The key selling point would be if single-payer taxes can be made cheaper (per capita/taxpayer) than the hefty insurance premiums people are already paying.
Ironically, one of the ACA’s biggest mistakes - drastically *raising *insurance premiums rather than lowering them - may help ease the way for single-payer.
Ah, the baby didn’t, but the parents did. “Sins of the parents” and all that jazz. Never mind that the exact cause isn’t known and that pretty much anything a human being can do has been called a sin at some point or other by some old crow or other.
jsgoddess, I hope your mother has a speedy and complete recovery.
I did say one “can be” for one and not the other. I don’t know what Brook’s position on abortion, SSM, etc. is and if his reasons for legislating them a certain way are because of what the Bible says. Of course some Republican are hypocrites when it comes to legislation and religion. I don’t know if it’s most of them or includes the Representative that is the topic of the OP.
I think everybody would be better served if/when the insurance profit motive is removed from universal healthcare.
It’s unclear from the linked interview precisely what Mo Brooks is actually saying, and it does not appear that he’s saying what’s being attributed to him here.
He was responding to a question about what would be done with people with pre-existing conditions and he had just gotten to the point where he said (typing from memory here) “in fairness, a lot of the people with pre-existing conditions got there through no fault of their own and I think our society, under those circumstances, needs to help” and the clip cuts off in apparent mid-sentence at that exact point, so it’s unclear what manner of help he had in mind. But this does seem to go against what’s being attributed to him - and which he’s being excoriated for - here.
Brooks is being misrepresented.
This is why I honestly think that Christians do not actually believe in their own religion. As a former born-again I am extremely well acquainted with biblical teachings. The bible is very, very clear on things like wealth, humility, giving to the poor and helping those in need.
If I really and truly believed that there was an all-powerful being who, upon my death, would take me to paradise where I would live for eternity so long as I was a good christian - if I really thought that was true - I mean my god! I would sell my possessions, donate blood every day, volunteer with the poor, sick and elderly. I would spend every moment of every day being Christ-like because I knew that giving of myself for 80 odd years was freaking nothing compared to eternity in paradise!
Instead the far, far majority of so-called christians give a big old “fuck you” to anyone less fortunate than they. There’s no way, in their heart of hearts that they can think “yeah, that’s how I get to heaven, bitches!”.
It’s right there in the thread title. This is NOT a fair world.
Here on Earth religious teachings are near-universally ignored when they are in conflict with desired outcomes and zealously quoted when they are not.
Is there something unclear about the quote at the beginning of the article?
“It will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy,” explained Brooks. “And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”
Is the the article not accurate when it summarizes this at the end by saying, “The Republican plan expresses one of the core beliefs shared by movement conservatives, and utterly alien to people across the globe, right and left: that people who can’t afford the cost of their own medical care have nobody to blame but themselves”?
No?
Then maybe Paul Ryan’s position might be clearer for you:
House Speaker Paul Ryan received a considerable dose of criticism for his comment that “the fatal conceit of Obamacare” is that “the people who are healthy pay for the people who are sick.”
“This is literally how all insurance works,” Charles Pierce wrote for Esquire, calling Ryan a “rube.” The Huffington Post offered a lesson in “Insurance 101” for Ryan, explaining that “younger people, who tend to be healthier than older people, pay for health insurance like everyone else. They’ll rely on it when they need it, probably more when they’re older and there are younger, healthier people filing in behind them.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/17/should-healthy-people-have-to-pay-for-chronic-illnesses/?utm_term=.0b355f0ddc0b
Spin it how you like, but healthy people paying for sick people and young people paying for the health care of old people is how health care works in every civilized country on earth, and the only way it can possibly work in any practical sense and certainly in any society that has aspirations to regard itself as civilized and moral.
Almost all Christians that I’ve talked to about good works cherry-pick the part about being saved based on faith. They believe (or claim to) that no one is good enough to get into heaven and the way there is through believing in Jesus.
Here is Brooks’ full statement:
Later in the CNN interview, Brooks acknowledged some people who maintain their health can still have pre-existing conditions.
It sounds almost reasonable at first, but then one is forced to actually think about the implications of what he’s saying.
So instead of death panels Mo is proposing what?.. Health panels?.. Pre-existing condition panels?.. Genetic testing for potential health risks panels?.. You brought this on yourself panels?..
Full interview:
It is astounding just how big of an asshole you decide to be sometimes.
I knew this argument would come up. The whole “it’s not by works of righteousness but by god’s grace alone” idea. And that still goes along with what I was saying.
If they really, truly believed that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god” but by his grace, we still get to heaven, they would still do everything in their power to be like Christ.
There’s no way anyone who believes in heaven would ever think “I’m a sinner but I still get to go to heaven so fuck you and your sick self!”. Unless they were mentally deficient.
This goes back to humility, and following the teachings. You can ask for Grace - I have no way of knowing that it will be granted. I do know that Christ warned about lip-service, and the results thereof. So - You can live like an asshole, but I would suggest that doing so is a VERY bad gamble. If you believe, you’d be best served sticking as close to the path as is possible.
I don’t want to contribute to derailing this thread, so I won’t respond to this point beyond this, but you were talking about spending an eternity in paradise on a requirement of being a good Christian. That’s probably why you knew a response such as mine would be posted. They probably won’t think “so fuck you and your sick self!”, but one doesn’t have to go to that extreme to not be the type of person that gives away all his possessions and the like. And even being that way to get into Heaven does not mean having to legislate that other people must follow Biblical principles.
I have a theory about that – when Shodan puts some effort in, he can be reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent, and entirely decent. But very often he doesn’t want to, and lazy Shodan is just a snarky asshole.
We all have our flaws, of course, and it’s likely that the flaws of those on the opposite side of the political spectrum seem magnified to us personally.
It’s a requirement for Party membership. They all sound like assholes when talking about health care, which is mainly about preventing too many of the wrong people from getting any, especially the poor and the sick. Although admittedly, most Republicans are smart enough to be a little more subtle about it and are good at using code words.
ETA:
A lazy Shodan doesn’t put in the effort to use the requisite code words and dog whistles, and just blurts it right out.
No. It was a selective and misleading quote.
Ryan was just saying that as a practical matter this is not working, for this reason.
See the video of his remarks here. There’s nothing there about morality or right or wrong.
He’s right about it too. One of the fundamental principles of insurance - which those criticizing other people’s understanding of insurance are either ignoring or ignorant of - is that predictable risk needs to be accurately priced. (That’s why you have actuaries in the world :)). Otherwise, those who are being overpriced will know that they’re subsidizing those who are being underpriced and won’t be inclined to buy in.
That’s why other forms of insurance - e.g. life insurance - price differently based on age and gender groups. Under the ACA, the ability of insurance companies to price accurately based on known risk classifications has been artificially limited by public policy concerns, which created the situation where there is a lot of known cross-subsidization across risk classifications, which skewed the enrollment and caused the problems that the exchanges face today.
The above is not anything new, and was widely discussed when the ACA was passed. At the time, the thinking was that the subsidies for low income people, plus various risk-sharing arrangements, would mitigate the impact of this. But it’s increasingly looking like it wasn’t enough.
At any rate, that’s what Ryan appear to be talking about, which is unrelated to the morality interpretation being attacked in this thread.