Universal Healthcare


Tyme
 Share

Recommended Posts

Explain correct, fact based explanations for two things and I'll go along with you on the idea that everyone has the God-given right to free healthcare no matter the cost.

1) How do you avoid slavery?  i.e. how do you keep from making doctors and other healthcare workers to work for wages that they were unable to negotiate of their own will?
2) How do you avoid the basis of government run healthcare from being anything other than: I have a right to make YOU pay for my wants and needs? IOW, the stuff that you have actually belongs to me if I need/want it badly enough.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Vort said:

There is no such thing. Those who claim there is are either deluded or lying.

I gues you’re right there is no such thing now. In the future there will be. If you want to explain how universal healthcare wouldn’t cover everybody I’d be willing to read it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Explain correct, fact based explanations for two things and I'll go along with you on the idea that everyone has the God-given right to free healthcare no matter the cost.

1) How do you avoid slavery?  i.e. how do you keep from making doctors and other healthcare workers to work for wages that they were unable to negotiate of their own will?
2) How do you avoid the basis of government run healthcare from being anything other than: I have a right to make YOU pay for my wants and needs? IOW, the stuff that you have actually belongs to me if I need/want it badly enough.

 

As soon as you get back to me on my trans economic question I’ll get back to you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Letting the government run anything, usually makes things worse, not better.  Exceptions are waging war, treaties, the justice system, levying taxes.  Maybe roads.  Maybe industry regulation or the occasional social issue, but not nearly as often as we might think.

For everything else, the whole "Imma go vote to spend other people's money on things so that I can get re-elected" stuff usually turns out worse than a free market solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had access to a world-class pediatric surgeon, just at the right time.  She told my wife that if the govt kept expanding their nose in her business, she'd quit and leave the country.  So my daughter got her operation.  It came time for a follow-up visit, and there was a problem scheduling it.  Apparently, the doc had had enough with the way things were going in the states, quit her practice, and left the country.   I told my wife, she said "Huh - I guess she went through with it."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The charitable, "wants to eliminate human suffering" part of me votes yay. The part of me that is suspicious of government and bureaucracies (even the for profit bureaucracies), doesn't know who to put in charge of delivering universal healthcare. Government? non-profits? for profits? I would venture to guess that most of us want everyone to have affordable access to healthcare. I think most of the disagreement is around which bureaucracy to put in charge of delivering health care to all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since you're not going to have a serious conversation about this, I'll explain some things.

1) "Universal Healthcare" is a magical sounding term that has been the siren call of the downtrodden and oppressed liberal for over a decade now.  But it doesn't really mean anything.  If you mean that you want "health insurance" for all, then I'd really like to see the economics of that and see if the math works.  It never will.

If you mean that everyone can receive healthcare without effort, then it truly is magical.  I believe if we lived in a world where the Spirit of the Lord was unrestrained and the power of the priesthood were had by all, then this would be a reality.

Short of that, it is not something that can be achieved without Star Trek level technology (which in reality is about 5000 years away).

2) Short of currently unavailable technology or Godly power providing that healthcare, we are left with the question of the freedom of all players involved and the proper rationing of goods and services to all who need it. 

If you want government to be that arbiter, then you have just given absolute power into the hands of government.  Good luck finding just and virtuous men to run such a regime.

If you force doctors to do things they find morally abhorrent (abortions) then you're enslaving them into doing things they, through divine command, refuse to do.  You're enslaving them.

If you force doctors to perform their work for less than their costs, then you're enslaving them without paying them.

3) Any type of socialism starts out with the notion: I have a right to your stuff simply because I need it more than you.  Then you have people with different definitions of "need".  Rocket Racoon.  This means that socialism at its core is simply legalized theft.  If you have a society based on that, it is only a matter of four or five generations before that people devolves into a corrupt society where property and liberty means nothing.  Merge that with healthcare, and you get a society where life means nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

The charitable, "wants to eliminate human suffering" part of me votes yay. The part of me that is suspicious of government and bureaucracies (even the for profit bureaucracies), doesn't know who to put in charge of delivering universal healthcare. Government? non-profits? for profits? I would venture to guess that most of us want everyone to have affordable access to healthcare. I think most of the disagreement is around which bureaucracy to put in charge of delivering health care to all.

That makes sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These arguments always come back to a bait and switch...  They flow like this... Pick a topic most people will agree with (Say like helping the Poor and Needy)... then once you know everyone agrees then you pick a method (in this case Universal Healthcare) as an answer to that topic.  Then when any one disagrees or points out problem with the method ignore the points made and instead attack them for be an heartless monster who does not care about the topic.

Such a bait and switch is fundamentally dishonest and I see no reason to engage such people

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Barrett Maximus said:

Are there doctrinal reasons for or against free or at least affordable health care?

Free?  There's no such thing as Free.  1 Cor 6:20 - even your very life was bought for a price.

So how about you tell me how you go about making something free?  Or even "affordable"?  Because, an affordable house in San Francisco is $1M while that's unaffordable in Houston.

Edited by anatess2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I don't want everyone to have health insurance.  I want everyone to have access to treatment.  If you can't tell the difference, or just never thought of it before, it's worth thinking about long and hard.

Health insurance is not healthcare.

My dad did not have health insurance.  He had health care.

Lots of people under Obamacare got health insurance but did not get health care (can't afford the deductibles).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My brother has 6 kids and is self-employed.  i think he has catastrophic health coverage, but he has more than enough liability before all that kicks in to put him back financially for a decade or more.  A staunch republican (or was, before Trump), he told me once that his view of things changed radically one night when his child was sort-of ill and he had decide whether to go into the emergency room or not, knowing that he didn't have enough money to pay.  

i'm for universal healthcare in theory.  There are quite a few nations where the citizens report overall satisfaction with their universal healthcare.  However, In practice in the US, i'm not sure.  i have a feeling like universal healthcare may work as well here as democracy does in Iraq.  The theory is great (even ideal), but without people accustomed to the processes (something that takes a very, very , very long time), things don't work very well.  i work with many people from India, and they express amazement that people actually follow the traffic rules here.  That most people don't just blow by red lights.  But it all only works if everyone following the rule is as much cultural as it is legal.  

Our hybrid system is an expensive monster.  But it's moderately monstrous to most of both sides - rather than entirely demonic to one or the other.  There are lots of outliers though - and i know those people really are destroyed financially by it.

i tend to think the maxim that "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat—and wrong." applies here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

My brother has 6 kids and is self-employed.  i think he has catastrophic health coverage, but he has more than enough liability before all that kicks in to put him back financially for a decade or more.  A staunch republican (or was, before Trump), he told me once that his view of things changed radically one night when his child was sort-of ill and he had decide whether to go into the emergency room or not, knowing that he didn't have enough money to pay.  

Your brother wanted to force people to pay for his child's emergency care.  And that's the problem - it is very easy to be accused of "you want my kid to die" if you don't agree that people should be forced to give their money to be managed by somebody else.  Nothing is stopping anybody from giving money for somebody's healthcare.  If my kid would get sick and I didn't have enough money to pay for it, I can call on my family and friends worldwide to help and those who can, will.  I wouldn't have to force them to give their money to a bureaucracy who can't even keep illegal immigrants out of the country.

Okay, you can call me heartless now.

Edited by anatess2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Barrett Maximus said:

Are there doctrinal reasons for or against free or at least affordable health care?

"Affordable Health Care" of course not.  But who brought that up?  I don't think anyone here would mind having affordable health care.  Why on earth would there be anything wrong with that?

It's this mystical unicorn "Universal Healthcare".  Provide a proper definition and we'll address that definition.  BTW, some definitions would be perfectly fine.  But just what does it mean to you?  Define it and we can have a rational logical discussion about it.  Without a definition, we're just wrestling with the wind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

There are quite a few nations where the citizens report overall satisfaction with their universal healthcare.

Statistically this will always be the case because the majority of people are healthy.  Take a pool from only those who suffer from a treatable but incurable medical condition; I hypothesize a different result.

Edited by person0
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Your brother wanted to force people to pay for his child's emergency care.  And that's the problem - it is very easy to be accused of "you want my kid to die" if you don't agree that people should be forced to give their money to be managed by somebody else.  Nothing is stopping anybody from giving money for somebody's healthcare.  If my kid would get sick and I didn't have enough money to pay for it, I can call on my family and friends worldwide to help and those who can, will.  I wouldn't have to force them to give their money to a bureaucracy who can't even keep illegal immigrants out of the country.

 Okay, you can call me heartless now.

Thank-you.

Fair points.  No, you aren't heartless.  There's more to one side than a coin, and i readily acknowledge that.  Just expressing an alternative point of view.  i tend to think that is not what my brother was thinking or wanting, but i can't imagine disagreeing would do any good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, lostinwater said:

Thank-you.

Fair points.  No, you aren't heartless.  There's more to one side than a coin, and i readily acknowledge that.  Just expressing an alternative point of view.  i tend to think that is not what my brother was thinking or wanting, but i can't imagine disagreeing would do any good.

I am fairly certain that's not what your brother was thinking or wanting either.  Sick children have a way of making parents myopic.

My Filipino experience has given me the perspective that your American problems (healthcare, education, nutrition, poverty, crime rate, homelessness etc.) are a by-product of the dissolution of the family.  It is unfortunate that a country as rich as the USA would have these problems when going back to a culture of traditional families addresses these issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • pam featured this topic
  • pam unfeatured this topic

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share