Well I’m sorry that our selfless communism sometimes gets in the way of your selfish capitalism :rolleyes:
So when I got a nail in my foot and got a tetanus shot, I was supposed to pay for that, and if I couldn’t then I was doomed to pay a slow painful death? The medicare system is designed to make things easier. Bear the burden of everybody. Because most of the time it’s not someone’s fault that they need to go to the doctor.
Not everyone has money to go to the doctor, I sure as hell don’t, a lot of people don’t. So why they don’t have money to go to the doctor, they can’t work to get money to go to the doctor and the problem just gets worse.
So let me get this straight… if I think it’s immoral for the government to force a person to handover their property to someone else, I’m a “selfish capitalist”?
No. You could have already had an insurance plan in place. Or you could have taken out a loan. Or worked out a payment plan with the doctor. Or asked your family, church, or community for assistance. I suspect you didn’t entertain any of these avenues. No, you decided that it would be best (and certainly the easiest) to use the government to force your neighbors to give you some of their property.
If healthcare is something you want, why don’t you figure out a way to buy it? Like I said, take out a loan. Or get a second job. Or worked out a payment plan with the doctor. Or ask your family, church, or community for assistance. If you want something bad enough you will figure out a way to pay for it. Certainly better than forcing your neighbors to give you their property at gunpoint, do you not agree?
The same could be said for fire and police protection. Hey if you want to protect your house from fire or burglary, pay for it yourself! Why should the rest of us have to pay to protect YOUR property?
Good point. I would gladly opt out of compulsory fire & police protection if the government allowed it. Under an ideal arrangement, I would call a private fire fighting company (if my house were on fire) and pay the bill afterwards.
Of course, there are some things that benefit us all (roads, the military, etc.) which require all of us to pay. My primary gripe is with people who believe they have the right to confiscate some of their neighbors’ property for their own personal benefit. This is immoral in my book.
Truth is, sick people tend not to earn much, and poor people are sick more than rich people, simply because they are poor and have lower standards of living.
And that’s why I believe in nationalised healthcare, because when it comes down to it “to each according to his needs, from each according to his means” is the most ethical way to provide healthcare.
I’m sorry about your grandmother, she absolutely should have had the treatment, and those radiologists should absolutely have been paid a living wage.
If I truly wanted to cut costs, I’d stop resuscitating people in cardiac arrest.
…after all most of them won’t come back.
I’d stop treating people suffering from heart attacks…after all, of the 75% that survive the initial attack, 10% of them will be dead within a year.
Heamodialysis for kidney failure, not cost effective at all.
Nor are Pap smears or mammograms.
You can’t ethically run a healthcare system based on what is cost effective. you have to do what’s right, not what’s cheap.
We’re all dying, it’s just a matter of time. People with severely limitied time deserve to live every second they have left to the fullest, and where we can make that possible, we should.
Because it’s the right thing to do.
So you’re a socialist. This means you believe I should be forced – at gunpoint – to give some of my property to an individual for their personal wants. This is entirely proper in your eyes, as this other person deserves my property more than I.
Is that correct?
They’re not forced, if they don’t want to pay, don’t be my neighbours. I pay for them. One day I may be their doctor. See the thing is, I can’t pay to go to the doctor’s because I’m spending all this money trying to be a doctor.
Tell me, do you use plastic bags? Drive a car? Smoke? Use electricity?
How is you forcing pollution upon everyone else any better? Or are you putting a price on the environment and future generations?
I agree with irishgirl. And see, it’s a give take, take give system. I give a bit now, I get a bit back. I pay the ambulance levy, so that someday, maybe I’ll need an ambulance. I don’t want to be thinking, “oh, well it’s only a snake bite, what about if it’s not poisonous and it cost me $500 for nothing?” :rolleyes:
You can’t ethically run anything based on what’s cost-effective (*).
You run a health care system based on the the fact that you can’t possibly afford every single treatment for every single affliction.
And that means you have to draw the line somewhere. And the people immediately on the shit-side of that line are going to feel pretty ripped off.
(*) That’s something that’s true that people just don’t notice every day, or really “feel” outside of healthcare.
A city can’t afford to station a policemen on every single block. That means they’re going to have a number of deaths each year that could have been prevented if they had the money and man-power to do so. Is that unethical?
You can’t afford a fire station wtih a staff of EMTs every block. So you’re going to have some preventable deaths every year because of it. Is that unethical?
You can’t have a team of expert mechanics triple-check every single airplane that leaves the ground so you’re going to have some mechanical failures that lead to death. Is that unethical?
There’s a cost-benefit trade-off in everything. Including health care.
Fortunately, that isn’t how it works in Canada. If it is necessary, it is done. Things like elective surgeries are not covered, but you can bet that a terminally ill person would receive pain management til the end.
So they have a choice? They can choose not to pay their taxes with no penalties?
This is nothing more than a moral dilemma. You want to be a doctor. SO you have chosen to spend money on university bills. You have also shown a desire to want medical treatment. But your university and medical services – which are both personal things you want – exceed your income. There are only two moral solutions to this problem: you can either decrease what you want, or increase your income. You have chosen neither. Instead, you asked an armed government to force your neighbors to give you some of their property. For your own, personal wants.
Show me where I’ve taken someone else’s property by driving a car, or using electricity.
Gee, that sounds like a personal investment plan. So why don’t you invest in a medical savings account? Or do the opposite – take out a loan?
Nah. It’s so much easier to confiscate your neighbor’s property.
You seem to be entirely missing the point.
Don’t want to pay these taxes? Move somewhere else.
You’re harming other people. You’re stealing useful air and environment from future generations. But your system does not see further than you does it. It’s all me me me.
[bolding mine] So because I don’t want to die, I am exceeding my income? See by your theory, 30 years from now, there will be no doctors, we’ll all be too busy paying out medical bills and slaving away at pointless jobs to bother about saving other people’s lives :rolleyes:
“Oh, you can’t afford to eat? Guess you should’ve thought about that before you develped epilepsy!”
Crafter, it seems that you believe that the decision as to whether a person who develops a serious illness or suffers an accident lives or dies (and, if they should not die quickly suffer in agony) should be based on their income.
I have an idea.
In order to keep you from being potentially forced to hand over your property to pay for someone else’s “personal wants”, maybe we should just summarily execute any and everyone who doesn’t earn enough to be able to pay for a potential hospital bill should they become ill or injured and/or works for a company that doesn’t provide health care coverage. Preventive “care” if you will. It’s a hell of a lot more merciful than letting them die slowly and in pain.
Or do you think that you shouldn’t have to be forced to “hand over your property” to pay for the bullets?
Your environmental issues are a piss-poor analogy. Gee, let’s discuss if I’m infringing on someone’s property by breathing. :rolleyes:
In essence, yes. And you’re responsible for paying the bill. Not your neighbor.
Let’s cut to the chase: if you’re not responsible for your personal medical bills, who is? Are you capable of answering this question?
I have a better idea: make everyone responsible for his or her own healthcare. If you have medical bills, pay them. If you can’t pay, take out a loan. If you can’t pay off the loan, ask your family, church, or community for assistance.
I know what you’re thinking. “Gee, that sounds horribly uncompassionate. You’re one of those evil, selfish, laissez faire capitalists, aren’t you? Don’t you understand that some people will suffer?”
Yes, some people will suffer. But it is not evil. Want to know what’s evil? Taking someone’s property – at gunpoint - and giving it to another individual for their unique, personal wants. That’s evil.
A piss-poor analogy? The world is slowly being polluted, which means ruining everyone’s lives, which mean’s everyone’s paying for it. And that’s a piss-poor analogy? That’s what someone who’s ignorant and has no idea how much they’re fucking everyone else would say.
Me and my neighbours are paying the bill, and I do the same for them. It’s not stealing my neighbours property. It’s not holding them at gunpoint at all. And if it is, then I am doing the same for them. Ever heard the saying, A problem shared is a problem halved?
How can we say who is responsible for paying for a freak accident? It’s not like I hit someone in my car and I am responsible. No-one’s responisble. Westerners are always placing the blame. You spend all this time affixing blame, when you could’ve been fixing the problem.
Take out a loan? Of course if you couldn’t afford it in the first place, chances are you will never be able to pay off the loan. And then ask other people to help? Who by then will already be beseiged by other requests for money and you’ll get put on the back burner. And then you die.
It’s not evil. It’s stupid, insufficient and selfish. You refuse to look at the consequences of your actions. I know I’d rather pay 0.05c to save someone’s life, then have them die because it was impossible for them to come up with $500. It means nothing to me, but everything to them. So what’s the problem? People who want to keep that 0.05c like you. That 0.05c means more than a human life to you. And that’s sick.
GYBRFE: So what you’re saying is that you have a right to some of my property, to be used to satisfy your own, personal wants? Is that correct?
What you seem to be forgetting is that we are living in a society. Part of living in a society is that it is not “every man for himself” it’s sharing and taking care of each other. That includes police protection, fire protection, military, roads, health care, schools, etc. You receive the benefits of this society, yet you don’t want to pay for it.
You don’t see the problem with people being paid by the amount of fires they put out? 
Um, no. I don’t have too much of a problem with the first four, as they (more-or-less) benefit everyone. Even people who don’t drive benefit from roads, since just about everything is shipped OTR. Besides, it would be a nightmare to try to figure out how much each person should pay.
But I do have a problem with government education and government healthcare. The primary beneficiaries are specific individuals. As such, only the recipients of said services should pay.