Let the market run free, dammit!
Australian issues - - Posted on April, 25 at 9:54 am by Ken L
It’s time for the Howard Government to show a bit more bottle. Yes it’s been true to the principles of the free market in its IR policies but it needs to do more.
The interference in the aged care market is intolerable, with people like Christopher Pyne having the audacity to decide which providers are safe. This is even worse than the lefties wanting to tell people which employers are safe to work for.
Old folk should be free to enter into individual care agreements that suit the circumstances of both parties. The argument that aged care home owners might not look after the old people properly is nonsensical. If an elderly resident doesn’t like the home they’re in they will just leave and go to another one … or their caring children will make that decision for them, should they be suffering from advanced dementia. No sensible home owner would want to lose a customer so the competition to provide high standards of care will be intense.
Of course incompetent operators will offer care from time to time but the market will soon sort them out. Once a few residents die the word will quickly spread and the homes in question will become unprofitable. That’s what lefties don’t understand - how the invisible hand of the man with the scythe can regulate the aged care industry much more effectively than any bunch of public servants.
Pyne should butt out of aged care now and let the market rule.
Posted in Australian issues |
April 25th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Ah, the “free market will sort things out” ideology of the libertarians. There’s an awful lot of assumption in that spiel. After all, everyone is a good citizen, who actually cares for their parents, aren’t they?
At the other end of the life cycle, maybe we should commoditize the adoption of children as well!
April 25th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Sorry Ken, but you apparently don’t have a clue about how hard it is for the non rich to get into a nursing home and once you’re in its nigh on impossible to move to another.
And as for this:
I strongly urge you to visit a few. I was appalled at how bad some were when I was trying to place my dad 2 years ago. Places that reeked of urine and faeces, others staffed, and seemingly run by teenagers, in another there were tablets littering the floors presumably because no one was checking that the residents were actually taking their medications.
Yes, most were well run, caring places, but I wouldn’t let some look after my dog for an afternoon.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Er Ian, it’s a parody, sort of sarcasm, irony.
We know regulation is necessary as your information confirms [I've seen similar], just try telling your story to the ‘invisble hand of the free market’ types.
That is who the post is directed at.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Speaking of the elderly…
I am just back from my regular once in a decade visit to the elderly end of my family, in the southern Queensland parts of this great brown land (and boy is it brown down there). These particular folk are hard-core, life-long National party voting farmers, who still believe Joh was God incarnate who did no wrong, only vote Liberal when they have no National party option, and believe Labor to be the direct spawn of Communist Satan.
Their unequivocal views on Mr Howard?
“It is time for him to go.” And the state of the nursing homes featured in their discussions.
I have never heard them talk like this. Ever.
They will never admit to voting for Labor, but methinks they are going to take the plunge for the first time. (And I, of course, did nothing to discourage them.)
HowardCo are in very serious trouble if they have lost these kind of folk.
It just gets better and better.
April 26th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Ian it was indeed a clumsy attempt at satire. I was trying to apply to aged care the arguments that lots of people use to justify WorkChoices. It’s depressing to think that a lot of market fundamentalists would probably agree completely with what I wrote.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
[...] Lovett at Surfdom advises Christopher Pyne to stop tampering with the market mechanism, and to keep his socialist paws off nursing homes. The argument that aged care home owners might [...]
April 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Very droll, Ken, very droll.
April 27th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Aged care in this country is becoming a real Pyne in the arse.