If human affairs were not a matter of opinion but of fact, then there would be no arguments, only calculations and the results of experiments. In the realm of science, strict rationalism is a positive boon, an essential. Everywhere else, it tends to be an impediment. This is the central meaning of the popular koan “Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man!”.
For instance, there are people who do not accept the obvious truth that property rights are the central value of civilization! No, seriously, I know people like that!
Yes, it’s for their own good. The experience will motivate them to work harder and get jobs that will let them afford the taxi fare to the emergency room.
I never said any such thing. I am not in favor of dumping poor people in the gutter to bleed to death, and I challenge you to cite any post of mine that says I am.
Also, if you’re interested, this post of yours is cross-posted to this thread, where it’s being used as an exemplar (by me) of snarky distortion that should not be moderated, but simply contradicted by debate.
So some good may come of your use here of this kind of empty rhetorical nonsense. You’re like the Nazi fighter pilots who strafed Patton just in time to prove the British didn’t have air superiority. Thanks, man.
You have not said specifically that you want poor people dumped into the gutter, but you have specifically said that you are against paying for their healthcare. So, where does that leave things. Of course you wouldn’t want them dumped into the gutter, that’s just unsanitary, but it does seem as though you are not in favor of expending the effort required to save a person who cannot afford to pay to save themselves.
Dumped in the gutter, dragged to a mass grave, incinerated, cut up for spare parts, whatever, the position that you are arguing for will result in many poor people dying due to lack of access to life saving medicine.
If that is your position, that you are willing to allow fellow citizens to die rather than work together to prevent it, then own up to it. If that is not your position, then explain what it is. What should happen to a person who shows up at the hospital with a medical emergency and no way to pay? What should happen to someone with a chronic illness like diabetes, and no way to pay? What should happen to someone with a terminal, but treatable condition, but no way to pay?
My position is that we need to find a way to cover these people, and the ACA was a step in that direction. An imperfect step, and one that needs quite a bit of work, but definitely in the right direction, if the goal is to reduce the suffering, and improve the quality of the lives of ourselves and those around us.
What is being proposed (and defeated) in congress is a big step back. What it seems you advocate for is a giant leap back.
Final question on principles, if the democrats come out with a bill that the CBO and all analyses (including ones you trust) all agree that it will lower your (and I do mean you, personally, bricker, they looked straight into your finances and healthcare needs) premiums and overall healthcare costs by half while giving you better accessibility to doctors, but, the catch is that everyone will be covered, would you still be opposed to it on principle?
You made an analogy that paying for someone’s healthcare is like paying for someone’s heroin, because they would die without a fix. I felt that was a poor analogy, especially given that we do spend community funds to give such people methadone to keep them from dying without a fix. Here’s, IMHO, a much better analogy.
ISIS has broken into a bunch of US citizen’s homes and kidnapped them, dragging them across the world and holding them hostage. Would you complain about the cost of rescuing the hostages? Would you insist that the hostages should only be saved if they can pay for their extraction services?
That’s how I see healthcare. We are all being held hostage to our imperfect bodies, and the terrorist regime that is illness. To watch someone else get dragged off and killed when something could be done strikes me as the height of barbarism. Civilization bands together against common threats.
It leaves things with me responding to a post that asserts I favor dumping people in the gutter with a denial that I do.
I favor the system that existed in 2008, where so far as I am aware no poor people were dumped in the gutter.
Please cite the year 2008 instances in the United States of mass graves, incinerated corpses, or bodies cut up for spare parts due to c. 2008 health care policies.
There must be lots, since you argue they are inevitable.
Jesus Christ, it’s like some posters here are taking a page out of Operation Rescue’s playbook: “If you aren’t with me on a policy issue, you’re a murderer!”
I oppose abortion, but I recognize that people who favor the right to abortion do not generally believe they are murderers, or killers in any meaningful way. They disagree, in good faith, with my views. I’m fine with that.
We had civilization for more than 10,000 years and we’ve only had the ACA for less than a decade. That doesn’t mean that ending the ACA will end civilized human existence, nor will it lead to mass graves. It may lead to policies you don’t favor, but if you can’t argue that instead of MURDER, you suck at debate.
I see healthcare for all as a net benefit to society, much in the same ways that roads and schools are. Businesses and governments benefit from a healthier more secure workforce and population. This means more productivity with the associated economic benefits. Not to mention jobs and job growth in the healthcare sector. And it would be a huge boost to corporate America, managing and providing healthcare benefits is a huge burden to corporations.
This is the stuff that is understated in the healthcare debate and I wish it would get more play. It’s not all about Grandma being able to afford her medicine. I own a business and even though I don’t make deliveries, I understand that my business and my life would not be what it is if it weren’t for roads. Even roads halfway across the country that I don’t use. Or schools. Because uneducated people don’t have much money to buy stuff. A rising tide lifts all boats - conservatives seem pretty much all in on that one when it benefits them.
Looking at the context, where I also reported to Bone that I do not depend exclusively on my experience, it is clear that you are wrong, grossly too.
But as I noted, besides wrong it is clear that you do not want to deal with the cites and experts are telling us about measurements on what is working for more Americans.
My metric is kinda simple, any reform that does indeed improve the freedom of Americans and their happiness is to be preferred. Particularly when the liberty I’m talking about too is about the liberty for new business to grow and generate new jobs.
From another entrepreneur (that, seeing how some posters ignore why cites are made, it has to be pointed out that these people are not communists or socialists) :
Well, if I was dead I guess I would not had been able to point out (with evidence too) that some policies are indeed more likely to cause dead that others. It is clear to me that many republicans in power and some reprehensible ones with no power would had liked it that way.
(Tea Party crowd cheers at the idea of letting an uninsured person die after not being able to pay for intensive care.)
As pointed before, it is not certain that people would die, only that it is more likely for that to take place. While at the same time the USA continues to spent more of their their GNP on an inefficient, unjust and less liberty inducing health care system.
Then you do not have a problem with paying for other people’s healthcare, you just wish to pay for it in the most expensive and least effective way possible.
The system we had in 2008 was if you were poor, you ignored your medical condition until you couldn’t anymore, and ended up in the ER. Very poor outcomes, very high cost.
Priot to 2008, when we had healthcare that is superior to that which you were advocating for in posts earlier in this thread (You say you don’t want to pay for other’s healthcare, yet you favor a system where you pay for other’s healthcare through the ER), we had people dying due to treatable illnesses due to a lack of funds to treat them. Here’s a cite..
I took you at your word that you didn’t want to pay for other’s healthcare. That is a giant step back from what we had in 2008, when if you showed up at an ER, they had to stabilize you. If you want me to find a cite that shows how many people show up at the ER with life threatening conditions and no way to pay, I can work on finding that, as that would be the number of people who would be dying under the policy that you advocated for when you said that you shouldn’t have to pay for anyone else’s healthcare.
If you are saying, instead, that you have no problem paying for people’s healthcare through the ER, then you are right, we will not have nearly as large a humanitarian crisis as we would if we refused to pay for the healthcare of others.
So, if you clarify your position, in whether you do not wish to pay for the healthcare of others, or if you wish to go back to what we had in 2008, I can give you a better idea of how that’ll play out.
Keep ignoring that I cited the studies before looking at examples. In any case, there are many that it is asinine to cavalierly ignore them. Both the experiences of American entrepreneurs and the ones making studies about them.
Did you see the video I linked? Again, what I pointed out is not just coming from a vacuum. Sure that that was not all Republicans, but enough of the ones that made the difference that gave is Trump.
And then, many Republicans in power are telling us that less access magically means that there will be less death or suffering, while at the same time some Republicans also do not mind at all that some will die as a result of their policies.