Sorry, but you have no 'right' to health care.

[Rideron]

If you need health care, and you have health insurance, they pay for it because you bought a policy of insurance for health care expenses. You pay good money premiums for the plan of coverage that you bought.

If you run into a situation when your health insurer balks about whether or not they're going to pay for a particular treatment, the answer is simple! You just pay for it yourself.

Health care insurance is a good and/or service; and having health care insurance is not your 'right' in any way, shape or form.

In fact, getting health care itself is not a 'right' you are entitled to.

Where it breaks down is expecting that it IS a'right' and its the job of "Government" to make sure you get some semblence of 'health care'.

BUT!...; government does NOT 'give' you any of your 'rights'. You are born with them simply by virtue of being human. The U.S government does NOT produce and bestow upon you, ANY rights.

All people are born with equal rights, even people in North Korea.

The only difference is that people in North Korea are unfortunate enough to have been born under a governmental system that does not recognize their natural human rights.

But, health care is NOT a right, for anyone, anywhere. Food, clothing, and shelter are not 'rights' either. They are all simply goods or services.

If you wanna make 'health care' a right bestowed upon you by 'government', you may as well make food, clothing and shelter 'rights' too, because all three of those things are far more urgently important on a daily basis than needing your appendix out, or a mammogram.

So, quit beating around the bush and at least be honest about it.

Have a nice day.

[ghettopalmetto]

Okay, then. We'll tell your boss how you feel, and I'm sure the company will be just fine with not having to shell out money for your health insurance.

We'll just say that you're unfortunate enough to work for a company that doesn't recognize your need to see a doctor.

[d.mcc]

I'm pretty sure I am entitled to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I am pretty sure these are all interconnected, and its kind of weird how Life is the worst one listed.

I would argue that Life and Health go hand in hand...

[Rideron]

Okay, then. We'll tell your boss how you feel, and I'm sure the company will be just fine with not having to shell out money for your health insurance.

We'll just say that you're unfortunate enough to work for a company that doesn't recognize your need to see a doctor.

Go tell my boss, Ghetto.

I don't have a 'right' to that job, either.

The employment contract I have with my employer; [[which is an 'at-will contract) is that my employer pays toward my health inusrance.

Thats the deal I got by accepting their job offer and working for them.

Government did not get me my job. Government did not provide my 'right' to health care.

I have no 'right' to health care. I just put myself into a position where I got it, because I wanted it.

Try working for something you want rather than yelling on a street corner and holding out your hand. You might actually get it, and get it quicker.

[Stosh]

Go tell my boss, Ghetto.

I don't have a 'right' to that job, either.

The employment contract I have with my employer; [[which is an 'at-will contract) is that my employer pays toward my health inusrance.

Thats the deal I got by accepting their job offer and working for them.

Government did not get me my job. Government did not provide my 'right' to health care.

I have no 'right' to health care. I just put myself into a position where I got it, because I wanted it.

Try working for something you want rather than yelling on a street corner and holding out your hand. You might actually get it, and get it quicker.

Here's something to think about. I have health care. I can offer your employer NOT to have to pay for yours, just give me your job and he's off the hook. Think it can't happen? I know someone that was a long term employee replaced with someone else. Go figure.

[oladub]

I'm pretty sure I am entitled to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I am pretty sure these are all interconnected, and its kind of weird how Life is the worst one listed.

I would argue that Life and Health go hand in hand...

Jefferson argued that the only 'reason' [[reason in singular) governments are established is to 'secure' such Creator given rights. The government does not create them. Governments are, for instance, supposed to allow people to pursue happiness rather than provide happy pills. As we know from history, governments have often been the primary agents of depriving people of rights to life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness.

Rideron, I do not know of any federal Constitutional provision that prohibits states from devising statewide health care programs. States have just as much right, from a 10th Amendment standpoint, to have their own health care programs as they have to create universities, parks, and other institutions. Whether or not Jefferson would agree is a another matter.

[Johnlodge]

So what is your solution to rapidly increasing health care costs that businesses and individuals are having a harder and harder time affording? They show absolutely no signs of leveling off or decreasing. Our companies have a difficult time competing with foreign companies who don't have to pay for health care because their government does. It seems something has to change soon. What are your suggestions for stemming this trend? I recently had my yearly meeting where I'm told I now need to pay more money for less coverage. Most likely have it again next year.

Disclaimer: I have no f*@ idea what to think about this issue. I'm not arguing one side or the other because I don't know what's best for all of us like you guys do on every conceivable subject.

[lilpup]

Go tell my boss, Ghetto.

I don't have a 'right' to that job, either.

The employment contract I have with my employer; [[which is an 'at-will contract) is that my employer pays toward my health inusrance.

Thats the deal I got by accepting their job offer and working for them.

Government did not get me my job. Government did not provide my 'right' to health care.

I have no 'right' to health care. I just put myself into a position where I got it, because I wanted it.

Try working for something you want rather than yelling on a street corner and holding out your hand. You might actually get it, and get it quicker.

Ya know, sometimes it's really tempting to wish extended unemployment on some people.

[Sstashmoo]

5:27 PM? Isn't that when The Glenn Beck show goes off? Someone recently mentioned that I needed to watch him and he came on at 5 IIRC. I could barely contain the laughter.

I don't watch any TV and I dam sure ain't turning it on to watch that jackass.

Quote: "What are your suggestions for stemming this trend?"

Keep watching Fox and continue believing since he is provided free insurance that, that is the best plan for the healthcare crisis.

[Lorax]

Well, since modern health insurance policies aren't worth the paper they're written on, I say we eliminate the profit in health care and run the insurance scammers out of business and replace it with a single payer system like every other socialized democracy on earth has, except us.

For your information, health care may not be a "right" but it should be in a modern, presumably civilized society.

I guess from your elitist standpoint, the diseases of the poor don't affect the wealthy? LOL!!!

Let's just forget the school vaccines, preventative medicine which the indigent have access to, the std treatments at publicly funded clinics, polio vaccines, measles, mumps, whooping cough, tuberculosis, etc, and we'll see how fast the rich decide we need nationalized health care.

What a stupid thread topic.

[Rideron]

My suggestion for reducing health care costs.

Eliminate 3rd party payment.

[oladub]

Johnlodge, Whom are you addressing? If you are asking me, My preference would be to get the government out of health care at may levels. Pharmaceutical prices would drop if they were all over the counter, operations could be provided in foreign countries for a fraction of the cost, etc.. My second option would be to have states adopt Ontario's health care system lock, stock, and barrel to get rid of lawyers, insurance companies, and many paper shufflers. Governments in the US already spend more per capita than governments in Canada per capita. Adopting a Canadian provincial like system would actually reduce the size of government. I'm surprised that fiscal conservatives haven't figured this out. The problem is that Democrats and Republicans would lose important donor bases if they were serious about reform.

Tariffs and the strict enforcement of immigration policy would go a long way to bolster the bargaining position of American workers. Again, most Democrats and Republicans stand in the way of such reforms. They answer to their paymasters rather than their constituents. Case in point: the Wall Street bailout.

[elganned]

My suggestion for reducing health care costs.

Eliminate 3rd party payment.

EXCELLENT idea!

Then we need to increase the number of providers so they actually do compete with each other in the marketplace instead of maintaining an artificial scarcity a la DeBeers and diamonds.

Then maybe health care [[as opposed to health care insurance) would become affordable.

Alternate answer [[Plan B): Death panels. It's the only other affordable option.

[Retroit]

"A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

[Stosh]

"A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

Sorry, but wrong. Try Gerald Ford, a real intellectual...

From factcheck.org:

Fake Jefferson Quote

The e-mail signs off with a quote that supposedly comes from Thomas Jefferson: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." But Jefferson never said that.
According to Monticello researchers and Jefferson scholars who maintain the online Jefferson Encyclopedia: "We have never found such a statement in Jefferson’s writings. As far as we know, this statement actually originates with [Republican President] Gerald R. Ford, who said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have," in an address to a joint session of Congress on August 12, 1974."
The author of this urges others to send this message on, smugly suggesting,"If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted." Hardly. What’s really being spread are seeds of ignorance – and a pack of clumsy lies.
-Brooks Jackson

[Jimaz]

Anti rights = pro totalitarianism.

[ccbatson]

So long as the first right is individual property rights. Now, in order to provide health care to everyone, property must be taken from one person in order to give it to another...trump card.

[Stosh]

So long as the first right is individual property rights. Now, in order to provide health care to everyone, property must be taken from one person in order to give it to another...trump card.

I vote to take yours first. Just because.

[MoparDan]

Who pays for the uninsured & indigent? I'm sure it's coming out of my wallet somewhere along the line.

[Sstashmoo]

MoDan, exactly. We are paying for a public healthcare system already.

[Blarf]

Health care needs to be reformed, most agree with that.

But I find it hard to believe anyone wants our government to take control and be in charge of something like that. They are a bunch of a filthy incompetent slobs.

Plus, they are going to have to take on the responsibility of handling all those malpractice lawsuits that clog up the industry that drive up insurance prices.....

[turkeycall]

Blarf quote:
"Health care needs to be reformed, most agree with that.

But I find it hard to believe anyone wants our government to take control and be in charge of something like that. They are a bunch of a filthy incompetent slobs.

Plus, they are going to have to take on the responsibility of handling all those malpractice lawsuits that clog up the industry that drive up insurance prices..... "

1. Health care does need to be reformed. Reformation assumes that the delivery of health care will be on a "continuous improvement" basis, and that the efficiencies and heightened productivity of continuous improvement will bring the cost of health care down.

2. Health care reform does not mean - and never should mean - that the government is in the health care delivery business. The federal government wants to "own" hopitals and clinics as little as they want to own General Motors, VA Hospitals notwithstanding [More about that later in this post].

3. The government has shown itself to be a wonderful administrator of many things when the right people are placed in authority. The Department of Defense comes to mind, as does the Internal Revenue Service, the National Parks system, the Interstate Comerce Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration, to name but a few components of government.

4. Following the forms of H.R. 676 and S. 703, the federal government can be a very good administer of health care payments to individual doctors, clinics, hospitals, and nursing facilities. The Social Security Medicare System already is in place to do just that. The Social Security Medicare System does not dispense health care, it pays for it. They have special machines which are dedicated to printing checks.

The House and Senate bills mentioned above amount to Medicare for all. For the citizens of the United States, is there really a down-side to that?

Will Medicare taxes go up? Of course they will. So what! An increase in taxes for a better plan which covers virtually every health contingency sounds pretty good to me.

Addressing the problem of malpractice suits is, I believe, mentioned in the above mentioned bills.

5. There is an argument that the present Medicare mechanism is going broke. I've seen the figures and prognostications. The current economic conditions are a factor, but what is not often thought about is that so many manufacturing jobs have left the country - with the government's blessing and encouragement. Jobs in a service economy just won't pay the freight. Good paying jobs provide the Medicare taxes which are needed to sustain the system. If manufacturing jobs are brought back and more people [[those who pay into the system) are employed, how can the system not succeed ?

6. Here's my VA Hospital hobby horse: The care and feeding of elegible military veterans should be the top priority of the VA. I don't suppose even Bats would argue that point.

A lot of veterans who receive care through the VA system don't live anywhere close to a VA facilty. Many of those veterans - because of physical limitations - are either unemployed or underemployed and do not have transportation to and from the VA facilities. They rely on the good graces of relatives and friends. Even when transportation is provided, the veteran finds that, upon his arrival at the care center, appointments have been overbooked, he is told to reschedule an appointment. Sometimes it is found that the care he or she needs is only available at a facility even farther from home. For the veteran who lives in Muskegon - where the needed treatment is readilly available at Mercy or Hackley Hospitals - and finds he needs to go all the way to Battle Creek for care, this is an unnecessary burden.

Solution: Close down the VA Hospitals. Save tons of money spent on heat, electricity, maintenance and employees. Issue ID cards to the elegible veterans so they can receive the needed care from local doctors, hospitals, and clinics.

Does this not make sense?

[Rideron]

How about just killing all 3rd payer systems of health care and just let the market dictate?

Maybe your $2500 cat scan will be $250 instead

[Lorax]

Excellent post, Turkeycall.

More apologizing for the wealthy corporate interests from Ridemeron.

More to the point, we have a single payer system already in place, in fact, four of them- Medicare, Medicaid, the Veteran's Administration, and health care for Congress.

We know how to do it- a simple, well planned expansion of the current single payer systems to include all Americans would provide the greatest economies of scale, facilitate payment to hospitals and clinics, bring down costs, and more efficiently deliver health care.

I would also argue it would be budget neutral, and not result in higher taxes.

Redistribution of the federal budget could pay for socialized medicine. The pentagon is the worst offender and wastes more of our treasury than any other department. Reducing military spending and ending the now-budgeted wars would more than pay for this kind of universal coverage, cradle to grave.

We will never compete with the rest of the industrialized world again, especially in light of the developing economies of China and India in particular- what our problem is, is one of politics and lobbying influence.

Big pharma and big insurance has spent nearly a billion dollars fighting health care reform. How many people did they have to drop or deny coverage to in order to pay for this?

It's criminal the grip private enterprise has on our government. The current bill is just a very large giveaway to these corporate wealth interests. The medical mandate is especially egregious, and without a guarantee of a public option as a bare minimum, this bill will go down as yet another defeat for the interests of individual Americans.

I watch this debate with interest, as I am predicting it will be passed, which would be a bigger failure than if we left the current system to self-destruct on it's own.

America seems to have this desire to continue down painful paths toward legislation, allowing the wealth interests to seize the day, when the answers are all around us- specifically the rest of the socialized democracies of the world, which have superior health care, delivery and use of it, and greater efficiency as well.

[MoparDan]

Here in Texas, the governor loves to oppose the president on just about anything[[Slamming the Stimulus Package for instance, then immediately applying for money no less). For instance, when Obama basically said that anyone who could afford health insurance should be required to buy it, the governor went on about "government intrusion", etc.
But yet, in our state, it is the law that you MUST carry at least liability insurance on any vehicle you own.
So, I must ask, what is the difference between that & mandatory health insurance?
My question earlier was in reference that we are paying for indigent & uninsured people already. Chances are it is more expensive for us to do that than some kind of public option or forcing insurance companies to offer a discount policy to those people. However, those people MUST take responsibility for their own health as well, such as not smoking, etc. Very simplified viewpoin I realize; if these people are unemployed, then have them do community service to at least help offset the costs. I'd rather have them cleaning up a park, trash off the roadways etc. It would never be paid back in full, but I'd probably feel better that all my money wasn't paid in vain.
Oversimplification all around, but you gotta start somewhere.