I have regrets delving into potentially politically topics, but then again, I have had posts about libertarianism and extreme ideologies before, so I’ll give it another attempt. My regret is that it’s so easy to bitch about hot-button topics.
I follow a “news” site that sort of straddles the line between hard-right and anarchistic. I think it’s a good idea to at least read opposing viewpoints, despite how much it might piss you off or baffle you. This site could be considered a news aggregator, although they do have some original authors on there. A lot of times, what you get is an opinion piece with quotes from news articles. And this one was no different.
Typically, the postings on this site are using news articles and other sources to promote their ideology, which is free-market capitalism and very anti-government – essentially extreme libertarianism. This particular article I found was on health care costs and how it is cheaper to go to Mexico for surgery, on the order of ten times cheaper.
Naturally, the article invokes the trigger word, “socialism” as in “socialized healthcare” and their applied synonym, “ObamaCare”. The belief is that if we stop the subsidies, the prices will come down to reasonable levels. And to bolster that argument, the article compares a $30k procedure in the US to the same procedure in Mexico, which cost $3k.
Let’s pause for a moment here and realize there are quite a few Americans who do not have $3,000 readily available for an emergency.
Now, let’s also consider that the exchange rate. Today, $1 is nearly 19 pesos. Another potential cost of living metric is that bread in the US costs $1.40, which in Mexico it costs 15 pesos. So then, sure, things in Mexico are typically ten times less expensive and our American dollars get us much more in Mexico. So, you could just as easily have a Mexican version of this article wondering why a medical procedure costs 57,000 pesos.
So, let’s play along and embrace the libertarian dream. Now, there is no insurance and health care is a cash-only option. Because the health industry can’t exploit insurance, prices drop to $3,000 for a particular procedure. So, who’s going to have trouble paying for this? Hint: It’s the same ones that couldn’t pay $3,000 before.
As usual, this just reinforces the standard position of not caring about anyone but yourself.
Comments are closed.