The 6 Pack Economist

I wonder if I could possibly right? Could today’s healthcare system be replaced by some horrible public and private system cobbled together by a bunch of competing interests?  Or maybe it will be run like the DMV?

I really don’t know what to do about drugs, mainly because I think us as a species desire a way to alter our perception of the world.  I definitely don’t think giving drugs out like candy is the answer though.

I wonder how many people are going to continue their self-destructive behavior because the risk of the behavior has been reduced.  Some of the risks of heroin are of course disease from dirty needles, improper use of the needles, poor quality drugs, robbery, rape, etc. the list goes on.  It is not that I don’t care about these people; it’s that I believe this “make a bad behavior safer” only encourages more of the behavior.  Reduce the cost of something and you will increase the demand of it.  You can’t get away from it.

I tend to be a libertarian for most things.  If it is between consenting adults have fun, don’t ask me to subsidize it unless it benefits me (like a married couple having kids).  But if said action requires you to get public assistance then I care about it. Go beat each other with rotten salami all you want, but your insurance pays for it, not mine.  Want to go home and smoke pot, fine just make sure you get up and go to work the next day. 

If you start taking money from me though, that’s when I get all “angry dad” on your ass.  The above mentioned program will eventually lead to the local government taking a similar approach.  This in turn leads to my money being spent on this type of crap.  What is needed is for these people to stop doing bad behavior, not making the behavior safer.  It just destroys the risk to reward ratio and that is what blew-up our banking system. Who knows maybe in a moment of clarity one of these addicts will realize that the risks of doing heroin does not equal the reward, and then they go and get help.