by Łukasz Jasiński
In a private property order, charitable institutions would play an important role in ensuring more people have access to medical treatment.
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42 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 12h
The standard argument is that charity is a public good and thus will be underprovided in a free market.
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30 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 11h
The direct counterargument to that has to do with private charity being sufficiently more efficient that it's not feasible for the state to make up the difference.
However, I think the point of bringing this is up is more political. People imagine (despite being inconsistent with the historical record) that sick and injured people will just be thrown out on the street if they can't afford current medical prices.
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42 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 11h
Agreed. This makes me wonder if there have been any systematic studies on the relative efficacy of private vs public provision of charity.
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30 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 10h
I definitely recall hearing about studies to that effect, but I don't know how good they were.
It seems like there would be a lot of disagreement around what the right metrics are to evaluate. One of the benefits of private charity is that each donor can have different objectives in mind, but that means there's a subjective element to how well they're fulfilling donor wishes.
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