UHC Should Be Recognized As A Fundamental Birthright.

If you don’t know what the word means, perhaps you shouldn’t use it.

Because the US Constitution did not “feudalize” slaves and women, it “gorpoofalized” them. Once you have understood that, the whole question of health care becomes clear.

Regards,
Shodan

Thanks for another of your typically obfuscatory clarifications. I care not what others may say, Shodan, no one can be as obtuse as you would have us believe you are. I will also point out that the word ‘corporation’ does not appear once in the Constitution or its 27 amendments. The corporate morph into persondom was the result of a SCOTUS Constitutional “interpretation” in the late 1880’s.

I can guarantee you that the politicians who describe health care as a basic human right do NOT mean something like, “So the government better not pass any laws keeping people from buying health insurance.” And as has already been pointed out, “UHC” means something specific. It means that the government will provide health care where it otherwise cannot be afforded (at least as much as it can).

The comparison to gun rights in an attempt to show why this is a bizarre right-wing reaction is, well, bizarre. That’s what UHC is, a government gurantee to provide something, not an assurance that they’ll leave us all alone in our own pursuits. That’s not what second amendment protections provide. If someone proposed “universal gun ownership” which demanded that the government provide guns to all who can’t afford them, because the right to bear arms is a basic human right, I’d think that was an equally stupid (but finally equivalent) notion.

That’s the generally accepted definition of “fuedalism”. If you are going to make up your own definitions for words then it’s just empty hyperbole.

No one is forcing you to work for a large corporation. Nearly half the work force works for small companies. You could work for one of them. Or you could go start your own business or work as an independent contractor.

If you lived in a fuedal society, there is no opportunity to rise above the station of your birth. If you work for a large company, you typically have opportunities to advance and make a greater income (assuming you do a good job).

There are a lot of issues with modern corporations with respect to liability and public interest. However, you aren’t really making any argument beyond “corporations are evil”.

To correctly model a national economy, the school can only redistribute snacks that have been provided by the students.

False.

False.

Your arguments are just so much runny crap, staining the floor of the SDMB.

In the first quote, you claim “that means someone else must be forced to provide it to you”, but that’s a load of bullshit. And then you build on that in the second quote.

Here’s why it’s bullshit: no one will be forced to be a health care provider. No one will forced into medical school, or nursing school. People who choose to enter that profession will do so of their own free will. If they don’t want to perform those services in the way that the government says they have to, they are free to stop working as a health care provider.

And they won’t be “forced” to provide a service once they are doctors or nurses any more than the police, the members of our armed services, our school teachers, etc. are “forced” to do anything.

No, actually both are quite correct.

We were discussing the rest of us, who will be forced to pay for other people’s “right” to health care.

Put it this way - suppose the government raises your taxes and uses the money build churches and mosques. Your rights are not being violated, because you are not in the construction business. Right?

Regards,
Shodan

Just because you say that everyone has the right to health care doesn’t mean there are enough doctors and drugs and medical supplies to meet that need. Where do they come from?

But the bigger issue is that if you can’t pay, someone else has to pay for you. That’s where many people have a problem calling it a “right” rather than a social convention or a democratically decided benefit. It’s sort of just a semantic issue, but it does seem that “right” should mean something different than “benefit”. Otherwise we need another word for “right”.

Do we have a right to government funded police services? We have a right to life, but that must go beyond the government not killing us directly. If the government has an obligation to do the best it can to protect us when we can’t afford bodyguards for ourselves, doesn’t it have an obligation to protect us from germs and diseases when we cannot afford to do the same ourselves? To the extent possible, of course, government can’t keep people from getting murdered or dying from disease.

Can’t it be both? We have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you.

The is both a right, and a benefit. It says nothing about the quality or quantity of attorney. But they must abide by the rules set for by their local Bar Association, and paid for by taxes. This is a right that other people have to provide for you. And to add insult to injury, we’re providing it for criminals, who are also poor! Further insult and further injury is that we’ll then pay for their medical care.

There is also the issue of right to access. We wouldn’t tolerate health insurance only for rich, white, landowners. The health insurance available to some should be available to all. It’s fine to discriminate on a relevant basis such as smoker vs non-smoker. But why is it based on “employed by a specific employer” vs “employed in some other fashion.”

Well, most of us do pay taxes. We expect that those taxes will be used to pay for public services like police, roads and hospitals.

I want someone to explain to me why it’s ok to have free and publicly funded K through 12 for everyone but not healthcare. Why is education more important than our health? Yes, education is extremely important, but what the fuck good is it to a dead person?

We don’t provide free and public education to adults.

But nothing is “free”. Most of us pay taxes for the public education our children get.

I agree. It seems to me that rights are independent of a nations economic status. If I have a right to health care, and my country is to poor to provide it, what difference does having that right make?

If I have a right to free speech, for example, it matters not how rich my country is.

Not true. Not exactly relevant, since there is a cultural expectation that formal education is done once you enter into adulthood-- an expectation that doesn’t exist in healthcare-- and still not true. I earned a high school diploma (not a GED. A diploma. I took every single class, just like in regular high school) as an adult, for free, at a public institution.

You know what I meant. A system that doesn’t charge for use. I said publicly funded, so your statement here is redundant. You’ve done nothing to answer my question.

As individuals? I don’t believe we do, at least under current understanding of the law. That is, if there as been a rash of burglaries in your neighborhood, you can’t demand a squad car parked outside your house 27/7. And if they don’t, and your house is broken into, you cannot sue on the basis that they didn’t protect you.

Which is not to say that we couldn’t, as a society, hire people to stand in your living room and protect you. We could. But such a course of action doesn’t follow ineluctably from the notion of the state providing police protection.

Regards,
Shodan

Wow that was ridiculous. If there has been a rash of burglaries, do you not have the same access to police as everyone else on your block? How does demanding your own personal security detail fit into this discussion in any meaningful way? It’s as dumb as that question about “do I get a private room at the Mayo.” We all have equal access to the tax payer funded police force, regardless of how much we pay in. How do you make those leaps?

sigh I’m speaking, of course, in the general sense. No UHC system provides the right to get the top specialist in the world for free either. The right to police protection and health care for each person is balanced by the rights for all people - which would be diminished in either your case or mine.

We do hire people to stand in the living rooms of those with special needs, such as material witnesses in danger. But that is another extreme case. More usual is the case of the neighborhood without adequate police presence. The citizens act as if a reasonable number of police is their right, and the city rarely disputes this.

With that out of the way, would you mind answering the question?

You have the same right as everyone else in your county or state. You may not demand, as I mentioned, that police extend protection to you as an individual.

The question was whether or not there existed an individual right to police protection. The answer is No, there is not, at least not as individuals. It is a rather subtle point, so it is not surprising that you failed to follow.

If your house is robbed, and you try to sue the police for not protecting you, you will not get very far. That is because the police do not owe you as an individual any specific duty of protection. You can only demand the general protection that police offer to society in general.

Read up a bit on Castle Rock v. Gonzales - it may help.

Or not.

What question - this one?

I have already answered that. You as an individual do not have any right to police services.

Regards,
Shodan

No, you said that we don’t have any right to strawman special police services, like police cars parked outside our door. How about the right to a decent response when we call 911? How about regular patrols?