David,
My wife worked in a hospital, my mother-in-law has worked in various medical capacities and my sister-in-law works for a doctor’s office and they all had health insurance with their jobs so it does happen. The other thing though, these nurses could choose to buy health insurance. We do not expect our companies to purchase home insurance for us or life insurance. Why health insurance?
Nothing stops anyone from purchasing their own.
Jeffery
Furt I am glad that you and your family have found happiness in doing jobs that help other people. But what stopped any of you from purchasing health insurance on your own? You chose to work for places that did not offer health insurance. Maybe that was not a prerequisite for your decision to get the job, but you still chose the job.
As for the other situations you mention, I am sorry that there are people out there that treat others in this manner. But how does health insurance solve their problem? Now they can get treated for the injuries their stepfathers give them? Now they can have that baby they so desparately cannot afford?
I believe most cities have hospitals that offer services for people that cannot afford them. For example Atlanta has Grady for one.
But I work with a guy whose stepfather beat him often until he was unconscious. Sometimes with a baseball bat. He had many brothers and sisters and had grown up in a family that lived off welfare and had no desire to work.
Many of his siblings have been killed in drive-bys or gang fights. He chose to do something for himself. He graduated from high school and got student loans to go to college. He now has a good job with a good company and yes it does give him health insurance.
UPS gives health insurance to even their part time workers. They employ over 300,000 people. If someone wants health insurance all they have to do is get a job with UPS or a similar company. It may not be an easy job but if they do not want to purchase their own health insurance, that is always an option.
I am sorry, but refresh my memory, where in the Constitution does it bestow a right to health care and health insurance? I am sure it is in there just ask the democrats.
Jeffery
Are we numb? How many times do we need to go over this? Apparently, at least once more.
Say, for whatever reason, you’re uninsured, and you fall and fracture your hip. You go to the nearest hospital and get the proper treatment for your injury. The hospital will shift the cost of your care to the insurance companies’ that they have contracts with. The government reimburses the hospital a very small fraction of what the hospital spends on treating indigents. Net result: You, the insured pay your share and a piece of the uninsured guy’s share. But, if everyone had coverage, your share would be smaller. It is basic insurance 101 that the bigger the pool, the smaller the risk (and premium) per individual.
How many people would change jobs but can’t because they’re afraid they’ll lose coverage? Americans should not be forced to make career decisions based on whether or not they’ll lose coverage. How many people on welfare could get off tomorrow, but they’re afraid they’ll lose their medicaid if they do?
This attitude that “I Work for UPS, screw the poor slobs who don’t have it in them to get off of their lazy asses and get a real job that has health insurance” or “I have health insurance, why should they?” is so un-american and so, so lame. It makes me sick to my stomach.
If any of this shit bothers you, please vote for Bradley in 2000.
Therealbubba
You know, Jeffrey, you still don’t see it.
Let’s take me as an example. My wife and I each carry our own insurance through our employers because it is cheaper. I pay my monthly premium out of my check (in my case, $25 per month) and my employer, of course, pays the rest of the premium.
With my recent broken leg and surgery, the medical bills are at $3,500 and climbing. And they’re going to get higher, as I have a second surgery tomorrow. You think my measley $25/mo. pays for that? I’d have to work 12 years to cover those bills! No, they get paid for out of everyone’s else in the office’s premiums, too. All that money gets pooled and invested and redistributed.
Say you or one of your kids got leukemia, Jeffrey. You think your piddling insurance premium is going to cover the tens of thousands in dollars in medical costs that would be required? Hell, no. You’d be getting treated off the largesse of others.
If someone is in a job that doesn’t offer insurance, why should they not have the option of having the tax money that is withheld from their paycheck purchase insurance? If you want to stay with your current plan, good for you.
I just love how so many contemporary Christians have a philosophy that is married to this utter contempt for the less fortunate. If Jesus came back tomorrow, there’d be some wailing and gnashing of teeth, let me tell you.
Dear Jeffrey (Streknut)—
I studied hard and went to college and then graduate school and obtained two masters’ degrees and took a professional position and had health insurance. Then after 4 years, someone in the front office was caught with her hand in the till, and the funding agency (we were a nonprofit org) killed the entire agency and I was without job. Fast forward past a full nightmarish year of job hunting, and again I am employed. I need an operation on my ankle. Insurance won’t pay for it because it is designated a “pre-existing condition”. The failure of the Clinton bill is going to cost me $10,000 out of pocket, and had I not had the good fortune to have wealthy relatives from whom to borrow and then pay back over the next four years, I would have to wait while my ankle continued to deteriorate until I had held this specific insurance for a full year. This sucks.
Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post
Maybe we should split off another thread for this, since we aren’t really talking about Rudy & Hillary anymore. Whoever wants to can do so – but I’d like to see somebody explain exactly what the health bill in question was supposed to do. There seems to be an assumption here that we all already know, and I don’t think that’s the case.
Thanks.
Jeffery said:
Well, I believe Brian has posted that he used to work in NYC, and likes it better down here. As a former (upstate) New Yorker, I’ve gotta agree with him!
Although many of my anti-NYC former compatriots would agree that what the Large Macintosh needs would be well provided by that candidacy…! 
Jeff- Yeah, buy your own insurance on $8 an hour. That’s a lark. And free help from the hospital doesn’t help with day to day issues. Your four year old has a nasty cough; what do you do? If your doctor visit is free, you can take her in, get it checked, and find out that, yes it’s only a cold. If that visit will cost you $50–a day’s wages–you start having to say “well let’s wait and see if it cures itself.” And when it doesn’t, then you take her in and find out it’s been a serious, untreated condition all along.
The issue is not that health care is a constitutional right, or a legal obligation or something. The point is that there are people who are not getting adequate health care and that we should do something to help them because it’s a MORAL issue. Because we CARE, not because we have to. Because we (feel free to exclude yourself) GIVE A SHIT ABOUT OUR FELLOWMAN.
Personally, as a political conservative, I’m not crazy about the idea of the federal government running things. And certainly Hillary gives me the heebie-jeebies. But I’ve been in the real world enough to know that under the current system doesn’t work for many many many people. Somehow, it’s got to improve. Quite frankly, your let-them-eat-cake attitude disgusts me.
And Phil, it’s sad to say but I have to agree with your last paragraph, except to say that it is not “contempt” so much as “ignorance.” People are raised in white collar suburbs and like to think they deserve it. Thinking you “deserve” ANYthing is (for a Christian) terrible theology, but that’s another discussion. And keep in mind that, despite the way the media paints things, most Republicans are not Christians, nor are all conservative Christians Republicans. Jimmy Carter is, theologically, a very conservative Southern Baptist. And the word “some” you used is a crucial caveat.
Nonetheless, your point, regrettably, remains.
Furt, I understand your point. And believe me I too care about my fellow man. My point is I do not believe the Gov’t can effectively give healthcare to the masses without screwing it up.
They might do well for a while, but sooner or later, they will likely end up like Dhanson describes it the other thread “National Healthcare” with a system that cannot treat many people. The gov’t will raise taxes, and you are deluded if you think they will not, to accomplish national healthcare and then after a time they will be able to use the money for other things as well.
How noble did Social Security start out. Now look at it, it gives poor returns on your money and the gov’t claims the money as part of a budget surplus. What would stop them from doing the same to healthcare?
Either way the child may still not get the treatment for their cold or whatever. After it is not life threatening, yet.
Jeffery
The simple solution is to vote for the Libertarian candidate…
Yer pal,
Satan