Health Care: Right, Privilege or Responsibility

[Dak]

You clearly missed the point so I am going to ignore your juvenile attempts at personal attacks and try to shine some light on this subject for you.
IF it is your/my responsibility to take care of people that are less fortunate than us, where does the line get drawn? No matter where it would get drawn there would still be someone left out, someone "uncared for". So the other options is to not draw a line, and if you don't draw a line the result IS ludicrous, which makes the whole concept bad.
The bottom line is no one should be made to take care of someone else unless they are already personally responsible (IE: a father/mother is responsible for their children until they are of a legal age).

 

[AchrisK]

Ironically the same people claiming lack of universal health care is "denying people life" are usually the same who are "pro-choice". Doublethink.

word

 

[Einherjar86]

Doublethink.

I wonder what George Orwell would say...

 

[SentinelSlain]

Historically, when did the idea that someone other than you should pay for your own health care?

It doesn't seem to me like free or cheap health care should ever be a right. I think this entitlement mindset (in many areas, not just health care) only weakens our country.

I do think we should try to make health care available for those who cannot afford it, but for the most part it should be like clinics and whatnot. Maybe doctors could be required or encouraged to give some time to these places. But I don't think that Joe Welfare is entitled to the same health care as Jim Engineer who works hard and pays for a portion of his own health care.

Jim Engineer works a lot harder than Baron Jim Jim Jimington (a spin on my own name actually) but can't afford the medication for his illness that would keep him in work so he has to leave and, no longer able to afford any treatment, dies 15 years early and never sees his grandchildren.

I like the way we get free healthcare in the country.

 

[Dak]

Unfortunate. But still doesn't make morally justify theft, which is what government social programs are.

 

[SentinelSlain]

That act of taking the money used is called tax. If people are willing to let other people (mostly people MUCH richer than them) pay for their children's primary education then they should be willing to pay, in part, for them to get hospital treatment.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

You can't have a mixed capitalistic/socialistic society and have it work. Right now we have a a mixed system, where those who work are rewarded but those who don't are still rewarded to some degree. This system cannot last forever, as soon as the scales tip in the favor of those not producing, it collapses, and since there is no real incentive for most people to work if they don't have too, a mixed system will inevitably lead to the collapse we see now.
The only way it won't collapse is when everyone works for the government and has everything provided by the government.....it's called Communism. No thanks.

You said


Bottom line, you want one person to foot someone else's bill. This is bullshit. Besides the fact you made no definition of what being a "wealthier person" is, you failed to give a reason why any nonworking or maybe just a "not-wealthy" working person has the right to a service they can't afford at the expense of someone else.
To claim its callous to demand to keep what I earn is ludicrous at best. Taking one person's honest earned income to give to someone else is nothing more than THEFT, regardless of its purpose.

Examples:
Public Education
Welfare
Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security

These are all things I have money taken from me by force for and recieve nothing in return. Adding "universal healthcare" to the list even if in place of medicare/aid is still MORALLY wrong.

No I don't, so why should I pay for them? Whether or not someone in my family is receiving benfit is beside the point.

Federal/state employees are covered under other programs (I am in the military so Im familier at least with that), and are a different matter than non-govt employees.

Why is it morally wrong to recieve better care if you can pay more it. IE: Not being able to afford a prosthetic etc. If someone wants to willingly donate to ease someone elses burden I don't have a problem with that. Thats the purpose of charities. Giving shouldn't be forced though, which is what it is now.

Unfortunate. But still doesn't make morally justify theft, which is what government social programs are.

You seem to think that pure capitalism is inherently the fairest possible way to run an economy, but you are ignoring the fact that people with more assets automatically have an unfair advantage over people with fewer assets. Partial redistribution of wealth is the only way society can compensate for the lack of opportunity that poor people have relative to rich people. This is a fundamental truth about economics, and also the reason why there are no purely capitalistic societies in the world. Please get this into your head.

 

[Dak]

Taxes for things everyone benefits from, like the military, is fine. Taxes to support the unfunctional, regardless of the reason, is legalized Robin-Hooding, which is still theft.
Charities exist for a reason, well meaning individuals can use that option if they feel so inclined to help out the Jim Engineers of the world. Charity should not be forced, then it isn't charity.

 

[Dak]

You seem to think that pure capitalism is inherently the fairest possible way to run an economy, but you are ignoring the fact that people with more assets automatically have an unfair advantage over people with fewer assets. Partial redistribution of wealth is the only way society can compensate for the lack of opportunity that poor people have relative to rich people. This is a fundamental truth about economics, and also the reason why there are no purely capitalistic societies in the world. Please get this into your head.

Yes people with more assets do have an advantage, not ignoring that at all. And my reply is so what? I think Bill Gates did a pretty good job against companies with way more assets when he started. Is it harder? Absolutely. But why does that mean the less fortunate deserve a free ride?

The reason no pure capitalistic economy exists probably has more to do with the inherent desire of any government to wrap its tenticles around everything it can more so than the ability of the system to succeed.

 

[MasterOLightning]

A pure libertarian capitalist society is just as much a pipe dream as pure communism. If we took pure libertarian policy, the result would be rapid stratification and ghetto-ization, which is starting to happen a lot anyway. Our greed-driven economic problems have a lot to do with libertarian values.

As far as health care goes, I was not all that clear on how either candidate's policy was going to work in particular. I think Obama is trying to find a middle ground between private and socialized medicine, because UHC is not really palatable to a lot of the public yet.

 

[Dak]

A pure libertarian capitalist society is just as much a pipe dream as pure communism. If we took pure libertarian policy, the result would be rapid stratification and ghetto-ization, which is starting to happen a lot anyway. Our greed-driven economic problems have a lot to do with libertarian values.

As far as health care goes, I was not all that clear on how either candidate's policy was going to work in particular. I think Obama is trying to find a middle ground between private and socialized medicine, because UHC is not really palatable to a lot of the public yet.

Well yes it's a pipe dream because no government is going to relinquish control it already has, and the majority of the civilized world is quite used to being babied so concepts of individual responsibility are VERY unappealing. However, to claim the US economic problems are a result of the capitalistic half instead of the government intervention side is rediculous.
And the US isn't anywhere near libertarian so don't even bring that up.

 

[AchrisK]

A pure libertarian capitalist society is just as much a pipe dream as pure communism. If we took pure libertarian policy, the result would be rapid stratification and ghetto-ization, which is starting to happen a lot anyway. Our greed-driven economic problems have a lot to do with libertarian values.

No form of government containing humans will ever be carried out the way it was intended. The problem is greed and selfishness. I guess we have to find the best ways to make our country work, keeping that fact in mind.

Whoever says that humans are basically good is basically wrong.

 

[Matt]

The US has had socialistic programs for ages, and tbh an entirely capitalistic society in the US is inconceivable. Health care of some sort is most certainly a right; I don't understand why anyone would think differently.

 

[SentinelSlain]

Whoever says that humans are basically good is basically wrong.

People say things like that to cover up their own immorality.

 

[MasterOLightning]

Well yes it's a pipe dream because no government is going to relinquish control it already has, and the majority of the civilized world is quite used to being babied so concepts of individual responsibility are VERY unappealing. However, to claim the US economic problems are a result of the capitalistic half instead of the government intervention side is rediculous.
And the US isn't anywhere near libertarian so don't even bring that up.

Are you saying that you think a pure libertarian society (in the sense of a bare minimum of services like defense, police, judicial, etc.) would work well?

Unless someone wants to convince me otherwise, I'm pretty sure that deregulation has been a source of a lot of the current economic problems. Deregulation is absolutely a libertarian idea. I suppose you are correct in saying government intervention was a problem in that it was the gov't that enacted deregulation. Do you actually think if the gov't had done less in the last 10-20 years that we'd be ok now?

 

[Matt]

Are you saying that you think a pure libertarian society (in the sense of a bare minimum of services like defense, police, judicial, etc.) would work well?

Unless someone wants to convince me otherwise, I'm pretty sure that deregulation has been a source of a lot of the current economic problems. Deregulation is absolutely a libertarian idea. I suppose you are correct in saying government intervention was a problem in that it was the gov't that enacted deregulation. Do you actually think if the gov't had done less in the last 10-20 years that we'd be ok now?

Agreed 100%. Deregulation in the banking industry has been catastrophic.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Yes people with more assets do have an advantage, not ignoring that at all. And my reply is so what? I think Bill Gates did a pretty good job against companies with way more assets when he started. Is it harder? Absolutely. But why does that mean the less fortunate deserve a free ride?

Because most people can't get ahead in society if they can barely afford to pay their bills, much less send their kids to school. Can you imagine how much less education poor people would have in the U.S. if we did not fund public schools? Poor parents would be spending that money for more immediate gains - or just blowing it on alcohol and lottery tickets.

Please just face the reality that it's absurdly unfair to allow wealthy people to control the entire economy and to keep the poor barely scraping by to survive. Every democratic government in the world has already accepted this reality.

Also, your use of Bill Gates as an example is ludicrous because Gates came from a well-off family. If his family grew up in the inner city and was living on minimum-wage income with no government benefits, he would not have had shitloads of electronic toys lying around to play with.

The reason no pure capitalistic economy exists probably has more to do with the inherent desire of any government to wrap its tenticles around everything it can more so than the ability of the system to succeed.

If that were really the aim of the government, it would not be "wrapping its tenticles" around non-profit public services like education and health care. It would be focusing on business acquisitions.

 

[AchrisK]

People say things like that to cover up their own immorality.

Are you implying that me saying that is me trying to cover up my own immorality? Or are you saying that people who say that "humans are basically good" are doing so to cover up their immorality?

==

EDIT @ vihris-gari: Who is that in your avatar?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Christian Vander, the drummer and bandleader of Magma.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

Why anyone would want the Gov't meddling in more shit than they already are blows my mind. People need to man the fuck up and take care of their own shit and stop wanting to be baby-sat by a government. Pure fucking laziness and lack of responsibility on an individual level.

Thank you.