Uh, I assume you’re aware that conservatives utter the phrase you so dislike in response to liberals offering up the “healthcare is a right” as an argument. I’m sure that if you could convince those on the left to not make the claim that conservatives would be happy to not rebut it.
In this case, they are the same thing. I think that we, as a society, should take help out the truly needy. That’s what Medicaid is for, and that’s what it does. We might argue about what the eligibility requirements are, but that’s a technical matter.
The problem remains that our “system” (if such a grand term applies) makes needy people out of regular people. Surely you’ve seen the statistics on medical bankruptcy? The people who bought health insurance, thought they had health insurance, and then found out that all they had was a chance to play Wheel of Coverage.
Maybe the Caesar thing was simply a dodge, he was trying to find a middle ground in order to avoid pissing off either the Romans or the Jews. There are different ways of interpreting it, but the overall message Jesus made seemed pretty clear to me regarding coveting money and helping out other human beings.
There are precious few rich Christians out there who are selling their possessions to give to the poor, so it doesn’t seem to be about how they don’t want the government to take care of it since they’re already taking care of it voluntarily, it just seems like their strong opposition is because they want to hold on to their filthy Mammon for themselves.
Maybe you’ve found a lawyers trick that will work for you at the Pearly Gates. 
Or you might already be giving huge sums to charity, but the Prosperity Gospel types seem to outnumber the Albert Schweitzers by significant margins.
So the lawyer walks up to the Pearly Gates and says to Pete “Hey, why am I dead, I was only forty-three and in good shape?!”
And Pete looks at his record book and says “Well, according to this record of billable hours, you were at least two hundred and eight!”
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week, sue the veal…
I think you’ve stumbled backwards into the answer. There actually needs to be more pagans, heathens, and atheists in America. Britain, Sweden, and many European countries have higher % of atheists and they have UHC.
Do you want free health care? Convince more citizens to give up God and you might get the extra neighborly compassion you’re looking for to pass UHC through Congress.
Which explains why Texas leads the nation in people without healthcare and is ranked 44th in people in poor or fair health. By some odd coincidence though, states headed by liberals fare better.
How is “people” defined in the study you didn’t cite? (Please forgive me if it is already cited up above).
Do you get to count illegal aliens?
Fwiw and from afar, I do find your perspective on UHC perhaps the most curious and least rational of all I’ve read on here. I can only think it must be heavily influenced by having emotional bottons hit time and again by politicians and media.
I understand the “universal” part I think.
The “health care” part needs a little explaining though.
Who gets to decide how much “health care” is to be provided? That’s going to be a pretty important issue when you expand the recipients and reduce the providers.
The annual budget is adjusted - usually it’s a percentage of GDP and changes as GDP does.
Then money is allocated as efficiently as possible. Any talk of ‘rationing’ is propaganda bollocks - honestly, how do people think that works, healthcare professionals attend to 100 people and then stop? Most bizarre thing I’ve heard - apart from ‘death panels’.
If money is short (GDP declined), the wait for a service grows. If GDP was good the previous year, the service expands or they put more into infrastructure, whatever.
Money is allocated according to where the need is by healthcare professionals. Politicians provide the budget only, and stand or fall electorally on that.
Who’s talking about reducing the providers ?
Is this theory or is it in the bill?
As for rationing and reducing providers… that’s just my theory, based on a fact (more recipients) and an assumption (providers won’t put up with this kind of system).
I’m just explaining a general application of a ‘proper’ UHC system, no idea what is currently going through Congress.
(bolding mine)
Okay, here we go again. You are already paying for their health care! If you are in a group plan, your premiums reflect the fact that not everyone makes as wise choices as you. The guy eating chetos in the cube next to you gets the same health care as everyone else in your group plan. Further to that, “poor people” on medicare, and old people on medicaid are also smoking and making choices you don’t agree with, all the while getting the health care that you are paying for.
There have been some really compelling arguments against UHC, and to be honest it is a damn easy thing to argue against. I’m not surprised people don’t want it, and while I’m young and healthy I’m happy to go without it too. But what you mention above completely and entirely ignores the facts of what you current have.
We are going to let a bureaucrat decide how much care to give. The bonuses paid to him will be determined by how much he can save by denying expensive procedures. There will be an upper limit on how much we spend on any individual, and when that runs out they will not be insurable by anyone else. Oh wait, that’s our current system.
The reality is they don’t. There are thousands of people who die because they don’t have health care. there are many thousands suffering. Those programs do not fill the need by any measure. They just make you feel less guilty.
I realize my analogy was way too complicated, consider this:
We’ve all been to a buffet, I think UHC is a lot like a buffet. You are forced to pay regardless of how much you eat. When you’re starving (poor and/or deathly ill) the buffet is great idea, $20 for all you can eat. When you’re full (rich and/or healthy) the buffet concept sucks because you’re subsidizing fatty over there stuffing his face.
So, it makes sense to say, “I don’t want to go to a buffet because I don’t want to pay for fat irresponsible people to keep getting fatter, especially when they’re poor and getting the buffet for free.” That, WOULD be a very logical argument AGAINST UHC. Bleeding heart liberals could get then plea to your compassion, and fiscal conservatives could show had it would make more sense to let individual pricing determine service. There exists very real and compelling arguments for and against UHC.
So why doesn’t that work in the US? Because you are already paying for the fat people at the buffet. You think you’re ordering a la carte, and that with UHC you’d be paying for other people’s food. But you are wrong. There is currently a buffet for old people, poor people, and the people that go bankrupt and can’t pay their bill. You are currently paying the tab.
It has been built into your bill, and into your taxes.
Which is why saying, “I don’t want UHC because I don’t want to pay for other people’s health care” is a really stupid thing to say.
If you want, you can try to shift and deflect the argument by talking about the nuances involving the quality of the food, the lineups to get fed, and who decides when you die. But the fact remains that you currently have a buffet that you are paying for run by the government.
True. But it’s also true for every other product & service that’s not healthcare.
Gasoline is built into your bill.
Worker’s compensation is built into your bill.
Research & development is built into your bill.
Retail theft from other shoplifting customers and dishonest employees is built into your bill.
You’ve made a statement without a distinction. You’ve failed to differentiate what’s unique about healthcare being baked into various things we pay for.
You’re right, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were living under a rock.
Right now there is considerable debate concerning health care in the US and how to provide it. This thread, and may others, are discussing that issue.
For each of the items you mentioned, there is a cost built into the products they are related to. Take RnD for example: the cost of an iPod or a pacemaker includes the cost of RnD.
If we were suddenly concerned about mp3 player technology and it’s impact on society a case could be made that perhaps it should be a government run system instead of a privatized one; that it is in our best interest to have mp3 player technology for everyone.
Now, ready for this? The cost of RnD is ALREADY build into the cost. So to say, “I don’t want to pay for other people to have mp3 player technology” is a stupid thing to say. You are currently paying for it by owning an mp3 player. And if it switches from Apple’s budget to government coffers, the cost of an iPod goes down and taxes go up.
There is a very real and logical argument to be made AGAINST putting the government in charge of mp3 technology. But to say, “mp3 playerss aren’t a right and I don’t want to pay for other people to have access to it” isn’t one of them. It is a myth to think that you are not currently paying for other people’s access to mp3 technology, whether they earned it or not.