Thursday, August 07, 2008

Culturally Appropirate Health-Care (by Don Boudreaux)

The Latest From Cafe Hayek

Posted: 06 Aug 2008 10:15 AM CDT,

Here's a letter that I sent today to the Washington Post:

La Clinica del Pueblo's Mauricio Silva boasts that his clinic supplies "culturally appropriate health care" (Letters, August 6). I love this idea! And I presume that in this age in which diversity is celebrated and all cultural preferences are equally respected and protected, I can receive my own culturally appropriate health care.

In my culture - call it individualist - I am not forced to pay for anyone's health care and no one is forced to pay for mine. I'm free to choose to buy health-care insurance as long as it isn't forcibly subsidized. And persons in my culture are mortally offended at the prospect of being forced to participate in any collective scheme of health-care financing or provision.

I call upon all persons who respect diverse cultures to stand up for mine, which today is endangered - to help me and my fellow individualists protect our culture from forcible assimilation with the dominant one that is arrogantly trying to strip us of our unique cultural folkways.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

6 comments:

Barstool69 said...

my student loans are subsidized

and I own an Apple

Patrick said...

Seems like everything is subsidized these days, which is why things are so expensive (tuition, health-care). This of course leads politicians to call for more subsidies to deal with a problem that was caused by too much subsidies in the first place.

The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises once explained this as the great "destructive spiral" - where government intervention creates unintended consequences that lead to calls for more government intervention. It is this cycle that gradually permits our planners to implement full-blown socialism/fascism.

HANK said...

Are you proud of the subsidy and Apple computer, barstool69?

Barstool69 said...

Shouldn't I be?

HANK said...

I don't know much about computers, except that Apple users sit in coffee houses, and complain about everything.

I do know you should not be proud of your student loan subsidy. Being proud of a government subsidy is as if you are telling the government you cannot take care of yourself, and that you are not responsible for your own actions and decisions.

Instead, you should feel pity.

Barstool69 said...

1. Only if the coffee houses have wifi. Ethernet cables are so PC.

2. You're just pissed that you're paying for me to hang out with Rick at Bourbon Street. Talk about a responsible decision.