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Should hospitals be forced to give emergency care to the poor?

Should hospitals be forced to give emergency care to the poor?


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It is not only my problem, it is everyone's problem. I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect that in a civilized society that trained professionals, such as the police, are duty bound to protect citizens from such harm, and due to their better training are better able to judge when methods such as lethal force should be used. Leaving that up to citizens is the law of the west.

What's the law of the west? Another example of dime store. Novel history history

The police cannot be everywhere at once and sometimes there may not be enough officers to handle all calls. If you want security without owning a gun give these folks a call

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Seriously too, citizens protecting themselves at the moment of harm is not "the law of the west" whatever the hell that is
 
Providing health care to indigents via the emergency room is one of the most inefficient and expensive ways to provide care, especially because people tend to wait until their condition is severe before seeking treatment. That is why a properly designed universal health care system should save money in the long run.

The only problem is our political culture, in Europe it saves money because they hire executives and trust them to run the system, in the US we'd be hearing about death panels and tyranny, so we'd probably have 6 different review boards, a congressional committee, and the suppliers for the system must be based in the committee chairs home district, and they'd have to use 17.59% green power and buy Artwork made by Native American trans women and host a committee to eliminate the use of styrafoam cups which reports to the associate assistant acting deputy undersecretary of the efficiency department.

So will it save us money? Maybe not ... If done properly it will save tens of billions
 
I was poking fun a bit. But our current system is rather broken, actually. America pays more for and has less access to healthcare than any other advanced country. So there's lots of room for improvement.

Heh, yeah. But that last, not really true. Though there's always going to be room for improvement.

You know, for a system so expensive and as little access as you claim, there sure are a lot of hospitals and clinics in just about every area. And there are still folks who come here to avoid the waiting time in their own country.
 
I was poking fun a bit. But our current system is rather broken, actually. America pays more for and has less access to healthcare than any other advanced country. So there's lots of room for improvement.

But nobody wants to address the real causes of health care failure because those causes are major political contributors.
 
Lame argument.
Protecting your self from harm is not the wild west.
People today do it all the time. They are not living in the wild west.

I disagree in the strongest terms. If police protection is ambiguous, then citizens must rely on a wild west shoot em up for their protection. Again, such ideas put the burden of providing for the safety of individual citizens into the hands of those citizens themselves, some who may behave responsibly, and some who may not. I would suggest unfortunate, unjust incidents like this are a result of the flawed thinking that you advocate.

White man who shot dead black teen at gas station in argument over loud rap music is convicted of first-degree murder

White man who shot dead black teen at gas station is convicted of first-degree murder | Daily Mail Online

A right to your natural life without government interference unless deprived by due process.
That is what you have.

I disagree with you again in the strongest terms. Governments are established amongst men to interfere in their affairs. If a government did not interfere in the affairs of men, it would be useless. Moreover, philosophers such as Rousseau, and indeed even the founders of this country have acknowledged that men are endowed with natural rights, one of which is the right to life. And because such a right does indeed exist, the right of a person to live trumps the right of a hospital to not provide emergency treatment to the poor.

If that was the purpose of the legislation you would have a point. All that is, is you trying to attach meaning it doesn't have.

Regardless of the intent of any such legislation, or even the existence of such legislation, IF a government forces a hospital to provide emergency treatment to the poor, it is justified in doing so because of the patient's right to life.
 
I think that in any advanced and civilized society, that yes even the poor deserve and should receive emergency medical care. They are human beings and we have the means and capacity to help them. And if we’re such a “Christian” nation, how could it be any other way? In general, I think we should have a for real universal healthcare system that is open to all citizens and provides some amount of basic medical care.

Agreed. Actually the fact that it is so expensive that no one except the wealthy can afford to pay for it out of pocket indicates that such a universal healthcare system is needed.
 
If a regular citizen can be charged for neglecting a human in distress then why not a hospital?

If that is true, that is a good point.
 
It means your life is important to many conservatives until you are born. Then you're on your own.

That is a far out thing about conservatives these days. They are all about protecting the rights of the unborn, but then when the child gets out of the womb, they don't seem to give a damn. Amazing the state of modern conservatism.
 
Every human being has the right to life.

No one has a right to healthcare services.

Giving emergency health care to the poor, sustains their life, and therefore their right to it.
 
It means your life is important to many conservatives until you are born. Then you're on your own.

That is a far out thing about conservatives these days. They are all about protecting the rights of the unborn, but then when the child gets out of the womb, they don't seem to give a damn. Amazing the state of modern conservatism.

This is arguably the most ****ing retarded thing I have the misfortune to see every single time I read it, and yet I read it a lot around here.

I'm sorry you people don't understand the difference between killing someone in aggression and not giving someone a good or service they don't pay for, but that difference remains huge.
 
This is arguably the most ****ing retarded thing I have the misfortune to see every single time I read it, and yet I read it a lot around here.

I'm sorry you people don't understand the difference between killing someone in aggression and not giving someone a good or service they don't pay for, but that difference remains huge.

Nope. Rationalization does not make it true, champ.
 
This is arguably the most ****ing retarded thing I have the misfortune to see every single time I read it, and yet I read it a lot around here.

I'm sorry you people don't understand the difference between killing someone in aggression and not giving someone a good or service they don't pay for, but that difference remains huge.

And I am sorry that you seem to place so little value on the life of the poor, that you feel that their inability to pay for the service of emergency medical care means that they should be denied it.
 
Quote Originally Posted by MildSteel: Do you think the poor have a right to life, and therefore emergency medical care?



Really? Please explain.

The right to life has nothing to do with emergency medical care.

That person already has his life. Nobody is taking that away.

By the way nobody is denied emergency medical care anyway.
 
And I am sorry that you seem to place so little value on the life of the poor, that you feel that their inability to pay for the service of emergency medical care means that they should be denied it.

I said nothing about "should be."

Charity is laudable. You were talking about government force.
 
So long as the government or someone else takes up the bill, I don't think hospitals should be forced to take a hit financially but I also would say they shouldn't turn someone away in need of lifesaving care.
 
I said nothing about "should be."

Charity is laudable. You were talking about government force.

The government forces people to do things all the time. Believe me, I would certainly not pay taxes if the government did not force me to. Forcing hospitals to give emergency care for the poor supports the right of the poor to life, and a government that forces a hospital to provide such care is therefore just in doing so.
 
The government forces people to do things all the time.

And it's justified some of the time.

Never in taking one man's property for no reason other than to pay for goods and services requested by someone else. If you want something, you pay for it.

Forcing hospitals to give emergency care for the poor supports the right of the poor to life

It does no such thing. All it does is violate the right to property of anyone forced to labor without their consent or forced to pay for goods and services requested by someone else
 
It does no such thing. All it does is violate the right to property of anyone forced to labor without their consent or forced to pay for goods and services requested by someone else

And as I have stated earlier, governments must constantly balance the sometimes competing interests of citizens in the exercise of their rights. In the case of providing emergency medical care to the poor, the right of the poor to live, trumps the right of the hospitals to deny such service.
 
And as I have stated earlier, governments must constantly balance the sometimes competing interests of citizens in the exercise of their rights

In this case there is the right to property, an actual right to be protected, versus the thing you want the government to do, which only violates the right to property.

There is nothing to balance.
 
In this case there is the right to property, an actual right to be protected, versus the thing you want the government to do, which only violates the right to property.

There is nothing to balance.

Again, as I have stated earlier, Rousseau and the founders of this country agreed that men are endowed with natural rights, one of which is the right to life. As such, there is indeed something to balance.
 
Again, as I have stated earlier, Rousseau and the founders of this country agreed that men are endowed with natural rights, one of which is the right to life.

The right to life has absolutely nothing to do with your proposed "right to healthcare" which is not and never could be an actual right.

Again, there is nothing to balance, nothing to compromise. It is a question between government respecting its responsibilities and limits, or not.

You're on the side of the government not only failing to do its duty but actively violating the rights of its citizens.
 
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