But I wouldn’t worry too much about the future turning out like “Gattaca”. As long as we live in a more or less free market society, and as long as there are workers capable of doing jobs, there will be employers looking to hire them regardless of who their parents were. Capitalism is nice that way.

Sorry, but I don’t buy the whole “Gattaca” premise. Not unless the government does something really stupid and mandates that all employers are required to purchase health care for all employees (which wouldn’t be sustainable). In that circumstance genetic discrimination would be plausible because the employers would have a reason to discriminate. Other than that, it’s incredibly unlikely that there would be no employment for qualified workers simply because of their genetics. The benefits wouldn’t outweight the costs.

Actually, that would be a good argument for why we should push for a free market system instead of the current one that puts a focus on employer-provided health care. It creates an incentive to discriminate based on liability.

As TanGeng points out, please do not take this post as a defense of the current system. The current system is a failed hybrid of government and private systems, and does not deserve defense.

My point is that if we want to fix it, we should move government out of the way, and the the free market have a much greater role than they currently do.

The current (flawed private) system is awful, so let’s socialize medicine!! (Just forgo analysis about the upside and downside of socialized medicine or any alternative systems.)

Drugs cost too much, so let’s enact price controls!! (Just ignore its effect of killing the drug development industry.)

And we’re not even arguing in favor of keeping the current system. A deregulated system would create powerful incentives for preventive care and cost control at the consumer end and would create incentive to innovate and reduce the cost of delivering health care.

Fewer errors in the pharmacy division? You want to toss a link in there showing where you got this information? And that care doesn’t “cost less” than the private system? It’s subsidized by taxpayer dollars so the costs are hidden, and even then costs still exceed revenue. Why do you think the Bush administration cut the budget for the V.A. in the middle of a war?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24665-2004Mar2?language=printer

Why do you think things like Walter Reed happen? Answer, budget shortfalls.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/03/our_money_problem_and_walter_r.html

The military has a system of socialized medicine because the nature of their job makes them uninsurable by private carriers. They have to have that system because they don’t have a choice. But it’s not a system any of us should want.

Sure they cost less, and make fewer mistakes, but they also dispense less medicine. It’s all part of the government rationing system. They try to suppress the costs by denying service and essential care.

Many injured veterans have complained about receiving insufficient medical care after they received injuries. Again it’s the suppression of costs by denying services and essential care.

Albeit it’s the worst example, but do you really want Walter Reed as your hospital?

And that’s a fact.

That’s simply more BS porpaganda in favor of the current system. The Government already provides health care to millions both though the military, the VA, and special programs, and that care cost less than the comparable care on the civilian side, and what’s more it’s better care, and the pharmacy provisions are better with fewer errors than their civilian counterparts.

You’re talking a lot of bull that will be popular with your conservative readers but has little basis in fact.