Cite?
If < 10% of people in the country were starving, I’d want to feed them, too. Further, I would warrant your number would be much greater in terms of participation if the tax cost would be less than that of rising health care premiums.
I get better healthcare than I got in the UK or when I was under the US military. Our policy is covered by my wife’s employer and covers all 4 of us. Her out of pocket is a couple of hundred bucks. Today I had in depth labs run, a private meeting for my son that lasted over half an hour, and access to specialists on my schedule. When my wife was pregnant, we had multiple ultrasounds, constant visits, phone calls to the OB-Gyn, and regular blood work (far superior to what a friend had in the UK at the same time).
Sorry - your arguement works for many Americans - I admit. However, for those of us with a decent employer sponsored plan we will LOSE under UHC.
Really?
Are you familiar with, I dunno… Life? Have you ever had a relationship? I’m sure you have. You tell me, do you never have to concede anything in a relationship? Of course you do. You have to compromise at least some of the time to maintain the relationship. There is a point at which the cost of compromise is greater than the gain from it. Then you end it. This is the way life works.
You say that being a Libertarian means never having to pay for something you don’t want. Which to me means that pay for only what you want. Which also means that you never compromise. Do you think this is a realistic way to approach relationships with a person or a group of people?
A cite for the idea of a social contract that has been invoked for four hundred years to describe laws to which the great majority of people consent in order to improve the security and quality of life for everyone including themselves? Think of it this way, sure there are times when I wish I could drive 100mph so that I could get to the airport faster. But most of the time I’d rather reduce my chances of being killed by someone else. People may disagree about which kinds of government intervention actually serve the public good, but only the most deluded libertarians actually believe that there are no common interests for government to serve.
The point being what? When self-styled civilized people defended the institution of slavery back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they had arguments for why they thought it was justified and served the collective good. In other words, slavery didn’t discredit the idea of a collective good–only the idea that enslaving human beings could be imagined as somehow serving that good.
I think we would all agree with that. It’s certainly a moral obligation. But my question is, what is it about bankrolling a bureaucracy — especially one whose will trumps yours — that leaves you so assured they will be fed?
That’s a different argument Liberal. Once you agree that the market fails to do certain important things you can then argue about what the best way to fill the gap is. Some public programs (e.g., provision of firefighting and police) are pretty much no brainers based on their long record of delivering the service they aim to provide reasonably to very well. In other cases different approaches to provision need to be tried. Personally, although I have no cites on hand, I think that, say, food stamps provide a good service with relatively little waste–but I can’t say I’ve researched the topic.
I recommend you research it. Google “food stamp fraud”.
Trumping the will is the libertarian argument, and I sympathize, but I can’t wholly agree. For one thing I think that there are degrees of freedom. Ultimately to have any sort of government at all, we have to have tax, and to have tax, we have to trump freedom to a degree. Everyone seems to agree on this point - anarchy is unmanageable and undesirable - it’s just a matter of how much is too much. While certainly I don’t want to give up more freedoms than are necessary, I can’t turn a blind eye to suffering in the world all in the name of freedom as a principle. One’s freedom can destroy another’s.
While they are not perfect systems, I do admire the health care systems of other developed nations such as Canada and western Europe. I think that the benefits that they deliver outweigh the negatives. That’s what I find assuring; relative success is possible. I think that enabling people at the low end of the economic spectrum to seek things like preventative care and regular screenings is a social good.
And I recommend that you google hunger in America. My point is what it is. If the food stamps program is visited by fraud then you fix the fraud or you design a different program to replace it. But you don’t conclude the the free market addresses the problem of hunger.
But since you asked, according to Wikipedia’s entry on food stamps, “Claims of fraud and abuse of the program have likewise proved to be unfounded. In 2005, 98% of food stamp benefits went to eligible households. According to the Government Accountability Office, at last count (2004), only 4.48% of food stamps benefits were found to be overpaid, down by more than a third from six years earlier.”
But even were that no so, the principle is what I’m actually defending.
No. It’s the difference between me personally deciding to do something I might not want to do, and someone else forcing me to do it.
Is it a compromise if 5 guys corner you in a dark alley and take your money? It benefits the group, doesn’t it?
In some ways, pure untrammeled free enterprise solves its own problems. If people get sick without being able to afford medical care, some of them will die. When they die, they fall off the list of problems. The same goes for people who starve, freeze, get disabled, or get badly hurt. Either they die, or they survive. If they survive, good for them. If they die, hey, no problem. Throw 'em on the pile. The ones on the bottom rot first. Eventually, they’ll be a hill, and we can build a factory on top.
I don’t favor that system. Maybe you don’t either.
Why don’t you google “fraudulent charities” or “corporate fraud” or “Con artist” ?
That’s another flaw of the libertarian worldview; only the incompetence or evil of governments is accepted as a valid criticism. If there’s fraud in government, that proves government is evil; if a corporation or private citizen engages in fraud, it’s the victim’s fault. “He should have made better choices”, because after all, if you are tricked or make a mistake it’s just proof you are a bad person and deserve to suffer.
Libertarianism is really sociopathy as political ideology. They want to take from society, never give back, and never even admit that they or anyone has gotten anything from society.
16% of US is uncovered. Of them, about %50 are above the %200 poverty line, of which health care would cost about %4 of their income.
To me, that means they could afford it, but chose to spend there money elsewhere.
That leaves 8% that can’t afford it.
Further, almost 50% of the uninsured are uninsured for less than 12 months. (Last graph on the page.) That means that the people who are uninsured are transient. It’s not that people can’t get it, but rather they go temporarily without for short periods of time.
Yes, it’s a compromise if the reason they do that is that you are the sixth member of the group, are benefiting from the group, and are refusing to either pay into the common resource pool or leave. It’s a forced compromise, because you are refusing to be anything but a parasite. That’s part of what libertarianism is; an attempt to rationalize parasitic or outright predatory behavior, and make it seem noble.
Only that government is designed to benefit everyone as a rule, while the five guys mugging you are actually not going to give you anything.
Even if you want to say it’s a valid ideology, so are free unicorns for every girl and boy. There has yet to be any kind of proof that it actually works.
I’m not arguing for or against Libertarianism.
I’m asking you to back up the assertions you are making. If you can’t do that, then why did you start this debate? As others have pointed out, you have made what appear to be erroneous statements to set up your argument. Back them up, or retract them if you can’t do so.
I think you’re the one asking for ridiculous assertions.
Do you disagree with the fact that interactions between human beings require compromise?
Should I provide a cite for 2+2=4 ?
it’s a priori knowledge.
I’m not advocating a libertarian, free-market-over-all position, but I am wondering how it is you figure those things are not subject to the laws of supply and demand. Of course they are.