Question for Libertarians

[acri1]

Ron Paul was asked a similar question, but he evaded it and never really gave a straightforward answer. So I'm asking the people here who identify as Libertarians to answer it once and for all, as I'm legitimately curious as to their ideological position on this.


Suppose we live in a Libertarian Utopia. A world of complete "freedom", where government completely stays out of our lives other than the existence of a small military.


A man, who lives by himself and does not have a family, suddenly has very severe chest pains. The pain is bad enough that he can't even function. The man is very poor and does not have insurance, nor does he have enough money to pay for medical care. He has no family or friends to ask for money to help him. The man's chest pains are growing more and more severe - he needs to see a doctor IMMEDIATELY. This is a medical emergency and he certainly does not have time to try to find a charity to help him pay for treatment.

What does he do in Libertarian Utopia? Keep in mind, this is a society free from government tyranny, and laws dictating that hospitals cannot turn him away don't exist.

 

[Shogun]

noone lives forever

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

You're assuming that libertarians care whether he lives or dies. The rich (strong) survive and the weak (poor) die...

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Ron Paul was asked a similar question, but he evaded it and never really gave a straightforward answer. So I'm asking the people here who identify as Libertarians to answer it once and for all, as I'm legitimately curious as to their ideological position on this.


Suppose we live in a Libertarian Utopia. A world of complete "freedom", where government completely stays out of our lives other than the existence of a small military.


A man, who lives by himself and does not have a family, suddenly has very severe chest pains. The pain is bad enough that he can't even function. The man is very poor and does not have insurance, nor does he have enough money to pay for medical care. He has no family or friends to ask for money to help him. The man's chest pains are growing more and more severe - he needs to see a doctor IMMEDIATELY. This is a medical emergency and he certainly does not have time to try to find a charity to help him pay for treatment.

What does he do in Libertarian Utopia? Keep in mind, this is a society free from government tyranny, and laws dictating that hospitals cannot turn him away don't exist.

Most of them will probably say if we didn't pay so much taxes people would donate more to charity, so therefore there will be the large pot of donated charity just waiting there for anyone, and there will be easy, fast access to it because there won't be stifling regulations around it.

That's bullshyt, but that's the usual answer from my experience. Either that, or some roundabout slick way of espousing social darwinism, and basically saying he shouldn't have been poor.

 

[Odyssey]

A miniarchist state with the inclusion of universal healthcare(similar to Canada, GB or France) would be the best system in my opinion. The problem with socialized health care is that it takes forever to get anything done, backlogs, etc. I don't see anything wrong with allowing privatized care along side universal care.

 

[acri1]

You're assuming that libertarians care whether he lives or dies.

Yeah...maybe I am being too assumptive about that.

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

basically there needs to be a balance between government and private, any sane person believes that.

This isn't a view I'd take but I guess you would assume there is enough competition to bring prices down. In the end this doesn't happen.

 

[DEAD7]

There will always be winners and losers. the goal should be to minimize the number of losers, not prevent them from losing in the first place(which is impossible).

What you guys are suggesting whether you realize it or not is doing a wrong(using governments monopoly on violence), to make a right.

 

[DEAD7]

If people such as yourselves are so concerned and moral, there is nothing stopping you from helping with his bills...


But you don't want to do that... You want to force others to pay

 

[acri1]

There will always be winners and losers. the goal should be to minimize the number of losers, not prevent them from losing in the first place(which is impossible).

What you guys are suggesting whether you realize it or not is doing a wrong(using governments monopoly on violence), to make a right.

If people such as yourselves are so concerned and moral, there is nothing stopping you from helping with his bills...


But you don't want to do that... You want to force others to pay

You didn't answer the question.

 

[Type Username Here]

No matter what Anarcho-Capitalists ("libertarians") say, there is always a form of government to take care of health issues, among many other issues.

A government is a system in which a community is governed. It's an intrinsic part of any gathering of social and sentient beings. Any community of human beings that has ever existed on this planet, with MAYBE the exception of the first few generations, operated under some form of government.

What "libertarians" want is a society approaching caste/slavery and a government that allows it. Don't be fooled, that is the ultimate end game on their part. Instead of electing our government, they want the government to be dictated by the wealthiest which have risen to the top through private means, which ironically, is what we have now.

 

[observe]

In a government free state I'm sure that someone that is a doctor would do it for free and the man might repay the doctor with some labor, vegetables that he farmed..trade him for something..you don't need the government to help you function in society....

 

[Type Username Here]

In a government free state I'm sure that someone that is a doctor would do it for free and the man might repay the doctor with some labor, vegetables that he farmed..trade him for something..you don't need the government to help you function in society....

So you're telling me that there would be a system where someone would do it out of kindness and then the person would repay that doctor in some way? That would happen 100% of the time?

 

[observe]

So you're telling me that there would be a system where someone would do it out of kindness and then the person would repay that doctor in some way? That would happen 100% of the time?

I don't know what a libertarian is ..but dude said asked how would we pay for doctors in a utopian state and I said trade him for something..seems pretty simple..seems dumb to work all day for corporate America giving money to the goverment who don't do shyt but sit on their asses and get paid from us..when we could utilize real skills creative or necessity wise and trade it for stuff all day..if you like being controlled and told what to do,.then welcome to 2013 and don't put ya faith in humanity

 

[The Real]

There will always be winners and losers. the goal should be to minimize the number of losers, not prevent them from losing in the first place(which is impossible).

What you guys are suggesting whether you realize it or not is doing a wrong(using governments monopoly on violence), to make a right.

In the most general, abstract possible sense, no one would deny the bolded. Even Marx didn't. The question is whether or not libertarianism can achieve that goal. As of now, the more privatized forms of healthcare are empirically losing out to other models.

The point about government action being wrong is simply begging the question (the logical fallacy, that is,) since you're already assuming your view is correct. There's no issue of realization here, because the question of socialism or generally more collective forms of social organization against those you favor in terms of rights and wrongs isn't a rational one, but rather a moral one. There are no inherent rights, individual or otherwise, so how could it be?