fine except the $20 billion figure represents the difference between Canada and the UK.
I don’t think that health care is a right. I think it’s a service that serves the good of all, like maintenence of the highway system. People don’t have a right to drive on highways, per say - but it’s better for society if the people who need highways have them available so we task the government with the task of funding and executing the endeavor anyway.
Naturally, this calls into question the level of health care we should be provided - just giving people roads isn’t exactly top-of-the-line service (though a minimal co-pay of a bus ticket you can get quite far). Of course, there is a greater moral imperative to care for the infirm than there is to give them a ride to Topeka, so at this point the degree to which the debaters feel pressured by morality tends to muddy the argument some.
Okay, I can dig it. (Which is not to say I agree… just dig…)
Wait, I was addressing your comment that hospitals shouldn’t be required to give medical services to people who can’t pay. But for what you just said above to make sense as a response to me, you’d have to be assuming that everyone can pay, because they have either money or medicaid. So that makes me wonder why you’d make the remark about people who can’t pay in the first place.
The majority of those uncovered are children. I hope a child with out medical care doesn’t disturb your sleep. They should have been more selective in who they allowed to give them birth.
No, I said that I believe everyone should have enough food, not that the governments job is to take food from Bob and give it to John. I do not believe that food is a right.
Once again I think we are using different definitions of what a right is. My belief is that rights refer to actions available to individuals. Individuals have a right to buy food, sell food, produce food, eat food that they own or have given to them but they do not have a right to food. Gaining food requires some action by someone. Individuals have the right to take actions, in balance with the rights of other individuals, to get food but they do not have a right to food itself.
As far as housing goes, I hope we can get to a point where everyone has adequate housing. However I do not believe that the governments job is to provide that housing. Nor do I believe that housing is a right.
Slee
No, it’s the people in the lower middle who are stuck and who can’t pay. If you’re really poor, you get Medicaid. You said “someone with no posessions”, which, if we’re talking about the US right now, are already covered. Those people would certainly fall into my category of “needy”.
We have programs that specifically cover children. We also have hospitals dedicated to the free care of children with extreme medical problems that greatly exceed the care found in any other nation.
My former boss’s child had a rare brain tumor and he was medivac’d by private jet to Shriners where they pulled out all the stops to save him. The jet time and medical crew were donated as was all the hospital care. There was no waiting list to see a specialist and then another waiting list to see a surgeon.
The reality of health care in the United States is that you will get emergency treatment if you need it. We do not have to abandon our current system to improve it.
So, all those stories about insurance companies screwing over thier victims, that’s all just liberal media nonsense? Well, great! Load off my mind, for sure!
The point is, the fact that some other country spends a buttload of money on their military does not equal a back-door subsidy to the health care system in Canada. The two concepts are not linked.
We are linked by NATO and consider our safety a common goal.
Canada spends less toward that goal and benefits from it. If you think Canadians would be as safe if other NATO countries drastically cut their military budgets then that is your opinion to make. Regardless, Canada’s budget ratio’s are not the same as the United States and that isn’t going to change this year or the next. The average cost to ensure someone in Canada is a little over $5,000 a person which is less than it costs for good health care in the US. We pay more and we get more. This is why we want to close the gap in our system rather than socialize it.
It’s not hypocritical, for the same reason that advocates for higher taxes aren’t being hypocrites when they don’t send in the money they think they should be paying.
The US is already a socialist country. We have socialized roads, socialized schools, a big fat chunk of social medicine in forms already mentioned, socialized defense, etc. Poor people learn in schools and drive on roads that they didn’t earned. Why should medical care be different (or not?)
In my mind there are only 2 good arguments, one for and one against. The first is to acknowledge that although nobody has a right to demand healthcare, just like nobody really has a right to demand paved roads or schools, when there are opportunities to do things that benefit us all, we have government mechanisms that permit us to do those things. Our current system is the most bizarrely inefficient system on earth… we pay more than anyone else for less care and not significantly better outcomes. Shouldn’t we get together and do that?
That’s a very persuasive argument. It’s one that had a hold on me for a while and from time to time is stated eloquently enough to sway me back. But here’s really the rub…
While I don’t mind throwing in for the basic common good of everyone, I do have a problem with paying for other people’s bad choices. This is not because I am greedy and I want them to suffer but I think society is better when people are accountable for their own choices. We will not improve society by providing a safety net for sedentary Cheetos-bingers and smokers. Oh, I can hear some people saying… we’ll offset things like that by taxing junk food and tobacco, incentives for good health care practices, etc…
By this point I have to say… um, no. Thanks, but fuck you, I don’t want the nanny state controlling my diet and vices just so we can cost-control universal healthcare. It’s just too much. I’d like the freedom to smoke MORE different kinds of plants, not less, and I’m willing to accept the responsibility in exchange for that freedom. I don’t mind helping other people. I do mind paying for other people to be stupid, and I do mind giving up my freedom because others are too stupid to handle theirs.
So at that point, I have to say we ought to support bare-bones preventive medical care… shots, immunizations, physicals, dietary counseling out the wazoo… but other than that, pay out of pocket. I’m sure this Atlantic article How Healthcare Killed My Father has been tossed around a thousand times, but if not then there it is anyway. It lays out a good case for how we could all be better off if we mostly did away with insurance altogether and paid out of pocket. I find it extremely compelling.
This is a red herring. As I said last time, if insurance companies are screwing over their customers, that’s what the legal concept of unconsionable behaviour is for. If insurance companies are acting unconscionably, punish them for acting unconscionably. What you don’t do is decide that insurance companies are acting unconscionably, and use this as an excuse to give them more power to abuse by fining anyone that refuses to buy their product.
For someone who professes to believe in Jesus Christ, which I assume would be the supreme example for how you should live your life, I find it odd that you’re so vehemently opposed to UHC. Didn’t he say “rended unto ceasar what is ceasars, render onto God what is God’s?” Didn’t he say “That whatever you did not do for one of the least of my brothers, you did not do for me?”
Where did Jesus say “let each man fend for himself?” Did I miss it somewhere in the Beatitudes?
Really confused. I can’t tell where exactly, or why, you’re eliding from talk of what should be to talk of what is.
You know, it’s comments like this that almost make me wish for 51% unemployment. Because then enough people would have personal experience with financial devastation, job loss, unaffordable COBRA premiums, and uninsurability at 50+ years of age. Or they would have loved ones in that situation. We would have UHC, or at least reform with a public option, yesterday.
Until then there are still too many people sitting pretty and too selfish to give a bother about anyone else.
As the price of health care continues to skyrocket faster than inflation, and more out of reach of the middle class, I think it will eventually reach a point where it does reach “critical mass” and people start picking up the torches and pitchforks and demanding Congress do something. Unfortunately, that may be about 15 to 20 years down the line.
He said that which YOU do for the least of my brothers… we don’t follow this command by forcing others to do it;we follow it by doing ourselves.
I could explain the rendering unto Ceasar quote, but I suspect you’re not really interested. If I’m mistaken, let me know.
Look, Congress has screwed over health care in this country in several ways:
- Creation of HMOs
- Elimination of not-for-profit insurance companies
- Restricting purchase (and sale) of insurance across state lines
- Paying significantly reduced rates to providers through Medicare/Medicaid
There are a number of ways to reduce costs, and increase availability to more people, without taxing the hell out of the population at large:
- Eliminate HMOs
- Meaningful tort reform, similar to Texas
- Re-allow the creation of not-for-profit health insurance companies, and require not-for-profit companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions
- Exempt for-profit insurers from covering pre-existing conditions
(items 3 and 4 should level the playing field) - Pay more competive rates through Medicare/Medicaid
- Allow both for-profit and not-for-profit insurers to compete across state lines
There are other ideas that may help, such as a federal program to cover basic care for people who are unemployed, or automatic temporary enrollment in Medicare - I don’t have a problem with a safety net when people need it.
Not for profit insurance companies aren’t allowed?!
(Also, why specify that non-profit companies should be required to accept pre-existing conditions? Why not for-profit companies as well, if either is to have that requirement?)