The Pending Doom of Obamacare

[Just_A_Guy]

. . . it really does contribute to bankruptcy. . .

Umm . . . bankruptcy is a process by which debts are forgiven--often without the debtor paying a dime. Please quit using scare words and try to at least have an elementary understanding of the terms you use in your fear-mongering.

and it really does exclude about 20% of the population.

Not if you count a) the people who already qualify for Medicaid or similar programs, and b) the people who just plain don't want it. This has already been pointed out to you. Your insistence on parroting that number is beginning to smack of dishonesty.

No one is answering the question of which is more Christ-like. I asked the question and all I am getting back are these extremely silly analogy about putting guns to peoples head that do not exist in real life setting.

Really?

What happens if a Canadian just says "I'm not paying for this"?

He gets a fine?

What if he refuses to pay the fine?

He goes to jail?

What if he tries to run?

Universal health care works only because of government's power to compel, which ultimately lies with its power to deprive people of their property, their liberty, and (if they continue to resist) their lives. Put a velvet glove on it if you like--there's still an iron fist underneath it.

So let me answer it. I believe that because I was born in an extremely rich country (United States) that because I have so many wealthy privlesges – even growing up lower-middleclass that I think it is more Christ-like to pay more taxes, so the less fortunate can have basic health care coverage.

Of course, it would be more Christ-like still to contribute to private charities to do the job.

Dash, have you run the numbers on how much a single-payer system would raise your taxes? If so--are you contributing the difference to charity right now? Because if you aren't, then your moral high ground evaporates and you just become another one of the hoardes of Americans who are out to spend other people's money.

. . . and does not cause people like me to end up dirt poor.

And thus your moral high ground erodes still further, into a textbook case of class envy.

They use scriptures and gospel doctrines for self benefit, which in the book of Mormon is known as priest craft.

You just admitted that universal health care would benefit your financial bottom line.

Physician, heal thyself.

I am still waiting to hear others reply to the question of which health care system is more Christ-like.

The answer is "neither". They aren't supposed to be--they're worldly governments.

Argue basic morality and economics all you want--make a good case, and I'll agree with you. But if you start trying to impose government policy on solely religious (even Mormon) grounds, I'll oppose you every step of the way. The US is not a theocracy, and ought not to become one until Christ Himself is available to govern it directly.

Edited February 10, 2011 by Just_A_Guy

[Guest]

DASH!

Listen up.

Your idea that the government is the ONLY Christ-like source of Charity is stupid.

But, I understand now why you throw the Christ-card around... you became dirt poor, so now you want somebody to make you rich again. And, of course, you're desecrating Christ's doctrine to achieve it. Okay, I get it.

I have a suggestion for you. MOVE TO CANADA!

[bytebear]

The problem with this debate is that those who want universal health coverage try to blur the lines by implying that there isn't universal health care. That is simply not the case. Every single person who is within the borders of the United States will be given health care, regardless of ability to pay. They may not get the top of the line care, but they will get care.

One of my best friends has been unemployed for three years. He was recently diagnosed with cancer. He had surgery, and is now on chemo. The hospital he went to had metal detectors at the entrance. The rooms had bars and locks. It was the hospital they use for prison inmates. He shared his room with two gang bangers who didn't speak English. It wasn't ideal, but he is being cared for.

[talisyn]

I'll see your friend with cancer and raise you 4 women who work in gas stations who can't get their teeth fixed because they can't pay the $107.00/tooth extraction.

I hope your friend gets better.

Basically, it's all subjective. If you have no money or insurance people in the ER will tell you if your problem will get fixed by them or not. Obvious heart attack will be taken care of. Undefined chest pains will get you a prescription for heartburn medicine. Fact is if you don't have insurance you will be told what can be fixed and what can't, and you better be grateful you get even that

Edited February 11, 2011 by talisyn

[Just_A_Guy]

Hey, Talisyn - give me a door and a piece of string and I'll do the extraction for $20!

I recognize the situations, but again--lots of times, there are financial aid alternatives and just plain nice guys who will do the work for cheaper when you explain the situation. Granted, finding those alternatives calls for tenacity, persistence, and occasionally the willingness to be aggressive--some of the same traits you need in dealing with government bureaucracies.

[Saldrin]

I'll see your friend with cancer and raise you 4 women who work in gas stations who can't get their teeth fixed because they can't pay the $107.00/tooth extraction.

I hope your friend gets better.

Basically, it's all subjective. If you have no money or insurance people in the ER will tell you if your problem will get fixed by them or not. Obvious heart attack will be taken care of. Undefined chest pains will get you a prescription for heartburn medicine. Fact is if you don't have insurance you will be told what can be fixed and what can't, and you better be grateful you get even that

A lot of dentists will arrange payment plans... your ER comment is subjective opinion not a fact.

[dash77]

Just-a-guy:

You have a completely oversimplified perspective and I’m sure it helps you justify your potion against government health care.

Talysin is correct, the type of help you get is subjective if you do not have health care. In Bytebaears situation, his friend was given treatment, in my friend’s situation he was left to die. Persona stories views are not helpful, for every good story out there (such as Bytebear) t, there is another bad one. Replying on person experience is not a good method to understand good public policy.

Real top-notch research is the only true indicator and credible research suggests that 20% of the U.S population does not have insurance and 18,000 people DIED due to lack of health care in the United States. These numbers are from real research documents. Some of you can babble, anyone can write whatever they want on this website, and people can quote Thomas Payne and Ronald Reagan. Others can try to make completely silly analogous. The real problem with this debate is that few people debating have the skills to understand research.

But the truth of the matter is this. 18,000 people die in the United States each year because of lack of health insurance and that is because the health industry wants to make millions of dollars. These are not made up figures. At one time of my life I believed the American medical propaganda that is has the best medical treatment in the world. But when I learned medical and health research skiisl, including how to interpret medical research, I learned it has major problems. Of the advanced countries, the United States is the only country that lets people die – thousand – for profit. No other advanced nation does this. And the Canadian example clearly outlines – through research – that is a little more advanced and superior in treatment that America and its an example of a successful government run program. I have no problem with free market ideals in other areas – such as the auto industry – but government health care is more effective and is clearly more Christ-like.

The bottom line is this – in the United States people have chosen profit over remedying illness and suffering because the people would like to save more money on taxes so they can continue to live a wealthy life (and by global standards even someone in the bottom middle class are filthy rich). There is nothing Christ-like about wanting to save money though taxation so that 18,000 people die. I think it’s much more Christ-like to pay more in takes to relive suffering and prevent 18,000 deaths a year. I have no problems paying more taxes that are specifically dedicated to universal health care.

With this said, I think it’s time for me to exist this discussion. It’s becoming circular and I think my rootedness in research oriented proof does not match with others perceptive of a good discussion. However, let me make one last point – and I know I am repeating. I am for free market and I have no problem with people making profit – outside of health care. I think health care needs to be marked off and I really think the Canadian example is best (I have seen the research and have lived in both the United States and Canada). And in all honesty, I really think its a much more Christ-like public policy.

[talisyn]

*sigh* yeah the ER comment was subjective. Not everyone treats the poor as burdens. There are some who will do dental work when you qualify for a line of credit through their offices. There are some hospitals that do not have a big sign on the window of the emergency room office 'Payment for services is expected at time of service'.

[Just_A_Guy]

Dash, even assuming your numbers are correct: It would take over a thousand years for the number of purported deaths from our lack of universal health care to begin to approach the number of people killed by one Stalinist regime.

If you think that, within a thousand years, government would not use its power to allocate health care in order to set up an absolutist state--I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd be willing to sell you.

You speak of preventative care for the individual. I speak of preventative care for liberty. Baldly put: freedom costs lives, even in peacetime. People die so that you can drive a car. People die because you use coal-generated electricity. People die because your life consumes resources that are desperately needed in other corners of the world. People die for your right to use lethal force to defend yourself and your family. Children die for your right to have a bathtub or a swimming pool, to have power in your home, to have your water heated by the combustion of poisonous gasses, to utilize ordinary household cleaners, and to rid your home of insects and rodents. Untold thousands die for your right to eat foods prepared with meat, cream, butter, or (heaven forbid) hydrogenated oils.

How is it that the deaths that could be prevented by reductions in your standard of living are acceptable, but the deaths that could be prevented by reductions in the standard of living of others are heinous atrocities?

I hope the private sector will rise to the challenges that are before us. But even if it doesn't, and even if those numbers are right, and even if those deaths keep happening--and even if, for the next half-century or so, our system is and continues to be inferior to what our neighbors to the North [mone of which I believe, by the way] - frankly, it's acceptable loss.

Rail against me all you want, if you will. Your use of an electrically-powered computer to do so, your repeated reference to your post-graduate degree (how many starving children could that tuition money have fed?), and your continued residence in a first-world country indicates that you either a) have completed the same cold calculus that you try to condemn from me, or b) simply choose not to see that which is inconvenient for you.

Edited February 12, 2011 by Just_A_Guy

[dash77]

Just a guy:

You are so absolutely blinded by an ideaology its scary. Canada and the Canadain model of health care is not a Stalinist regime and is not an absolutist country. Related to this subject, you thinking is either extremly fundamentalist or extremly dysfuntional that has no connection to reality (or maybe both). Canada is a democracy that has a government run health care system supported by free people. It is not Stalinist not like the old Soviet Union. Its a real democracy where the people have chosen national health care due to its clear benefits of helping others.

[Guest]

My dad (in the Philippines) got diagnosed with lung cancer yesterday. His first statement to his kids after finding out: Don't worry about the money, I'm prepared for this. My sister's statement (she's in the US): Yeah, we won't worry about the money, coz we're prepared too. The approximate cost of chemo treatment - $25,000 per treatment - once a month. Yikes.

Therefore, Dash, I am praying that my taxes will not increase to pay for you guys's healthcare, because I need that money to keep my dad alive. He is Filipino.

Edited February 12, 2011 by anatess

[Saldrin]

*sigh* yeah the ER comment was subjective. Not everyone treats the poor as burdens. There are some who will do dental work when you qualify for a line of credit through their offices. There are some hospitals that do not have a big sign on the window of the emergency room office 'Payment for services is expected at time of service'.

And there are dental offices that arrange payment with out a line of credit and hospitals are required to give out so much in care in charity a year as was pointed out earlier in the thread.... ignoring all the largess and charity work and the laws that people have to be treated and charity care given out you may be on to something but probably not. Not everyone treats the poor as burdens? so your subjective view is that everyone treats the poor as burdens? giving out charity care is treating them like a burden? better to make everyone equally poor under a bad system so no one can afford to be charitable and help their brother out?

Edited February 12, 2011 by Saldrin
added some thoughts

[Saldrin]

With this said, I think it’s time for me to exist this discussion. It’s becoming circular and I think my rootedness in research oriented proof does not match with others perceptive of a good discussion. However, let me make one last point – and I know I am repeating. I am for free market and I have no problem with people making profit – outside of health care. I think health care needs to be marked off and I really think the Canadian example is best (I have seen the research and have lived in both the United States and Canada). And in all honesty, I really think its a much more Christ-like public policy.

You made it circular. once again health care is a product, not a right and you have no research or a link would have been provided with earlier statements, what you are posting is purely how you see things.

[Saldrin]

Just a guy:

You are so absolutely blinded by an ideaology its scary. Canada and the Canadain model of health care is not a Stalinist regime and is not an absolutist country. Related to this subject, you thinking is either extremly fundamentalist or extremly dysfuntional that has no connection to reality (or maybe both). Canada is a democracy that has a government run health care system supported by free people. It is not Stalinist not like the old Soviet Union. Its a real democracy where the people have chosen national health care due to its clear benefits of helping others.

Dash your projecting yourself...

[Just_A_Guy]

Just a guy:

You are so absolutely blinded by an ideaology its scary. Canada and the Canadain model of health care is not a Stalinist regime and is not an absolutist country.

I think you meant "enlightened by history".

Name me one nation that's gone for a thousand years without falling into an absolutist-type of government.

Heck, name me a nation that's made it for half that period.

You don't give government a power without the expectation that, sooner or later, government will use that power against you.

Canada is a democracy that has a government run health care system supported by free people.

How long do you think that will last? One century? Two?

In your rush to create an all-powerful government capable of building utopia, you forget that worldly governments are subject to, not superior to, human nature.

Political history is not an inexorable march towards liberty, fraternity, and equality. Oppression and tyranny are not extinct; they're just waiting in the wings for conditions under which they can flourish again. People who give government powers on the assumption that democracy will last forever, are like the man who builds a beach-house at the low-tide mark and is then confused when the house is flooded twelve hours later.

Edited February 12, 2011 by Just_A_Guy

[talisyn]

And there are dental offices that arrange payment with out a line of credit and hospitals are required to give out so much in care in charity a year as was pointed out earlier in the thread.... ignoring all the largess and charity work and the laws that people have to be treated and charity care given out you may be on to something but probably not. Not everyone treats the poor as burdens? so your subjective view is that everyone treats the poor as burdens? giving out charity care is treating them like a burden? better to make everyone equally poor under a bad system so no one can afford to be charitable and help their brother out?

Name them.

[Just_A_Guy]

I can name you a dentist, a urologist, a reproductive endocrinologist, and a hospital in the Salt Lake County area that gave my family markdowns from 50-90% when I was a broke law student. I'd rather not name them in this forum - as a professional myself, I have painful experience with the results of becoming widely known as a discount-service provider--but I'd be happy to PM you the details.

Edited February 12, 2011 by Just_A_Guy

[Saldrin]

Name them.

Well my dentist helped my family out that way when I was a kid and could not afford to pay it all the once arranged for my family to make payments over six months so this family of 8 could get dental care. My friend did the same thing with his dentist when he had to have his broken tooth fixed. And no i will not give out there names on the internet. Open a phone book call 100 dentists and ask. Do research, instead of making an assumption. Heck i have even been to a "donated dental" clinic were the dentist donate their time to provide care.

[bytebear]

Another acquaintance had an appendectomy with no insurance. He not only got the surgery even though they knew he would never be able to pay out poof pocket for it, a large chunk of the community rallied around him setting up a fund to help pay the bill. Through word of mouth, someone savvy enough to know how to work with the system had the procedure cost dropped to something he could afford. The current system works without government pulling all the strings.

if you don't think enough people are getting dental care, then set up a fund to help those in the situation you deem appropriate. Don't just wait for the government to solve the problem. We are so lucky in the US to have a government that allows it's citizens to solve their own problems. Take advantage of that. it is a rare thing.

[Saintmichaeldefendthem1]

The current system works without government pulling all the strings.

This always confuses and befuddles the left. It escapes their imagination that society wouldn't immediately fall apart without the government controlling every detail of our lives.

[Just_A_Guy]

Darned invisible hand. Can't see it--must not be there--so how does this "economy" thing work again?

[Saintmichaeldefendthem1]

Ask any of these libs what the Invisible Hand is. You'll get a blank stare.

Ask who Adam Smith is and they'll tell you it's a rock band full of emaciated druggies.

[HoosierGuy]

Ask any of these libs what the Invisible Hand is. You'll get a blank stare.

Ask who Adam Smith is and they'll tell you it's a rock band full of emaciated druggies.

Is this "invisible hand" going to protect the Chinese babies and kids after they eat plastic rice that is supposedly being produced by some Chinese companies in Shaanxi province? I bet not.

[FunkyTown]

I think you meant "enlightened by history".

Name me one nation that's gone for a thousand years without falling into an absolutist-type of government.

Heck, name me a nation that's made it for half that period.

You don't give government a power without the expectation that, sooner or later, government will use that power against you.

How long do you think that will last? One century? Two?

JAG? This is the best argument ever for limiting government power. I am in fierce, absolute agreement with it.

The problem, though, is that many people arguing from this standpoint are concentrating on economic freedoms while ignoring civic freedoms.

Universal health care - Long term potential bad consequences: Government can decide who deserves to live and die because they control health care. That's bad. If you get unhealthy, or old, they can decide you don't deserve treatment. That's not currently an issue, but with an aging populace, I can see how that could be a natural consequence of dealing with the economic strain of a national declining health.

How many people arguing against universal health care now were arguing against the Patriot Act, which allows the government to arrest someone without evidence and imprison them without trial for an unspecified length of time.

When you give a government a power, you give that power to every iteration of government from then on. Even if you trust the current administration(Which many here don't, but as a for instance), when you pass a law you must take in to account that the future will include bad governments and people who want personal power. That's the nature of the beast. When that happens, that government won't say 'Hey - We could really abuse this power'. They will, instead, simply abuse the power.

I think there would be more support for your view if there were more internal consistency with the argument. Instead, it almost seems like a chant of 'Taxes bad' drowns out any counterarguments - A stance not everyone takes.

[Just_A_Guy]

FT, I fully agree with you.

We pay a price for our system of checks and balances, for the distribution of power among the three branches of government. It is a price that today may seem exorbitant to many. Today, a kindly President uses the seizure power to effect a wage increase and to keep the steel furnaces in production. Yet tomorrow, another President might use the same power to prevent a wage increase, to curb trade unionists, to regiment labor as oppressively as industry thinks it has been regimented by this seizure.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 633-634 (1952).

I think some conservatives might argue that the threat of another - even multiple - 9/11's, to some degree, created a greater national emergency than the health care crisis does. From a utilitarian standpoint, they may be right (if the feds ever release a comprehensive listing of exactly how many plots they were able to foil because of the tools they got under the Patriot Act).

But more and more conservatives are realizing their distaste for the Patriot Act (now that they're in the minority, of course!). Enough of them in the House jumped ship earlier this month, that it looks like the Patriot Act may die by the end of the month.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Just_A_Guy