wonderwench

The proper role of government is to protect citizens from those who wish to infringe on their liberty. This is why the military, courts and police are essential - to enforce the rule of law. We all share the expense of this effort - and rightly so. These functions should also be managed so as not to discriminate - all citizens should be equal before the law.

Such equality does not exist in the assertion of "positive" rights. There must always be a segment of the population who pays so that others may consume.

You also confuse the concepts of life and happiness with equality of condition. There is no right to happiness btw - only the pursuit. The true meaning of these concepts is equality before God and under the law. There is no basis for a claim of equal condition of material wealth, health or any other physical circumstance.

roachboy

most of the industrialized world--excepting the united states--thinks about the relation of basic helath care to all three terms--life, liberty, pursuit of happiness--as obvious, and the function of taxation as a redistrubition of wealth that enables a more civilized for of captialism to take shape in at least some quarters.

the arguments against this link assume that private gain is more important than health for those who are not of privilege.
it think that is barbaric....like i said earlier.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

wonderwench

Most of the industrial world is ruled by former monarchies who still place the state in a superior position to the The People. Many of these are now seeing an economic implosion as the dependent classes are overburdening those who are productive.

"Resdistribution of wealth to enable a more civilized form of capitalism to take shape" is the nice sounding euphamism employed by those who wish to determine the method of redistribution while taking an enormous cut for themselves, as compensation for their "public service".

roachboy

i really do not know where you get your information, wonder, about other industrialized countries....and on what planet your "history" makes any sense at all. but tant pis.....

and i do not understand how you are able to shift the argument
from human consequences of a system of economic organization back to the question of private gain with any kind of ethical consistency.

unless you believe that there is a difference between the lives of the holders of capital and everyone else.

if that is the case, why dont you just say it?

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

SinisterMotives

Why do I get the feeling that it's futile to argue about social issues in human terms with someone who insists on viewing them solely in economic terms?

roachboy

probably because you are right.

it is the pollyanna in me that keeps me going here sometimes....

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ARTelevision

Oh roachboy, thanks for the opening. Yes. There are many ways in which the lives of holders of capital are different from those who do not hold capital. If we are talking about what is real here. Ideally, it may be possible by some presumed "ethical" or "moral" stretch to state there is no difference, but that would be an unrealistic way to assess practical value. You may require a philosophical assessment. I wouldn't go very far down that path myself.

__________________
create evolution

roachboy

problem: most defenses of the "individual" and his or her property/cash situation are also abstract.
they fall back onto constitutional defininitions of the individual, also abstract.
these definitions come into direct conflict with the realities produced by capitalism--i agree--but these contradictions bely the nice words used by the framers to define individuals as "all created equal"---which clearly, under capitalism, they are not.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

brianna

how is this *NOT* true for the military or courts or police? there will always be haves and have nots in a capitalist society and the haves will always be paying more into government programs -- the rich are paying a higher percentage of the military, court, police, and education budget. when someone is accused of a crime and can't afford a lawyer the state provides him or her with one and guess who pays for this? I fail to see how health care is any different. enforcing the rule of law is only marginally different than ensuring a right to health care -- a serial killer is no different from a wave of contagious disease except for the protection issue. as a society we have agreed to provide criminal protection to all (Anyone can dial 911 and seek help from the police) but we refuse medical protection. by your logic we should perhaps have a privatized police force that only answers calls placed by those who can afford to pay them.

I am not arguing for equality of condition, i'm arguing for bare bones medical care -- I would not ask the government to cover elective surgeries or to spread out material wealth evenly throughout society. I think it is obvious that there is a great difference between medical care and material possessions. How can one pursue happiness if he/she is not given the tools to do so? I certainly cannot pursue happiness if i am dead (nevermind pursuing life). We have made many attempts to even the scales in this society (public education, public access to courts and representation, public access to highways and transportation, public access to information (via libraries), etc) and I see no way that health care is different -- in fact I think health care is probably a more important pursuit than the others mentioned since it is literally a mater of life and death.

SinisterMotives

This is exactly the point I was trying to make last night. I find it incredibly two-faced that people can take some services for granted when they themselves benefit from them, but then turn around and argue against services that might benefit someone else more than themselves.

The government has no business propping up the capitalists' beloved economy by providing them the means to convey their products to market, but capitalists assume that they have an inalienable right to such entitlements. And never mind that they "earn" their outrageous incomes by exploiting our planet's finite resources at an appalling pace even as they spit in the faces of the poor faceless slobs who suffer on account of their selfishness. Sorry for ranting, but everytime I think about, a certain saying about a camel and the eye of a needle comes to mind.

wonderwench

My feet are firmly planted on Earth - but thanks for your concern.

You would benefit from a rereading of history - especially in the areas of individual rights and the structures of government.

As to your last comment. Yes, the lives of those who hold capital are different. And your point is? The purpose of government should not be to make everyone's circumstances equal. The reductio ad absurdum of all such experiments in material equality is always slavery to the state.

It's good to be rich. This is why so many people aspire to such a state. The question is, are you going to punish them for succeeding?

KMA-628

Key word: "created", clearly, we are.

Create: To cause to exist; bring into being.

That means we all start off with the same rights, but where we end up is our own responsibility. i.e. by treating everyone "equal" we all have the same "opportunity" to start off with. Our framers never intended that we all stay limited by equality, i.e. I can not do better in life than someone else.

The beauty of capitalism is it allows you to choose your own course. It in no way guarantees the outcome, however.

Nowhere under definitions of capitalism does it say that we remain "equal". People have to make their own paths in life, that is why capitalism and a free-market society work well for us. If you want to do better, you can. If you want to do worse, you can do that to. If you want to just sit back and complain about everything, you can do that to.

I don't see anything in there about "created equal". I see individual rights and private ownership. I have no desire to give up either of these two rights. Basically free will. We are all given the tools, it is just a matter of what we do with the tools

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

wonderwench

You do not understand the history behind nor the intent of "created equal". The Framers intended this phrase to be under God and before the law - no more. Each person's life is his own to do with as he sees fit.

To address property rights - they also viewed property as being inherent to individuality. One's productivity and the fruits thereof are his to do with as he sees fit - including passing them down to his children. To view otherwise is to insist that one's actions belong to others.

SinisterMotives

There's a whole lot of selective listening going on here. The real reductio ad absurdum is reducing the lives of real live human beings to an abstraction posited on a two hundred year old piece of parchment.

wonderwench

Yes you are. You are arguing for an equal access to health care paid for by somegody else.

A little understanding of the laws of supply and demand wouldn't hurt. When you insist on a right to someone else's productivity with the state as broker, you disrupt the equation.

Look at what has happened in the U.S. over the past few decades. Since the 60s, the percent of health care spending on the part of the government has doubled. During this time, government price caps have caused insurers and providers to increase the rates for the private sector to cover the losses. Now, the government portion is so large that we are experiencing a contraction of supply because operating at a loss is a going out of business strategy.

And so the downward spiral goes: as healthcare becomes more expensive and scarcer, the government will step in to ration it. A self-fulfilling prophecy for state control which only benefits the bureacracy and those close enough to it to get preferential treatment.

The real solution is to encourage an increase in supply by lessening the financial burdens on suppliers. That is the Capitalist way.

wonderwench

That two hundred year old piece of parchment codified at set of eternal values which have done more to protect real human lives than any other philosophy in the history of humankind.

wonderwench

What you are describing is not capitalism.

SinisterMotives

Okay, let's pretend our dog-eat-dog society is somehow more dignified than that of wild animals. The "eternal values" of gross materialism have staved off political tyranny, famine, and all the rest only to create more spectacular ways for people to die. Enjoy the picture show. I'm going to go get a bucket of popcorn.

From what I'm hearing about Canada, it sounds like I could actually get paid what my skills and experience are worth there, instead of whatever some tight-fisted, adding-machine-wielding fat ass in a suit is willing to string me along with. Ironically, I would probably be able to afford my own health care on that kind of pay.

ARTelevision

Just a note:
roachboy, I am in so sense doctrinaire regarding the value I place on individual "rights" - I see them as quite secondary to the social contract. Nor do I put much stock in rhetorical flourishes such as "all men are created equal." It sounds good - but that's about it.

__________________
create evolution

SinisterMotives

On a side note, trying to merge patriotism and capitalism into one line of argument is the most laughable farce I've seen yet. People who love their country, have a sense of vested interest in it, and are grateful for the personal gain it has made possible for them simply don't repay their countrymen by sending their jobs overseas, providing non-English-speaking customer support to save a buck, or bilking them out of millions in tax dollars as an incentive for building a superstore in their community. Please try a different tack. That one is aged and moldy already.

wonderwench

All I can say is your definition of capitalism is not the same as mine. Mine does not include fraud, deception, exploitation, corruption or coercion.

ARTelevision

Especially when those words are applied to situations which are not fraudulent, deceptive, exploitative, corrupt, or coercive. This comes down to sets of individual beliefs. It doesn't really further anything to debate them.

__________________
create evolution

SinisterMotives

So are you guys denying that it's not patriotic of companies to undermine the welfare of their countrymen by doing those things I mentioned?

wonderwench

I think we are going off topic, but I will make one final comment to answer your question.

I do not think it is unpatriotic to act in one's own self-interest in perfectly legal ways. Your examples are one-sided leaving out the benefits to the people served by such business decisions: shareholders, employees, customers and local merchants with whom employees do business, the community at large supported by the tax base and on and on.

I find that often only the negatives are cited without an equal discovery effort for the positives.

SinisterMotives

Yes, it's a little off topic, but it was a challenge to the line of argument you follow in virtually every topic, so this was as good a place to interject it as any I think.

I can see the benefits to shareholders, obviously, but then again I'd lump them in the same category as those making said decisions because they're the ones who profit from them. Claiming that it benefits employees begs the question, because they're no longer employees if they're thrown out of work when their jobs get moved overseas. Moreover, they're being forced to accept lower pay in order to compete with overseas workers for the same jobs. Many have to avail themselves of government aid while seeking new jobs, which negates other aspects of your argument. In effect, what happens is that the gap between the haves and have-nots widens, as can be seen if you look outside your door. As for increasing the tax base, you've argued here and elsewhere that you'd prefer not to see more of the people's money go into the hands of government, so I'm not sure why you've listed that as a benefit in this case.

Anyway, enough with the sidebar. Back on topic.

ARTelevision

The effects of wealth creation are ultimately available to all. There is no necessary detriment to one's countrymen by the examples given. Of course, for example, when wagon wheels were replaced with wheels powered by internal combustion, there were dislocations in local economies and workers suffered - in the short term. However, the ultimate effects of enlightened wealth creation benefit everyone. That is the historical record and that is the record of capitalism.

It's completely understandable why many citizens incessantly ask for more government programs. It's also completely understandable why those with a desire to be helpful in the ways they believe to be beneficial to the citizenry hold the beliefs they do. None of this is black and white. We're somewhere on a sliding scale between capitalism and socialism

It's pointless to argue pure systems, as they don't exist. We already have more socialist programs in the United States than is commonly noted. They will undoubtedly increase to some degree because they satisfy the political ends of those who promote them. They are ultimately paid for by capitalism. Why bite the hand that feeds you? .

__________________
create evolution

SinisterMotives

All good points, ART. I'll take the last one.

As we've argued already, no one is suggesting that the same level of health care be extended to those who cannot pay as to those who can. To insist on seeing it as all or nothing is also an attempt to paint the picture as "black and white". I don't see that the monetary detriment to capitalists of funding basic health care negates the benefits to society as a whole. That too would be looking at the negative aspects without attempting to discover the positive. Consumers would be better able to buy more consumer goods if they weren't crushed by exorbitant medical costs. As I've said, it would be preferable for the industry to work on reducing the cost to consumers, but they've shown that they're simply not willing to do so.

KMA-628

Sinister,

As I mentioned earlier, we are already spending more money on healthcare (per person) than any other country, whether they provide universal healthcare or not.

Universal healthcare equates to more money being spent. We have already proven that spending more money won't help, otherwise we would be in a better situation today.

We have to fix the problems that ail our healthcare system. Throwing more money at it will only make it worse. For what we are spending on healthcare (related to U.S. expenditures vs. other countries) everybody should have free healthcare. Problem is that there is still a shortage. The information is right in front of our face, continuing a failing trend and spending more money on it will not make it magically work.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

SinisterMotives

KMA, it makes sense that fixing the shortage would help reduce consumer costs. What do you see as the major cause(s) of that shortage?

brianna

you fail to address any of the questions i posed in my post, let me sum up the main one:

Why do you consider it perfectly acceptable for the government to provide equal access to the police, the court system and education but do not think that health care should be treated in the same manner. what makes access to protection, the law and information different than access to BASIC health care?

wonderwench

The police, military and courts are essential services required to support the rule of law. They are there to provide protection against or to address transgressions against an individual's liberty.

Federalized health care is not in the same category. It is a reallocation of one individual's productivity for the sole benefit of a separate individual. In essence, it insitutionalizes the violation of an innocent person's liberty to benefit another. One cannot say the same of the services provided by courts, military and police.

KMA-628

The problem is inherent in your statement. i.e. using the term "Basic".

There would be nothing "basic" about it.

Look at the original model for Medicare and then compare it to how Medicare actually performs.

It goes like this:

If I put a bowl of candy on my desk and label it "Free", my candy will be gone in a short period of time because people well take as much as they can carry (i.e. the "basic" flaw in Medicare)

If I charge a nominal fee for the candy, you will only take as much candy as you can afford.

Making something free does not make it work better because of the laws of demand. As price goes down, demand goes up. If the price goes to zero then demand is at 100%. The only thing to stop the demand cycle is to increase the price, nothing else will do it.

Therefore, there is no way to have free "basic" healthcare, it would naturally be abused.



Sinister,

That is a whole new thread and I can only speculate, I don't have the answers. I can merely interpret the data and tell you if it is flawed or not.

My first opinion is to keep healthcare private. The private sector does a much better job of controlling prices (it is more of a ntaural occurence in the private sector) than the gov't sector. And right now, gov't is funding a great deal of healthcare and creating some of our woes.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

roachboy

so then wonder is fine with the split between the formal and substantive rights.
and it is now clear that the obsession with individual rights does not extend to individuals who are not wealthy.

fine--that is how capitalists and those who carry ideological baggage for them have always defined the inidivudal that matters---those tho work for a wage, who sell their labour power--not to mention the poor, the unemployed---are what marx said they were for capitalists--appendages of the machine--a faceless, anonymous mass whose primary function is to be expoited (the race to the bottom in wage terms is obviously fine---no ethics, no ethical problems, easy--qed even) for example

and if the time comes that they organize or react to the conditions created by a radically unequal distribution of wealth, they become the object of repression by the "necessary" forces of order.

the above position also assumes that there is no--not a shread--of understanding directed at the reality of class stratification, the cultural and economic and social consequences of that stratification.

but conservatives dont like looking that that--they prefer thinking about an abstract fictional world where systematic inequalities do not exist and everything can be reduced to a individual choices.

well, in a situation of unequal conditions, individual choices are not identical. this should be obvious--it pertains to the real world, not the fantasy indulged by right ideology.....

at least the more honest of the conservatives admit that the consequences of their position is relegating those who do not hold capital to a hobbesian state--live nasty brutish and short.


well done---pure early 19th century capitalist barbarism in its undiluted form. the result of a great race backward.

since the people on the right like to talk so much about children--the above position, particularly on questions of basic health care--- really does mean that the lives of the children of the poor, of the part-time worker, of the underemployed, of the unemployed are worth less that those of the children of the wealthy.

that is what it means.

created equal?

bullshit.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

roachboy

final note--more social-democratic version of capitalism came about because the actors--including the elites--thought that stabilizing the system as a whole by trying to reduce inequalities was in the long-term interest of the system as a whole. it was capitalism with a human face--it is interesting to note that this position presupposed at least a glancing acquaintance with the central fact of capitalist reality--that it is a social system, not a series of abstract, empty markets......and that capitalism produced class stratification.

for this viewpoint--hell from any viewpoint that considers capitalism in reality, not some blinkered right substitute--what the american right advocates is totally self-defeating on their own grounds in the longer run.

on this, the situation with health care in the states is symptomatic.
if you really look, you have to see the human costs.
of course, it is better to think about money.
incomprehensible......

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

brianna

there are obvious societal benefits to providing health care to all:

1. contagious disease would be better controlled. -- if more people get treatment for a disease less people will be able to contract it. (obvious example: polio would never have been eradicated if we did not provide children with FREE access to the vaccine, i think we're ALL (even the rich) better off without polio).

2. people would be able to use their resources to pursue avenues other than health care, if someone must devote all of their money and energy to a basic need (such as health) they are not available to the work force or to the consumer marketplace.

3. better access to emergency care for ALL. Right now emergency rooms are overcrowded partially because the uninsured have no other option for care. You cannot get a doctor's appointment without insurance, however you CAN walk into the emergency room. Thus emergency rooms throughout the country are bogged down treating people with non emergency medical needs. Since emergency rooms treat patients on a first come first serve basis (with the exception of obvious need -- if an ambulance arrives with several patients with life threatening injuries they will bumped to the front of the line) the insured person with a broken arm will be forced to wait until the uninsured patient with a slight case of strep throat is done seeing the doctor. If through a state sponsored healthcare program uninsured individuals were given an option for medical care outside of the emergency room everyone would benefit from faster access to care.

4. moral -- i don't think anyone here wants to see people die unnecessarily or even be unluckily saddled with enormous debt. I see no way around this if we continue to deny health care to large portion of the population.


I wonder what those of you arguing against state sponsored health care would suggest as an alternative. it's a fact that a large (and growing) percentage of the US population is without health insurance ("According to figures released in September 2003, almost 44 million people—15.2 percent of the total U.S. population—were uninsured in 2002" -- http://covertheuninsuredweek.org/fac...actSheetID=101) and that without health insurance health care is often economically unreachable. this is an even greater (and i would argue more difficult to defend from a moral stand point) problem in the case of children ("Nearly twenty percent of uninsured Americans – 8.5 million individuals – are children." -- http://covertheuninsuredweek.org/fac...actSheetID=103). so what is your answer to this problem?

the system we have right now makes health care available only to those of us lucky enough to be working for companies that voluntarily (usually, though there are some laws that mandate health benefits) provide health insurance or those wealthy enough to pay for it on their own. should this system be kept in tact? if so, should companies be mandated to provide benefits to all? I find it hard to believe that your answer to the health care crisis in this country is to continue to allow the uninsured to suffer without health care indefinitely.

highthief

Healthcare is free in my country (Canada) - I can virtually guarantee that people (other than the odd hypocondriac) only go to the quack when they need to go to the quack.

Your analogy is faulty - candy is fun and good and having an unlimited supply of candy is also fun. Going to the doctor is generally not fun anymore than seeing the dentist is a bowl of laughs either.

brianna

don't tell me this thread is dead -- i htought we had some pretty good dialog going.

highthief

I killed it! I'm a thread killer...

KMA-628

highthief,

read the analogy entirely, it is not faulty. Also, compare healthcare expenses paid out by the Canadian gov't as compared to healthcare expenses paid out by the U.S. (I am referring to the percent of total budget), there are some interesting things to pull from those facts as well.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there a longer wait to see a doctor in Canada for most procedures?

Obviously there is something wrong when people came to the U.S. for procedures and go to Canada for the prescriptions.

I also read that patients above the age of 55 that need diaysis (sp?) can't get it. I can't remember if that is Canada of the U.K.

I gave a specific example that shows how this has not worked and why it did not work.

Seriously, look at how medicare was created. Look at the model and the plan. Then look at the statistics. You will find that they back up my candy theory 100%--in regards to the U.S. Medicare cost the U.S. many, many times more than was originally anticipated, from the beginning. One of the main causes of this was that way more exams, reports, etc were done than needed to be. Why stop them. The patient gets them for free and the doctor and hospital make more money.

We are only speaking about the U.S. How come we spend a lot more per person on healthcare than Canada does with less coverage? The answer to that question will help you understand my point better.

This is all factual data, nothing is being made up or modified.


Brianna,

Bottom line, while your argument tugs at the heart, it is just not feasible. Throwing more money at the problem will not fix it. You wouldn't do it with your personal finances and you shouldn't expect your gov't to do the same thing. At some point, you have to close the pursestrings and come up with a different method of attack. Especially when the existing method fails miserably.

I want to spend some time with your "facts". That website hasn't really sold me, seems a littled skewed.

I would like to see a percentage that is substantiated by more than one source.

You can really mess with the statistics on something like this by simply changing the requirements. (i.e. In Denver, the percent "homeless" includes people that moved back home with their parents. They are in no way homeless, but the "statistics" count them as such causing the final number to be far from accurate and politically slanted).

I am just not comfortable with your source, yet. Doesn't mean that I won't, it just means I want to see more sources than just one that obviously has a motive to obscure the data.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

KMA-628

o.k., the facts stated by the article appear to be accurate. They agree with the Census bureau.

They breakdown is interesting though:

1. The highest percent of uninsured is 18-34 year-olds. It would be safe to say that a good portion of those could have insurance but choose not to.

2. Less than 1% of people over 65 are uninsured.

3. Nativity — In 2002, the proportion
of the foreign-born population
without health insurance (33.4 percent)
was more than double that of
the native population (12.8 percent).
7 Among the foreign born,
noncitizens were much more likely
than naturalized citizens to lack
coverage — 43.3 percent compared
with 17.5 percent.

4. Almost 20% of people making between $25,000 and $49,999 per year do not have insurance. I made less than $25,000 when I was 19 but still was able to afford health insurance. This income level should be able to afford health insurance. I did it for many, many years and that was with a wife, kids, dog, etc, etc.

5. Education was the biggest split. 28% of those not insured did not even have a high school diploma. The percent uninsured dropped 30% for people that just had a high school diploma. (a diploma really isn't a major achievement in this day and age). The number dropped another whopping 65% if they graduated college.

While the percentage sure looks interesting, the info behind the facts tells a whole lot more.

Should I, as a tax paying citizen, pay for the healthcare of a non-taxpaying non-citizen? I don't believe so. And I am pretty certain, if I were to go to their country that I wouldn't receive any handouts. Just remove this portion of the equation and the "percent uninsured" drops significantly.


LINKY

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.