I can sort of see where you’re getting at. You really, really love the Work Ethic. So much so that you are willing to let people die rather than slide by without contributing their fair share of productivity.
Personally, I feel that every human has inherent worth and dignity regardless of how much money they make. Even lazy bums. But I’d be willing to compromise with you. Forget about the current health care bill for a moment. What would you think about a health care bill that ensures that every person who is working, or has demonstrated that they are willing to work but just can’t find work for the moment, is covered?
But, if you’re asking what the default treatment ought to be:
This point is relevant to healthcare delivery in general, but irrelevant as to whether we are to have a private or government-run health insurance.
UHC would allow for the determination of a standard of care, instead of having medical malpractice lawsuits trying to establish what it ought to be for each instance of alleged misconduct.
The default would obviously differ based on the illness. I don’t think the English or French healthcare systems are wanting for treatment approaches, though we certainly don’t have to copy them in every respect.
Not once have I said such a thing. What I have said is that the police, military, fire department and vaccinations all provide public goods by eradicating common threats, and stop you causing harm to your neighbours through negligence or weakness by making common threats (criminals, enemy forces, fires and infectious diseases) stronger. Failing to stop a criminal allows him to reap the rewards of his crimes, and encourages others to also commit crimes. Not treating your heart disease does not make anyone else more prone to heart disease.
First, nobody is forcing you to buy their service if you don’t feel it is of net benefit, warts and all. Second, this is a problem that can be solved by punishing the actual crime (unethical trade practices), rather than using it as an excuse to hand the entire market over to a monopoly.
A lot of people who opposed the Iraq War nonetheless had their tax dollars forcibly taken from them and used to kill other human beings for no good reason.
If our government can find money to kill people, it can find money to help people. It really is that simple.
I don’t really care that much about people I don’t know. What I do care about is how I, my family, and my friends will be affected if they get sick. For that reason I support UHC. I also selfishly want lower healthcare costs and better results. For those reasons also I support UHC. Finally, I want to live in a society where we have things like UHC, rather than one in which we don’t. Arguing compassion doesn’t do much for me as there is still lots of misery in the world that we can not address. UHC works in every other industrialized country in the world; that’s good enough for me.
My apologies for being a bit absent, I’ll respond more directly to the various accusations in the morning.
But I did need to point out that UHC isn’t some theoretical concept, you guys do realize that right? We’re not trying to fuse hydrogen molecules in a super collider, or come up with some radical new system of treatment. There are currently dozens of countries offering some version of UHC, and you’ll be happy to know those countries spend less on health care per capita, and result in both higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality.
There have been so many comments made in this thread about “where do you draw the line?” “Who do you let die?” “Are you going to kill my grampa?”
Seriously, there is a whole world out there, where people get good quality health care. Their taxes can be lower than people in the US. The government isn’t intruding or making decisions for them.
And no, I do not have a pre-disposition to UHC. But I have live in Canada, and I have lived in the US. And after nearly 5 years of US health care, I’m prepared to say it is totally fucked. I have spent more time waiting in US ERs than I ever did in Canada. I waste a considerable about of time dealing with insurance, time I didn’t waste in Canada. My friend in the US needed a bake sale to raise money for her mother’s cancer treatment. My mother had cancer and her friends had a baking party to load up her freezer with food to help her though it.
Does it not bother you even a little that you have zero knowledge of UHC outside of what Beck/Hannity/Palin tell you? Death panels? Are you fucking kidding me?
I asked a pretty simple question and within 40 posts one person said, “I too disagree, unless they’re old.” Another person said, “I also disagree, unless they were irresponsible.” And I think a third person said, “I disagree, but only if they have a job.”
To avoid giving the wrong impression, I think it should be available to everyone regardless of their employment status.
My proposal was offered to see whether magellan01’s opposition was based mainly on rewarding personal responsibility and punishing laziness, or if it was based on a wholehearted belief in free market fundamentalism with no safety net even for the responsible.
On average, yes. Keep in mind that the Senate bill lacks the “millionaire’s tax” that the House bill had, so the subsidy of the poor is going to be spread pretty evenly by the middle and upper class. The modifications to Medicare and the Student Loan system pay for a lot of this.
I’ve often wondered if the best system might not be taxpayer-financed UHC with a cap, so that private insurance would still be needed to cover particularly expensive treatments. (How do UHC countries like Britain handle this? Long waiting lists which become almost equivalent to denial, is that right?)
High costs are the key “elephant in the room,” I think. $100 for a simple ear or throat infection treated in many countries with a $2 visit to pharmacy!
And it’s too bad “progressives” overlook that in our healthcare system the poor are financing the rich in some cases. Mr. Big Earner and I pay the same price for the same surgery; part of the cost goes to cover the lawsuit when the wrong leg is cut off, but Mr. Big’s wrong leg will get a much bigger payoff than mine. Malpractice lawsuits should be eliminated, and ordinary patient-paid insurance substituted. Many doctors agree that malpractice suits are a major reason for unnecessary expensive tests.
Yes! Too bad that rationalists aren’t vocal enough to make the public understand this.
You act like nobody would die at all if only Big Daddy took over our health care. People die. It’s a fact of life. And people are still going to die whether they have health care or not.
And besides, 45,000 people a year is roughly the number that die from automobile accidents. Are we to institute a huge and costly government program to take over the way we drive and tell us where we can go and when? And at what speed and in which car we can do it? Well, why not? I mean, “ZOMG, 45,000 people a year die without government in charge of our driving!”
The proper role of government is not to insulate us from the vicissitudes of life.
Oh, please! Do you realize what you’re saying? Do you honestly mean to tell me that if a person is making $2,000 a month, his health care under UHC is only going to cost him $10 a month? That’s one-half of one percent of his income. Or that at $3,000 a month it will only cost him $15 a month?
I wish more people in this country would stop and think about the nonsense coming from the left on these issues and put a pencil and paper to it to see if what they’re appearing to say holds water. Percentage of GNP has nothing to do with percentage of paycheck or individual cost. People are going to be paying a great deal more for UHC than one-half of one percent of their income, so let’s not fudge the numbers engage in verbal sleight-of-hand like this, okay?
Let’s say you come down with something, and your insurance company, after reaming you for years, drops you. No one else will pick you up. Do you think it is reasonable that you would be forced from blissful self-employment into a job because of insurance? Is that a good system for you? How about those people who work their asses off, but can’t get a job with insurance, because the current system makes it so expensive employers drop it. They might do better with Medicaid. Are you in favor of a system where there is a disincentive to work?
Today there are five people per job, and I bet a lot of those jobs don’t come with insurance. Are you in favor of a system that throws people to the wolves during a downturn?
Funny you should mention that. Here is a table showing automobile deaths per 10,000 people over time. It was in the mid-20s from 1930 - 1980, and then dropped to 15 today. Perhaps government requirements for seat belts, air bags, and safer cars had something to do with it. So, government is doing the driving, and has saved hundreds of thousand of lives. I wonder if you think these people should have died in support of your reactionary philosophy.
No, but a proper role is to force businesses to add features so it is less likely that the vicissitudes of life kill us.
Do you really think that anyone is saying that healthcare, which is now 17% of our GNP, is going to fall to 1/2%? Maybe we’re talking incremental costs here, just possibly? If you’d try to see past your ideological blinders, you might not make these mistakes.
Being a mite evasive here, aren’t you?
Okay, maybe it makes sense not to pay for end of life care - though I doubt we could have a rational discussion of this when Ms. Moose is frothing at the mouth about death panels. But exactly how many babies should die so that Glenn Beck and the other nuts don’t have to suffer a government non-takeover of the health care system?
After all, when we go to war, we know innocents are going to get killed. You think that is a good reason to be a pacifist? I doubt it So then, why are you being a health care pacifist?
Yes. There is something REALLY wrong with the system. when it prohibits otherwise healthy or functional people from getting health insurance.
I am lucky I get disabilty, and through that Medicaid. (although it IS very tough since I have to make sure I don’t make too much money, otherwise I get disqualfied for it) But the ironic thing is that even thou I have weird issues (I have a syndrome that is rather unusual), I very rarely see my GP. Yes, I require hearing aids and anti depressants (and Dilantin and Tapazole when I was younger) but I don’t even see the specialists that I did as a kid. I do need top tier specialists since my issues tend to be weird (for example I remember as a teen the best pediatric ENT in the US oooing and ahing over my ears…LOL)
We also need to try to get HIV and AIDS and other preventable chronic conditions rates down.
THAT would save a ton of money!
Suppose a child is drowning in a swimming pool and I was nearby, and instead of helping him I decided to lounge comfortably in a lawn chair, crack open a beer, and watch him drown. After all, he’s going to die someday anyway. Can’t prevent it.
If I gave a lecture about how the kid should have learned to swim and how it wasn’t MY responsibility to help him would probably fall on deaf ears because it’s a lame excuse for callous inaction. You’d probably call me an asshole, and you’d be right to do so.
In this case it’s even worse. The Democrats are rushing to a rope to extend to the drowning kid (or rather 45,000 people of all ages under 65) and the Republicans aren’t merely failing to help, they are standing firmly in the way of the rope shouting “NO” as loudly as they can.
Ever seen a stop light? That’s the government nanny state micromanaging your driving.
Government is actually quite intimately involved with the issue of driving. They fund the roads, they make and enforce traffic laws. Cars have to meet minimum safety standards. They mandate seat belts, and ban drunk driving. Everybody who drives has to buy car insurance. You picked a very bad example my friend.
I never claimed that total health care costs would be reduced to 1/2 percent. What I said was that the additional cost over and above what we are spending now will be 1/2 of a percent. Which is a remarkably good bargain for insuring an additional 30 million people.
There’s a caveat: Those who are currently choosing to forgo insurance but who could have otherwise afforded to buy it will be paying significantly more (they were paying zero before). But overall premiums for those currently insured will only rise very slightly.
Right, of course. What better evidence that the government’s plan isn’t a giant clusterfuck than their last giant clusterfuck?
Has it occurred to you why they’re objecting? Could it be because, to continue the analogy, you broke into their house to get the rope? It’s easy to be altruistic when you’re spending other people’s money.
Because they hate the very idea of helping people, except for the rich, and would cheerfully see the country collapse first. And because they will oppose anyhting they think might succeed while Obama is in office, regardless of the harm caused to the country.
Ah, the good old taxes are theft argument. Which is ridiculous, especially here. If human life doesn’t matter, why should the rest of us care even if it IS theft? If the Republicans are right and human life is worth less than money, then why shouldn’t the rest of us just kill them and take everything they have?
Of course, their disdain for human life ends where their own personal skin is at risk. You say that “it’s easy to be altruistic when you’re spending other people’s money”; well, it’s easy to condemn people to death when you aren’t the one going to die.
This is all about blocking Obama, and shoveling all the financial and human costs of society onto the middle and lower classes like it always is for the Right; not some grand moral position. They have no more morality than a rabid dog.