, so on an individual level he's moral and ethical.

Not getting screwed over when someone else gets screwed over does not imply some kind of survivors guilt is ethical.



It is a much free-er market than the USA market

Umm...no. The UK is a single payer system, that is, the government holds a monopoly over healthcare purchasing (or nearly all healthcare delivered).

If a really skilled doctor wanted to charge a higher rate for their services, tough, he/she would get the same as every other doc.

It's not a "freer" system.


That's an interchangeable commodity service and the discussion was about commodity medication. A free market requires a meeting of equals and we have a journalism grad vs the combined minds of PHD chemists and MBAs... sounds fair and free. It also requires participants in the negotiations to not be under duress, like, say, death without medication. Obviously the UK market is free-er than the US market by a considerable amount.


This is false. The UK has a national health service and private provision running side by side. Any doctor is free to work outside the NHS to provide private practice.

Maybe you're thinking of Canada?


I'm talking about the UK, that's why I put "nearly all healthcare delivered".

My argument is that calling the UK system more "free" when a very large percentage of all healthcare delivered is purchased by a single payer is inaccurate.


>From a moral standpoint...

From a moral standpoint it is immoral to force person A to pay for person B's misfortune. You and I call that stealing.

>they have regulators who are educated and understand the market

It is impossible to "understand the market" without market prices.

>It is a much free-er market than the USA market

The USA is not a free market. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying.




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