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Health Care; Privlege, Right or Responsibility?

Is access to health care a privilege, right or responsibility?


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There are times when I'm convinced the UHC argument boils down to an ethic comparable to Maoist or legalist China.

Communion before individuals, structure before agency. The abundance of people in society makes it so caring about particular decision making is irrelevant.

It is better to have things centrally planned so everyone is orchestrated together. Those who fall through the cracks are impractical to help, so are hopeless.

The hopeless' sacrifice is necessary to let society progress onward ho, whatever that direction may be as long as we're progressing.

Still, insiders should do what they can to shore up outsiders, but in-betweeners should endure the burden of having their intelligence neglected because it's unnecessary.

If outsiders don't appreciate authoritarianism, they should be ignored or cast out as unappreciative despite not consenting to participate.

There is only so much we can do, and power politics is part of life. Those who refuse to acknowledge the powerful's benevolence deserve to have power exercised against them.

After all, they're behaving like monkey wrenches, and nobody likes a monkey wrench. Elites who exercise power to accommodate monkey wrenches make themselves vulnerable to being outcompeted by other elites. Even if the monkey wrench is successful, that success will be incompatible with others' success, so it will only make things unnecessarily difficult.

I'm not sure Maoists appreciate how social mobility depends on independent information and decision making. They insist on believing people are primarily products of their circumstances, and people only deserve to have potential fulfilled if it's convenient.

It wouldn't surprise me if this country fell for environmentalist spirituality in the future similar to Confucian ancestry and feng shui. Even if they're not real causation, they're obligated to be performed in order to garnish the favor of politicians who like them.
 
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If you'er a child, it's a right that your parents provide you with proper medical care.
In adulthood, it's your responsibility to find a way to fund your own medical care.

For the lesser among us (aka, disabled) it should be a privilege, provided at tax payer expense.

I find the bolded portion disappointing and rather offensive. The challenges facing life as a disabled individual are enormous. They can't do what others take for granted, and they usually display immense courage in the face of adversity to push themselves to their personal limits. To call them "the lesser among us" diminishes them as human beings.
 
TPD, you raise an interesting point. When I mentioned "responsibility", I was thinking of the responsibilities of the person, but I certainly left the interpretation wide open and you, very validly, spoke about what you believe to be the responsibilities of the government. Honestly, that was not a perspective I even considered.
I think that's actually something that a lot of liberals, not all though, have in mind when it comes to health care: the government has a responsibility to provide it for its citizens much in the same way some people think it has a responsibility to provide defense and education among other things.

Obviously, many on the right disagree with that and I think that disagreement is one of the foundations of the healthcare debate because a lot of people's perspectives on this are based on their perception of what the role of government should be in the lives of its citizens. That's why I like the thread topic - it gets to the heart of issue.
 
So you do not believe you have a right to private property and you do believe that plunder should be a way of life. You are just confused over whether you should have to do the plundering yourself or have the government to it on your behalf.

Got it.
I said absolutely nothing even close to that in the post you just responded to. Congratulations.
 
in a perfect world, healthcare is a responsibility that all people take seriously.

but unfortunately, in the real-world...many folks don't take this responsibility seriously, until their lives depend on it.

....and then they are up ****'s creek.

which gives society the choice of letting them die....or treating them even though they can't afford it by any means.

so of course, we heal the sick...regardless of their ability to pay. and then we ALL share the cost.

so unless we are gonna let folks simply die on the street, everyone should have adequate health insurance.

either we require folks to buy it & we help them do this..or we fund it for all through taxes.
 
in a perfect world, healthcare is a responsibility that all people take seriously.

but unfortunately, in the real-world...many folks don't take this responsibility seriously, until their lives depend on it.

....and then they are up ****'s creek.

which gives society the choice of letting them die....or treating them even though they can't afford it by any means.

so of course, we heal the sick...regardless of their ability to pay. and then we ALL share the cost.

so unless we are gonna let folks simply die on the street, everyone should have adequate health insurance.

either we require folks to buy it & we help them do this..or we fund it for all through taxes.

you make a sound point

but once your healthcare is the financial responsibility of others, those others should be given far more say in how you live your life. Thus, those who are dependent on government (i.e. us taxpayers) for healthcare should be subjected to certain rules such as no smoking, no narcotics and weight limits. Don't like the rules-then you die on the streets and I have no problem with that
 
Its nice to think of it being a right, but its not IMO.

IMO a right is not something that is a commodity. Healthcare, with all its costs is certainly a commodity. The right to bear arms or free speech don't incur costs or affect labor markets in the way healthcare does.
 
you make a sound point

but once your healthcare is the financial responsibility of others, those others should be given far more say in how you live your life. Thus, those who are dependent on government (i.e. us taxpayers) for healthcare should be subjected to certain rules such as no smoking, no narcotics and weight limits. Don't like the rules-then you die on the streets and I have no problem with that

you don't have a problem with that....until you have to witness it with your own eyes.

once you see your first child die on the sidewalk because his parents don't have the money for the ER, you'll support public funding of ER bills for the indigent.

and you shouldn't have to pay for this. everyone should have health insurance, so Turtledude doesn't end up flipping the bill for little Johnny's ER bill.


you see...I don't think you and I should have our ER bills artificially inflated, to eat the costs of the indigent. but that's the situation right now.

if EVERYONE has health insurance, then MY and YOUR ER bill will be accurate..and not inflated to pay for some asshole who thinks he is bulletproof...
 
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people who impose costs on the rest of us should be limited in how many costs they can impose on us
 
or just require everyone has health-insurance, so no more costs are imposed on the public. :)

how are you going to make irresponsible people do that?
 
fine them. every year that they don't buy health insurance.

so we can fine them for being fat, stoned or screwing like crazed ferrets
 
no, we can't fine people for being horny. that's just silly.

spawning offspring we have to pay for on the other hand........
 
we have to buy them food, shelter, clothes?

no we don't.

I think if you are on the public dole and you breed you should be severely fined or have your benefits cut-the children put in a foster home so they don't suffer but you do
 
I find the bolded portion disappointing and rather offensive. The challenges facing life as a disabled individual are enormous. They can't do what others take for granted, and they usually display immense courage in the face of adversity to push themselves to their personal limits. To call them "the lesser among us" diminishes them as human beings.

No it doesn't.
People, specifically those that were born with disabilities, didn't ask to be this way, it's a product of random nature, that they don't have all the faculties of a human born without a disability.
It's rather a statement of fact, that they tend to be the lesser among us, but my personal beliefs hold me to support them for this fault of nature.

That's real unfairness, it's not made up.
Something the current health care bill never addressed is how the government of the U.S.A. puts limits on the life of those who are disabled.
All the while, everyone else whines about expensive premiums and having to pay for birth control.
 
I fail to see how mandating insurance does not impose costs on the public.

For everyone getting a subsidy on the premium, the public is paying. Anyone under 400% of poverty is getting a subsidy.
 
No it doesn't.
People, specifically those that were born with disabilities, didn't ask to be this way, it's a product of random nature, that they don't have all the faculties of a human born without a disability.
It's rather a statement of fact, that they tend to be the lesser among us, but my personal beliefs hold me to support them for this fault of nature.

That's real unfairness, it's not made up.
Something the current health care bill never addressed is how the government of the U.S.A. puts limits on the life of those who are disabled.
All the while, everyone else whines about expensive premiums and having to pay for birth control.

And none of us chose for them to have disabilities either. How does them not choosing to have the disability make the rest of society responsible for their misfortune?

My beliefs hold me to support them also. My beliefs also hold me not to compel another to do so.
 
All of the above.
 
And none of us chose for them to have disabilities either. How does them not choosing to have the disability make the rest of society responsible for their misfortune?

My beliefs hold me to support them also. My beliefs also hold me not to compel another to do so.

Because there is some balance between no government aid and a lot of government aid.
I disagree with able bodied individuals getting aid, it really makes no sense, but people born disabled were not started on the level playing ground, the rest of us are.
 
Because there is some balance between no government aid and a lot of government aid.
I disagree with able bodied individuals getting aid, it really makes no sense, but people born disabled were not started on the level playing ground, the rest of us are.

Even Milton Friedman argued that there were two groups who inherently deserved aid from the rest of us - children and the disabled.
 
You can't make health care a right without specifying HOW MUCH health care. You can make it a right but only include aspirin and band-aids, or you can say that everyone is entitled to the same level of care that the richest rich people get, or you can specify something in between.
 
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