Keep the imagery of the “repair” in mind, too.
No, the people shooting at you are.
So the President orders a nuclear strike on Ubekibekstanstan. Are you asserting that the President isn’t actually killing anyone, because it is the young lieutenants in a bunker in Wyoming who are actually turning the keys to launch the missiles?
Come on, now…VP Pence just wants people to take some personal responsibility for their damn cancer, MS, birth defects, car accidents, and other expensive crap:
Before summer’s out, we’ll repeal/replace Obamacare w/ system based on personal responsibility, free-market competition & state-based reform pic.twitter.com/JzCyxX9kJb
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) June 24, 2017
Should people take responsibility for their smoking, drunk driving, overeating, and gun use?
What he’s trying to do to Medicaid won’t just restore the status quo. I am very, very scared that I will lose my coverage. I’ve had coverage since the 1990s. But Arkansas is not a very rich state, and moving is not really an option for me. Move to state funding, and we are in a huge mess.
And, no, I’m not falling for it as a negotiating tactic either. Because the status quo would be better doesn’t mean I’ll accept it. The ACA is objectively better than what we had before. And I say that even though my sister’s insurance went up to where she can’t afford to go to the doctor.
I love my sister, but she is one person. The objective facts show that things are better.
Should people take responsibility for causing numerous deaths simply to increase the wealth divide?
(Of course, they won’t. It’s not their problem.)
If that’s what we’re going for, then let’s have a bill that does that. Which specifically targets irresponsible behavior and makes people pay up for it, and doesn’t fuck over everyone else. This ain’t that. This is like passing a bill against cutting people’s skin with absolutely no caveats, and when surgeons complain, saying, “What, so you’re in favor of stabbings?” Obviously not, but the bill goes so far beyond that scope that the objection misses the point completely.
To the extent that they are criminal acts, of course. To the extent that they should be strongly discouraged, and even arm-twisted, from engaging in pointlessly risky behaviors, of course.
To the extent that I feel some need to pile punishment onto people who may be dealing with cancer and other horrible diseases that will make them and their families miserable, perhaps wreck the financial state of their families, and who knows what other impacts they are already dealing with; no. I have compassion for sick people, not vengeance.
Not for me, and I’m not alone. I had significantly better health insurance for significantly less cost pre-Obamacare.
I don’t know how much your health insurance costs have gone up, but I am curious about a matter of principle. I’m not talking about your experience, or what various laws have done or might do; just a simplified scenario to examine one principle.
Let’s say you have a health plan you are generally satisfied with that you think is at a reasonable cost. Not cheap, just reasonable. But you know that the consequences of this reasonably priced plan are that many millions of Americans will not have health insurance.
The alternative is that you pay a premium – let’s just say 20% – for the same coverage, but those millions of Americans have some kind of coverage.
Which scenario would you choose? I have no problem saying that I’d chose the latter, on the principle that I often pay for things that benefit society, but I don’t notice any personal benefit. I’m thinking of things like schools, health care for the elderly, roads in places I have never been, various military programs, and so on. I think those things are all great and I don’t expect to receive direct benefits from them.
Yeah. If we want to say to the smoker who seeks care for respiratory/cardiovascular complaints, give the a scrip for Chantix and tell them to come back when they’ve stopped. To the morbidly obese person complaining of any number of problems, give them a pass to a gym and dietary counseling, and tell them to come back when they get w/in 150% of their expected BMI. We could make all manner of other distinctions if those reflected our society’s values.
What are the values underlying these proposals?
Just me, an extra 20%, in exchange for “many millions of Americans” getting some health insurance? I’d probably do it. If everyone in circumstances similar to mine also had to pay an extra 20%, perhaps not.
But this is the question that is being begged. What principles support the idea of mandatory same sex marriage yet reject marriage between an adult father and his adult daughter (or, alternatively, two six-year olds)?
The answer being given is: there are many sound arguments for distinguishing between the two. However, that is not the answer to the question being asked.
The question being asked is: What are the sound arguments for distinguishing the two that are not based on subjective beliefs of the judges, but upon constitutional principles? Because those should be the ones that count. I might believe that same sex marriage should be legal, but six year old marriage should not. I might believe that sodomy should be legal, but that incest should not. That’s fine as ultravires, the individual.
If I am ultravires, the judge, I must be able to articulate these principles from something other than my own personal belief of right and wrong.
ETA: And as Bricker has eloquently stated, “equal protection” is not enough.
In an ideal world, people wouldn’t smoke, drive drunk, overeat, or misuse guns.
In our world, some people smoke for decades and still keep living. Others never smoke and still get lung cancer.
It would be great if everyone ate healthy, nutritious food all the time…assuming they could afford to do so.
I don’t believe it’s possible to micro-analyze everything that a patient has or has not done in his/her life and then determine whether that person has displayed personal responsibility in regard to health.
This is why people like Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) are full of crap:
We can pull out all the stops to keep ourselves healthy and still end up with some horrific disease or disorder.
IF the ACHA should pass and be signed into law, it won’t cause any deaths.
And “increasing the wealth divide” is simple partisan leftwing nonsense.
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
I thought you objected to opinions in GD.
So the death rate in the United States will be unchanged if AHCA passes?
Apart from my opinion that your claim is ridiculous, shouldn’t any good health care reform proposal involve lowering the death rate?
Correlation is not the same as causation, as I am sure you know.