The problem is that you've wholly bought the utter rubbish talked by the right. In fact, the cost per head of healthcare delivery in the UK is orders of magnitude lower than the cost of healthcare in the US, both before and after the half-arsed attempt at humanitarianism that Obama introduced. The reason that the NHS is so starved for cash is precisely a result of the fact it is far cheaper than any privately-funded healthcare system that has ever existed. The fact that successive governments have repeatedly failed to increase state investment is a problem, yes, but the evidence from the US and other locales rather suggests that private healthcare systems invest even less in real terms. The rise in costs in the NHS has been due the sale into the private sector of many small sections of the NHS, leading to, for example, poorly paid, poorly trained cleaning staff employed by the private sector turning off life support system in order to plug in their cleaning equipment (that really happened), decline in cleanliness leading to a rise in infections in hospitals and increasing deaths... And we can compare before and after, and the results of that comparison are that although costs have gone up, deaths from preventable causes have also gone up, all attributable directly the sale of parts of the NHS into the private sector. As each bit is privatised, problems that were non-existent prior to privatisation have been observed.
I appreciate that you grew up Romania under an abhorrent regime, but you have to understand that that regimes was as far from western social democracy as Stalin was from Marx... Well, further, actually... So although the extreme version of socialism under which you grew up was an utter failure, it is increasingly becoming clear that the extreme version of neo-liberalism under which the UK (sick man of Europe) and the US (once global leader now falling from its position) has failed just a truly.
The problem is extremism, of whatever kind. So asking for state provision of basic human rights is perfectly reasonable, rational, and in all of our interests. Asking for the state to run everything is unreasonable. So is asking it to run nothing - if it runs nothing, then what is it for?
As a final point - as one of the leading textbooks preaching neo-classical economics admits, the labour market can only work on a neo-classical model if "some benevolent dictator redistributes all finance at the end of each working day." Hardly sounds like a functional system to me, does it to you? :)
Oh, and you're just factually wrong on Charlie Guard - even the US doctors, on examining the case properly, admitted that nothing can be done.
And even if the NHS refusing to pay for it was wrong, who was going to pay for it without the NHS? Nobody. Because no private insurance exists for such cases, not in the UK, the US or anywhere.
What, indeed. The state doesn't provide rights. It can only ever infringe upon them. Moreover, health care - the provision of service and products - is not a right.
You're conflating rising costs with some sort of defect in the system. Centralized provision of any service or good will always distort prices, regardless of what degree of centralization occurs. The degree merely determines the size of the effect. Mises wrote about this, it was expanded upon by Hayek, Rothbard, and others.
And what are you talking about with your last paragraph? Competition drives down prices and increases quality. This has been demonstrated empirically over the course of human history, and it can be deduced logically as well. So unless you have a counter argument that can refute both methods of proving this to be true, I don't see what you're driving at. Mind unpacking that for me?
I'd also love to know what you mean by "neo-liberalism" in this sentence:
Both of those countries are socialist countries.
No, I'm not talking about rising costs in terms of the UK US comparison. I'm talking about total cost per head of population of the model. The US model of healthcare costs more, per capita, than does the UK version, yet the UK version delivers a free at the point of need service and the US version does not, meaning millions are excluded from healthcare in the US whereas everyone gets care in the UK.
The best healthcare system in the world, according to those who know, is, I believe, France, which is almost totally state-funded too.
Socialism requires that the state owns everything. In both the US and the UK, the state owns very little, certainly compared with most of Europe. However, in both of those countries, most things are owned by a small number of highly wealthy individuals who would all argue that they got where they are by merit. I assume you'd accept that as reasonable.
Hayek is hardly a source of reliable economics. I've not read anything of his that made any kind of logical sense.
Could you give me some examples of the historical evidence of which you speak? I have seen some evidence, both historically and contemporaneously, that competition can drive down cost and increase quality. I have also seen the precise reverse. As I'm sure you're aware, asking me to prove the reverse of your statement is somewhat of a fallacy, so where is your evidence in support? Historically, humans have lived in small units (under 250 people) and cooperated for success. I'd love to know what the compelling historical evidence is that humans work better under conditions of hard competition, please post it :)
In fact, I'd love to post a full response to not just your post, but a number I've read over the past few weeks, so if you're up for this, can we continue this debate here, but once I've put a little flesh on the bones of my arguments (and found a couple of pretty pictures to make it appealing to steemit!) I'll tag you in a post? I love robust debate, so would greatly value your input on my future post too :)
Fine by me! Respond to me here with the link (since there isn't any way to get notifications for tagging someone in posts here in this UI), and I'll comment over there!
Cool - yeah, the UI still needs work, doesn't it? :)
Will probably post tomorrow or Monday, I'll post the link here for you. Nice one!