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Should We Allow The Uninsured To Die?

And lots of dead poor people.

poor people? the question directed to Ron Paul was regarding middle class people choosing to not be responsible. try to keep up.
 
No, we shouldn't. We aren't savages, and we aren't that desperate as a society.

Maybe we've forgotten what health care insurance IS: it is insurance. The idea behind insurance is, if something drastic happens the insurance company pays so you don't lose everything and go into debt.

If you need a lifesaving proceedure and have no insurance, you get the proceedure. You may end up in bankruptcy and debt, but at least you're still alive. You can still work, get your finances straightened out, and get on with your life... none of which you could do if you were dead.

We aren't primitive tribesmen living on the edge of starvation. We don't push the old and the weak out into the wilderness to die alone, and we shouldn't let someone die in pain in the waiting room of a hospital just because they have no insurance.
 
No, we shouldn't. We aren't savages, and we aren't that desperate as a society.

I disagree with how you're presenting your scenario. I don't come at this issue from desperation or cost savings, I come at it from creating an incentive system and holding people accountable for their own choices. Providing full medical care to people who choose not to buy insurance is rewarding that choice - why should you and I buy insurance if we know that we'll get the same level of care if we skip it?

Maybe we've forgotten what health care insurance IS: it is insurance. The idea behind insurance is, if something drastic happens the insurance company pays so you don't lose everything and go into debt.

Exactly. Insurance is designed to cover rare events, not everyday expenses. The cockamamie system we have now is like having auto insurance which pays for every fill up, every car wash, every oil change, every tune-up, every tire balancing, every windshield wiper replacement, etc. Auto insurance covers rare events, like fender benders, like being sued for a million dollars for an accident you caused, like your hospital care if you injure yourself in an accident you caused, etc. These events don't happen to people every day.
 
Here we go again arguing absolutes. The world doesn't work that way.

Most Americans want some form of health coverage. Life doesn't often give us black and white problems that can be handled with a simple either/or. But that is what everyone is arguing here. Everyone who has health coverage believes that they sufficient coverage for most illnesses. Many illnesses and conditions are covered. There are many people who had adequate coverage...initially. Complications can drag on over time where people reach a point that with insurance they drained by niggling charges over a very long haul. No one could have foreseen the timeline and the mounting costs. It happens all the time, all the time. It isn't a live or die situation. It's often a disabled person with dependency issues or a rehabilitated and working tax payer choice.

Most people don't just die. They suffer and suffer and suffer and eventually die. If some of my tax money goes toward keeping some people from suffering, and it does, then I'm fine with that. I don't think I'd want to live in a country that decided who was well enough, productive enough, smart enough, big enough or young enough to live.
 
Or universal major medical insurance.

Does anybody want to debate how insurance companies insinuated themselves into our lives and made themselves indispensible?
 
Does anybody want to debate how insurance companies insinuated themselves into our lives and made themselves indispensible?

Why don't you try starting a thread on that topic.
 
Paul is not calling for the sick to be thrown out on the streets. He is not even opposed to government assistance for the people who can't afford healthcare. All he said was that a person who chooses to forgo health insurance should take responsibility for their own actions.
 
Tessaesque has covered all the bases I would have covered. :2bow:
 
Does anybody want to debate how insurance companies insinuated themselves into our lives and made themselves indispensible?

I would take that one on.
 
the spartans put the weak, sick, feeble and infirm out in the elements to die.... :shrug:


let natural selection do its job

Spartans were fascists and believed in quite a few other things, like no personal freedoms or civil liberties. I love it when Social Darwinists are born into a society ordered according to humanist principles but are so ignorant of how it has benefited them (as well as its intrinsic goodness) that they freely troll around whatever depravity enters their head.
 
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I find it interesting that in the end, it doesn't look like there is a solution that could fit a fiscal and moral standard. While we are still able to, I believe we should do what we can to encourage people to stay healthy and avoid risks if they cannot afford to pay for them. With increasing lifespan and reduced births in modern times, there WILL be a point where it is not feasible to support our current thinking. We need to get creative. I am not willing to let the randomness and turmoil of the stock market to decide health policy, but government should not be the end all.

I have little respect for those so selfish that they are not willing to help out a neighbor in need with a penny of their own money. With a VERY basic well run health plan run by the government (is it possibe?), a person at least has access to life saving care if needed. Ron Paul's point of "helping those in need" is lost when corporate greed, excessive reliance on technology (A $300 visit so they could use the machine that goes "PING! to tell you that you have the flu.) and an arrogance seems to be expanding through the practice. If you want more, then that's where private should do best. I don't find spending a little bit of money to help out my fellow man/woman to be an affront to my liberty. I certainly find it more palatable than trillions spent on war and killing foreigners to implement Americanism.

As much as everyone is trying to ignore it, the shifting age groups will force us to rethink about population issues and even how we treat the elderly. We will not find consensus if the question is "Should 90 year olds get kidney transplants?" To be "fruitful and multiply" is also no longer a good answer. Somehow, the young minority will need to support the elderly majority. Good luck humanity.
 
I have little respect for those so selfish that they are not willing to help out a neighbor in need with a penny of their own money. With a VERY basic well run health plan run by the government (is it possibe?), a person at least has access to life saving care if needed. Ron Paul's point of "helping those in need" is lost when corporate greed, excessive reliance on technology (A $300 visit so they could use the machine that goes "PING! to tell you that you have the flu.) and an arrogance seems to be expanding through the practice. If you want more, then that's where private should do best. I don't find spending a little bit of money to help out my fellow man/woman to be an affront to my liberty. I certainly find it more palatable than trillions spent on war and killing foreigners to implement Americanism.

I don't either, but where should it end? When someone is in need and you help them, that's great. When they've got their hand out because people have stepped up so many times that they think the world owes them money, what do you do then? There has to be a time when people need to be held accountable for themselves. When does that time come?
 
Do you agree with Ron Paul's POV, that the uninsured should be denied life-saving medical care?
The strawman presented here has been addressed..

Mandating life-savng care for those who cannot pay means that people are forced to provide goods and services to others w/o compenation and/or forced to pay for goods/services that they did not receive.

Your life is not my responsibility.
 
I don't either, but where should it end? When someone is in need and you help them, that's great. When they've got their hand out because people have stepped up so many times that they think the world owes them money, what do you do then? There has to be a time when people need to be held accountable for themselves. When does that time come?

Of course. We all need to get creative and work on an accountability scheme that works. I agree that we need to stop somewhere. Same with any other program in existence. The thing is, I can't bring myself to think that a hardline stance of "don't take anything from me, ever" is right either. A better accountability scheme could come first, in order to calibrate where the line needs to be drawn. For suicide attempts, negligent self injury and such, I feel the line needs to be drawn differently than for birth control meds and routine physicals. There was also an era when someone would say "Yup, It's my time..."

My take is that the cost of medical care needs to come down. This may mean less care for some and lesser care for others until we make it cheaper, or reach Star Trek levels of technology and social programs.

Too many are sadly unfamiliar with the concept of consensus decision making; in a world with so many people and opinions, I don't think we can afford to think in black and white anymore.
 
Let them die, then the freeloaders could contribute to society as soylent green for the poor. Unbelievable.
 
I don't either, but where should it end? When someone is in need and you help them, that's great. When they've got their hand out because people have stepped up so many times that they think the world owes them money, what do you do then? There has to be a time when people need to be held accountable for themselves. When does that time come?

It should be held through mandated universal health care. Since as a society we demonstrate great reluctance to accept the dire consequences of for-profit health care on incapable or unlucky individuals, everyone should be compelled to pay into a common fund as a custom of our laws.

If you want to somehow maintain a privatized health care service as an accessory to that, go ahead.
 
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It should be held through mandated universal health care. Since as a society we demonstrate great reluctance to accept the dire consequences of for-profit health care on incapable or unlucky individuals, everyone should be compelled to pay into a common fund as a custom of our laws.
Make the argument that I should be forced to provide you with goods and services that you, yourself, cannot afford.
You have the right to life. You are not entitled to the means necessary to exercise that right.
 
Make the argument that I should be forced to provide you with goods and services that you, yourself, cannot afford.
You have the right to life. You are not entitled to the means necessary to exercise that right.

First, this is not a one-way street; you'd be cared for as well.

Second, it's patenetly obvious that universal care is more economical, more humane and gets better overall results.
 

First, this is not a one-way street; you'd be cared for as well.
Second, it's patenetly obvious that universal care is more economical, more humane and gets better overall results.
Neither of these statement answer the challenge. Please try again.
 
First, this is not a one-way street; you'd be cared for as well.

Second, it's patenetly obvious that universal care is more economical, more humane and gets better overall results.

Then why are cancer survival, heart disease management, and stroke survival so much higher in the U.S. than in any other country (most of which have universal/single payer health care)?
 
Then why are cancer survival, heart disease management, and stroke survival so much higher in the U.S. than in any other country (most of which have universal/single payer health care)?

Linkiepoodle?

All the studies I have seen have shown longer lifespans, lower infant mortality rates, etc. coupled with lower costs in nations with universal care.
 
Neither of these statement answer the challenge. Please try again.

I can't hit a moving target; what's your underlying objection? You just don't feel you should have to pay taxes of any kind?
 
I can't hit a moving target; what's your underlying objection? You just don't feel you should have to pay taxes of any kind?
The target is obvious:

Make the argument that I should be forced to provide you with goods and services that you, yourself, cannot afford.

While doing so, be sure to address the fact that while you have the right to life, you are not entitled to the means necessary to exercise that right.
 
Linkiepoodle?

All the studies I have seen have shown longer lifespans, lower infant mortality rates, etc. coupled with lower costs in nations with universal care.

Cancer Survival Rates Vary by Country
Most Cancer Survival Rates in USA Better Than Europe and Canada » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog
Cancer Survival - NYTimes.com

Heart disease deaths statistics - countries compared worldwide - NationMaster

You have to do some math on this one. Basically, strokes account for 25 of deaths in America, 7% in Canada, and I couldn't get the numbers for "Europe", which is how this site lumps them. My original claim came from a health book I have in storage, but this site shows the basics:
Stroke Statistics | Internet Stroke Center
 
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