Is For-Profit Healthcare Unjust? - Amartya Sen

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/02/25/Amartya_Sen_The_Search_For_Justice

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen answers a question as to whether for-profit medical insurance is inherently unjust. Sen agrees that this is likely the case regarding insurance companies, but notes that there are other instances where for-profit competition results in a fairer system.

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Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has been called the "Mother Teresa of economics" for his work on famine, human development theory and welfare economics. He argues that social justice is more than a matter of intellectual discourse, and that the idea of justice influences how - and how well -- people live.

Sen offers a powerful critique of the mainstream theories of justice that, despite their many specific achievements, he argues, have taken us in the wrong direction. - Commonwealth Club of California

Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was formerly Honorary President of OXFAM and is now its Honorary Advisor.

Amartya Sen's books have been translated into more than thirty languages. His research has ranged over a number of fields in economics, philosophy, and decision theory, including social choice theory, welfare economics, theory of measurement, development economics, public health, gender studies, moral and political philosophy, and the economics of peace and war.

Amartya Sen has received honorary doctorates from major universities in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.

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• profits
• non
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[doutonight]

Not true, in most countries with national healthcare you can still go to high quality private doctors, you just dont HAVE to, as your insurance pays for your regular doctor (and usually they are good enough, and they are definitely much better than no doctor at all)

[baronmorris]

ur retarded. when profits come at the expense of health & lives, it's fucking evil, pure & simple.

the profit margins u cite r deceptive & misguided. those figures r decided after deducting the so-called costs of business, including exhorbitant pay/bonuses of CEO's & upper management, & also advertising, lobbying, & litigation defending draconian exclusionary practices. These & other costs r vastly reduced in a fully collectivied system, as proven in nearly every other advanced nation on earth.

[happinesson]

IDEALLY CORRECT "the basic necessity of life must not be produce by profit making but by state"

[LogicalFlawDetector]

@doutonight

You do realize that he is NOT making the case for a nationalize health care system and against the profit system, right? The market for medical care is an exception: in that it has lots of information asymmetries. This will lead to market failures. The fact that you can't go past your retarded left-wing ideology is laughable. Amartya Sen is a free trade capitalist. You are an online troll who doesn't understand information economics.

[Neosaigo]

How insurance work is that they make profit off premiums, but if suddenly all their customers need the cash their insurance policy, the company cannot pay for it since insurance is about paying out as little as possible.

So the insurance companies are basically gambling on something not happening to make a profit, but it is for the reason that something might happen that people buy insurance.

Look at the home owner's insurance after tornado hit in central U.S, the company end up unable to pay.

[Ramshobraja]

Interesting point on how competition can improve things outside government control.

[goodinvestor]

How can anyone dislike this? (apart from employees of medical insurance companies!)

[Bobbiethejean]

@UncommonThinker @UncommonThinker It's not a question of value, you doof. It's a question of 3rd world children having NOTHING to do with this conversation! Stop with the redherrings.

[UncommonThinker]

@Bobbiethejean Yeah because under-achievers with chronic illnesses are worth more than third world children. Good ceo's are worth the money they make. And bad ones are still being paid by the government. Its big government that creates the problems in our economy.

[doutonight]

doutonight @ananiasacts I certainly hope so. I already only eat fruits and vegetables, raw if at all possible. No tofu or dairy. :)

doutonight @donroche I completely agree, but our mismanaged systems are better than no systems, and are stepping stones on the way to better systems (which may, in fact, be without a system lol)

[Bobbiethejean]

@UncommonThinker We're not talking about

3rd world children, we're talking about our

own citizenry. Your 2nd sentence makes

no sense and your 3rd sentence is silly.

Just because a CEO makes millions

doesn't mean he's done a good job. Just

look at the asshole CEOs on wallstreet for

example. They fucked everything up and STILL

got millions in bonuses.

[UncommonThinker]

@Bobbiethejean Doesn't change the fact that millions die because we don't give a dam and wont send 89 cents a day to feed third world children. If people won't provide free health care for each other in a free system, what makes you thing they'll do it if they are forced to? If the CEO isn't doing a good job, he's fired. Plain and simple.