I also totally understand your frustration with our government on this issue.  They can find money for their pre-emptive wars, but can’t find the money to solve the serious social issues in this country.

Most of the uninsured can find the money for cable tv, restaurants, movies, newer cars, entertainment centers, computers, broadband; but can’t be bothered to pay for their own insurance.  So why not direct your frustration towards the source of the problem.  Health insurance is out there for anyone who wants to purchase it. They just have to decide whether or not it’s worth giving up other luxuries in order to obtain it.

The 7% solution wouldn’t work simply because those making more would simply opt out since it wouldn’t make sense for them to pay much more for basic care when they could go elsewhere.  I don’t make that much and that plan wouldn’t even work out for me.  It’s cost would be more than the coverage I have now, but the benefits would be fewer.  The system wouldn’t even come close to being able to support itself based upon those who would be willing to pay the fees.

It is completely immoral to ask someone to give up what they earn simply because other people are not capable or do not have the means to earn it.

How is that a factual statement? Why would it be immoral to ask someone to help out others who may have been less fortunate?

Don’t assume; you’re quite incorrect.  Emancipated at 17, there were quite a few years when I had to worry about how I was going to keep up rent payments on the place I was living at, especially after all the medical bills revolving around my back.

I just don’t delude myself into thinking that it’s anyone else’s responsibility to give their money to me, in the form of taxes, so that I can pay my bills at the end of the month.

So you are telling me that you have never had anyone help you, and you have managed to become the great person you are today with only hard work and diligence?

So by your stance, anyone who has had bad luck, been in an accident, wound up in a wheel chair… whatever. They are unintitled to any sort of help from the government?

Call me ignorant, but I will never understand people who would prefer to live in a world of greed. One where medical insurance companies trade in lives, only so that their investors may profit.

Les, I would like to extend my sympathy for your loss. Having been on the receiving end, it doesn’t do jack, but I don’t know what else to say.

As I’ve watched the discussion unfold, I believe TheAbyssStares could articulate his position better.  The problem with the reasoning for universal healthcare is not that it’s going to make my health care suck. 

If health care is a right that you want to see universalised for all, the reason for doing so is it is a civil right, and wealth is immaterial.  As such, it must be demanded in the U.S., and demanded that Ethiopia provide the same.  It must be viewed that it is equally unjust that doesn’t exist in either.  To do otherwise is to confound your logic. That logic demands universal world wide health care for all as a civil right. Yet, I don’t see that thinking carried forward.

Like TheAbyssStares, I do not believe that health care is a civil right.  We all get the opportunity to go do whatever it is that we want to do, and we enjoy the benefits and drawbacks of those choices. 

The effect of making health care a civil right is to demand that the guy who is working 80 hours a week in a high stress job, not only meet his financial obligations, but take on the financial obligations of the John Doe who works 38 hours a week at the Quickee Mart and spends his paycheck smoking dope.  That hardly seems equitable.  Especially, when the guy working 80 hours a week in that high stress job would like nothing better than to pull a few bong hits with John, but he can’t.  He can’t because he could lose his ability to practice his profession.

If one is troubled by the fact that others lack health care, then one is free to discharge that moral obligation in any number of different ways by reaching out to others.  Enacting a program of wealth redistributiion to meet health care needs of others seems to me to impose on others that moral obligation on your behalf.  I respectfully decline to take on moral obligations that you believe that you have.

Regards,

I disagree. Where does this end?

With taxes, of course.

Bullshit.

Tut tut.

Consi, you and GM have been around this already. Here’s a simple question for you: Should the state secure the physical survival of its citizens or not?

Consiglere,

A logical argument you say;
First, you seem to have stated that all individuals who do not work 80hours a week=lazy do-nothing, pot smoking, people undeserving of any healthcare. Obviously this is wrong, not all poor peolpe are lazy or stupid with their money. The clerk provides a service, in which his employer may profit, one that he can only provide if he is healthy and besides which, nobody forces the 80 hour workaholic to live his unhealthy lifestyle.

Second, consider that a social system includes all the people within it, not just the rich. A poor social system will produce a less productive, unhealthy society. A system that only supports those who have money, will result in an overall unbalanced dispersement of wealth. Meaning that the middle calss is eliminated, meaning the average person, like most of us here, will wind up working harder/longer for less.

El: Should the state secure the physical survival of its citizens or not?

Only of those that are physically or mentally disabled and are incapable of doing it for themselves.

Terroran: The clerk provides a service, in which his employer may profit, one that he can only provide if he is healthy and besides which, nobody forces the 80 hour workaholic to live his unhealthy lifestyle.

And whether his employer provides health insurance is an issue between he and his employer.  We each derive the benefits and drawbacks of our choices.  You seem to want to punish the guy that works his butt off. Not only does he not have the same free time, but now he has to incur the additional financial responsibilites of John Doe. I’m not on board that bus.

Regards,

Consi,

Only of those that are physically or mentally disabled and are incapable of doing it for themselves.

Is that a yes or a no?

I came late to this party.  Hey, AbyssStares, while you’re being all “objective” and such, you think you can even see the rest of the world from up on that high horse?  Glad your tough early adulthood worked out for you but lots of people fall by the wayside.  Who do you think pays for their unnecessary emergencies?  You do.  The loss of productivity and taxes paid?  You again.

Abyss and others taking the “resources are available” line - Yes, some doctors will take pro bono patients.  Yes, hospitals are forbidden in many states to turn away gravely ill patients.  There are a couple problems with that scenario.

The patient may not know if he or she is gravely ill.  This becomes an agonizing, high-risk choice to make because (at that low-income level) going to a doctor can backfire seriously.  Some years ago when I was seriously under-insured, I went to the emergency room with chest pains.  Can we all agree that if you have chest pains you shouldn’t screw around - you should go right to the emergency room?

It turned out to be acid reflux.  Well OK, better safe than sorry, right?  Guess not.  My insurance company refused to pay the $800+ because it didn’t turn out to be an emergency. I was stuck with the bill which was a serious financial hardship.

Hangnails… hmm.  I had an infection on my left thumb that became a pyogenic granuloma - incredibly painful, debilitating, and it bled all the time.  By the time my insurance company got its head out of its actuaries, it had wrapped itself around the bone requiring the services of a hand surgeon to remove.  That wasn’t cheap and the insurance company wound up weaseling out of about half of it.  All from a little cut to the nail bed.

At that time my kids were little and we lived in fear of major medical expense.

As for the proported debacle of government-led ("It would be a disaster") health care, you have to ask, has it been a disaster in other countries where they do it?  No?  You mean they’re spending less per capita on health care than we are and living longer in the bargain? We are spending more and not getting our money’s worth.

Health care for all serves the taxpayer’s purely selfish interest.  It gives doctors a chance to spot early warning signs, so it often prevents unnecessary major medical expense.  It keeps people working because it helps them manage chronic diseases better. 

As for the danger of an inefficient bureaucracy, what we have in this country is a whole bunch of inefficient buraucracies that can’t communicate with each other: health care providers and insurance companies.  The waste - the egregious diversion of money that is supposed to be for health care - is unconscionable.

Les, thanks for this post.

DOF, my feelings exactly. My tax rate in Germany was about 55% and it didn’t particuarly bother me, because it bought a lot of state that I liked. Everybody was in the same boat, so the tax rate didn’t really affect my standard of living relative to everybody else.

My tax rate in Germany was about 55% and it didn’t particuarly bother me, because it bought a lot of state that I liked.

1) This is not Germany.

2) I don’t want more “state.”

Regards,

Consi, how astute and how obvious.

Regarding my earlier question, yes or no?

Why thank you El.  I’ve always taken pride in being able to recognize that German social policy is pretty much irrelevant to our discussion.

I could’ve swore I answered that.  Maybe not.  Oh, wait a minute, you wanted a yes or no answer to a question that requires more than a yes or no response so you could continue on some diatribe.  See my answer above.

Regards,

Let’s say, hypothetically, that the “fixed percentageâ€? is 7%.  Everyone, according to your plan, is receiving the same quality healthcare as everyone else.  Consider that you are a middle-class man, who makes around $60,000 a year.  At 7% (I am eliminating other taxes in the name of simplicity), you would be paying $4,200 dollars per year for your healthcare.  Now, compare yourself to the janitor at your local Chik-Fil-A, who makes $25,000 a year and only has to pay $1,750 dollars for the very same healthcare that you are receiving.

Just a question and becuase I live in Canada and do not understand your strange ways.

In the US, what percentage of a wealthy persons income goes to military spending.

What percentage of a lower middle class income goes to that same military?

I think that the earlier arguments stated If we can afford to do this, then why not that!

The “rightâ€? to healthcare is no right at all.  It’s a privilege.  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are your only “rightsâ€? as Americans.  You do not have the right to free health care, and any logical person wouldn’t want it.  The only Americans who clamor for free health care are those unable to earn it themselves

Am i the only one that sees a small contradiction here?  you have the right to life, but not the right to affordable health care to keep you alive?

And IMO the reason many are unable to afford health care is because they are being “stolen from” by thier rich employers.  The quickie mart employee is being paid minimum wage, no benefits, so that the owner of the store can make a larger profit so he can afford that new DVD player.

And IMO the reason many are unable to afford health care is because they are being “stolen from� by thier rich employers.

Yeah, prety much. Which brings us back to the fellow that quotes Nietzsche and his question of morality. He said it is immoral to ask a wealthy person to pay more then a poor person for taxation purposes. (A very strange idea or morality IMO) yet he makes no statement on how greed is immoral, on how putting a price tag on not one persons life, but on possibly 45M peoples lives. Now at the same time, no one questions spending an excessively large amount on weapons to kill their fellow human beings (I believe the military budget not counting what is being spent on the Iraq war is ~390 billion dollars per year).

So really what this argument is boiling down to is, what value do Americans place on human life? Obviously, it is more important that an individual, who works twice as much as the average person, should be paid 10 times as much. It is not a question of how the world can be made a better place. Is is about how many people should be exploited for corporate gain, it is a question of how much money can “I” make, it is the validation/legitimization of greed.

It IS the American way.

It might be enlightening to see who shoulders the cost of the social programs that are in place.  See the CBO report here http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5324&sequence=0#table3B

Really, it boils down to whether a person is a Constitutionalist or a Socialist.  The Constitutionalist will always say that health care is the individuals responsibility while the Socialist will claim that it is the government’s responsibility.  IMO, the less government, the better.  Socialism breeds bloated overly-intrusive centralized governments- pretty much anathema to the spirit of the Constitution.  And yes, I have been reported to the credit bureaus by a hospital before and I have gone two or three days without food.  Too bad for me, sometimes life isn’t fair.  At the same time, I have received help from friends and family.  Government enforced charity is no charity at all.

What exactly is your idea of a constitutionalist? Is there a definition for that? Is it just someone who interprets the constitution to mean what they want (kinda like a Christian and the bible)?

As it is, in 100 years with the way things are heading, socialism or imperialism may be the only option anyway. Overpopulated countries do not operate well under a capatalistic system. And with the downfall of the education syste (another crazy socialist idea) democracy is pretty much non existant, as individuals no longer think for themsleves but rely on propaganda to make their decisions.

Calling health care, government enforced charity, is just narrow minded. The idea of keeping your populous healthy helps out everyone in the long run. Your only other option is to leave the health system in the hands of profit, and it seems that leaves the doors wide open for corrupt insurance companies.

A Constitutionalist is someone who believes that there were (and still are) very good reasons for limiting the power of a centralized government.  The reasons that the Constitution was written to limit the federal government are still valid.

As it is, in 100 years with the way things are heading, socialism or imperialism may be the only option anyway.

lol As it is, at current population growth rates and global warming rates, all our current sociopolitical systems will have collapsed.  Some of the more current climate models show that Antartica will be the only place habitable to humans within 100 years, so a switchover to Socialism might be a little premature.

Calling health care, government enforced charity, is just narrow minded. The idea of keeping your populous healthy helps out everyone in the long run.

General health as dictated by having a fairly clean living area and certain safeguards to ensure that medicine is efficacious are all that are needed.  I might be a callous asshole, but someone dying from a lack of healthcare will most likely have little to no effect on my life.  In addition, not having access to healthcare, does not make someone automatically unhealthy- that is pure sophistry.

I might be a callous asshole, but someone dying from a lack of healthcare will most likely have little to no effect on my life.

Maybe you are. Then again it is also possible that you are afraid to question the system you are living under. It is possible that constitution is flawed, as it was written for a different time (hence the reason why the right to bear arms was added). Or maybe it isn’t even the constituion, maybe it is just a set of unsubstantiated beliefs that you follow. As an example, it seems that you have been able to stave off the clutches of government on your personal freedom, but you have not been able to stave off the clutches of a corporate plutocracy (hence our problems with the environment).

In addition, not having access to healthcare, does not make someone automatically unhealthy- that is pure sophistry.

I wouldn’t say pure sophistry, having acces to healthcare definately won’t make you less healthy, and I can’t see how it couldn’t help to make you more healthy. (ie Vacinations, physical check ups to identify health issues before they arrive).

Then again it is also possible that you are afraid to question the system you are living under.

But then again, probably not, as I have sent dissenting e-mails to both Dems and Reps if they advance an idea that I don’t agree with.  While I vote as an Independent, I am more of an anarchist in my heart.
Maybe not pure sophistry, but certainly not a direct connection by any means.  You can be healthy whether or not you have healthcare.  In fact, I didn’t have healthcare until my late 20’s and the only time I ever saw a doctor was either for stitches or to have sea urchin spines removed.  Since I have had healthcare, I have had two back surgeries.  This last time, my insurance company tried to refer me to a neurosurgeon with whom I was less than comfortable with, so we went outside the insurance to go to a different doctor.  So even if you have insurance, you can be hedged in by their actuarial attempts at profit and wind up in worse shape.  As for vaccinations, there is an ever growing portion of the population who do not want their children to have vaccinations (not my view, but they are there).

As a Canadian I feel a certain amount of comfort in the healthcare for all philosophy.  Where I differ from my country’s approach is I also agree with a user pay system in place. 

I can see my GP anytime I feel it necessary.  I can also go to emerg. 

As for the waiting lists that I’m sure you’ve all heard about here in Canada. If it’s not considered life threatening then you go on a list.  If it is life threatening you go to the front.  The thing that most get miffed about is the discomfort one must endure while waiting. 

If we were to include user fees into this equation then I could have a choice, provided it wasn’t life threatening, to pay for the procedure or go on the list.

Now this system in Canada is a huge burden on the taxpayer.  Thankfully I am in a tax bracket that would allow me to have any procedure done whenever I needed or wanted for that matter. 

I am also in a tax bracket where I pay for this right for others less fortunate.  All I can say, and this is just me talking, is that ten years ago, when things were much different for me, when I was living below the poverty line.  I was thankful we had a healthcare supported largely by the wealthy when I needed it.  It’s now payback time.  There is nothing socialistic about it in my mind.  I have a considerable amount of freedom because of my income now.  I have a considerable amount of buying power in this economy.  None of that will disappear (provided I keep doing well).  I have so much more than those less fortunate and yet I feel no animosity towards the less fortunate for getting a piece of my action.  All it means is I don’t have MORE.  But I will always have my health.  ( I couldn’t resist)

Now the system here is far from perfect.  No system is, as I believe someone has already pointed out.  But it continues to be redefined (unfortunately at the pace of bureaucracy) and eventually perhaps we can have a system in place that will address all concerns.  It’s a far cry better than doing nothing.  In my humble opinion.  I’d rather wait in a long line for procedures than the alternative.

None of this really matters because we already have Medicare and Medicaid.  Anyone who doesn’t qualify for these programs can afford to get private health insurance.  Most will say that they can’t, but that’s only because they value their other luxeries more than their healthcare.

Scorn,

I’d like to point out that here in Ontario (yes, I’m a Canuck), the employer pays a percentage of payroll as a health tax—the burden isn’t entirely born by individual taxes. In addition, people pay a small fee for heath services in their personal taxes (about 700.00 I believe). The net result is that regardless of your financial status (employed or otherwise), general healthcare is entirely covered for all citizens.

From flu vaccine to chemo, it is all covered—no one goes without a visit to the doctor if they need or want it, regardless of whether it is a heart attack or reflux (hey, we’re not all MDs—we don’t always know the difference).

For my American cousins (and dear friends), I’m not sure what the pursuit of LIFE, liberty etc means without adequate healthcare to 40 million citizens.

Personally, I’m happy to pay the tax. No one should have to die because they don’t have the money to visit the doctor.

I’m so sorry, Les.

Shelley