Re: Judaism or Calvinism? (was: Re: Jewish unity re children's health bill)

In article <mu62c35ts19d1je4qfc5djuues3krjiq7t@xxxxxxx>,
Andy Katz <amkatz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:40:05 +0000 (UTC), hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Herman Rubin) wrote:

In article <aofpb31jg32vlhv07ok79ktmjmkmpqktp0@xxxxxxx>,
Andy Katz <amkatz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 8 Aug 2007 10:35:40 +0000 (UTC), "Abe Kohen"
<akohen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"J J Levin" <jjlevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
"Eliyahu" <lrooff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
On Aug 2, 8:18 am, "J J Levin" <jjle...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103381.html

................


Okay, what's *not* Jewish, Abe? Serious question.

Any determination by the government of what medical care
one should be able to get for a given price is
totalitarian, not Judaism. Judaism nowhere states that the
unequal distribution of resources is prohibited or even
undesirable. The contributions to progress come from those
whose hands are not tied.

You've provided some thought-provoking ideas here, Herman. But does
Judaism somehow *require* the unequal distribution of resources? All
resources, or some?

I can find nothing which requires the equal distribution
of ANY resources. There are specific sections of the Torah
regarding the treatment of the rich and poor; this assumes
that there will be rich and poor.


If I might reference your comment regarding police and the military:
the necessity of their being in public service is, as you point out,
essentially pragmatic, not moral. I believe the same is true of
healthcare. It's just too important to left to the vagaries of the
marketplace, both for the individual and for society at large.

Furthermore, in a democracy you're never going to obtain any kind of
laissez faire healthcare system that responds only to market forces
and the advance of pure science. There is simply too much pressure
from constituents to allow legislatures to keep their hands off of Big
Medicine. So, again from an essentially pragmatic standpoint, you're
never going to have a free-market system. Not in this area at least.

In a true democracy, there is essentially no freedom, and
it is as tyrannical as things get. The religious persecutions
in New England were definitely consistent with democracy.

The purpose of a constitution is to LIMIT government; a pure
democracy does not need one. Even the Athenian government,
which was about as close to a democracy among its citizens as
one can get, had constitutional limitations. Those who
wrote the Constitution of the US were quite aware of the
dangers of democracy, and sought ot limit the government
adequately; they did not succeed.

Why do you give an illegal medical care (and, no, it's not necessarily
free, not even to the recipient)? Because what is the alternative?
Sick people in the streets, riding the subways and buses, delivering
our packages, mowing our laws, caring for our children?

We will have that anyhow. But we must either get rid of
clearly illegal intruders (our house does not have open
doors to admit anyone; even during the relatively open
immigration period, sick people were not admitted), or
we will have an ever increasing host of them, and all
will become poor.

Well, this is veering off-topic (not your fault, of course), but I've
known people who came here illegally who did very well. One very close
friend of mine came here from Central America, educated herself,
worked hard and wound up owning multiple houses, paying mucho taxes
and providing more wealth into the system than she took out.

We need better immigration laws, and alternatives to the vast
powers of consular officials to decide who will get visas.
But we cannot invite everyone, and the US is populated well
beyond its resources now.

And this gives another reason why so-called "adequate" health
cannot be given to all. The number of people required to
provide it is too high, and even the rich cannot get what I
would consider to be adequate by the standards of today's
knowledge and engineering. We need a medical system which
can provide the information about what to do to all who have
the mental capacity to understand it, and let them decide.
I assure you that the time and effort which I need to get
anything close to that is at this time far too great.

Israel may be able to seal off parts of the West Bank and Gaza, but
the US/Mexico border is far too vast to be sealed off effectively.

If we make it too dangerous to cross, we can do so. It would,
for example, be Constitutional to enslave anyone convicted of
entering the country illegally. Just sending them back is of
little value.

So, it's fine to say let's get rid of the illegals or bar them entry,
but the implementation is quite another thing.

See the above. There are different types of illegal aliens,
and we can make the costs different.

Is there something inherently unJewish about recognizing that wealth
has consequences, particularly when a wealthy nation shares a long
border with a poor one?

We see what happens when the poor one does nothing to
alleviate its poverty, and the wealthy one does not
do enough to ensure the border. This has happened in
the past; the Germanic tribes, claiming to be fleeing
enemies, but really overpopulation, were allowed into
the Roman Empire, and destroyed it.

There have been cases where Jews have allied themselves
with others, but attempting to share the wealth only leaves
all poor. Tevye does not ask why all are not wealthy, but
only whether God could not have made him wealthy. He does
not begrudge the wealthy their perquisites, but asks if he
could not be in their number.

I agree with Tevye. I don't begrudge the wealthy their prerequisites.
I just question whether or not adequate healthcare ought to be one of
them. From a moral and legal standpoint we expect the police to
investigate the killing of a poor man with the same ferver they would
use to investigate the killing of a wealthy one. To accept otherwise
would be to allow society as we know it to unravel.

Do we? Yes and no; we try harder for the rich, and
fortunately for the investigation, finding the killers
of the poor is usually easier, if it can be done at all.
Serial murders of prostitutes are essentially hopeless,
as are other serial killings, mostly of the poor.

So it is, I believe, with healthcare.

The resources are just not there. The 20% of national
income now claimed to being spent in the US for healthcare
is not enough to provide adequate healthcare.

Furthermore, while I don't want to get into the argument of whether or
not socialism is inherently Jewish or unJewish at the moment, I fail
to see how a single-payer, universal healthcare system, open to all
and paid for by all (and yes, illegals *do* pay taxes--property tax,
sales tax, etc., even those who are among the few that don't pay
income tax) constitutes socialism.

What else is it?

Since when is being a Jew = shill for Big Insurance?

I am not in favor of the current MISNAMED medical insurance.
Check your insurance policies; premiums cover expected costs
plus profit to the insurance company, and are not in any way
based on the income or wealth of the insured. The ARE based
on the value of the property insured, for the reasons above.
It is rarely a good idea to insure against expected events,
but only against rare ones.

One should pay ones recurring medical costs out of pocket,
just as one pays for food and shelter. Before "medical
insurance", there were clinics which provided medical help
for those who could not afford it, and they were not run
like emergency rooms. But they were clearly welfare, and
not disguised as something else.

Even a system such as Britain's (which has never seriously been
proposed here)--in which healthcare providers actually work for the
state--is no more socialist than a nation in which police, fire, EMS
and the military all work for the government.

Because of their powers, police and the military must
"work for the government". There are fairly good reasons
why fire departments need to have government ties, but
there are no reasons why EMS needs to be connected with
the government, and usually it is only partially so.

And finally, is Medicare (CMS) socialist and unJewish?

Very definitely so. If provides whatever care the
government states should be provided, at government
prices. If carried much further, it will even eliminate
additional private care.

Again, saying that Judaism doesn't *require* equal distribution of
resources doesn't seem to me the same thing as saying it forbids it.

The discussion in the Torah and Talmud seem to expect
unequal distribution of resources. Attempting to
equalize resources just makes all poor; there are not
enough wealthy people to "spread the wealth".

Andy Katz




--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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