Healthcare

[dsheinem]

Sorry, Mr. P, but you are still coming across as selfish. Perhaps capitalism is an amoral system, but does that mean our politics have to follow suit?

My morality comes from my religion. Do you want me to inject my morality into my politics? I thought that was a big complaint while Bush was in office.

Also, I don't see how what Mr. Popo describes is Social Darwinism.

Yes, I know full well what Social Darwinsim is, and MrPopo's argument has some of those same underpinnings, even if he is coming at it from an economic standpoint. You don't want to go down the social or cultural theory road with me, son, I will school you.

There's also a difference between moral politics and religious-based politics. I voted for Bush the first time because I bought his "compassionate" bullshit - I believe that gov't. has a moral obligation to serve all citizens by ensuring life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and other basic human and civil rights (including healthcare).

The problem with religious based politics is the same problem with most religion in general - it tends to be defined by its radical followers and fundamentalist elements instead of by its core, more universally palpatble beliefs. Instead of following religious tenets like compassion, caring for the poor and sick, turning the other cheek, etc., Bush's religious politics turned out to be those of jihadist/righteous war, judgmental condemnations of others, etc. This put his ideology more in line with those governments he was going to war with than with the platform of compassion and freedom on which he ran (and which I believe are historically the best traits of this country).

Morality certainly doesn't have to be grounded in religious belief.

[Limewater]

My wife's current job would provide us both with crappy insurance for $1100 a month.

Are you serious? I know things are cheaper in the south, but that's an order of magnitude more expensive than the prices I got when I was looking around at buying health insurance on my own three years ago. BlueCross/BlueShield of GA was somewhere between $1500-$2200 a year for a high deductible plan for a guy about 25 in good health. I don't recall exact numbers.

You can blame the government for the whole mess of health care being tied to employment, by the way. Half of the problem as it is now probably never would have happened if the government hadn't prevented private companies from offering higher salaries to attract employees. Instead, they had to offer benefits like health insurance.

[racketboy]

Lets calm things down a little.
I think we're getting a little strong on the religion and politics -- two topics I don't like in forums as they can easily get out of hand.
Lets calm things down a bit or we'll need to close this.

[Jonesy47]

Also, I don't see how what Mr. Popo describes is Social Darwinism.

It's social darwinism because he's essentially saying that, since socially, these people don't have the means to survive, they will be weeded out since no health insurance=no health treatment

Health care is a different beast. You have a limited supply of doctors who provide a service that is in demand. They then charge for said service to compensate them for the time they spent in medical school and for the time they spend working on you. Some people can afford to pay, others cannot. Shouldn't a doctor prioritize those who can pay him over those who cannot? After all, the doctor makes his living through the money he receives for treatments.

Wow, hells no. A doctor should prioritize who ever is the closest to death. Their job is NOT to make money, hand over fist. They are not a salesman. Their job is to medically help people. The hippocratic oath definitely DOES NOT state that you should help only those who can pay for it.
Shit, if you get into the medical field just to make money and have no concern over helping those in need, you are in the wrong field (AND a horrible human being).

Pulled this out to respond to it specifically. I have no problem waiting in line when everyone else ahead of me is also a paying customer. I do not understand why something like health care should suddenly make unequal groups (those who can pay and those who cannot) into equal groups. It's still a service, no different from the barber shop.

Here's the thing. We will never be a fully civilized society until people do not have to worry about three things.
Health.
Shelter.
Food.

Guess what? People who can and cannot pay ARE equal. They are all human beings and deserve the same amount of consideration when it comes to health, whether they have money or not.

[vash23n]

My wife's current job would provide us both with crappy insurance for $1100 a month.

Are you serious? I know things are cheaper in the south, but that's an order of magnitude more expensive than the prices I got when I was looking around at buying health insurance on my own three years ago. BlueCross/BlueShield of GA was somewhere between $1500-$2200 a year for a high deductible plan for a guy about 25 in good health. I don't recall exact numbers.

You can blame the government for the whole mess of health care being tied to employment, by the way. Half of the problem as it is now probably never would have happened if the government hadn't prevented private companies from offering higher salaries to attract employees. Instead, they had to offer benefits like health insurance.

It is very high, but remember it is for two people. The one thing that her employer does that many places do is they only cover her and she has to pay for me full price. It does not make it any better and I think there are places that cover both worker and spouse. Back to my old job. It was only $100 a month for me, but would have been $200 a month for both. Still a big difference I would say. That employer paid 20% of the cost of coverage (or close to it). I think that is standard or maybe a little better than standard. My wife's employer, however, only pays $200. That is atrocious. Especially since it is a health office (dentist, but still). Employers can screw their employers over because they don't feel like paying too much. That is a crime. It's cheap, greedy, and selfish and it just one more thing that needs to be fixed. There are so many levels of screwage going on

[Erik_Twice]

Healthcare is the same thing as education. You can't choose what product is better at all until you buy it. And I doubt you can go to the competence if your heart explodes.

If you didn't have public education the country would soon fill up with idiots. And I very much prefer idiots to bodies.

I mean, there's a reason why the US life expectancy is lower than European countries. In that sense the US is once century behind Europe, we had this debate in the 1800s, before public healthcare was a reality.

Publich Healthcare will improve the life expectancy of the US population, I think it's worth paying a bit more taxes, specially when they are already low.

[The Apprentice]

Guess what? People who can and cannot pay ARE equal. They are all human beings and deserve the same amount of consideration when it comes to health, whether they have money or not.

^Agreed.

Today I had an argument with my republican friend. He refused to see any good in the plan because "it was coming out of [his] pocket." I don't know if he's been paying attention, but there's a lot of Americans out there, including me, that do not support our millitary operations in Iraq, yet everyone is paying to make it happen. He fully supports the war, and I called him out on the moral inequity of financially supporting a war versus not financially supporting the well-being of fellow Americans. That essentially cut his argument off at the knees.

Something we could both agree on, though, is the new law against insurence companies denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions- we're both Type I Diabetics.

[Limewater]

Morality certainly doesn't have to be grounded in religious belief.

I didn't say it HAD to be. My point was that morality is rather ambiguous. You open the door for morality in politics and you have a lot of crap to deal with.

I believe stealing is morally wrong, including taxation.
I believe that eminent domain is morally wrong.
I believe that eating certain foods is morally wrong.
I believe that pornography is morally wrong.
I believe that having sex outside of a man-woman marriage is morally wrong.

Do you really want me to enforce these moral beliefs in politics? I know I don't want me or others who share my moral beliefs to enforce them in politics. I don't want to impose my moral beliefs on others, and I don't want others imposing their moral beliefs on me. How would you like knowing your tax dollars are going toward a program to stamp out all sex outside of a monogamous, straight marriage? Heck, that's in line with my moral beliefs, but I find the idea outrageous.

I'll shut up now, though. I'm pretty calm myself, but I know I tend to get a rise out of people, and I want to respect Racketboy's request. I'm actually pretty surprised that this conversation has been allowed to go on as long as it has.

[isaacsquared]

I believe that gov't. has a moral obligation to serve all citizens by ensuring life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and other basic human and civil rights (including healthcare).

So, you're saying that healthcare should be a right of the people, such as free speech or the right to a trial by jury? When we decide that healthcare is no longer a commodity but a right, then we eliminate the incentive to provide healthcare. Who wants to go into a field where you are paid nothing? Because that is what will happen if heathcare is turned into a right. While I think that it is important that healthcare be accessible, the only thing that will lower the price is allowing more freedom to the markets (Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand") and tort reform to reduce the amount of clutter in the system as it is.

Tort reform would both lower the malpractice insurance for doctors (and hence the price to the American public), as well as increase the effiency of the healthcare system. An example of this would be my physics professor. He'd had some headaches, so he went and saw a doctor. The doctor said he was 100% sure that "cause_x" was at fault (this was last semester-sorry I don't remember the real reason), but that he had to have a brain scan in order to see if he had a brain tumor or not-the only reason that the test had to be performed is because the doctor is scared that he'd make a one-in-a-million mistake and get his pants sued off, otherwise my professor would've gotten a 30-day prescription and some more bed rest and been on his way. The worst case scenario: the prescription doesn't help, my prfessor goes back and they test for the tumor later when it's determined there would actually be the possibility that it's needed for medical reasons.

If public healthcare is such a great thing, then why do so many people have to come HERE from OTHER countries when they need urgent treatment? Because otherwise it would take weeks or months to get the treatments they need. A government run health care system is just a bad idea-what successes has the government had at running business? The car companies? The post office? The banks? I mean really, how can anyone think that letting the government run our hospitals is a good idea?

[Limewater]

OK, I said I would shut up, but I have to make one more post.

I have a real hard time believing that health care is a human right. How can it be a human right if it is dependent upon money and technology? So poor countries are incapable of giving their citizens human rights? A new human right has come into existence in the last couple hundred years?

Counting liquid assets and near-liquid assets, there is only enough money on the planet to give each person $9,000. That is not enough to cover everyone's health care needs. I am like Nathan Barnatt and am in the process of healthing myself to death, but I'm pretty sure that later in life I'm going to have more than $9,000 worth of medical expenses.