The standard point made about the Road to Serfdom is that the silly old Austrian didn’t know what he was talking about. How can having the National Health Service make us all slaves?
That not being quite what Hayek did say of course. Rather, that if politics becomes the monopoly health care supplier then politics is going to start determining what health care who gets. Which is indeed a form of serfdom.
He wasn’t so silly after all:
Melatonin should not be offered by NHS to treat jet lag – review
Why’s that then?
“The question is, should NHS resources be used to support a short term, self-limiting condition that is generally associated with travel for pleasure and holidays?,” said David Phizackerley, the deputy editor of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin.
“Travel for pleasure and holidays” is the giveaway there. Which medicine is to be given to which person is being politically decided. Because that long distance travel for pleasure is regarded as a not correct choice.
Hayek was right about the NHS and serfdom thing.
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I'll take that, as if injuries/illnesses that arise from pleasurable activities are banned, bang goes any AIDS treatments, STD treatments, or indeed reviving any OD'd druggies..............no more liver transplants, or lung treatments from drinkers and smokers either.
AIDS is not a "public health" problem, as nearly no contagion is casual or inadvertent but a result of casual sodomy and sharing hypodermic needles. It's not that these are pleasurable but that they are absurdly risky personal decisions. If we were to curtail health services based on a judgement about whether you should have developed the condition, why wouldn't we start here? (Answer: our reps are terrified of the LGBTQ lobby).
Not just AIDS and STD - try getting NHS treatment for a sports injury! Over three months from asking for a GP appointment to actually seeing a junior member of the relevant team, by which time the damage was incurable because it had been left too long.
@Jim
If it's one then it's all. However, accident doing X is not same as knowing I will suffer if I do Y
Mountain Rescue too?
Is Melatonin a POM? If yes, then NHS should provide it.
@john77
NHS: Stay fit & heathy, do sport
NHS: Sports injury? Here's a wheelchair
Oh! Melatonin. At first glance, it looked like those racists wanted to deny people melanin.
(It is a joke, folks! OK, not much of a joke. But still a joke).
I don't fly often but when I do, I seldom see Hawaiian shirts and bikinis on the plane. Judging by all the laptops it seems to be more businesspeople. The comeback being that if you're not in business for fun or profit, wtf are you doing there, so maybe there is a pleasure element after all.
Doesn’t this outlaw abortion? It is the outcome of a pleasurable activity after all...
Outlawing abortion is keenly persuasive in the States. It's not that the activity was pleasurable, it's that the result could have been avoided with a modicum of planning. Like my take on AIDS, above, unprotected sex and/or promiscuity is easily seen as a behavior the rest of us needn't subsidize.
My local mountain rescue don’t charge as it means people will delay calling them or even not call them. They have had cases of people who thought they would be charged hiding from the rescue team and the trying to follow them out.