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Wednesday, December 21, 2016

CURMUDGUCATION: Unavoidable Costs

CURMUDGUCATION: Unavoidable Costs:

Unavoidable Costs


I have libertarian friends (it's true). And one of them posted this particular meme

Now I don't think either of these statements is accurate on its own;  if something is a right, it's a right and there is no "should be," and libertarian "no one has a right to your labor" talk stops the moment money changes hands, thereby buying the right to that labor. But that's beside the point.

Health care and education are what I call unavoidable costs.

All living human beings require health care. There is a cost to providing it, and there is a cost to not providing it.

The costs of providing it are well known and constantly debated in this country, though we have made the issue complicated by insisting that not only should people providing the service be paid, but the insurance company paper-pushing bean counters make some sort of profit because reasons, but the bottom line remains the same-- there are large costs to providing health care. However, not providing health care also comes with costs. There are perhaps uncountable costs in terms of lost productivity due to un- or poorly-treated conditions. There are the unknowable costs of losing a potential leader, scientist, or pillar of the community because they died at age ten from an abcessed tooth. And there is the moral and spiritual cost to a nation that stands by and lets some people die because, for whatever reason, they don't have enough money. There is a moral and spiritual cost to being a nation where families lose members even though the ability to save those people exists.

In short, no matter how we answer question  "Who gets health care and how will it be paid for," there is a cost. There is no answer to the question that costs us nothing as a country or a culture. It is an unavoidable cost.

Likewise, there is no way to answer the question of education that doesn't cost us something. Providing a full, quality education to every single citizen would cost a bunch of money. But leaving 
CURMUDGUCATION: Unavoidable Costs: