Comments on: Health, education, sustainability before tax cuts

By: Kevyn

Kevyn — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:48:49 +0000

andrew, I don’t know for sure, but I guess the best place to start looking for that anwer would have to be Toyota or Honda.

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:51:37 +0000

i don’t suppose you’d suggest we should be able to patent organisational structures… so how can we get the rewards to the people coming up with the cost-saving ideas?

By: Kevyn

Kevyn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:14:23 +0000

andrew, you make a lot of good points. Add to them the notion that all this research into new diagnostics and treatments hasn’t been matched by research into reducing costs or improving system efficiencies and you pretty much have all the bases covered. I suspect the reasons for the lack of efficiency breakthroughs is that the structure of both public and insured private healthcare currently provides no financial reward for cost innovations whereas medicines and machines can be patented.

By: StephenR

StephenR — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:52:15 +0000

Roman my point was that you wouldn’t necessarily need to moonlight as a heart surgeon/Queenstown property developer.

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:25:40 +0000

Yes I earn a lot more than that…. There are no reasons why others couldnt do this..

but there are. you are unlikely to have become so rich if you’d had to pay each of your workers that same amount.

I could go to Hong Kong tommorow and only pay10% tax…. It would be more your loss than mine.

& yet it would be your loss too… otherwise you’d be there now, right?

my hard work has succeeded better than most people, but I dont think I’m better than anybody because of it

sure you do. that’s what all that “i’m so happy” stuff was all about. purest one-upmanship. along with all the “i deserve to be better off than you” stuff.

main problem with health is that technology is always increasing the amount of things we can do for suffering people, leading to the moral implication that we should do it, while the cutting edge technology is always more expensive than the level of health care we have provided, & have been able to provide, in the past.
meanwhile the technology also increases the amount of other ways we can enjoy our life. leading to the question of how much of our resources to devote to those things which enhance the quality of life of the healthy people and those which extend the life of the unhealthy, or make the unhealthy healthy.
the problem is likely to never go away… until we can all afford to fill our bloodstreams with nanobots constantly repairing us cell-by-cell so we need never deteriorate & we recover miraculously from wounds & fatigue & drug abuse & inappropriate nutrition etc.
maybe at that point there’ll be no more improvements to be made to healthcare & it will be simply a matter of expanding the economy until we can all afford it.

By: uk_kiwi

uk_kiwi — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:17:17 +0000

Part of the problem is that while health, education etc are noble goals, their problems seem to be management related- will more money help?

How about a mixed tax package- a small tax-free threshold, and adjust all the brackets back to where they were in 1999 relative to incomes?

By: Roman

Roman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:18:27 +0000

StephenR, Your point is?

By: StephenR

StephenR — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:04:30 +0000

Incidentally i saw a story about a surgeon the other day who bought a property for 8 million in Herne Bay.

By: Roman

Roman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:47:15 +0000

Kevyn, maybe I’m lots of things. Sometimes things or people just cant be pidgeon holed. Thats a very left pov

By: Roman

Roman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:44:41 +0000

Oh, and I’ve always been happy. Thats all about attitude not money.
Jingyang, look at the tax rates and you can work it out.
Samuela- obviuosly I’m better off than most people but obviuosly my hard work has succeeded better than most people, but I dont think I’m better than anybody because of it. We all bleed the same, do we not.