I just realised what the ‘slave to their job’ thing meant, that there would be only one employer. This is true for emergency services, but for everything else doctors have the option of going private, same as patients do.
That is exactly my view. Debating whether it is a right is pointless, but if we can do it better for less money like every other industrialized country in the world then we should do it.
In colonal America you were required to have a fire bucket handy and to come to the assistance when there was a fire.
Is it a right of those who need it ,or a responsibility for a society that can afford to help them?
There wouldn’t necessarily be only one employer. There could be only one payer (current British system).
A few other posters have discussed a minimal level of care- perhaps emergency services, basic preventative ect. The problem with that approach is that the US has/is shifting from needing acute care to deal with communicable illnesses to needing long-term, complex preventative care. So an approach that still functions like we’re a society in need of acute-care, doesn’t really address the major system issues of cost, quality of care and service delivery.
Thing is, health care in the US has stopped being a left/right conservative/liberal Democrat/Republican thing and has become a stupid/smart thing. By almost every metric, health care in the US is less cost-effective, more expensive, covering fewer people, causing more financial and medical hardship and just in general more fucked up than health care in the other industrialized nations in the world. We’ve slipped WAAAAY down in the quality of health care in the US, and anyone who doesn’t see it is:
STUPID
The obvious way to improve our health care system and get it more on par with others is to emulate the countries that have been more successful than us at providing health care, which generally means single-payer healthcare administered by the government. Anyone who doesn’t see how much better those systems work than the frenetic price gouging we’ve got going in our private insurance is:
STUPID
Also, anybody who doesn’t see the advantage for workers in a universal health care system vs. one based on employment/employers, who is not a wealthy capitalist or a suckup to same, is:
STUPID
Now, your stupidity may be because of ideological blinders or personal prejudice rather than simple inability to comprehend, but it all works out to the same result, you’re being:
STUPID.
Really, a health care debate in the US at this point is ridiculous. All that’s deserved for those who can’t see the facts is a good chewing out. Which I just provided!
I await the hosannahs of a grateful Dope community!
I’m curious about a few things.
Sure, we can easily “do it cheaper.” You don’t need to go to the government for that. The problem is that people demand more. You can easily just hand out fewer healthcare dollars now. But let’s ask where the future savings are actually going to come from. The big, beloved (and liberal-created) programs are financial disasters. Hell, it’s not even clear if Medicaid can actually survive without fraud. And Medicare is a lovely scheme for taking from the worst-off and giving to the best. So, how will the new program not look like the old? How will the systematic incentives not wind up the same?
Second, once you kneecap the pharmas, as so many plans assume, who will be designing new drugs? I could direct you to some very good looks at this by Megan McArdle, who is hardly a conservative or a Republican. I don’t claim that answers are easy, but it seems like an awful lot of people are just handwaving away the massive and ongoing benefits. Yes, the world has been free riding on us and our drug development for a long time. We should demand they pony up more cash if they can (like western Europe). But we are still better off designing drugs for ourselves.
Before we go any further, I want to mention that, no, the government has no capacity to design worthwhile drugs. I’m not sure it ever has. It is true that government-backed research often identifies possible drug targets. Whoop-de-friggin-do. That and 200 million bucks and 20 years study of dedicated chemists on a hundred possibilities may get you one worthwhile drug. I think you ought to show some evidence that the government can do this successfully, and then some more than it will. Because I will never accept a system which does not support new medical development, and consider the height of madness to simply shrug and say what we have now is “good enough.”
Third, if medical care is a “moral right,” where exactly does it end, and why do people who normally hate the thought of morality in politics seem to suddenly demand it? There is a reason all political rights I consider worthwhile are negative rights - the right not to be bothered or interfered with. Since thw world’s resources are limited, exactly how much “moral medical right” does a person have? If your answer is “infinite,” where exactly do you get your infinite resources to pay for it? If your answer is some specific value or formula, how exactly do you define it and where did you get it? Do people have a “moral right” to treatments which are experimental or which don’t exist yet, and if not, why not? And do you recognize that if you have a right to something, it is a positive right to force other mpeople to labor for you?
Pardon me if I am somewhat dubious of people tossing around the word “rights” in a manner which seems to me awfully… spendthrift. You have the right to die if you live. You have the political right to not be interfered with according to the Constitution.
(Feel free to say I’m an evil ReThugLican and I hate the poor or whatever, but please have a substantive argument, too. There are things I’m fine with the government doing; but I also see that it’s an awful system for getting good, cheap and efficient results. And much worse for progress in any area.)
Health care isn’t a right. But it should be.
Saying a public health care system enslaves doctors is just stupid. Does our public education system enslave teachers? Does our law enforcement system enslave police officers?
I don’t think the question should be, ‘Is health care a right?’
I think the answer is that equal access to health care should be a right. Your access shouldn’t be based on the job benefits your job holds or how deep your pockets are. Everyone should have fair and equal access to health care.
It would seem the best way for that to happen is for a universal system where the risk is spread out over the largest group. Just like rates for a large group are lower, than for a small group. One large group would ensure the lowest rates for everyone.
A universal system eliminates duplication of systems, it’s one protocol, one set of forms, one set of administrators, etc, and enormous savings are realized. In addition, access to resources is triaged like an emergency room. You don’t get a body scan because your insurance covers it and you fancy one, you get a body scan when your doctor determines it would be of value. One large group can negotiate lower drug prices very effectively, that’s why they are so low in Canada.
Universal access to health care saves any economy millions upon untold millions of dollars because your population is healthier. People with access go to get treated at the first sign of illness, instead of spreading things around, letting them get worse or even critical. That critical care of untreated chronic illness is incredibly expensive.
Untreated but treatable conditions cost the economy in lost days etc.
You do realize that Every Single Industrialized Country except for the USofA has some form of universal health care. Every Single One does it cheaper, covers more people, and has as good (if not better) overall outcomes for the health of their people. Every Single One is cheaper and better (or at worst on par with) our system. Every Single One.
Is there some sort of intellectual malfunction that causes people to ignore this and bleat the same tired claim that the free market is more efficient and government programs are financial disasters?
And your solution to the free rider problem is what, exactly? Ask other countries to pretty please pay more money for stuff you’re getting cheaply? I have a better idea… we pay what they pay. Free ridership - OVER.
Big Pharma is upset? They may slow down R&D? Okay, let’s ALL get together countries and Pharmas and discuss a reasonable, worldwide, price structure that spreads the cost to everyone.
Neither education or police protection are rights. Just because the government provides it does not mean that it is a right. In some localities government provides trash services. But that does not mean that there is a right to have your garbage picked up. Saying that healthcare is a right means that a doctor or nurse is obligated to treat you regardless of your willingness to pay.
They’re statutory rights not inalienable rights.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are blurbs in the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legal document. It has no authority.
The question should be, does one have the right to health care that everyone else has to pay your bills for? The answer is a resounding NO! We shouldn’t have to pay for your medical insurance any more than we should have to pay for your home owners insurance, car insurance, or life insurance. Those who don’t want to shell out for this gravy train are often portrayed as selfish or greedy (especially on these boards) but I contend that it’s those that want these benefits at everyone elses expense who are the greedy ones.
Do you extend that belief to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Do you think any level of health care should be provided for? If someone walks into the emergency room in need of treatment, should they have to prove ability to pay before receiving treatment?
Last time I checked, water was more essential to living than health care, and it isn’t free, nor is it given access to all citizens. Lot’s of people live outside residential municipalities that don’t have access to water.
Health care is not a right.
Unless pkbites has auto, house, or life insurance in which he is the only member of the pool, he’s already paying for some freeloader’s insurance. I wonder if people against adequate health care insurance systems understand how insurance works.
As for greed, I opposed having my insurance premiums reduced to $0/month by the conservatives. They threw away a revenue stream to buy votes. Foolish.
The Objectivist in me believes that I don’t have a right to something that can be acquired only through other people’s effort . . . without their permission, and without payment of equal value.
But the ***recovering ***Objectivist in me sees so many practical loopholes and exceptions in this belief, that the belief is rendered moot. It’s in my rational self-interest to live in a society populated by people who are healthy and productive . . . who are in turn better off if I am healthy and productive as well.
But the Objectivist in me retorts that this is all well and good, provided everyone has the right to decide for themselves what is in their rational self-interest.
To which my recovering self must retort that, in a healthy society, there ***may be ***some factors that rise above personal choice . . . but I need to devote additional time and effort to clarify this issue to myself.
There is little evidence to show that preventative care saves money overall - somewhat theopposite, in fact.
Regards,
Shodan
And roads? schools? police? fire services? judiciary? Army?
If you understand why those services are provided equally to all you’ll understand why other think healthcare belongs alongside them.
You only consider healthcare in terms of health insurance, why is that? Is it because it then allows you to make a comparison to car insurance which you believe is helpful to your argument?
But ultimately you choose to own a car or home of a given value and expose yourself to those financial liabilities. A lack of life insurance, rather obviously, has no bearing on your quality of life while you are alive.
However, You don’t choose to be ill, nor can you choose how expensive your illness is going to be and a lack of access to decent healthcare is most certainly going to screw you up very badly.
Scrimping and saving to find the cash for expensive healthcare insurance and still being hit by massive medical bills simply due to bad luck doesn’t sound to me like a fair system.
It’s not a right…it’s a resource, like anything else. Whether society chooses to provide that resource to it’s underprivileged citizens free of charge or at some sort of reduced rate is another question. We CHOOSE to do that with other resource (food, for instance), and to a certain extent we do that with health care already…but it’s not a right.
-XT