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Originally Posted by aceventura3
You provide data. You don't know what the basis of the data is, yet you draw conclusions from the data. I suggest that you be careful with those conclusions and now you take the position that I am totally out in left field. Generally health care expenditures will fall under a very broad definition to even include things like licensing boards, regulatory oversight, health care promotions/advertising, schools for the blind/disabled, drug rehab, vocational rehab, certain types retirement homes, etc, etc, etc. When data is collected from a hospital or surgical center, they report raw numbers, administrators don't care if the payments they recieve are from a person in a room receiving cosmetic surgery compared to a person with cancer. In some cases the aggregate reports won't break that data down and the higher up the data goes the less precise it is. When a prescription is given for pain, how does an economist know if it was for cosmetic surgery or a broken arm?
Again, all I say is be careful of the conclusions you draw from the data you post. Perhaps, it would be a good idea to read the foot notes as well.
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DC_Dux already confirmed my conclusion in
post #145. Maybe you missed it.
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Originally Posted by 37OHSSV
A police officer either helps you or he doesn't. (One of the problems is that he isn't required to help you.) A fire is either extinguished or it isn't. Health care is much more nebulous--does everyone in the country have a basic human right to wart removal? Circumcision? Accutane?
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From DC's post:
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In general.— The term “medical care” does not include cosmetic surgery or other similar procedures, unless the surgery or procedure is necessary to ameliorate a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring disease.
(B) Cosmetic surgery defined.— For purposes of this paragraph, the term “cosmetic surgery” means any procedure which is directed at improving the patient’s appearance and does not meaningfully promote the proper function of the body or prevent or treat illness or disease.
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That pretty much covers what would hypothetically be covered or not covered.
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Originally Posted by 37OHSSV
In other words, your comparison is very inappropriate, but your personal attack, proclaiming that anyone who disagrees is a selfish complainer is noted. And discarded.
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You disregarding my point (that people who don't care about the uninsured are acting selfishly) doesn't make me wrong. It just means you don't have an argument against it, and you're trying to be condescending. I don't care to be condescended to and I would appreciate if you wouldn't do it anymore. Remember,
"Disagreement can take place without rudeness or disrespect."
BTW, my comparison is just fine. Police only are going to respond to specific law enforcement situations just as universal health care will only cover specific conditions. Just as a police officer won't come to your home if someone eats your sandwich, universal health care wouldn't cover wanting to have your breasts augmented.
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Originally Posted by 37OHSSV
Many people in smaller communities do exactly that. What is your point, and why does it involve driving and leaving your home?
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Roads, sidewalks, police, fire, all paid for by taxes and regulated by the state: they are socialized. And people are fine using them. I've never heard a Libertarian make the claim that privatizing road building would be beneficial or that private police to whom you pay insurance would be cheaper and better than what we have now. The reality is that the "it's wrong because it's socialized" argument doesn't always work, and since we have already seen that it can work elsewhere, and work better than what we have currently, it's definitely worth a shot.
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Originally Posted by 37OHSSV
What others are saying is that out of 45 million people, many of them choose to spend funds frivolously, instead of making sacrifices such as [Cynthetiq's].
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How many? 5%? 45%? Unless it's 100%, which it's not as has been shown through documentaries like Sicko (and common sense), people out there aren't able to help themselves to a basic human need that basically all other western countries have. Not only that, but we're all paying too much anyway to an industry that need not exist: health care insurance.
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Originally Posted by 37OHSSV
So what you're saying (assuming) is that ALL of the people who have no insurance are incapable of paying for it themselves. Read Cynthetique's post again.
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Wrong. I'm not assuming that at all. I'm stating the fact that not all uninsured are so by choice. You're assuming all of them are capable of paying for it themselves, but just don't. That just isn't so.