Thursday, September 20, 2007
Tragedy of the Commons
Bear with me if you’ve heard this one before.
In Colonial Boston, the city was set up with houses surrounding a central grassy area known as the Boston Commons. In those days, it wasn’t at all uncommon to keep a milk cow in the city, but it was quite impractical to have both a house and a pasture large enough for your cow in the middle of the city. The solution was a large centrally located pasture to be shared among the residents of the city for grazing their animals.
Amongst a group of decent people that share and respect the the needs of their neighbors, such an arrangement works great. However, all it takes to spoil such an arrangement is for a few people to get greedy. An unrestrained individual would see this shared pasture as a free resource, one where there is every incentive to have their cow eat as much of that common grass as possible, whether they really need it at that moment or not. If they don’t use it, their neighbor will. Once one person starts over-consuming, everyone else sees that if they don’t consume as fast as possible, they might lose out. Thus, the entire pasture is quickly grazed down to nothing, and the resource is effectively destroyed.
Thus is born a Tragedy of the Commons - where a few bad actors in a group are able to ruin a mutually beneficial situation by over-consuming a free resource.
Every single time I hear about a health care debate, or see a new proposal for universal health care, I’m astounded that no one thinks about this.
Think about how your health insurance is set up. Most people have either an HMO or a PPO. With these plans, there is a large up-front fee, mostly paid by your employer, and very little out of pocket cost for the consumer. Sure, you have premiums withdrawn from your paycheck, but how many people are conscious of that withholding in the same way of writing a check?
The end result is a health care system in which for a fee that is more-or-less invisible to the consumer, that consumer has nearly free access to a resource - health care. In fact, people are incentivized to use those resources as much as possible, since in many cases each additional use incurs little to no additional cost to them, and more use theoretically translates into a higher quality of life.
I can tell you from personal experience and observation that behavior changes very quickly upon a person moving from “pay as you go” health care to a heavily employer subsidized plan. My wife and I don’t like to go to the doctor, for a variety of reasons. In fact, up to a month ago, neither of us had been to a doctor in nearly ten years. We carried high-deductible insurance, where the first several thousand dollars of health care costs would come out of our pocket, but after that the insurance company would pick up the tab. In the event of a car accident or a serious disease we’d be covered, but we’d pay to take a kid with the sniffles to the doctor.
I switched employers recently, and my new health care plan was 100% coverage for a fixed fee. What’s the first thing we did? Incur over a thousand dollars in costs so my wife could see a doctor. Now we don’t spend health care dollars frivolously. We seriously considered spending the money out of pocket to see this doctor anyway. However, with this 100% coverage health care plan in place, there was no reason not to see him. The service was bought and paid for, whether we used it or not.
Multiply that effect by 300 million people, and you can see what I’m getting at. The cause of rising health care costs? People being insulated from the costs of the resource they consume, and in some cases, being incentivized to consume that resource faster, sooner, or in greater quantity than they otherwise would. As demand goes up, so do prices.
I haven’t heard a single health care debate (involving politicians) where this concept was even touched upon. What is the inevitable effect of bringing on board more people at a subsidized (or free!) rate, where these currently uninsured people are likely to come from the ranks of people that either need more health care than average and/or are already adept at milking the system for benefits?
From a USA Today article on Hillary’s health care proposal:
The front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination said that under her new plan, the federal government would spend $110 billion a year to help employers and individuals pay for insurance. About half of the money would come from repealing tax cuts and tax breaks for people with incomes above $250,000; the rest would be saved through efficiencies in the system, such as chronic disease management.
Savings? Though efficiencies in the system, such as chronic disease management?
Do we have such a short memory that we do not recall the invention of HMOs, and their promise to bring down overall health care costs because of the focus on preventative care? Instead, with the low fees per use, we have exactly the situation I’ve described above - consumers insulated from true costs and the resulting overuse of the system.
It amazes me that anyone can get up and say what Hillary said with a straight face. And it concerns me to no end that people uncritically take it at face value.
You cannot hope to tackle rising health care costs without attacking the root of the problem. You cannot hope to set up effective universal health care without designing carefully around this problem (not that I approve of universal health care in the first place, but that’s a different story). Careful examination of how we got in the pickle we’re in, with no easy solutions, is in order, but I don’t see anyone on either side of the aisle proposing that. All I see are populist fools trying once again, successfully, to buy off the masses with promises of free stuff.
Comments
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Your Boston Common analogy fits almost any community resource/government service- from government rangeland to groundwater to healthcare. IF IT’S FREE, IT WILL BE ABUSED. WHAT PEOPLE DO NOT PAY FOR, THEY WILL NOT APPRECIATE. If the gubmint owns it, then we all own it. We all have to watch over it. If it’s free, this will be difficult. Why do we insist on relearning the same hard lessons over and over again?!?!?
I’m reminded of a line from OLD JULES by Mari Sandoz when Jules is told of a neighbor bringing in sheep (notorious for ruining the sparse shortgrass range) “A man can run giraffes on his OWN land for all I care! It’s when he tears up government land that I’ll raise hell!”
jimbob86 | 9/20/2007 10:06 AM CDT -
I’ll tell you whut, Boomhauer
</hankhill> ...I wonder what “chronic disease management” is a euphemism for.
Back in the day, I was a Democrat. I followed the health care debate in ‘93 pretty closely, and I can tell you just about the exact moment I climbed off that bandwagon. It was when someone mentioned, maybe in an NPR news account, that there would be no coverage under the plan for certain congenital things (I can’t remember the specific named conditions, but it may have been spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, or even cerebral palsy).
A word blossomed like a fireworks display in my mind’s eye, and that word was “eugenics.” I rather suspect that “chronic disease management” in a single-payer system basically means “you die on some waiting list.”
MiddleAgedKen | 9/20/2007 11:29 AM CDT -
I suspect “chronic disease management” is an alias for “subsidizing HIV carriers”.
Mark Hagerman | 9/20/2007 11:41 AM CDT -
What you describe is exactly what happened in Britain. Sure, everyone (well, exact the wealthier Britons who were taxed into donating their land to the National Trust or other bleeding taxes) was thrilled with having coverage. All was covered and all people were covered. So the lines were a little long, at least it was “free.”
Then because what you describe ALWAYS occurs (human nature will not be denied), they had to start widdling down what was covered. Gradually, the state decides what conditions it will treat, rather than that being a negotiation between you and your doctor (and you and your bank manager).
With private insurance plans you know you will have a menu of options. You can go with a higher deductible for a lower monthly rate, you can choose an HMO that will be more restrictive in what they treat, but no out of pocket, etc. etc. People realize they have to choose the option that works best for them, based on their health/age/finances.
Once the government gets involved and everyone starts abusing the system, it will have to be means tested, age tested, nannyism gets involved (such as not treating smokers, the obese, or preexisting conditions, etc.) and the entire system becomes little more than an expensive welfare system…
Exactly as Britain has discovered.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/20/2007 11:48 AM CDT -
I wonder if employers that don’t let you get insurance right away offset that any. I couldn’t get insurance at my latest job until I’d been there 60 days...so the first paycheck I got after the insurance went into effect was visibly lower.
Rick C | 9/20/2007 11:58 AM CDT -
Back from a so-called vacation (driving 4000 miles over 6 days) and this was appropos. I’m more than well-acquainted with the Canadian version of socialized medicine ... although I’m not currently part of it. In many ways it was much easier than the current PPO used by my employer ... but the rampant abuse is what causes those well-known waiting lists. My mother is currently waiting the final month of the 3 month wait to go in and see the vascular surgeon who did her triple bypass operation. She’s currently all but unable to walk due to circulation problems and pain in the leg from which the vein (or is that artery?) was stripped.
Those long waiting lines are (mostly) caused by the people for whom the entire system is free. In Alberta, if you have an income, you contribute to the health care fund. If you’re under the threshold, you get all the same service for free. So the clinics, emergencies rooms and doctors offices are always filled with people with sniffles, slivers and broken fingernails. The doctors get paid the same for treating a kid with the sniffles as for consulting with a person undergoing chemotherapy ... so they don’t fuss much.
Free is always a dangerous thing ... since there is no such thing ... SOMEBODY pays!
I heard Hillary’s grand plan on the way back from Canada ... and my first thought was ... oh good, whatever leeches weren’t already prepared to vote for her certainly will now. And she’s going to pay for it by “rescinding Bush’s tax cuts” ... which is liberaleze for “raise taxes on people who actually pay taxes”.
I fear I will be retiring well before I’d planned ... just so I don’t have any more of my hard-earned “wealth” stolen from me ...pete in Midland | 9/20/2007 12:03 PM CDT -
I’m actually in the midst of a battery of email exchanges with the Office of Personnel Management over this very issue. FedGov employee health care is succumbing to the Commons effect quite rapidly, with rate increases occuring yearly and at an alarming pace. Something must be done to count the cost. The only thing that encourages proper resource use is preciousness, which can only be purchased at high cost.
I’d love to see the FedGov offer catastrophic-only plans and reallocate the money the pay on my behalf back into actual salaries. That way I could purchase routine services for myself and my family out of pocket and reserve insurance for its true use, defraying risk. The current situation is like filing an auto insurance claim every time you need to change the tires or have a tune-up. Auto carriers drop their customers flat if they attempt to abuse the system, why not health plans?
As it is now I pay way too much for coverage we don’t particularly need because I lose money if I don’t participate. I still don’t abuse it, even though I feel cheated, therefore obligated to get my fair share. I suspect that I’m not only subsidizing the poor health choices of other federal workers, but also padding the bottom line for insurance carriers (through weak government negotiations) so they can offer better deals to private industry. The system needs a massive overhaul, starting with not offering coverage for routine care.
Dr. Feelgood | 9/20/2007 12:18 PM CDT -
You’ve hit on a hot button of mine.
Two quotes come to mind:
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly. It is dearness only that gives everything its value.” - Thomas Paine
“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” - Manuel Garcia O’Kelly Davis
I contend that nothing is free. Everything costs someone something no matter what. And the more you obscure the connection between the cost and the thing, or move the cost from the beneficiary to some other bearer, the more you guarantee the thing will be abused.
My inlaws had (maybe still have) 100% health care coverage. The result? Their daughter went to the doctor for antibiotics for colds. She participated in sports for which her body was not suited and went to physical therapy almost constantly which kept her in the sports longer than she otherwise would have been. Her body is a wreck, and she’s 27.
I had a tenant with the utilities paid in the rent. He profligately wasted utilities. When he had to pay for them, the usage went way down.
“Free” stuff wrecks economies and corrodes principles and souls.
I think everyone should have to pay for everything.
Weetabix | 9/20/2007 03:13 PM CDT -
I LOVE Socialized medicine. Some of the best doc’s we have in the US came from Canada…
dbltap | 9/20/2007 04:22 PM CDT -
“The cause of rising health care costs? People being insulated from the costs of the resource they consume...”
I work in the health care industry and that’s it right there - the problem with our health care system described in a nutshell.
However, I’m afraid it’s too late. The tipping point has already come and gone and we are heading toward a “Hillary-care” system whether we like it or not. It might not get implemented by her, but it will be implemented. There are too many people in this country who think they have a right to someone else’s resources. There are too many that want something for nothing.
Roy | 9/20/2007 09:38 PM CDT -
Sick old people are parasitic scum that contribute nothing to the common good and should, at best, be allowed to terminate naturally so as to reduce the drain on the rest of us. Further consideration need be given to accelerating the termination method if natural methods do not comply with gov’t estimates.
Socialized medicine in the US will bring doctor’s offices full of sniffling Mexicans and hospitals specializing in the care of transsexual AIDS patients.
Shooter1001 | 9/21/2007 05:55 AM CDT -
You know, of all the reasons not to buy into this universal health care pap, this has GOT to be the best. Like all the other Lefty feel-good programs out there, they fail utterly to take basic human nature into account when considering policy.
Kudos madam for having the intestinal fortitude to bring this most likely reason for failure of UHC to light.
Semper Fi,
MattskiMattski | 9/21/2007 07:13 AM CDT -
I have to tell you, Shooter, I’m not clear on your point. I realize there is a lot of sarcasm in there… but why?
Anyone can seek medical treatment for anything they can pay for. Insurance is always a bad idea, except for catastrophes.
Insurance is planning for something to go wrong… human nature steps in to suggest that if you are paying for something, you should get something out of it… which is why Farmer addressed this from the perspective of abusing it.
To me it is a lot like people who go to an all-you-can-eat smörgåsbord and then eat twice as much as they normally do, “because it is free.” It shows a lack of character--a lacking in moral fiber. You never take more, just because you can or won’t get caught. That’s what scoundrels do.
Most people, for example, don’t need to go to the doctor for things like colds, flu, etc. When I was self-employed I didn’t have medical insurance and went to the doc-in-the-box if someone needed to see a doctor. It was cheap as hell… worst case about $500 for a visit, if it required a test/x-ray. Considering that medical insurance would run me about $7500 for the year (for the family), I always made out like a bandit by not having it. I saved something like $100K over the 15 years of not having medical insurance, and paying out of pocket.
I did carry a disaster plan--with a $10K deductible. Most people can have a high deductible like that (different amount for different people). If you find out you have something really serious, you can sell your house, car, or family valuables to cover the deductible, or pay it off over time.
The problem is that people have gotten the idea that medical treatment is something you are entitled to, rather than something you only get when you can pay for it… like everything else.
No one has a right to medical care. Insurance companies have a right to make a profit. They’re a business, just like any other. Doctors have a right to make a profit, in their chosen profession. And you can use their services, if you can pay for it.
I don’t see people complaining that “everyone doesn’t have access to car repairs” or “everyone doesn’t have access to have a new air conditioning system installed.” It is no different. You can do whatever you can pay for, yourself.
All this talk about people not having medical insurance is pure bunk. Everyone has access to medical CARE, to the degree that they can pay for it, when it is needed.
If they haven’t planned how to pay for it, then they’ll die without it (worst case). That’s WHY you plan on how you’ll pay for it, and set aside the deductible for a high cost illness/disease, or decide you’ll die.
What you can’t do is decide to make someone else pay for your bad planning.
Being able to pay for good medical care is an incentive to do well and work hard, or else you’ll die… just like if you don’t work to buy food and shelter.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/22/2007 09:35 AM CDT -
Good discussion. Charles Koch wrote a business management book that covers, among other things, the issue of the “commons” part in a business and how it should be administered (and minimized). NuCor Steel also dealt with this by having an extremely sparse central staff.
ExTexan | 9/22/2007 03:49 PM CDT -
#14
I am all for a pay as you go system for those over 18. Watching a kid die of an ear infection, diarrhea or cancer is not real high on my list of ways I like to prove my conservative creds.
I am the biggest Ayn Rand panty sniffer there is, but when it comes to kids, I can spare the $$.
Their parent, should on the other hand, be required to come and do lawn work or clean my house.
Dbltap | 9/23/2007 01:41 PM CDT -
Are you speaking private charity or governmental?
If you are speaking privately, I couldn’t agree more. But that requires that people stick their hand out and admit that they are asking for charity. And it’s called that, CHARITY. It doesn’t become an entitlement where the person doesn’t want to acknowledge it as anonymous charity from someone else, imposed by the government. (Or worse, that because others COULD afford it, that the less well-off are somehow entitled to it.)
Similarly, where I part seriously with purists on this, is that there are “orphans” or people whose families have abandoned them (people who are mentally retarded or physically deficient to the extent that they cannot care for themselves). I have no problem with a government safety net for THOSE people (a tiny number of people), but not where there is a family who decides not to take care of their own, because they think someone else should sacrifice FOR them. They have to be allowed to make decisions without a safety net, or the safety net becomes a crutch, an eventually an entitlement which condones irresponsibility.
I think we do greater harm to MORE children (and history has shown that to be true) by saving that one child, if we do not do so the right way. We end up establishing the precedent governmentally, that we are responsible for all. People must be allowed to be trusted and demonstrate (to themselves and their posterity) that they are responsible for their own.
I would have loved to have had a dozen children, but I could not support a dozen children. Someone else deciding to have a dozen doesn’t get to claim my overage. I gave up the joy and privilege of having more children to love, so I could care for my own.
It is not pleasant to say it, but the poor and starving of, say, Bangladesh should have been allowed to starve and die. Not because of where they were from or any racist nonsense, but because until they are able to limit their reproduction to be consistent with the region in which they live (or the technologies they have developed and support to enable a larger population to survive), they will continue to out-birth their environment. 50 years ago we saved 100,000 so that we could watch a million die in the last 10 years. There is no humanity in that. It is meddling of the most egotistical and evil sort.
It is more humane to allow 1 to die today than be faced with the decision to allow a dozen of her children to die in 10 or 20 years. We can’t support ALL of her offspring. She must learn to do that or die off. We enable great misery by doing otherwise.
Every time I see those propaganda TV ads to “Save a child” who is living in a trash heap, I think about what happens if we save her. Will she grow up to have a dozen more children living in a trash heap? If that’s the case (and that is the result of these charities), then no. Helping her and condoning her parent’s choices to have a child who has no future (besides the gutter) is wrong, and it is the hardest and most difficult decision we have to make… but one we must make for the future misery we prevent.
Some might argue that we could support her AND her dozen offspring… that there exists that much “extra” wealth to do that. But what about when those 12 have 12 more? Do we have “extra” for 144 or the next generation of 1,728? At some point you run out of willingness, or we all end up in the same boat. I’d rather do it today ad allow the one to die than face the 1,728 (or 20,736 in just 50 years) dying as a result of my misguided ego.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/23/2007 03:15 PM CDT -
It is not pleasant to say it, but the poor and starving of, say, Bangladesh should have been allowed to starve and die.
What about the poor and starving of say Las Vegas? You really want to let a kid die because he or she has f’ed in the head parents?
dbltap | 9/23/2007 08:45 PM CDT -
Do you really want to shoot at the burglar who didn’t have the same upbringing as you? It’s the same argument.
It’s not MY choice. I’m not letting the kid die. The kid’s parents are doing that.
Unless she makes the needs of the kid known, and is ready to sign adoption papers (if she truly is screwed in the head), then I’m still not letting the kid die. She is.
As I said, if this is a one time thing then private charities can decide how to proceed. Friends can try to help as well, but that doesn’t absolve the parents of their responsibility.
If I ruled the world we’d still punish bastard children “for the sins of the parents” and demand as a society that a single woman put her child up for adoption. That, too, is better for the children long term.
Dogs can have offspring. Being a parent requires more savvy/sacrifice than being able to breed. For all the reasons you mention.
SHE put the child in that situation and by allowing someone who is screwed in the head to leave the hospital with the child, we condone it, and ENCOURAGE it.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/23/2007 08:58 PM CDT -
Mrs. dT ... RIGHT ON!!!
I’ve been an advocate of TRUE conservatism for a great long time now ... bring back workhouses, orphanages, and true charity.
Today charity is just a cover for conmen who want to make a living off of others. So they become “paid volunteers” and have completely killed true charity, while inflicting us with generations of people who figure the world (meaning us taxpayers) OWE them something.
I don not owe anybody anything. I pay my taxes grudgingly (without cheating) ONLY because the government will imprison me and steal the wealth I"ve built up. I get no services (that I want) in return for that taxation.
Workhouses? Yeah ... provide nutricious (but not fancy) meals ... and a bed ... in a barracks type environment. I will help out without being desirable. It may even make lazy SOBs want to find a “you want fries with that?” job instead of letting Joe Taxpayer support them.
Let charity become a seldom, personal thing again instead of institutionalized.
Maybe then the true needs of “an acceptable lifestyle” will become evident (and they won’t include movies every hour on a large screen TV).Unfortunately, I think we’re well past the stage where that is impossible ... way too far down the slippery slope.
pete in Midland | 9/24/2007 08:12 AM CDT -
Mr. Reed says it much better than I can. A point that still irks me to no end.
I often hear it said that people should be able to invest as they think best the payments they make into Social Security. Of course what is really going on is an attempt by stock funds to get their hands on lots of other people’s money. Still, the argument is made that freedom and free enterprise demand that government not take, etc. “It’s our money. Let us invest it.” This ignores the fact that over half the population is absolutely, irremediably, hermetically incapable of investing intelligently.
Now, what do we do with people who have obeyed all the fabled American rules, who have worked, perhaps at pathetic wages and no benefits, and never cheated, and been honest citizens, and then the bottling plant went to China and they’re old and have nothing? What?
We could be good social Darwinists and let them rot. They are not cutting edge people, not Verilog mechanics or optical engineers or hedge-fund managers. Who needs them? All right. If this is your position, say so. Look me in the eye and say, “Screw’em. I don’t care what happens to them and I’m not going to spend a red cent on them.” Say this, and I will understand you.
dbltap | 9/24/2007 12:26 PM CDT -
So we had old people dying in the streets before the 1930s?
We did not. We had nothing of the kind.
FDRs programs were a way to fight a silent war with the communists who were influencing our country at the time. He threw them a bone.
Even so, Social Security was only going to be paid out to people who were 65, and 65 was the average age when when people died. It wasn’t intended EVER to be a retirement system. It was to help a few thousand people who were too irresponsible to save (most were more recent immigrants who did not own property) and force them to retire to free up jobs to combat the high unemployment rate of the depression.
It was a tax and spend program to hide the fact that FDR’s OTHER policies were screwing up the economy.
It was a bad idea then and it is a worse now. It WILL collapse in 20 years. You’d have to have 85% taxation, based on the population of working people and those collecting, in order to fund it in 25 years, based on the rate people are drawing money from it.
Why do you think the politicians are doing nothing to stop illegal immigration? Without a constant influx of new suckers at the bottom of the Social Security pyramid (mostly immigrants, legal or otherwise, because we stopped doubling our population by having enough children) in order to keep this Ponzi scheme going.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/24/2007 12:38 PM CDT -
Of course, in the 1930’s, there were probably more extended families living together or near each other and helping each other out than there are these days.
Not sure I have a point, but the situations are quite different.
Maybe we need the Ad Council to step up and push investing and saving more so that there are fewer people in that “half of the population” who can’t invest intelligently.
Then we restore charity for the rest somehow.
Please excuse the incoherency.
Weetabix | 9/24/2007 12:47 PM CDT -
Or we encourage families to help each other again.
My parents will be moving into my house when they get old, because I feel that it is my duty to take care of them. It is not the government’s job.
As with welfare encouraging laziness and dependence on the government, social security encourages the breakup of families and dependence on the government.
American Farmer | 9/24/2007 12:52 PM CDT -
Exactly, Weet. The REASON families can live apart is because the children no longer have to support their parents in their old age. The reason parents don’t need them around is because they don’t have to come to bargain about that, giving their home to their children when they are adults (and taking a backseat in the household), in exchange for taking care of their grandchildren and being cared for through retirement. It was not too long after that (in the 1950s) when mandatory schooling was put through. Before then, a lot of children were educated in the home (what we think of as homeschooling today). There were no longer grandparents in the home to educate/contribute to the next generation, allowing the parents to work (tending to the farm/family business) to feed/support everyone.
All (if not most) of that was enabled/created by social security--a complete breakdown in the social fabric of family, and the responsibility we have to family.
The grandparents can be selfish jerks, because they don’t need to sell their homes to fund their retirements (or move when their adult children move), and can force (through taxation) their children and grandchildren to support them, regardless of how irresponsibly or selfishly they behave.
Most people draw out of Social Security everything they put in after three years of collecting benefits. After those three years, their children and grandchildren are forced to support them, with no benefit to that household.
Mrs. du Toit | 9/24/2007 12:56 PM CDT -
Doubletap (an appropos appellation) ... I’m not sure how to look you in the eye ... since this monitor seems to be one-way only ... but I’ll figurativelyly do so <consider me looking>
Let them starve in the streets ... old, young, and especially the puposefully homeless.
I owe them absolutely NOTHING. Legally OR morally.
I did not cause their problems. I did not bring them into the world. I did not sign a contract allowing money to be taken from me to support them.
And I’ll go further. People who cannot plan for the future; people who have no foresight; people who waste the expensive education we’ve paid for; people who think they DESERVE more ... were NOT what built this country. They are NOT what got us to the top of the socio-economic ladder. They are no plus, in any way, shape or form.Help someone? Sure, damn well glad to help someone who needs it.
Support them? Screw you! What’s in it for me? I don’t even derive a moral benefit when they are so ungrateful as to elect jackasses that want to steal even more of my wealth tp placate the losers.You can’t even call this “tough love” since I love them not ... I just do not care for or about them at all. In other words, I care for them just slightly more than they care for me.
pete in Midland | 9/24/2007 05:00 PM CDT -
My two cents (and not intending to jump in between Pete and dbltap), but I don’t think I could stand by and watch someone starve. I don’t feel compelled to set them in the lap of luxury, either.
I think a poorhouse where they have bunk houses, shared but segregated bathroom facilities, and nutritious but cheap meals (think lots of eggs & oatmeal & veggies grown on-site) would be OK. Nothing else, and no one is forced to live there.
If people chose to go off and die somewhere, I don’t guess I’d force them not to.
I’m fine with ending all entitlement programs, though. Charity should be openly acknowledged as such, and it should be slightly shameful, else why stop taking it?
Weetabix | 9/24/2007 05:21 PM CDT -
RE: Letting people starve in the streets.
Lot of people say they can do it, not many really can. Like the quote says I really don’t care one way or the other just be honest about it.
I am opposed to the idea,as we lack an untouchable class in the US to remove the bodies, and the idea of a bunch of starving old folks clogging either my street drains or interfering with my rhododendrons fertilizer schedule is deeply disturbing.
dbltap | 9/25/2007 11:06 AM CDT
