What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Berkut]

Safe pills lacking in efficacy do kill, just like alternative medicine cures for cancer kill. 

Very true. And indeed, I would argue that is a grave danger in fact. Quack medicine is truly dangerous.

That said, overly stringent protocols requiring one to prove efficacy of medication can also kill, by either barring medication of moderate efficacy, withholding medication of high efficacy for too long, or putting up high barriers to entry for submitting medication for review in the first place.

Exactly. There is a spectrum of possibly reasonable positions here.

[Valmy]

But quack medicine is pure and outside of the medical-industrial-corporate-big-pharma-conspiracy-complex!1!!111

So in systems with socialized medicine how to quacks sell their stuff? The evil communist-government plot to poison our precious bodily fluids?

[garbon]

A lot more organs available for those who need them?

Yeah, that would suck.

There would be hardly any free ones, even donors who died would bequeath them to their estate.

Indeed. We know this for sure because we've tried it and found that to be true. All the people who donate organs now, 100% of them, would stop voluntary donation, right?

I would argue that right now there is an incredibly unbalanced supply/demand cruve when it comes to human organs. What we *know* is that the demand vastly outstrips the supply.

Having the law mandate that the price paid to those with the organs MUST BE ZERO cannot possibly be the optimal solution when it comes to something that is in fact very sensitive to simply rewarding people who are literally throwing the commodity away because they cannot be bothered.

I would be very worried about poorer individuals then feeling it necessary to sell organs as well as more human trafficking for organ theft.

[Berkut]

A lot more organs available for those who need them?

Yeah, that would suck.

There would be hardly any free ones, even donors who died would bequeath them to their estate.

Indeed. We know this for sure because we've tried it and found that to be true. All the people who donate organs now, 100% of them, would stop voluntary donation, right?

I would argue that right now there is an incredibly unbalanced supply/demand cruve when it comes to human organs. What we *know* is that the demand vastly outstrips the supply.

Having the law mandate that the price paid to those with the organs MUST BE ZERO cannot possibly be the optimal solution when it comes to something that is in fact very sensitive to simply rewarding people who are literally throwing the commodity away because they cannot be bothered.

I would be very worried about poorer individuals then feeling it necessary to sell organs as well as more human trafficking for organ theft.

Indeed, we should maybe have some laws controlling that. Oh wait, we already do...

Of course, any economist would tell you that making the trade in a commodity *illegal* is the single greatest way to incent illegal trafficking in that commodity. It drives the black market price right through the roof.

This is such a silly problem to propagate. If you are worried about how organs would be dsitrubuted, then just create a market for them but tightly control it - make the only group allowed to legally buy organs be the same organizations that currently harvest them for free, and make them responsible for then allocating them in the same manner they do now, just with a radically greater supply.

It's not like the only options are *do not pay ever* and some wild west open market. You can have your cake and eat it as well here. Create a supply side demand by paying some objectively determined market rate for organs, but make the disbursement of those organs once purchased be outside any market.

You can sell your organs once you die, but you can't buy them yourself if you need them. Get on the list.

There is a perfectly reasonable and workable practical area between Libertarian crazy uber free markets and simply letting market forces work in our favor when it makes sense to do so.

[garbon]

We clearly don't have enough in common on these issues for it to be worth discussing.

[Berkut]

We clearly don't have enough in common on these issues for it to be worth discussing.

We don't have to have anything in common to discuss the issue, since the facts that drive the outcomes are not conducive to anything we might have in common.

Unless, of course, your position is that we have differing actual goals. I assumed we both feel that saving peoples lives by making organs available to as many people as possible is the desired outcome.

I guess if your goal is rather to make everyone feel like the system has nothing to do with economics because HEALTH CARE is worth letting a lot of people die, then you might be right...and that is what this sounds like.

I suspect, rather, that you simply don't have a substantive response to my rather compelling argument that letting market forces have a role in increasing the supply of organs, even though the actual economics behind this market are very well understood. Your objection is emotive - it is right up there with "OMG DEATH PANELS!" as a response to Obamacare.

[garbon]

We clearly don't have enough in common on these issues for it to be worth discussing.

We don't have to have anything in common to discuss the issue, since the facts that drive the outcomes are not conducive to anything we might have in common.

Unless, of course, your position is that we have differing actual goals. I assumed we both feel that saving peoples lives by making organs available to as many people as possible is the desired outcome.

I guess if your goal is rather to make everyone feel like the system has nothing to do with economics because HEALTH CARE is worth letting a lot of people die, then you might be right...and that is what this sounds like.

I suspect, rather, that you simply don't have a substantive response to my rather compelling argument that letting market forces have a role in increasing the supply of organs, even though the actual economics behind this market are very well understood. Your objection is emotive - it is right up there with "OMG DEATH PANELS!" as a response to Obamacare.

I was hoping to avoid actually what you are doing right now. Being a dick, without I guess, intending to be.

[viper37]

The selling organs one seems like an inability to consider the logical conclusions of such a policy.

an end to poverty and homelessness?  Poor people would be cuddled in specially designed farms and their families would receive great benefits.  Morality is pretty irrelevant here, the end result is what counts.  Poor people are only useful so long as they vote Republican, better not give them a chance to reconsider.

[CountDeMoney]

But quack medicine is pure and outside of the medical-industrial-corporate-big-pharma-conspiracy-complex!1!!111

So in systems with socialized medicine how to quacks sell their stuff? The evil communist-government plot to poison our precious bodily fluids?

Quack products on the market with no proven efficacy are a threat to public health.

[Razgovory]

I imagine Trump would have a lot to gain in a situation of legalized fraud.

[DGuller]

We clearly don't have enough in common on these issues for it to be worth discussing.

Like open mind.

[Berkut]

We clearly don't have enough in common on these issues for it to be worth discussing.

We don't have to have anything in common to discuss the issue, since the facts that drive the outcomes are not conducive to anything we might have in common.

Unless, of course, your position is that we have differing actual goals. I assumed we both feel that saving peoples lives by making organs available to as many people as possible is the desired outcome.

I guess if your goal is rather to make everyone feel like the system has nothing to do with economics because HEALTH CARE is worth letting a lot of people die, then you might be right...and that is what this sounds like.

I suspect, rather, that you simply don't have a substantive response to my rather compelling argument that letting market forces have a role in increasing the supply of organs, even though the actual economics behind this market are very well understood. Your objection is emotive - it is right up there with "OMG DEATH PANELS!" as a response to Obamacare.

I was hoping to avoid actually what you are doing right now. Being a dick, without I guess, intending to be.

Well, at least you actually intend it, so there is that.

[viper37]

and the market can determine effectiveness.

and for life threatening diseases, like cancer or AIDS, how many people should die before the market has determined a drug is not effective?

It isn't a ridiculous position to take, like arguing that the role of the agency responsible for protecting the environment ought to be dismantling protections on the environment.

that seems really similar to me.
If you give sugared water injection to a cancer patient instead of the usual chemiotherapy, how is that not silly?

A lot more organs available for those who need them?

What you mean to tell me is that you would voluntarily give a kidney or half of your liver in exchange for monetary compensation if it was allowed?

Or that it would be ok to do like China and harvest organs from prisoners sentenced to death?  And that having this wouldn't lead to more prevelance of the death penalty?  Or that you wouldn't see a rise in shady criminal organizations grabbing homeless people of the streets, people who wouldn't be missed and harvest their organs to sell them in a totally legitimate way?

Or do you naively think that a single mother of two would consider giving one of her kidney to support her kids in exchange of money?
And even if such was the case, how do you figure it is a good thing that poor people sell their organs to give their family a fighting chance by sacrificing themselves?  Shouldn't the root cause of poverty instead be studied and adressed rather than resort to untasty ways of solving a problem, i.e., more demand than offer?

[Berkut]

That is a mighty large stack of strawmen right there. I think I will pass on taking them all up.

[DGuller]

Back when I was in college, I took an economics elective course.  It was a very small class, so most of the time we just read an essay or a newspaper article and then debated it.  The professor was decidedly leftist, but also with the mindset that free market forces are powerful, and should be bucked rarely, selectively, and with a damn good economic or moral justification.  In a lot of ways, we were exactly on the same page in that regard.

During one of the classes, we debated whether people should be paid for organ donations.  Like most of the class, I was dead against it.  The professor was for it.  I have to say that I failed to come up with any argument that passed muster, economic or moral.  And I never could come up with one afterwards in my mind, almost a dozen years later.  It's one of those positions where the instinctive reaction is much more difficult to support than one would think.