Even if he’s not part of a risk pool, if he has any insurance at all, he’s already paying for freeloaders. To get what he’s saying is desirable, you’d need to abolish the insurance companies entirely.
I’ve long maintained that rights don’t exist. The original concept of rights is a certain entitlement that people have via the virtue of their species, in the past few hundred years people have taken it a few steps further and claimed that governments exist to protect these rights.
I’ve even used that rhetoric myself, not out of duplicity but because it is just convenient and sometimes necessary to use the term most familiar to everyone.
In truth what people call rights are really just societal/governmental policies. It is the policy of the United States government that its citizens can print newspapers and voice their opinions in them, it is the policy of the United States government to train and field a military force, it is the policy of the United States government to provide disability insurance, supplemental retirement benefits, food assistance, housing assistance, and et cetera. Those are all government policies adopted by a democratic (more or less) government in response to emerging societal desires.
When it comes to the “if healthcare is a right, doctors are slaves” argument that actually essentially comes from the very foundations of “natural rights” philosophy. It doesn’t get explained in High School civics class but proponents of natural rights historically believed in associated duties. I have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but I also have a duty to protect my countryman’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, I can be forced into military service against my will. That is of course just one example from the modern lens. Historically people used to be forced to do all kinds of things for the “public good.” They often were not compensated for their time, either.
In many communities all able bodied men were responsible for the upkeep of the roads, and at certain set intervals throughout the year they would be called up to do more intensive labor to keep the roads functioning. This was not optional.
When philosophers started crafting the concept of natural rights and their associated duties, I’ve always thought they were just trying to explain something that they observed directly and somehow “universalize it.” A philosopher sees a conscript going to war and thus he concludes that the citizen is fulfilling his obligation to protect his country, and then from that point the philosopher deduces there must then be an innate right to what the conscript is protecting. I don’t really buy into all that, rather societies have policies in place for the preservation of society, because most long term societies reflect the wills and desires of the persons controlling that society. Very few societies are controlled by people who wish to see their society collapse so policies will tend towards a self-sustaining society.
Isn’t that more of a reflection of poorly targeted preventative care? The reality is, it’s very difficult to say specifically that preventative care “saves money” because we don’t have a very good way to measure those cost savings. There is consistent data demonstrating a correlation with preventative care and lower health care costs. But of course, that is not causal.
What is clear is that the US health care system is poorly administered and that it costs the US way more money to get much worse health outcomes. Whether or not preventative care can be exclusively money saving is debatable. If the current health system is exclusively money losing is not.
But opponents of universal health care don’t care at all about efficiency, or else the clear evidence that it is more efficient would have some impact. They seem to believe that it is immoral for them to pay an extra cent to give some undeserving person (in their eyes) healthcare.
Say there is a person lying on the street. I trust all agree that this person has the right not to be shot by a representative of the government, at least without due process.
Now, say this person is lying on the street with a treatable disease that will be fatal without treatment - and which he had no part in getting, so there is no personal responsibility issue. Assuming it is feasible for the government to pay for his treatment, how is government refusing to do so any less a violation of his right to life than the government speeding up the process by shooting him?
I’m sure someone will say that he deserves to die since he could have gotten enough money for insurance but was too lazy - which goes against pretty obvious evidence. (Especially now that there is high unemployment.)
UHM would be a moral mandate even if it weren’t efficient - we’d just have to make it so. That it is is lagniappe.
Anyone can move to a place where there is water if they can’t afford to drill a well. There are also many sources of free water. Water is cheap enough that this doesn’t happen, but I suspect there are programs to pay water bills.
On the other hand, if you have a life-threatening disease, you cannot move away from it.
There’s a difference between preventing behavior and compelling behavior. If I walk by you on the side of the road and shoot you, then I am guilty of some form of killing you (I took a proactive action). If I walk by you on the side of the road dying fo a disease and do nothing, then what would I be guilty of? Maybe being an asshole, but nothing else.
There is such a right for at least emergency situations. Or at least a law establishing this requirement.
But you are not the government. You personally do not have the obligation of maintaining order, but the government does. If you see a house catch fire, you don’t have the obligation to try to put it out, but representatives of the government do.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
But opponents of universal health care don’t care at all about efficiency, or else the clear evidence that it is more efficient would have some impact. They seem to believe that it is immoral for them to pay an extra cent to give some undeserving person (in their eyes) healthcare.
[/QUOTE]
Do they? Perhaps they simply don’t want to pay for yet another public program that will cost them more in taxes? Perhaps they don’t see the vast savings that proponents of UHC tout as obvious? My guess is that instead of assertions of immorality or undeserving-tude, they simply don’t want to pay more taxes and they are unconvinced that, having paid more taxes that the health care will really be better for them.
It depends what that person is doing, doesn’t it? Say that person has a gun in his or her hand and is aiming it at a fellow citizen and the ‘representative of the government’ is a police officer…shooting the person threatening another citizen and possibly killing them is that officers duty, but it lacks due process, no?
Considering that if such is the case you could already take said theoretical person to a hospital, and even if they have zero insurance they will get treated, I fail to see the point. Even if that person would simply be left on the street to die the two arguments aren’t really comparable. Letting someone die is different than arbitrarily killing them, no?
I’m not sure anyone will say that, and considering that it’s also not the most probable outcome in the US even without us having UHC it seems like a pretty silly assertion on your part.
Maybe we will…if we can afford it and if enough people are willing to pay for it. We do so with other basic necessities, so perhaps we’ll extend that to health care. Then we could extend that to basic internet service and gasoline…perhaps a vehicle as well. Shelter too. Clothing. Dental (unless that’s part of health care…perhaps it is). Basic appliances and electricity, heat and so forth. The list is endless of the things we should provide as a ‘moral mandate’, since it’s pretty unfair that some people have those things while others do without…and that the having of those things gives and advantage over those who don’t have access to them in terms of quality of life and good health, as well as opportunity.
-XT
If they’ve agreed to provide the service then yes. Just like now, the government has agreed to provide emergency care to people.
However, your point was that you saw no distinction between the government taking an action to purposely end a life vs. not taking an action to preserve a life.
One of the most similar “rights” to health care is education. Isn’t there a clear difference between the government actively stopping someone from going to college and the government refusing to provide college for free?
The right to life is the right upon which all others are based. The government has agreed to provide us parks, but there is nothing fundamental about it. If the government decided to renege on its so-called agreement to protect us from death by others, either from criminals or foreign invasion, wouldn’t we have the right to raise up and get a government which would? (Not being perfect about it has nothing to do with the right.) That has a lot to do with why we consent to being governed in the first place.
This is why it makes sense to have a right to checkups, to make sure there is no potentially fatal issue, but not have a right to dermatology.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
The right to life is the right upon which all others are based. The government has agreed to provide us parks, but there is nothing fundamental about it. If the government decided to renege on its so-called agreement to protect us from death by others, either from criminals or foreign invasion, wouldn’t we have the right to raise up and get a government which would? (Not being perfect about it has nothing to do with the right.) That has a lot to do with why we consent to being governed in the first place.
[/QUOTE]
Considering that one of the fundamental duties of ANY government is the whole ‘provide for the common defense’ thingy, I’d say any government that fails in this task is not going to be around for too long. That’s something that the majority of people are going to agree on, with only a few fringe loonies being opposed to the government acting in the common defense. That’s a lot different than mandating everyone have access to some resource (like health care), however, in terms of the basic functions of government AND in terms of a vast majority.
I’m not seeing either as a right that citizens are entitled too and that the government is bound to provide.
-XT
Unless one is a Marxist, one agrees that rich people are entitled to more than poor people; that’s what “rich” means. But are there exceptions? I find it wrong that outcomes in the criminal justice system are correlated with wealth. And, as a matter of public policy, all but the lunatic fringe agree that we want to provide some level of police protection and education to our poorest citizens.
What does this lead to in the case of health care? Tough decisions. I’m not at all sure that we want to provide expensive kidney machines or bypass surgeries to people for free. We just can’t afford it. If that makes me an advocate of “death panels”, so be it.
There are serious reasons why health care (or at least all but the most expensive treatments) is best handled publicly. The high costs mean some insurance is needed, yet private insurance won’t work properly. To see just one example of this, compare with auto repair insurance. When you claim auto damage, the insurance company is allowed to say “Sorry, too expensive to fix.” But then it has to pay you the “total” value of your car. Health insurance companies just say “Sorry.”
You seem to think right-wingers sincerely care about efficiency. They’re happy to pay more in total for health care if it means denying care to the inferior masses. That such right-wing “thought” correlates positively with self-indentification as “Christian” is one of the paradoxes of post-modern America.
Health care for dead people is less expensive than health care for sick people. Brilliant.
We can always count on Shodan for a laugh in these threads.
Let’s consider a resource like the police. Those with adequate resources can hire guards when they travel and enforce their houses when they are at home. Yet even the wealthy seem to have no problem with paying taxes to provide a service for those who cannot afford it.
Sure you can make a good economic argument for policing, but you can make just as good a one for healthcare. Why do we think those who cannot pay for police protection get it, and those who are paying more than their share are willing to subsidize it?
Great example. Let’s propose that instead of paying for the care of the terminal or potentially terminal, if it gets too much we just give the heirs a lump sum, and declare the person totaled. We’ll see how that flies.
Pet care is another example. Pet care is expensive, but except for people with more money than brains and in special circumstances, the potential for a very high vet bill for surgery means goodbye Phideaux.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Let’s consider a resource like the police. Those with adequate resources can hire guards when they travel and enforce their houses when they are at home. Yet even the wealthy seem to have no problem with paying taxes to provide a service for those who cannot afford it.
[/QUOTE]
That’s because the majority of people see the value of a commonly provided police service. It’s not a right, protected by the government that we have to have a police force, but instead it’s a commonly agreed upon (by all but those fringe loonies) service that people are willing to pay for. Like a fire department.
When a large enough majority of people in the US feel that basic health care is something that we should all be paying for, then we’ll pay for that too. Thus far, it’s easier to get people to SAY they agree to it (as long as we get those other guys, usually The Rich™ to pay for it), but it’s less easy to get a large enough majority to agree to pay for it for everyone…or convince a large enough majority of how great it will be when the government provides it, or how wonderful the cost savings will be.
I’m not completely opposed to public health care, though I don’t think it will work out nearly as well as many proponents on this board make it out to be, and if a majority of my fellow citizens REALLY wants it then I guess we’ll have it, and figure out how to pay for this as well. Then the goal posts will move and it will be something else that we ‘morally’ have to pony up for…and then something else. Eventually, we’ll be California, with all sorts of grand programs, but without the means to pay for them, and without the means to borrow anymore to pay for them, and with the evil rich taking their marbles to play somewhere else…because eventually you just won’t be able to squeeze any more from them, and the average joe citizen isn’t going to want to pay anymore either.
You can make more than a pro-forma ‘good economic argument’ for police…it’s a basic necessity if you want to have a stable society. Look at places that don’t have police, or don’t have enough police.
Again, this is something that a large majority of US citizens agrees with and is willing to pay for, and sees as an absolute necessity. Universal Health Care is something that SOME citizens think is absolutely necessary, some think is evil socialism, and the rest are somewhere on the fence in the middle, leaning one way or the other but without a really strong conviction about. When and if that changes then policy will change. But if we ever get UHC, it STILL won’t be a ‘right’…it will simply be something that, in theory, a majority of Americans want.
-XT
Maybe it’s due to my symptoms of mild autism, but I get lost in the layers of snark and have no idea what your point is.
Mine was a reductio ad absurdem argument against an insurance-oriented health care system.
You made the comparison to education. That, to me, is the best analogy. In my personal opinion, a healthy populace is a net good for the country, just like an educated populace is. So even if we pay for health care, we still see an overall non-financial benefit.
And, again like education, it shouldn’t be mandatory to participate. You would pay taxes (just like now) but you would have the option of seeking private health care if you chose. Just like you would have the option of sending your kids to a private school if you choose.
I don’t attribute conservative opposition to public health care to evil. I think it’s just part of the general conservative pro-corporate package. As you note, we have a very expensive private health system which means some people are making a lot of money out of the status quo. These people have a vested interest in blocking reform of the system.
Sorry, but where has the government agreed to provide us parks? Rights are either from the Constitution or through a law. A government might create a park but that is completely different than a right to a park.
There is no right to life, understood to mean that your life must be extended. In a general sense, you have a right to live your life, within certain parameters.
What if I discover I have an illness that costs 1 trillion dollars to treat? Do I have a right to that treatment?
We have already established that education in the United States is a right.
I don’t see why healthcare - you know, keeping yourself healthy and alive -is so far off. A healthier nation is a more productive one.