Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Yeah, turn it around and throw it at us libertarians. Again, these people work for the US government, and deserve employer funded health care.
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I'm "throwing it at us libertarians" because wanting vets to have the government pay for their health care is, as has been said, a moral argument and not an economic one. It's perfectly possible to have them pay for their own health care, so why not do it?
To be clear, I am in full agreement that the gov't should be liable for all the costs here, but that's because I don't think that economic rationality trumps all else. The libertarian position, though, is that it DOES, so arguments that resort to what the government "owes" its employees fall down before the fact that it would undoubtedly cost them less money to either force the soldiers to buy their own health insurance or have them co-pay at least some of the costs instead of getting a socialist free ride.
Once you admit that not every issue involving spending money can be reduced down to what is most economically efficient, then you start looking at comparing what's best for society vs what's best for the economic actors within society, which is anathema to the libertarian idea that what is best for the economic actors is necessarily also best for society.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Yeah, who cares about all those wounded vets who are disabled and can't get a job to pay for basic living expenses. You ever think that there is a REASON the US government should be looking after wounded vets? Something along the lines of them not being able to support themselves?
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That's a moral argument. Again, I'm fine with it, but to expand on IFF's question, why is a moral argument allowable for soldiers with expensive and debilitating wounds but not for children with expensive and debilitating illnesses? We're not disagreeing with the argument, we're disagreeing that libertarian premises can support such an argument and - critically - we're saying that such premises are invalidated precisely because such arguments can and should be made.