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SOCIALIZED_MEDICNE

                                    October 22, 2018
It occurs to me that once
upon a time I was completely
convinced that government      I was aware that citizens of at least
health care was a bad idea,    some places with national health care
and I was willing to argue     reported being happy with it, but I had
against it strenuously.        the sense it was a mixed bag-- e.g. better
                               in Canada than in the UK; more importantly
This isn't one that's at       though, I was afraid that the free market
all ambiguous-- on most        in health care in the US was driving
things, even at the height     critical medical research.
of my interest in the free
market libertarians, I                           And I was holding out hope to
wasn't such a hardliner.     For example, on     institutions like HMOs to
                             the environment     restrain the growth in health
On government run            I was okay with     care costs-- by fixing some
health care, I had           things like         incentive problems and using
the dial totally             pollution           collective bargaining.
tuned over to                taxes.  What
against, and now             else can you            That clearly didn't work:
I've got it all              *possibly* use          HMOs didn't save us.  And
the way over on for.         to deal with            I also learned more about
                             something like          medical research was being
  Why exactly                air pollution?          driven by government
  did I change?                                      funding.
                                                     
I could easily go for the the glib, intellectually    
correct line that I've switched because there's too
much data in favor now-- more precisely I think         LATE_SHIFT
I've *seen* more data in favor-- and actually, this     
might really be true.                              
                          
However, it's also true that I no longer trust
the sources of information from which I used to
hear contrary arguments-- e.g. I once would've       Though, in my own defense
assumed that a Cato Institute study was at least     I don't show a lot of
a sincere attempt, though I might've been            tendency to give-in to
supicious that they might, say, ignore contrary      pressure toward "political
data because of their intellectual bias.             correctness" just for the
                                                     sake of fitting in.
Now I would say I know of no good reason to     
regard them as anything but hired flacks.                 NUCLEAR_SPLIT
                                         
      So it *could* be it's not just a matter       
      of "better data" and that's the reason      
      I've shifted tribal allegiances, but it    
      also could be that I've shifted tribal     
      allegiances and that's caused me to          
      perceive the data differently.         
                                    


      
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