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txaslftist (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-16-10 01:01 PMOriginal message I guess I'm having trouble with the whole concept here... "Everyone has a right to quality health care"...I don't know. What if it isn't available? Like in Haiti, it has to be rationed, the survivors have to be triaged, there are folks who will die because the level of care they need exceeds what is available there on the ground... I think we accept this as being a place where the reality on the ground outweighs the general right of "things deserved".Or in Africa, in Uganda. "Everyone has a right to quality education..." So why am I sponsoring a child there to the tune of $250 a year? Clearly I feel that child deserves the best education available for $250 a year, but what about the rest of the children in his village? With my income I could support 200 of them, but then of course I would have nothing. So, at least in the case of Ugandans, the principle must be modified to "SOME have a right to quality education". And of course the medical treatment available in Uganda is comparable to the education available... So the general principle must be modified again..."SOME have a right to quality medical care". Again, though, we must look at the term "quality". The nearest hospital to my sponsoree's village is over 50 miles away, and is a run-down ramshackle affair with a collapsing cieling. There is only one "doctor", and he is about as medically knowledgeable as a first year med student in the US. So in Uganda, the principle becomes "SOME have a right to SOME medical care".If it is not universal, then it is not a right, it is a privilege, right? So really, "SOME have a PRIVILEGE of SOME medical care". That seems to be a universal truth, but it's a good deal watered down from "EVERYONE having a RIGHT to QUALITY medical care". So maybe what is meant is "Every American has the right to quality medical care". This is a bit more ethnocentric, but it will do to go on, right?Except it, too, must be qualified. Who is to pay for the medical care? In the case of those of use who earn money, presumably our insurance company through redistribution of our premiums after taking out their profit, right? Well, if I have to pay for it, it is not a right, is it? However, my paying for it does grant me the right to demand it. So for me, an earner/payer, it is a privilege I have the right to demand so long as I pay for it.But how can the same hold true for the uninsured? He pays no premium and therefore has given nothing toward the privilege he wishes to demand. If his medical care is to be paid for, it must be paid for by someone else, right? Or he must have his own money, apart from the insurer, with which to pay, if he is to get medical care. He may not have a job. He may not even want a job. He may be like my Ugandan sponsoree, in that there is literally NO WAY for him to pay for what he wants or needs due to his circumstances. I, on the other hand, can afford to pay my own way and contribute somewhat to his well-being, but in the case of the Ugandan, I have a choice. I choose to sponsor one child because that is what I have determined I can afford in the management of my own property and affairs. I shudder to think what the Ugandan government, if they had a say, would decide I can afford.By the same token, if universal health care passes with an insurer component, I shudder to think what proportion of my new, mandatory and higher premiums must be devoted to the profit of the hospitals, doctors and insurance companies. I also worry about what level of care they will decide I or my family deserve to get from my higher premiums. If universal health care passes without an insurer component, then it will be simply a government agency deciding how to spend my mandatory premiums.Either way, the premiums will become mandatory, and like all taxes, will be enforced with the penalty of imprisonment if I do not pay, and murder if I resist imprisonment. The government will take by force from me my property to redistribute to those whom they decide have the "right" to it. This will go further, in that the government will also decide who has such a right. Like "welfare to work", medical care from this program will undoubtedly be tied to working, schooling, not getting in trouble, etcetera. I suspect drug tests will be part of eligibility.Convicted felons and drug users are denied social security benefits under certain circumstances. Seems to me that denying them medical care will be a likely thing, in which case let us please not call this a "right". And of course, we all know how independent, immune from political pressure and competent government agencies are, right? And we all know that, like the premiums paid to social security, these medical premiums will be set aside, managed responsibly and cared for, right? They won't be put in the general fund or doled out to influential constituents, right? Because our government has a record of pristine fiscal responsibility...In sum, I think this is a fight I don't mind seeing the Democratic Party lose. I guess Winston Churchill was right about the migration of ones ideals as one ages... I may lose my leftist credentials over this issue, but the past 10 years have taught me a tremendous distrust of the government. I don't want to entrust them with even more money.
When its rationed we will get less quality healthcare. By definition. Try adding 20 million people and probably less doctors.
Hey, I know that. It looks like a DUmmie may have figured that one out as well. Hence the post. Shock and Awe. Shock and Awe.
Berry Cool Donating Member (1000+ posts)Tue Mar-16-10 01:12 PMResponse to Original message2. After reading this, I'd say, yeah, your leftist credentials are pretty much gone. Your post reads like a Tea Party screed, in which you ultimately imagine yourself being sentenced to death by the state for refusal to pay for other lazy SOBs' health care costs.You exaggerate to make your points, and you also seem to have confused "right" with "reality." As in, if currently not everyone in the world has decent health care because of the realities on the ground, that means that no such "right" exists.Funny, that's not how the signers of the Declaration of Independence saw things. They asserted that people (well, men, anyway) had the God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even if no one then living on the planet currently enjoyed all of those rights in reality.Universal health care may be a difficult thing to achieve in this country, but that doesn't mean decent health care should not be a right or that we should not try to achieve universal health care. If you don't trust the government to handle it, do you trust private enterprise to, because so far they haven't done so well.Sorry, but your whole post comes off like the rantings of a teabagger who thinks all he should have to take care of when it comes to health care is himself, his family, and others whom he may deem fit to enjoy his charity...and to hell with his countrymen who can't afford it, because he doesn't want to be on the hook for all of them (despite the fact that today, when they show up in an emergency room, he IS on the hook for them) because he sees no benefit in that for himself. In short, "I got mine and if you can't get yours, screw you." Not very leftist to me.
txaslftist (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-16-10 01:17 PMResponse to Reply #2 5. I'm actually not homosexual. And even if I were, teabagging would be beyond the pale. Either way, it is interesting that you fling that around as an insult.As for the rest of what you posted, I might have less of a revulsion toward the idea of universal health care if it were being managed by a government that had previously been less corrupt, less incompetent and less financially reckless. Add to that this odious partnership with the insurers, and it is a recipe for disaster, IMO.
grasswire (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-16-10 01:15 PMResponse to Original message 4. Oboy. What are your leftist credentials, btw?
txaslftist (1000+ posts) Tue Mar-16-10 01:18 PMResponse to Reply #4 6. I am a precinct chair, a participant in a number of Democratic Party organizational things, and some other stuff. Not so fervent as I once was. Like I said, my credentials may be fading.
My bad. It's up there now.
This was a good one. I and my family thank you for it, Iassa. [/Greenbriar].Well, it's still there, but Texas left. Some other DUmmies weighed in with a bunch of blah blah blah, but he's not replying.
