lofhay

"Health care is much the same. How one can argue that it is a right to carry a gun (one which I'm totally OK with by the way), and a right to say what you want (with certain minor limitations of course), but not a right to receive the health care necessary to stay alive and well and do such things, I will never understand. "

Your right to carry a gun or say what you want doesn't cost anyone else anything. Your "right" to healthcare for which you cannot pay costs the rest of us in taxes or high insurance premiums. Why won't you deal with this idea? Do you really believe that someone who can't afford certain medical treatment has the right to demand that you or I pay for it?

I want to be compassionate, but I resist having government force me to pay for that for which I am not responsible.

Vigilante

I don't like what you say about this topic, so go away. Honestly, it doesn't typically work that way.

I don't agree with either side of this. It's not black and white, "tax for nearly everything so everyone may benefit" or "no tax for anything, ever".

At some point, people have to take responsibility for themselves. People sitting on their ass have to get jobs, people addicted to drugs have to get help, people that work at a local shop with no benefits can find a new job that offers benefits. I did that very thing 2 weeks ago. Hey, it's life. I don't need to have my hand held, I can figure it out. Also, and this is a big one for me, people should be taught to take their time about having kids. It should be a part of sex education, and part of a federal standard for education. If you have a kid at 20, you're going to have a hard time unless daddy left you a fat bank account. If you have a kid at 30, you're more likely to be in stable financial health and be able to handle the stress. Shit, I'm 33 and my wife is 31 and we still don't have a kid.

So once that mindset is established, why do we need to hold peoples' hands? They can figure it out. Sure the healthcare system needs an overhaul, but the question is how much of an overhaul does it really need? The answer to that is another thread, but I'm just putting that out there. It doesn't have to be black/white, 0/1, yes/no on/off gov't healthcare/no gov't healthcare.

To say that healthcare is a right is alien to me. I don't see healthcare in the bill of rights. Ben Franklin didn't consider healthcare to be an inalienable right. It doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere. If I've missed something, please cite that. "Pursuit of happiness" is pursuit, not handouts of happiness. To tack it on to the current list of rights is a big leap. It's modern, and while that is good, it needs refinement and not just thrown in as it stands. I would say it is too new to be called a right, yet. IMO we should have a working system, however that is defined, before we define the system itself.

---------- Post added at 12:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 PM ----------

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I see nothing that implies healthcare. I see that you can pursue healthcare as part of happiness. And so chase it you shall. May you catch that, and riches, and whatever else your heart may desire, as long as it doesn't infringe on others' pursuit of the same goals.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

filtherton

I think preventative healthcare should be a right. I'd rather pay more in taxes and fees to improve the health of my fellow human than to pad the bank account of HMO executives.

Derwood

you're quoting the Declaration of Independence, which is just that, a declaration. It has nice ideas, but has no bearing on the law.

Vigilante

@ Filtherton: There is that. But a system overhaul without socializing could settle alot of those issues.

---------- Post added at 01:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:16 PM ----------

Yes, but being that happiness was mentioned above, I felt it was worth quoting for point.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

dc_dux

Perhaps a better analogy than the right to bear arms:

You have a right to an attorney during questioning....If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

Or pehaps you dont believe that everyone should have a right to legal counsel when charged with a crime.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Rekna

Here is a real quote from the constitution:
"promote the general welfare" that pretty much nails what health care reform is trying to do. There is no reasonable constitutional argument against health care reform.

Vigilante

Oh I agree, reform is necessary. But it does not say "provide". It says "promote". Additionally it explicitly says provide for defense, but promote for healthcare. It is spelled out. Now define promote, without providing.

Promote can be health education, AIDS awareness, sex ed. The list is long.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Rekna

provide and promote are not mutually exclusive terms....

promote could easily mean providing a public option to compete against private options in order to bring down prices and increase the quality of health care. The government does not want to take over healthcare, they are simply trying to provide more competition.

Derwood

Call me un-American, but I'm not terribly interested in what rich white slave owners 200+ years ago had to say about health care.

Vigilante

You have a good point, and while there is definitely merit to that, what happens if all other healthcare can't compete and gov't healthcare is the only one left standing? Is the gov't going to take itself to court over its self-imposed monopoly?

Yes, I would agree that you are un-American in that respect. They had nothing to say about health care because it didn't exist back then. That fact that they were white, or slave owners, or that they wore funny looking hairpieces has nothing to do with the historic thought processes that went through their heads.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

roachboy

a right is what the legal system in place calls rights.
each assignment of that status is a technical (in the sense of writing it into law) and political question.
trying to make some distinction on principle between "rights that cost me money" and "rights that don't cost me money" says nothing about rights--only something about your aesthetic preferences.
in other words, it says nothing about anything beyond what you like and what you dont. so it works on the same register as statements concerning your preferences or chunky as over against smooth peanut butter.

rights pertain to a legal subject, a construction of persons that is basically the sum of legal statements which give attributes to a social individual.
so one line of argument that could happen here concerns the universal declaration of human rights that smeth brought up above. once the united states signed that document, effectively it adopted that construction of legal subjects as binding. thanks largely to the john birch society wing of the contemporary right, there's a paranoia about the un abroad in the land (black helicopters anyone?)...this coupled with years of routine ignoring of such conventions, mostly in the name of conservative-style nation-states uber alles thinking, have resulted in the right not having quite caught up with reality. but it seems to me that the fact that the us signed that declaration means that it accepted this notion of human rights and accepted the construction of a legal subject that follows from it. so i don't see how universal health care is not already obligatory, and even less any possible basis from the right for opposing it.

even on pragmatic grounds i don't see it. this is a capitalist system. one of the primary functions of such a system is the reproduction of the labor pool. keeping more people healthy--and socializing the costs of doing it--would seem to me to make sense for bidness. hell, even insurance companies have such an interest.
i see no arguments against universal health care being good for bidness, so it makes no sense to me that the same folk who carry water for the existing corporate sector in political terms to oppose it.

it seems that the main arguments come from some curious position rooted in a fantasy 18th century world of yeomen farmers and no indoor plumbing and no electricity.
the dunedan above outlined a position that's internally consistent, but i'm baffled as to why it is compelling given that we're in the modern capitalist world, like it or not. the argument is which version of that system is more desirable, what ends would make it more desirable. so which variant of the existing system do we collectively want. stuff about individual rights drawn on this 18th century yeoman farmer no cars no internet business are beside the point.

that said, i can see why conservatives would not want to concede this point, though--once you do, you concede the whole argument against universal access to basic health care.


========

o and vigiliante: fact is that neither you nor anyone else has the faintest idea what was running through the minds of the framers of the constitution. the whole original intent thing is goofy. in this context, it actively obstructs a coherent discussion.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Derwood

And I think it's un-American to use the Constitution as a tool for inaction. It sickens me that people take the document that our country is built upon and twist the idea of "enumerated rights" as a crutch for their own agendas.

Of course it doesn't matter that the Founding Fathers were white or slave-owners. I was being glib. But it's unbelievable to me that when it comes to health care (or gay marriage, or whatever "liberal" issue is at hand that day), people so readily say, "well, the Founding Fathers didn't specifically say they could have XXXX, so fuck them!"

Willravel

The Constitution is a living document, and the roll of government must be able to change to suit the times. Public health care would have been impractical in 1776, but if you look at every other industrialized country in the world it seems to have become quite practical. So we adapt in order to survive.

Anyway, we don't need an amendment for public health care any more than FDR needed one for the New Deal. There are perfectly legal and not-unconstitutional ways to have public health care.

Vigilante

To this, I would say that inaction has nothing to do with this. Just because you see something that bothers you doesn't mean it bothers everyone else. You assume that what wrongs you is somehow globally wrong and requires action, and that your concept of what is right must be right in general.

Do me a favor and don't lump me with all conservatives. I have zero issues with gay marriage. I have many gay friends and just made a new one at work last night. He's a dude, that's all I care about. What people do in their own homes or what contracts they bind with others is none of my business. I no more care if they worship satan, become a priest or marry another man, or decide to go straight for personal convictions, or stay single and hit the nightclub scene.

---------- Post added at 02:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:03 PM ----------

No arguments there Will, you have a point.

RB, I have to get ready for work. I'll hit the forum later, I gtg, no time to read.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

filtherton

Perhaps. Any meaningful system overhaul would likely be labeled socialism by its critics regardless of its details.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) socialist healthcare systems capable of providing workable solutions to the folks in their jurisdiction already exist and can be readily emulated.

Derwood

the gay marriage comment wasn't directed at you Vigilante. I'm not lumping you in with anyone

yournamehere

Why do all the people against health care assume they're going to be the ones paying for someone else's care?

Do you all have some omniscient doctor's guarantee that you'll be healthy as a horse until you die suddenly in your sleep when you're 95?

Has it ever occurred to any of you that you might become chronically and severely ill; lose your job and your benefits, and may end up on the receiving end of a fair health care system?

Does everything in life have to be about a few people making obscene profits? Isn't the health of our citizens above that kind of thinking? I certainly think it is.

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rahl

What I think bothers most people about having to pay for others health care is that they will be paying for their own and someone elses. Of course they think they might get sick at some point, otherwise they wouldn't have insurance themselves. They just don't want double wammied

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Derwood

but paying for yourself and paying for others is exactly what private insurance is

rahl

no it isn't. Your paying for your own coverage and the coverage of everyone else who is PAYING into that system. If everyone at your company takes the insurance but you don't, you don't have coverage period.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

roachboy

what that business model generates are outcomes that are entirely the opposite of what's outlined in the universal declaration of human rights.
what it amounts to is: you can access basic health care if you can pay. if you can't, fuck you.
that means a two-tiered society---one tier made up of people for whom some elements of the declaration apply, and another for whom they dont.
what that business model does is make access to basic health care an instrument of class warfare.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

yournamehere

rahl, I think what Derwood meant was, under the present private insurance system that has us by the short hairs now - we all pay when the uninsured go to an ER for treatment. Under the proposed health care system, those people would be insured , and could go to their PCP for preventive treatment instead of waiting until things get so serious.

Besides - under the present system, just because you pay for health insurance when you're healthy doesn't mean it'll be there for you when you get sick.

__________________
If you want to avoid 95% of internet spelling errors:
"If your ridiculous pants are too loose, you're definitely going to lose them. Tell your two loser friends over there that they're going to lose theirs, too."
It won't hurt your fashion sense, either.

rahl

if you read my initial post I said what bothers MOST people, not neccesarily me. And I agree that people going to the ER who are uninsured or on medicaid instead of going to the their pcp increases cost. It's mostly due to the fact dr.'s don't accept medicaid patients because medicaid doesn't pay out as much as Insurance does.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Cynthetiq

This thread isn't about welfare, and I see abuse for welfare all the time since I live 3 blocks from the NYHCA or as some people call the Projects. That's saved for another thread.

No that's my intention or reasoning at all. There are no guarantees in life. No guarantee you'll live a long life, no guarantee you'll life a happy one, no guarantee you'll find the love of your life, no guarantee that you'll have children, no guarantee that the job you want to have you will get and will pay enough to live the lifestyle you want to live. I didn't mention lifestlye as anything, interesting you attributed that ideology to my post. I didn't say anything about cancer from smoking or AIDS from sex. Ignorance is the only rationalized reason to believe those are the only reasons for getting these 2 ailments.

Last year my aunt died of cancer and her care was paid 100% for by Medicare. It paid for all of her operations, chemo, etc. She lived a menial life since she didn't make a high salary before she took ill. The state of California paid for all of her treatment, including gamma knife surgery for a brain tumor. Seems to me like a poor person still can get quality care.

I know of people here in NYC who get the AIDS medication under some other programs headed by NGOs sponsored by pharmaceuticals and philanthropists. This actually is my favorite opinion and result since it's something that is a CHOICE by a group of people that are interested in the cause.

The government isn't an infite black box of money, so there's going to be some sort of limitations of sorts. NHS in England already has such a thing in place Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes - Google Books. What I've also read is that France is also looking to increase it's funding via copays and other payment types so that they can increase the amount of funding they have.

The argument of paying for fire and police protection isn't a similar argument at all. Police and Fire departments in one area don't dramatically burden the entire area in such skewed manner if the population density gets higher. Someone's LOSS due to theft or fire doesn't impact the rest of the citizen's cost of living in the same manner as health care.My point about this whole thing isn't about anything but FISCAL responsibility. I don't care if you're poor, things have to come from somewhere, and it is unfair to burden future generations with any kind of deficit or debt.

So, if the interest is in keeping everyone healthy. Great. Fund it properly.

But every place that I see with such programs has not been able to self sustain it fiscally. This is UK, France, Iceland...

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Vigilante

I have a few minutes before I have to leave. This new nightshift schedule, while fun, takes some getting used to.

Anyways, I have scoliosis. Bad. I have a heel lift (basically a slanted block of rubber) in one shoe to keep the base of my spine straight. My back wasn't always so straight, so the correction adaption was exceedingly painful. I've spent years visiting chiropractors and having the scar tissue that covers the left side of my back rubbed out. It feels like you're being skinned alive sometimes, no therapeutic massages there. I haven't even begun dealing with my nearly negative arch that has developed on my left foot as a result of this rubber brick in my shoe.

So to say I have not considered this issue is ridiculous, at least in my case. Of course I have. I am not thinking about my personal goals, I'm thinking what happens to America when we start walking down that road. It may be too late anyways, and my concerns may be completely unfounded. Who knows. No one here including myself can really say they know. All I know is that I'm trying to plan for the problems that lie ahead.

Despite that, I still have some concerns. I'm not going to say yeah let's do it for me. I would benefit tremendously. My spine and ribcage are fucked, of course I would benefit. However would America benefit? We need overhauls on a lot of fronts, no argument there. But socialization may not be the answer we hope it to be. Yes it may start off small, but any time you change a system, you feel the effects long after, and results are not always planned.

Agreed. I don't want to pay for someone's food when they have too many kids to feed them, due to lack of education and willpower. I don't want to pay for someone to take methadone to kick a habit. I do, however, feel fine contributing to education, college, condoms. Environmental awareness. Hydrogen fuel research, or better yet, solar.

Ok I gtg. Have fun with that

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

roachboy

what you think life in general is like is not important here, really. this is a question of law, a question of rights as defined through law, a question of what policies should follow from those premises. and it is about the simple fact that the health system in the united states is an expression of class war, nothing more nothing less.

you would be free to imagine "life" as having no guaratees or whatever in the context of universal access to basic health care just as much as you are now.
most aspects of life would unfold as they do now around you.
all that would change is that basic health care would stop being a prerogative of class and become available to everyone.

you could continue to conflate economic position and something essential about who you are, who others are. you could continue to effectively argue that the materially disadvantaged do not deserve the same access to health care that you do. so could say whatever.
what would change is that these views would become the parlor game that they should be.
they shouldn't be built into the way actual health care is and is not delivered.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

SecretMethod70

Yes, let's punish the kids for choosing to be born to irresponsible parents. Sounds like a great idea. If it were a perfect world, we could help out the kids and make sure they get necessary nutrition while also not making it any easier on the irresponsible parents. It's not a perfect world, though, and all you end up doing is making sure the kids aren't fully nourished during important developmental stages, grow up less capable, and become more likely to make the same stupid and irresponsible mistakes their parents made.

/off-topic

No one is arguing for socialization. The current health care debate is for a public option. And not even public medicine, just public payment. The practitioners are still independent of the government (at least, as independent as they are from the insurance companies, which is, admittedly, not entirely), and people who do not want the basic coverage the government is willing to pay for can choose a private company instead. Debate whether or not that's a good thing; fine. Don't call it something it is not. It's not socialism, and it's not even close.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

filtherton

The problem with taking a reductionist view of various conditions present within a given society is that it ignores the contribution that society collectively makes to the prevalence of a given condition.

There is significant epidemiological research correlating social position with health. So while one could argue that a lack of willpower is a personal issue, the fact remains that the children of the poor or chronically unemployed are more like to have issues with a whole slew of things including depression and chemical dependency. This puts these folks at a disadvantage and this disadvantage, though not insurmountable, makes it so a disproportionate number of them will be a net drain on the system. It stands to reason that society as a whole will benefit from interventions designed to reduce the extent or effects of disadvantages associated with growing up in poverty. So while some might find it distasteful to help people who have seemingly put themselves in a bind, we might all benefit if that distaste could be swallowed.

rahl

It's not just for a public option though, it's calling for a complete re-structuring of insurance companies. One thing in particular is forcing them to take people with pre-ex's. Which if all fine and good, but the backlash of that will be super high sky rocketed premiums, which people are going to bitch about, but thats the only logical result of having to take on such a high risk class of people.

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"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

biznatch

Even if healthcare is not expressly written as a right in the Constitution, it is a human right. That's not my opinion, that's according to the UN's Human Rights Declaration.

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Rekna

The only way that this would happen is if the government were able to provide better health care than the private industry were capable of. I highly doubt that will happen and you do to. However, if it does happen what is better the government controlled system that is providing better coverage at a lower cost or the private system which is more expensive and doesn't get as much coverage?

Cynthetiq

And the UN declares so many things like, Iraq get out of Kuwait, AIDS resolutions, etc.

I think of the UN as a model for Utopian world, but not the real world.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Derwood

Maybe you add regulations to the insurance industry that makes them reduce overhead. Maybe insurance companies make fiscal decisions based on the needs of the insured instead of the bottom line of the stockholders (ha ha ha! right!)

rahl

And maybe govn't should step in and tell krogers how much to charge for a head of lettuce. Maybe they should come in and reorganize your company and change your payscale...doesn't make sense or seem right to me. I'm all for the government creating a public OPTION, but not telling companies how they are to run their business. But we're getting of topic here.

Is access to affordable health care services a "right" I honestly can't say one way or the other. It wasn't an issue 50+ years ago because it didn't cost an arm an a leg(no pun intended) to see your doctor, now it does. Who decides what rights to grant? I have no idea, never understood it.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Derwood

So you see no other outcome of a public option other than private premiums skyrocketing? Isn't that the opposite of how free market capitalism is supposed to work? Even if the government forces private insurers to cover people with pre-ex's, the added competition is supposed to drive DOWN the prices, not up, right?

My point is that right now, there really isn't competition among insurers. There isn't a market force that's driving down prices. The public option may be that force

rahl

MAY is a very big gamble. If a public opiton is in reality an extension of medicaid it will be doomed to fail since Dr.'s won't accept it. Prices will only go up if the govn't forces Carriers to insure pre-ex's.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

flstf

You make a good point but what is the alternative? I believe this is one of the main reasons why so many people think we need some kind of reform. Most of us are one corporate downsizing from losing our job and insurance and one illness or accident in our family from having a pre-existing condition and therefore unable to get insurance.

---------- Post added at 07:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 PM ----------

In my opinion there is more competition among insurers than health care providers which is the underlying cause of our huge health care costs. We are trying to insure an industry which seems to have very little market forces to drive down prices.

Charlatan

This is the fundamental problem with America and why they can't get over this hump.

__________________
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Willravel

The cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment has been interpreted by the SCOTUS to require all American prisoners to have free health care. As a right. Estellev. Gamble, 429, U.S. 97, 1976.

Doesn't this speak in volumes?