Disagree. Also from the UK, so I echo jjimm’s sentiment.
Incidentally, on what I hope is a correct assumption that Rand Rover and Starving Artist have health insurance, and therefore don’t need government support, do you think you would feel the same way if you couldn’t afford private health care?
If you’re in the UK or have ever used the NHS and haven’t participated, I’ve got a counterpart poll running, to which I’d appreciate your contribution.
Charity is a choice. Maybe this week I feel like paying it. Maybe next week I’d rather be charitable to someone or something else that I think is more important.
Forcing me to pony up is not forcing charity - it’s theft.
I have been opposed to government social programs since I was old enough to form opinions about them, probably my mid-teens, and I will continue to oppose them no matter what my personal circumstances.
I grew up during the period of time when communism ruled a huge part of the world, including Russia, Eastern Europe, China, etc., and I was aghast at what life was like for the people who had to live under that type of government, where no one owned anything and everything was the property of the state. People were dependent on the state for everything: their homes, their furnishings, their education, their food, etc. Central planning was the order of the day and people were told what to study and what work they were going to do based upon what the state needed them to do. Central planning was also notoriously incompetent. Most people my age have heard countless stories of hours spent standing in line in order to obtain even the simplist of basics such as a loaf of bread. Lines, waits and shortages were chronic and accepted as being just the way life was. People lived in tiny crackerbox apartments and houses that are substandard even for people living in poverty in this country.
In addition, government was totalitarian and omnipotent. Criticism or even complaint was not tolerated. Government spied on everyone and people were encouraged to report dissent to the government and children were encouraged in school to out their parents if their parents were involved in any sort of anti-government activity, or even if they merely expressed criticism over the way their government was operating.
And of course, millions upon millions of people were slaughtered in the beginning because people did not take kindly to having their land, homes, possessions and businesses siezed by the state.
Now I’m sure any number of people will be along shortly to dispute all this and claim it’s nothing but 1950’s-era McCarthyist propaganda, but I’ve seen and read enough over they course of my life that is credible to be of the belief that at least much of it is true.
So what does this have to do with government health care in the U.S.?
It has to do with my belief that government health care is another step toward moving the U.S. to socialism, and it is my belief that socialism is always ultimately doomed to fail because it will eventually collapse of its own weight. The point will be reached when the demands or desires of the populace – a populace conditioned to looking to government to provide for needs – will outstrip the ability of the government to finance them. In other words, even if government took 100% of its citizens’ income in taxes it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the demands put upon it by that populace, or even the obligations it has already obliged itself to meet. Evidence of this is visible even in this country where we are mortgaging our childrens’ future in order to pay for government expenditures today, and in which Social Security faces almost constant predictions of insovency twenty or so years down the line, whereupon government scrambles around coming up with new ways or higher taxes with which to fund it.
So, what happens when a government with a populace already conditioned to look to its government to take care of it reaches the breaking point, and politicians can no longer buy votes with the peoples’ money because they’re getting all the peoples’ money already?
IMO, that government looks around, and, seeing a populace already conditioned to socialism as it is and therefore ruling out capitalism (the only form of government that is self-sustaining, btw), decides that the only way to prevent chaos and/or revolution and to keep themselves in power is to seize control and institute full-on communism, under which the people will take what the government decides to give them and be happy with it…or else!
So basically, I oppose all forms of governmental social programs because I believe they will lead to a populace conditioned to look for their well-being to a form of government that is ultimately doomed to fail, and that when it finally does fail, full-on communism will take its place. I say this because I simply cannot see that any government so fully invested the philosophies of socialism will simply throw up its hands and convert itself and attempt to convert its populace to the philosophies of capitalism. Communism is much closer to what both they and their citizenry are accustomed to, and it allows the powers that be to remain in charge. And besides, governing is always easier when the government can tell its people what to do rather than vice versa, and under communism that ability is absolute.
And finally I also object to them because I believe people are happiest when they are free, and I don’t believe people are free when they have to look to the government to provide for their needs. With government largess invariably comes government control, and people controlled by their government are not free.
**Starving Artist: **
While I agree completely with you about your views on communism, I don’t think here in the UK we are anywhere near that state of affairs. Yes, the NHS was introduced by a left wing Labour governmant, but it has been supported by all the subsequent governments - including the very right wing Conservative Maggie Thatcher one. Many other countries have at least some sort of publicly funded health care; I haven’t heard anyone suggesting that Australia or New Zealand are being consumed by the extreme left due to their health policies.
Many services are publicly funded in the UK; education, police, fire and ambulance services, for example. I assume that at least police and fire services are publicly funded in the US. Do you disapprove of that, and would you not use them because they are government funded?
I think there is a huge gap between supporting the people, by ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities in health, education and public safety, and controlling them by governmental public funding.
But I do think that our government, and the EU, are interfering in our lives to a Big Brother-ish extent - but that’s a whole other thread…
No, it’s forcing you to contribute your share to society. Just like any other tax supported service.
Totally disagree. We have government to allow individuals to “buy” things that can only be afforded collectively – national defense, infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and “the common good.” Over the years, the common good has been interpreted as “activities that cannot reasonably be left to the capricious free market.” Complex relationships between humans living in large populations cannot be explained or reduced to some simplistic economic model that can be described by some college sophomore’s paper on the wonders of libertarianism.
I want medical care for the poor people in my country because fewer sick people means less chance that I’ll get sick or that I’ll otherwise suffer if someone I depend on gets sick. The guy slapping my Big Mac together may be earning slightly over minimum wage, but I’d like him to have some sort of affordable health care in order to limit the chances that I’ll catch some horrific malaise from him.
And while I’m at it, I’m in support of health code regulations that require that he be wearing plastic gloves while preparing my food, and that the whole place pass health inspections. With just a little reflection, I think any libertarian would see that eventually, the enlightened libertarians would band together and start making it clear to restaurants that they should have some standards of behavior that ensure their safety. This would be arrived at through trial and error after enough people get sick. The logical result of all of this would be little different than the health regulations and safety codes we have right now, except that every libertarian would have to be convinced of this by his or her own experience with food poisoning before they’d accept the higher prices these “clean” restaurants charged. Why not codify these lessons in some sort of law such that we can eliminate the need for so many libertarians to die of food poisoning?
Same thing goes for education. I don’t have kids, but in a few years, I’m going to be that old guy walking to the grocery store. If I live in an area where educated kids are growing into somewhat educated adults who can hold jobs, there’s less likelihood that I’ll be robbed by roving gangs of criminals (unless those kids have Harvard MBAs).
Maybe we don’t have to wait for every young libertarian to mature into an older, wise libertarian who sees the benefit of keeping the population healthy by having to experience for themselves the unintended consequences of leaving everyone to fend for themselves in every aspect of their lives. You don’t want seat belt laws until your idiot nephew wraps his car around a tree. You don’t want to pay for firemen because you don’t smoke and don’t use candles, but you didn’t consider that hiring the cheapest electrician you could find left you vulnerable to fires caused by ratty wiring. Why demand that every lesson in life be learned through your own “valid” experience? Grow up and pay your goddamn taxes.
How do you feel about your government enforced “charity” going to pave roads you don’t drive on or educate other people’s kids? Do you complain when it puts out other people’s fires that you might not have chosen to put out?
Disagree.
If a communicable disease gains strength among a group of uninsured and underinsured people because they couldn’t afford to seek treatment, it ain’t gonna stay there. And sick people reduce productivity, which get reflected in businesses’ bottom lines.
Public health, like public education, has wider benefits. It is in society’s best interests that people are healthy, educated, safe and productive.
Up to a point, I disagree; after that, I agree.
[ul][li]I don’t want people to die from lack of health care.[/li][li]I don’t want my family to do with less so some stranger can get health care.[/li][li]A lot of health problems are self-inflicted. If you smoke cigarettes or are obese or drive without a seat belt or abuse drugs or whatever, that is an avoidable cost, and if you choose not to avoid it, the burden should fall on you. Having it fall on someone else may be largely unavoidable, but that does not invalidate the principle.[/li][li]Lots of health care spending is wasted. A large percentage of Medicare costs are incurred in the last six months of life. [/li][list]
[li]My grandmother was in her eighties, very senile, had had cancer, and was obviously failing. The doctors wanted to put in a feeding tube. This probably would have kept her alive for a few more weeks, at huge expense, and at no benefit to anyone. [/li]
[li]My cousin runs an NICU. Many of her patients die, and most of the rest go home significantly compromised. Her work increases health care costs, overall. We could, as a society, say, “No, you can’t treat newborns if they weigh less than 2500 grams”, but a minority of her patients born at that stage of development recover and go home normal, and it is almost impossible to tell which are the ones who will. If we reduce care to “kilo kids”, we are condemning that minority to death, when we could save their lives. [/ul][/li][li]If we increase access to health care by shifting the costs of the beneficiaries to someone else, that increases demand. Increased demand increases price. [/li][li]ISTM that if we want to hold down costs, we will need to implement some form of rationing. That means we say to a lot of people, “We are going to let your loved one die in order to save money”. And make it stick. It means we say to a lot of people “Yes, that new drug improves outcomes by 10%, but it costs twice as much, so you can’t have it.” And make it stick.[/li][li]We need to admit that any form of health care reform we can implement is going to hurt. It will not be pain-free, it will not cost less, it will not be unnoticeable to those with health insurance now. It means that most people will pay more and get less. [/li][/list]
So I guess my hand is halfway up.
Regards,
Shodan
I… agree with most of what you said.
Wow.
I will personally pay for 1/300,000,000th of your health care costs, at least until the Democrats in Congress and Obama pass healthcare reform. Do you have a paypal account?
Starving Artist,
I’m really not in the mood for a long reply right now, but I felt I needed to respond to a few of your points
Oh…and disagree.
Strongly disagree.
Completely disagree.
Completely disagree.
I also disagree. We all pay a price for living in a civilized society - that price is taxes and the inability to do whatever fool thing I want. I can’t, for example, just go punch **RR **in the face because I feel like it. To live in this civilized society, we all are subject to its laws and requirements. And it’s a price I pay cheerfully.
All that said, Shodan’s post is really excellent, with a ton of great points. However, I do think that Americans need to realign their thinking when it comes to death. I think we do spend entirely too much energy in a number of cases trying to postpone the inevitable, and we need to be more thoughtful here. As has been noted on these boards many times before, we afford the end of our pets lives more dignity than our own.
Strongly disagree with OP. And I’m with Zsofia 100%.
Nice thread, BTW. Really separates the sheep and the goats.
This will not happen…because, frankly, many people don’t make enough money to be able to support themselves let alone healthcare.
The question then becomes…if someone is in that position, should they just die?
I tend to swing conservative in many ways…however they would probably reject me because I become a screaming liberal in health care and unions. In fact, I even consider strong unions ‘capitalistic’ which would send many into sending for men in white coats to take me away.
IMO, healthcare should not be available to only people who can afford it. Money/wealth should not be the end all and be all of all things. Some things need to be paid for by the people who don’t consume it for a stronger society. Healthcare, IMO, is one of these things along such things like police and education.
Like I said…screaming liberal in some things. Conservative in many others.
Completely disagree. And I’m also completely unable to understand people like Rand Rover. It’s like he’s some species of bug, some alien thing worthy only of study.