What is Digg?541 Comments
- askorkin, on 08/24/2008, -34/+112If you work, even for minimum wage, you should have the same access to health care as the richest man in the country it is only fair. You are contributing to the economy, you obey the laws, you raise a family, surely you are entitled to not be left to die if there is a possibility of saving you. How can we call ourselves civilised, how can we try to solve problems in the 3rd world, if people can be left to essentially die or beggar themselves just to be able to get health care for themselves or their family
- digitalArtform, on 08/24/2008, -22/+86Healthcare cannot be left to the Free Market because there is no substitute for it.
If coffee gets too expensive you can always buy tea. But if fixing your leg gets too expensive you can't fix your arm instead. - dsmx, on 08/24/2008, -16/+80Surely though that same reasoning applies to the fire service, the police service and any service you can think of.
- sonycam, on 08/24/2008, -10/+44Education
Emergency Services
Local council services
These are seen as rights in modern western countries. It's paid for with tax. In the UK, the NHS (national health service) is the same as education, everyone has it as a right as it's paid for with tax. You can chose a better quality of service and go private (like you can with education), but everyone has a satisfactory level for free. - tanuki0, on 08/24/2008, -11/+43I wonder how one can even ask himself this question. In France, this is not an issue, health care is a right and the State can't let anyone be sick and stay sick if they can't pay medical bills. I don't understand how you can be selfish to the point of thinking that there's no way you'd pay someone else's bills considering someday, they could pay yours and save your life. My aunt has never been sick in her entire life and paid her taxes every month. One day she had a car accident in Canada and she had to be brought back in France, she stayed in hospital for an entire year and she still has to go back every week. She hasn't paid a single cent and she wouldn't have been able to anyway.
Even in a capitalist system, you have to have the basic health care. It doesn't mean you can't buy more if you need it like an insurance company. - meteparozzi, on 08/24/2008, -9/+40There are good things to be said for socialized medicine.
You aren't looking at a problem with having a unified system, so much as treating medical care as a commodity to be given to the highest bidder. It's like some terrible religion where only the rich go to heaven, so to speak.
I'm an American employed in Taiwan and, as a result of my local employment, get access to the healthcare here. I've had quite a few problems since I've been here, and am unbelievably grateful for my coverage. Even with employer provided healthcare in America, I couldn't possibly have afforded to cover my costs. I recently needed an MRI. I was on vacation back home in the States and thought I would look into it while seeing a doctor there. First off, the blood work cost me $260 without insurance. Then, get this, some things are actually cheaper if you don't have insurance. An x-ray without insurance was $45, but with it would have cost $90. Everybody in the system is out to get a big cut, and this pumps up the premiums.
Health care and health insurance are two different things. Insurance is what you get in the event of an accident. Care is what you get when you eventually need it. In the U.S. we get insurance. Well, insurance companies, as all companies, are out to make a profit. Problem is, everyone gets sick, and everyone dies. Life is 100% fatal. But to make money on insurance, you get the statistics and raise the rates for people who are more likely to have an accident. If everyone is going to get sick, and everyone is going to die, where are the odds there?
That's where pre-existing conditions come in. Cut out the stuff you are most likely to die from as something you'll have to pay for, from an insurers perspective. So if you are middle-aged and have a family history of cardiac disorders and you have inherited a predisposition for high blood pressure, guess what won't get covered - hypertension. That means your meds to keep you from going into cardiac arrest won't get covered. If you fall ill with some sort of complications from this condition, it won't get paid for. Essentially your insurer is out to make sure you die from something they won't have to cover. If you are lucky enough to overcome your hypertension with a strict self-managed, self-medicated diet (if that is a possibility - not always the case) you might have some other disfunction later in life that will be covered.
Returning to my story about my MRI. My doctor in America said it would have cost me $2500 out of pocket, and even with the best insurance, I would have to pay a $1000 deductible. He actually recommended I do it in Taiwan where I could afford it. Came back a few weeks later and looked into it. With a doctor recommendation and health insurance, that same MRI is free. If I elect to have it without seeing a doctor, it is only $400. Sure, I have to wait until October or November, but that's because it isn't an emergency.
There should really be a movement away from health insurance, and treat it as life care. Doctors should ENCOURAGE people to exercise, there should be discounts on gym memberships and deductions in rates for people who exercise regularly. Instead of managing illness after the fact, why couldn't they manage health ahead of time.
If nothing else, let's admit the current system in America is broken. If we start there, at least then we can work toward a fix. Health care as a capitalist system doesn't work because it is purely a social thing. It's not like the doctors in Taiwan or other countries don't get paid, and there are certainly problems in their system as well. But you can't treat health care as a way to make a profit because your customer and your shareholder are at odds. When one benefits, the other loses. That isn't the free market way. In any other business, shareholders and customers are win / win.
When I WANT a computer, the company gets my money (win), and I get a computer (win). If I don't WANT one, the company gets no money (lose), and I have no computer (lose). When I NEED an MRI, the company loses money (lose) and I get an MRI (win). When I don't NEED an MRI, the company gets my money anyway (win), and I don't get an MRI (neutral).
If you look, the function is the opposite. In this situation, the company benefits by WITHHOLDING it's goods and services. It's the equivalent of the mafia showing up and saying if you don't give them the money, you won't get a beating. Give them some cash, and you stay healthy. Except in this case, they can't guarantee your health. But they can guarantee their continued payouts if they deny procedures. Essentially, they take a cost / payout view. How much will it cost them to get you healthy and paying again, versus how much cost would they avoid to just let you die rather than fix you. People aren't cars, and the difference between 'totaling' us (death) and repairing us (healthcare) shouldn't be calculated in dollars by a claims agent. Period. - Jamesx6, on 08/24/2008, -13/+42I find it funny that the united states still struggles with this issue when its common sense to the rest of the first world countries. its like watching someone shoot themselves in the foot.
- bonez56, on 08/24/2008, -15/+43Michael Moore's Sicko anyone? This is old news. You can get better health care in Canada for free.
I'm an Australian citizen and I travelled to the UK a few years ago. Walked into a hospital at 3am and was given absolutely fantastic health care, for free. They didn't even ask for any ID. They sent me home with free treatment and medication for my Asthma. - chillypacman, on 08/24/2008, -7/+35True, but you are dealing with a very deranged right wing, once one of them argued to me, I kid you not, 'if healthcare is a right then why shouldn't food be socialized?'.
I mean come on, I can eat a piece of bread or a lobster every night and keep living bbut I can get cancer which costs $50,000 dollars to treat which I won't be able to afford. Why should I be denied the right to live because my earnings are less than a multimillionaires?
The problem with trusting your health to a private corporation is because the private corporation does not profit from providing you quality service, it profits by denying you service. If I start a plan this week and in six months am hit with an illness that requires hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat you bet yer balls the company is going to go to hell and back to avoid paying me.
When it's the government however it is essentially not for profit, the government as an extension of the people should take care of the people in the country (if that isn't its goal there's something wrong with your government) and as such will not deny you care based on money because it isn't out to please stock holders or CEOs, it's out to please voters, namely, you.
But the right wing insists, they argue such things as 'big government forces doctors to work in areas they don't want to', I ask these morons, what would a private corporation do? If there are enough doctors in a city that there is no more work there they will not hire new doctors and will recommend doctors applying to go elsewhere.
My dad used to work at a public hospital, just down the road there was a private one, for the whole time he worked at the public hospital he commented on how patients at the private hospital were frequently referred to the public one, how the private hospital had, I kid you not, 1 nurse for 50 patients, had no specialists on call (wherein his hospital had everyone, from pediatricians to neurologists), had no resident GP, like, at all, and was not at all equipped to take care of emergency situations.
Why? Becaue it's a private hospital, its owners want to cut costs, you ask for competition? Well guess what, being out in a town with a very small population it wasn't cost effective, there were no prviate insurers who wanted to compete in a town theywould lose money in. That's right,they wouldn't even send GPs into that area because it just wasn't profitable.
So really, ultimately, the free market preachers argument can be demolished simply by asking two questions: What if the market is not adequate enough to sustain competition or even bring in interested corporate parties? and second of all, how can you ensure competition to provide good services, even where competition is feasible, if competition revolves around denying service, not giving it? - botbotbot, on 08/24/2008, -5/+29In the UK we have the NHS (the National Healthcare System), which runs every hospital and pays the wages of every nurse and doctor. It is funded by the tax that every citizen pays and covers everything from nose jobs to brain surgery. However there is a terrible problem here with queues and waiting for appointments. For example, my sister has been waiting for two years to talk to a consultant about getting a bone corrected in her nose. The queues generally depend on where abouts in the UK you live, although there are still many private healthcare options that patients can pay for at hospitals run by seperate companies. Private healthcare in the UK is extremely expensive, and when the private companies mess up, or leave a patient with a botched operation, it is left to the NHS to sort it out.
I believe the NHS is a brilliant system, as it doesn't just work on a first come first serve basis. A man with a repeated history of drug abuse and violence would be further behind in the queue than a young mother, and nothing is based on the wealth of the patient. Also the doctors are very willing to find the best solution a problem, and will offer all the best advice and subscribe the best (and probably the most expensive) treatment to the patient. For example, if a woman were to repeatedly come in for anti-depressants because she is an alcoholic, doctors here would tell her that if she didn't seek help for her alcoholism the medication will eventually stop. Then a range of treatments would be offered for the alcoholism, rather than the depression. From a UK point of view, US citizens wouldn't recieve this level of care without paying for it first which is very unreasonable.
I'm actually quite proud of the NHS, as without it a lot of the people on the country would be in very poor health. The queues are a drawback, but i'd rather wait that little bit longer for a simple operation than pay thousansds of pounds to have it now. I believe if the US could begin a healthcare system similar to ours, a lot of people would have an easier life all round, whether financially or physically. Doors could be opened to the poorer citizens. - eclectro, on 08/24/2008, -12/+33It's because we live in a nation of selfish people which has a majority that says "I'm not sick and the system works fine for me. Why should we fix it?" in addition to large insurance companies who make a profit by denying claims and who have powerful lobbyists in Washington. The fact is, probability wise there is a neighbor of yours who is struggling with this.
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow ...
If you are sick, you understand all too well how the system is broke and why it needs repair. And for all those that whine about "rationing," I got news for you, the system is already heavily rationing, esp. against those who get sick. - budgeysmuggler, on 08/24/2008, -6/+27It makes sense that a healthy and fit workforce is more productive than a sick one. I don't understand why your government cant provide you with adequate health care, or at least ensure private health care is accessible and affordable for all. If you pay tax you deserve it.
- Azerael, on 08/24/2008, -2/+22I'm growing very tired of you 'left vs right' people. There are two options to every argument; what is logical, and what is illogical. If you look at an argument and say 'what is the left/right-wing stance to this issue?' instead of 'how can this issue be logically resolved?' then you're missing the ***** point.
- digitalArtform, on 08/24/2008, -1/+20If fixing your car gets too expensive you can ride your bike or take public transportation. That's a substitute. The public utility of water is arguably a right.
- digghasnoethics, on 08/24/2008, -12/+31The right to healthcare IS a right - its there in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The only strange thing is that many in the US seem to think this is up for debate. Countries level of civilisation is measured by their adherence to these basic human rights, and most western countries can do fairly well.
Its not for nothing that the US system that would see someone die for money is viewed with such horror around the world. - meteparozzi, on 08/24/2008, -6/+25The real question is, how many of those ranting against a socialist / government-funded system of healthcare have ever actually had to undergo a serious, expensive procedure? How many of them have ever been denied by their health insurance provider / HMO? How many of them have qualified for a 'pre-existing' condition.
Of course we don't trust our government to properly manage healthcare because we don't trust them to do anything right. Rightly so, because we are one of the least involved nations in the world as far as political turnout and involvement go. But then again, do you really think a corporation is looking out for your best interests either. If Wal-Mart could make more money without a customer than with one, do you think there would be any concern there for the common Joe?
At least, in theory, government is mandated for the people by the people. An insurance corporation is for the shareholders, by the shareholders. Hell, with the way things run now, you'd be better off buying stock in an HMO and selling it when you need medical insurance than buying the insurance itself. At least then your money would get a better return, even with the current stock market woes. - Tatten, on 08/24/2008, -9/+28its sad that so many people in the richest county in the world isnt covered, while here in Denmark everybody is. But our system isnt perfect, and nor is the american one. But I'm happy that I dont have to think about bills or anything else when I go to the doctors office, or when I get sent to the hospital. I wish americans had the same thing like we have.
- jdepp, on 08/24/2008, -1/+20I'm from the UK and I got a job in California aged 21, but while I was over there it turned out I needed some surgery.
I spent a months salary in a day getting MRI and blood work and some more on doctors fees to work out how urgent it was, then I got back on a plane to England and had the treatment done here for free, rather than spending $20,000 that I didn't have.
It makes you realise that if you're in America and the insurance doesn't cover it, you're really screwed. - shanesemler, on 08/24/2008, -6/+24I agree. The "free market" cannot meet the needs of public health and never will.
- waydee, on 08/24/2008, -1/+18If you're not paying UK national insurance contributions (as bonez56 wasn't) then yes there is in this case.
- tzortst, on 08/24/2008, -3/+20Those bitching about how much money it would cost. Maybe those trillions of dollars spent on that little Iraq war would be better spent on your own citizens, but I guess you all have the right to go to war?
- DuffyDirect, on 08/24/2008, -4/+20The problem with people against free health care is that they completely bury their heads in the sand when you point out the fact that militaries that win wars are 'socialist'. The north didn't win the Civil War because slave-hating Santa-Jesus was on the Union side, it won because it nationalized the railroads which dominated logistics and because the Department of Agriculture mandated and seized corn crop while the south starved and paid 10x or more peace time cost for foodstuffs via smuggling (so much for the free market...) The telegraphs and railroads were nationalized during WW1, our armies were always militia, volunteer, and draftee...
Funny that the U.S. only started losing wars once professionalization and career standing armies began during the Cold War, ain't it?
This country needs universal healthcare badly. What the hell has happened to people's minds who think the country doesn't need this? I mean, didn't you ever read richard scary books when you were a kid, or whatever? Policemen, firemen, librarians, teachers, and DOCTORS are birds of a feather. They ought to all be civil servants -- it makes noooo sense that doctors are not. - Someguy101, on 02/19/2009, -5/+21"Socialized health care caters to people who do not deserve it."
Fire protection caters to people who do not deserve it.
The poor should not be allowed access to the Police in emergencies because they do not deserve it.
Do you see the insanity behind that statement? If not it really sickens me that someone could actually be so heartless as to actually believe what you said.
You need to sit and think long and hard about the complete lack of compassion that it took for you to make that statement. I think all those people in petty labor jobs should refuse to provide you with any services because I think you don't deserve them. - Kyan, on 08/24/2008, -1/+16Shoot yourself in the foot? Hope you have insurance to cover that.
- Meccabilly, on 08/24/2008, -0/+14"Obama saying he will...."
This isn't about Obama - it's about healthcare. Take your agenda to another thread.
"Please provide a reason outside of those two, which is all you have given in your comment."
1. A healthy working populace will require less sick days and thus help the economy - Sick workers are less valuable then healthy ones.
2. People who are made bankrupt by costs of health are unable to spend money in shops and around the country in the other industries that keep the economy going. - zacharytelschow, on 08/24/2008, -11/+25Since when have any of those been fundamental rights? Regular government services in most places, surely, but government guaranteed rights?
- jabrthel, on 08/24/2008, -7/+20Those services aren't rights in the U.S., the supreme court has ruled that the police and fire departments can refuse to answer a call to 911.
- digitalArtform, on 08/24/2008, -11/+24You don't have a right to bear arms, then, unless you, personally, can manufacture them. You cannot compel another to be a gun maker.
- waydee, on 08/24/2008, -5/+18It's hard to see where people against nationalised health care are coming from but then I'm sure I'm like any other person from a country where it has been in place for a long time - healthcare is seen as a right and your contributions to it are seen as your responsibility as a citizen in the same way you make contributions to other social services, police, military etc.
It needn't replace a private system - infact I think when they both exist it keeps the private side in check so to speak, they can't get away with artificially inflating their charges or offering as limited coverage as they seem to in the US. There are areas where the NHS in the UK fails, there are parts of the country where the system is under a lot of pressure - I accept this but these are largely issues of management, funds are tight but adequate (in most cases, although more could always help!). For this reason the private industry still exists, for those who feel that the NHS cannot help them or is not up to helping them they are not required to use their services.
What everybody loves about the NHS is the community healthcare, the preventative healthcare, the cheap (and free) prescriptions, the generally excellent standard of clinics and general practices throughout the country, the ambulance services - the areas of the NHS that people use most often are of a fantastic standard in my opinion.
Hospitals are different in that some suffer under poor management and funding, not all of them though - quality of management varies as you'd expect in any other industry just as it does between NHS trusts but the problems are far more visible when they do arise. I've never had issue with any of the care I've received in an NHS hospital and always found the staff to be friendly, caring and medically just as proficient and able as any private care I've received abroad with the same level of technology available to them. The only issue I have seen is the large queues for accident & emergency at busy times - pretty much unavoidable, people have to be prioritised.
The NHS does an extraordinary job providing care to 60m+ people in the UK just like the nationalised healthcare providers of other countries do, they are much loved and appreciated institutions that, despite their minority of critics, continue to get the job done and keep an entire country healthy for very little cost to the taxpayer.
I think the USA could benefit from a similar system, it's not going to be easy but the benefits to society are massive. - Nintendesert, on 08/24/2008, -14/+27I'm all for a Nationalized Health Care System when we get a Nationalized Exercise Program. If I'm going to be forced to pay the health costs of the fatasses of the country devouring burgers and donuts all day long, then I should have some say in how they live their lives and treat their body. It's only the natural progression of things.
- aadsm, on 08/24/2008, -4/+16{Police, Firefighters, Education} is not and cannot ever be a right. You simply cannot have a right to something someone else must produce for you. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
- lanemik, on 08/24/2008, -4/+16Awesome. I can't believe people honestly, truly believe this.
1) Show me a doctor in a country with universal health care that sees themselves as a "sacrificial, rightless animal laboring to fulfill [anyone's] needs." That's such nonsense.
2) Yes, government health care *IS* absolutely infinitely better than no health care. Please, I would love to see the argument against that.
3) Everyone deserves health care. There is nobody who doesn't deserve health care, period. Please, Republican party, make the argument that 72,000,000 people do not deserve health care in a public way. Make a commercial about it. Spread the word. (And it's the liberals who are elitist? pshhht!)
4) There has never once been a society that didn't include the poor and poverty stricken. This planet will never see a society in which everyone is capable of paying their own way for everything (even if the conservative wet dream of a free market "utopia" comes along). Further, your argument that there are simply 72 million lazy slackers out there who just haven't worked hard enough to afford the basics in life, is utterly and completely wrong. There are all kinds of situations out there. There are households where the only breadwinner becomes disabled and the family has to live on a paltry disability check (which you would also take away). Other families have members who get gravely ill and have to spend all they have to care for that family member. Some families just fall on hard times for any number of reasons.
5) Our economy is suffering because of our health care system (or lack thereof). Employers have to provide massively expensive health insurance packages to people in order to attract the most skilled people. Because of this, some smaller companies simply can't attract the finest people and will suffer the consequences. Larger companies find it difficult to compete with companies in other countries. Do you think GM would be in as big of a financial crisis if they didn't have to afford health insurance for each and every one of their workers?
We already spend more per person for health care in the US. With our resources we could (and should) have the best, most widely available health care in the world. Yet conservatives will fight tooth and nail against it until the end of time. They know that once it is enacted, it will be so popular that nobody will ever be able to take it away.
It'll be fun one day to see the Republican party fight for better universal health care once we do get it and everyone learns how great it is. - lanemik, on 08/24/2008, -11/+23Oh man, you're right. We should abandon the education system, the water treatment plants, fire stations, police stations, we need to axe road construction and maintenance, and the military has to go. No more ambassadors, no more air traffic control, never again should we have any regulatory agency and the justice system is an archaic relic of our nation's past. How can we FORCE people to become judges and have them learn so much information and sit and rule on cases all day?
Instead, every single thing imaginable should be privatized. So what if a road building corporation wants to charge a giant fee for building and operating a highway? If you want to drive your car in the USA, you'd better make sure you've got a good job. It may be difficult to get a good job with the cost of education skyrocketing, but so what, don't blame us that children can't afford school. If parents are too poor to afford sending their kids to school (because the roads are too expensive to drive or walk on, the buses are too expensive to ride, the textbooks are too expensive to get, school lunches are too expensive, and on and on), well those parents shouldn't have had children in the first place.
It's just like health care today. If you're too poor to afford health care for your children, then you shouldn't have had children in the first place and your children deserve to suffer the consequences. All the poor slobs in this country deserve to be weeded out to make way for productive people.
(That last part was an actual, sincere argument by a conservative I once met. He didn't understand why I was looking at him like he was crazy.) - zyklon, on 08/24/2008, -1/+12Asthma is pretty complex. There are flareups, seasons, even emotional factors to the severity of asthma.
But you know... you can continue to be so cynical. I don't mind. I do know though, that when it comes down to it, you might end up wishing you had free care. - Erroneus, on 08/24/2008, -7/+18The market will never be fair, when multi-billion companies runs the healtcare system. Some things need to be ran by an objective part.
- Rotzooi, on 08/24/2008, -4/+15Stop capitalizing a word that has nothing to do with the issue at hand, greedy bastard.
- tullyr, on 08/24/2008, -8/+19It's about guaranteeing a basic quality of life, and level of human dignity, to every citizen of your society.
Jesus, have just a tiny sense of community. - DamnMan, on 08/24/2008, -1/+12How much of the tax burden do they have to bear before it becomes "fair?"
Easy question to answer. they pay the same % as the poorest. its pretty much that simple. If they control 50% of the income tough ***** when they end up paying 50% of the taxes. they aren't "burdened" any more than the poorest in that sense. The dollar amount by itself is irrelevant. Hell even using your logic that fair doesn't matter than its just pure logic that the people with most money are going to be squeezed the hardest to make governmental ends meet.
You want a reason for public health care? Take private health care to its maximum logical conclusion. That guy that made your elegant 80 dollar meal can't pay for antibiotics for his resistant TB coughs all over your Foie Gras. Bon Apatite. All those deceases we supposedly eliminated, because the poor don't have a "Right" to health care, suddenly make a resurgence. When half of the country is sick or dieing from preventable but unprofitable deceases basic services crumble. Cooks, Cleaners, Security Guards, Store Cashiers, Stock Boys, Bar Tenders, Door men, Taxi Drivers, Those petty labor jobs. The poor backbone of society crumbles. It has nothing to do with fairness. They cant afford vaccines and immunizations? To bad right? I'm sure YOU will have have enough to pay for both your health care and the exponential increase in the cost of everything because of a lack of affordable labor. Our "private" health care system only works to the extent it does now because the government is still subsidizing the costs for the poor. And that price is going up artificially because health care is basically a commodity. - Meccabilly, on 08/24/2008, -2/+13Indeed, that 1/3 of the country does very well for itself. The other 2/3 are jsut going to have to suck it up.
- Someguy101, on 02/19/2009, -6/+17"Since when have any of those been fundamental rights? Regular government services in most places, surely, but government guaranteed rights?"
It's not a question of whether they are rights or not it's whether the government funds those services. If the government funds them then everyone has a right to access them. Health care is the only service out of all of these similar public service professions that isn't funded by the government. Why shouldn't it be? What makes health care different from fire service or police work except that health care is far more important than either of those services? Using Neiby's logic we should have to pay for every police visit and every time a fire fighter has to come to our house in an emergency, the same way we need to pay for an ambulance ride. - wkenri, on 08/24/2008, -4/+15There is so much opposition to national health in the US especially from the AMA who collectively feel that doctors should get as rich as possible and damned those who are too poor to pay for health care, and the insurance companies who are running the most blatant scam in US history. Anyone who feels that the rich are the only ones entitled to decent health care is most likely a republican.
- Flamekebab, on 08/24/2008, -1/+11When I wanted to have a checkup xray for the metal plate in my left arm I had to wait a little while, but when I came into A&E with a couple of badly broken bones I was treated immediately and treated very well. The system isn't perfect but I'm not sure if humans are even capable of designing a perfect system!
- DiggItalia, on 08/24/2008, -2/+12If there's one thing I like of my country is the free health care. It might not be super-efficient, but at least you have it guaranteed. Some treatment and surgery my family had would had cost us thousands of euros, and I can see that some people wouldn't be able to afford that kind of money. Do you want to let people die because they're poor or unemployed? that's your problem, and if I was you, I would think a bit about that...
- inactive, on 08/24/2008, -16/+26I know my taxes will be raised whenever i hear "I HAVE A RIGHT".
- Sicarius, on 08/24/2008, -4/+14I live in a country where I have a "right" to free health care. Fortunately I have also exercised my right to buy private health insurance because the public system sucks donkey balls.
The issue is not whether health care is a right or not. Everyone agrees it is a good thing. The issue is how best to provide it. Personally I believe markets are the best way to allocate a scare resource. Give politicians control and they do what is in their best interest not yours
Here in NZ for example they get up every election year and crow about an extra thousand hip operations because they need the elderly vote and a thousand is a nice round number. But too bad if you really need something else... - CosmicJustice, on 08/24/2008, -5/+15******************* "endowed by their Creator" ****************************
No creator. No rights.
Digg me into the basement folks. But be careful in the real world. In order for you have any natural rights that are more than hypothetical then those rights have to come from a higher authority than yourself. Simply declaring that you have rights doesn't confer any rights. If the only higher authority is other people in the form of a government bureaucracy then your rights are tenuous at best. You are a lot better off if your rights descend from something higher than men. Even if you don't believe in god as a real individual you still need god as a social construct, as an ideal to which even the most powerful men are subject. You don't want to go to church on Sunday? Fine. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. - Rotzooi, on 08/24/2008, -10/+20And that's a good thing. Try traveling outside the US for once and see the high standard of living in Europe - where people willingly pay high taxes to pay for others' well being, as well as their own.
- TheMachine1, on 08/24/2008, -8/+18"so mandatory healthcare isn't a solution to the problems but a socialist wet dream."
Maybe but the US still spends twice per person on healthcare as the UK and we do not cover all people.
I'm in the US and have no insurance and have had high fever that would have sent most people to the ER (cat bite to my finger). But I bought anti-biotics off the Internet that was for sterilizing fish tanks instead. Thats an example of free market in action. - Jexie, on 08/24/2008, -1/+11I wouldn't call my healthcare free (Canada), but I would say it's one of the best uses of my tax dollars.
- Rotzooi, on 08/24/2008, -3/+12The other 200+ million will get sick and die. USA! USA! USA!
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