Monday, September 21, 2009

Is what's good for the Internet good for health care?

An opinion writer at the Los Angeles Times wrote an interesting article. He tells the story of one of the inventers of the Internet (not Al Gore) and his view that government plays a big role in societal progress.


His views on government control of the Internet seem to be relevant to the current debate about government involvement in health care.


Something to think about.

1 comment:

Posol'stvo the Medved said...

Very interesting. Very thought provoking.

Of course, the story as I have heard it is that ARPAnet was originally funded as a military project, and military spending on weaponized assets seems to be something that the US Government does well.

Having done my time in Government supplied healthcare, and having the scars to show for it (yes, literal scars from two botched oral surgeries) I'm not sure that we can weaponize healthcare. Unless we offer our enemies free healthcare and then mangle THEM on the operating tables. (Of course, then that damn Hippocrates gets in the way.)

The writer raises excellent points about the barriers to private enterprise making it succeed, but does little to allay my concerns that the Government will do this well.

I don't have a specific axe to grind about who should pay for universal healthcare. I'm not even aware, really, of how much I pay for healthcare coverage now, since it comes out of my pay before I see it, it doesn't register. I'm paying $xxx now. I'll pay something like $xxx if the Government takes over. Fine. As long as the two numbers are reasonably close together, I'm okay with that.