If health care is not a right, then why the hypocratic oath?
Offline You always hear the right wing say that the free market is the best at everything.
Ok? I just heard some Fox goon ramble on about how health care would be a disaster under government control.
The crux of his argument is the same, status quo.
Screw the government, if health care were about the free market, then why is it our EMTs when they find you bleeding in a car crash don't ask you for your credit information before they treat you?
Is that the way this jackass wants it? When we see a car crash and someone is bleeding we ask their profession and income level and credit history?
FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!
I am NOT saying that government is good at anything. I AM saying that you cant bitch when you pick pocket people and they look for protection.
Doing it better in the private sector means developing a conscious, but from what I have seen, it isn't about bettering humanity, it is about bettering your bottom line.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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Or, when your house is burning down, the firemen ask if you have insurance.
Consistency has never been a strong suit of conservatives.
Health care is a right and the government should provide it, however they shouldn't monopilize it and make private health care illegal.
indeed! ... but no ones ever suggested such a thing
*disclaimer*
"no one" is in refference to those who are sane, not in the pocket of special groups, have never been a politician
*disclaimer*
What Would Kharn Do?
Health care is a right, which is why we cannot turn people away at an ER.
My point to people when it comes to health care reform is: We are paying for all these people anyway (legal and illegals btw) via their er visits. Why don't we do it the cheaper way by providing primary care?
I deal with this sort of thing a lot in my work. It does always surprise me that the people so strongly against universal health care claim to be christians.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
I understand your point. But remember a lot of these people basically tell society to fuck off first. I live in an area where there is a lot of hippies and drug addicts. I don't judge their lifestyle until the start putting burdens on others.
They listen to socialist propaganda that tells them all capitalism and the profit motives are evil, if they go to work in the corporate world, they are selling out. I'm fine with that, but then when they're sick, they want an ambulance, medical treatment, drugs, etc... all of which were developed in the capitalist system and funded by people that "sold out". So it would seem they are the hypocrites when they then expect medical treatment from capitalists.
A better system is having social services and job training for people that want to work their way out of poverty so they can afford health insurance on their own. If people tell the social workers and educators to "fuck off" only then they could be denied treatment for expensive procedures. The other alternative is to mandate everyone buy insurance and force people into work camps if they can't afford health insurance. Also mandatory population controls are needed.
But a system that provides a guaranteed free lunch won't work and will bankrupt our governments such that no ambulance services will be available to anyone.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Right wingers are still using the old playbook that if government acts as the reff in the game, it is always bad. How is total anarchy any more efficient or desirable than fascism? You end up with no rules, or you end up with someone else's rules which you cant challenge?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
There are always rules, even anarchy will create order. Whoever has the most power makes the rules then. The question is who those people in power have to answer to.
But the nutters will conveniently ignore this and blame everything on who they elect.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
There'd be a small amount taking advantage, but that's a small amount.
It's a small injustice that they take without giving, but not as big as the injustice of people who work really hard and still can't afford the basics.
1) Poorer countries in the world seem to manage it okay
2) It's not free - it's one of the things they're paying taxes for.
Ok this whole universal health care is going to bankrupt a country is the most utter nonsense around, if that is the case, Canada, The UK, Thailand, India, China, Hong Kong, German, Finland, New Zealand and a few other countries should be bankrupt, and last time I checked India and China hold half the worlds population, they seem to manage health care funded by taxes pretty damn good, then again, they aren't starting wars with everyone as well.
As a physician, I cannot for the life of me understand the mentality of total reliance on the free market in regards to health care. I personally agree with libertarians regarding personal resposibility of one's own health and uplifting oneself out of poverty and ignorance. I think Canadians are extremely successful in this regard with a government run health care system. I simply don't buy the argument that government involvement is a barrier to the health consumer and provider. What is the evidence for this? Why is the free market better? When an HMO denies coverage, where is the choice for the individual? Can a libertarian explain to this physician who has been working in the US for 15 years, in what way is the CEO of Blue Cross/Blue Shield morally superior to patients than the health minister who regulates the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). My extended family live in Ontario and have never felt the need to seek refugee status in the US because of the health care offered through OHIP, a government run program.
BTW, I currently work in Veterans Administration a government run health system. If the VA deteriorates because of increasing privatization of health care, you better believe it that I'll take the first plane ticket back to Ontario, Canada to practice Neurology.
In the US, the government run health care programs deny a lot of coverage. Their denial rates are far above the industry standard. So yes, the government does act as a barrier between the consumer and provider when they administrate health care.
Claims are no good without evidence, so let's use Medicare as an example. According to the American Medical Association’s National Health Insurer Report Card for 2008, Medicare denied 6.85% of claims while private insurers averaged a 3.88% denial rate. So if you use Medicare rather than a private insurer, you are almost twice as likely to have a claim denied.
The 2009 AMA National Health Insurer Report Card is already out and it has shown big improvements for Medicare and private insurers. In the 2009 report Medicare denied 4% of claims while private insurers averaged a 2.79% rejection rate. That is a big improvement for everyone, but Medicare still has coverage denial rates far in excess of private insurers.
So there are two years of AMA statistics claiming that private insurers are more generous and more likely to honor a claim than the government. Keep in mind that Medicare is currently spending more money than it takes in and its trustees have announced that Medicare should have exhausted its reserves by 2017. Medicare is a failing system and it appears to be approaching collapse. This is the kind of thing that scares libertarians and some conservatives and makes us think that the government can't handle administrating health care. Are the other government run medical coverage plans any better than Medicare, or are they also clearly inferior to private insurance companies?
If the government can't effectively manage Medicare and private corporations are more generous than Medicare, why should a libertarian such as myself not want the private industry to handle this? It is not that I have a lot of faith in the private industry, it is that I have no faith in my state government and extremely little faith in the federal government.
www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/solutions-managing-your-practice/coding-billing-insurance/heal-claims-process/national-health-insurer-report-card/2008-nhirc.shtml
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
On a side note about China - I have a chinese national living with me currently and for a project for school spoke to her about health care in her country and researched it a bit.
Before the communists took over china, the life expectancy was in the 30s. The communists made it a goal to to improve the life expectancy and their goal actually was to double it. They didn't completely double it, but it went into the 60s, which is a very impressive change.
In the 1980s, they tried to privatize their healthcare system - essentially to make it capitalistic because although China is technically communist, it also has a lot of capitalistic influences. The result was terrible and they are now trying to reform their healthcare system as well. Rampant corruption, people not getting treatment, not being able to afford treatment and a vast disparity in available health services. The government of China has been working hard to reform their system to make it universal and they have affirmed that health care is a basic human right. (yes, that's right, China has noted that it is a right)
In this same class, one of our books described at length why capitalism and supply and demand cannot work for health care. Reasons being: high start up cost, both financially and mentally. Any joe schmoe can plant some seeds and grow food. Becoming a health practitioner takes time, money and intelligence; the necessity for all people who cannot provide it for themselves. Joe schmoe cannot give himself anesthesia and remove his appendix if necessary. It is either be treated or die. There were more reasons but it's late at night and so those are the ones at the top of my head
It's basically always high demand and low supply, which is one reason why the prices get jacked up.
And I apologize, I don't remember the username of the poster talking about freeloaders - you will always have them, and unless you are willing to kill people for being poor, then you need to provide the basics of life. Many of the people that are thought of as lazy or freeloaders have mental illness, or come from incredibly complicated social situations. Improve that, and you'll see an improvement in society as a whole. People like to be useful. They like to have a purpose. But there's a lot of people who think that no matter what they do, it won't matter (even if that belief is wrong) and they just stop trying. It's always easy to judge looking from the outside, but life isn't that simple.
I work in a neonatal intensive care unit. You would not believe the shit I see (or maybe you would!) and I hear some nurses bitching about the poor people using the nicu and how we're paying for it, but we're all paying for all the patients, because most of the kids on my unit, even if they have employed, insured parents, they hit their lifetime caps on insurance and their parents can't afford NICU care. Should the babies of the poor parents not be saved? Should we take kids off the vent if they hit their insurance cap? What dollar bill amount is it ok to resuscitate an infant whose parent doesn't have enough money to pay for it? "I'm sorry ma'am, your 24 week baby is doing well, but we're going to need to disconnect the ventilator now because it's just too expensive and you can't pay." There needs to be some utilitarian balance in the equation, but it can't be the heaviest weight.
source:
Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffer, M.W. (2007). Policy and politics in Nursing and Health Care. (5th Ed.).St. Louis: Saunders Elsevier.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
You aren't comparing apples to apples though. Medicare is a different beast, serving only the elderly, retired and/or disabled, while most health insurance pools cover the largely healthy with the rare sick people. We pay more in care for the end of life, which is going to weight things disproportionately.
Other countries, like germany, have both a thriving private insurance industry and a public insurance for all others. The AMA and the ANA are both for universal health care, btw.
I am in favor of regulation of any/all insurers, including the government.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
And then the small amount turns into a larger amount as people find out they can get away with not paying while still getting the service. You start to have an underground economy to get out of paying the tax.
And when you work hard and the state still goes bankrupt from to much socialism(i.e. California) and unable to provide services, then what? Do I join the ranks of the hippies?
Really, because last time I checked the wealthy and powerful in these countries come to the USA for treatment.
If you don't pay taxes it's free. If you believe this, then you would be OK with sending everyone a bill for healthcare? If you don't pay you don't get any?
No, because you want wealth redistribution and the healthcare system is a convenient way to do this. Why not just fix the problem of people in poverty(i.e. overpopulation, low job skills, lack of access to resources, etc..) Why do you want to punish success and reward failure? This is only treating the symptoms and not eliminating the cause.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
It's not just healthcare, it's the whole unfunded welfare/labor union/land owner system. California has gone bankrupt from a combination of too much unconditional welfare, labor unions and their ridiculous pensions and benefits and low taxes on land owners and other users of natural resources. Basicially too many people that want something for nothing will bankrupt the government.
Canada is running huge budget deficits as well and is forced to cut back services for health care. The rich and powerful in Canada come to the USA to avoid long lines and get better service. Same with the UK. China had to go with mandatory birth control.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Can you please, please, please stop parading around that canard!? Further, that's completely unrelated to anyone in Canada willing to pay more for a premium service. We'll call it irrelevant.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
So basically you're saying it's a losing proposition for any capitalist to take on. So we'll just push the cost onto government. So if it continually looses massive amounts of money it will bankrupt our governments right?
No you don't have to kill them. The problem is now they know they will never be cut off from healthcare no matter what they do or don't do. If you give them a social worker and tell them cooporate or else. Also mandate birth control for people that don't pay for their healthcare and then ask the government to provide it.
It make no sense that I'm required to pay for people's children, but I have no say in how many kids they can have.
What about not allowing people to have more children unless they can prove they have adequate health insurance? Otherwise sign a waiver that you're on your own if you decide to have more kids? Then if their kids suffer, it's the fault of the parents for having more kids and not my fault for not wanting to pay sky high income taxes.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
From Wikipedia:
"Funding for the insurance plans comes from the general revenues of the Canadian provinces/territories, assisted by transfer payments from the federal government through the Canada Health Transfer. "
Ontario to hit record $14.1B deficit in 2009: budget
It's all interrelated. The feds can't raise taxes to pay for deficits because the provincial government's taxes are already too high. Higher taxes with drive business, jobs and capital elsewhere. Same problem in the USA both the state and federal taxes are too high and to irrational to be sustained. If you don't have pay as you go, the system will collapse in economic, social and environmental catastrophes.
P.S. Your anger just show you're a bleeding heart rather than a rationalist that tries to base his arguments on facts and reason. You want healthcare for all because if feels right rather than is something that can be rationalized via a sane social contract.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Maybe if some countries libertarian-capitalist CEO cocksuckers didnt drive the entire world into recession, we'd still be in the +
*disclaimer* EXC version of libertarian */disclaimer*
... unlike the US of A which has been in the neg. so long it cant see the light of day...
Wuts yer deficit now lil Amuricen? 20 trillion?
The poor and powerless in the USA come to Canada to actually GET service... fucking wonderful system
What Would Kharn Do?
How do you define adequate? You think that only rich people should be allowed to have kids? Good luck with mandating that. And like I said, no one has enough insurance or can afford on their own to have a critically ill infant who is going to be hospitalized for months or years.
If you are advocating cutting off benefits/health care at a point to people, you are advocating killing them. No health care/treatment = no living eventually.
Again, you talk about how if it is free, more and more people will use it. That's actually good, as a society that has good health is better for everyone, right up the ladder.
If you are talking about everything else, why haven't you quit your job to live a life of ease on welfare? Most people who have had a decent childhood and are free from mental illness want to earn things. It's a lovely little trait that's hardwired into humans. Benefit of being social animals, we want to contribute to society. Yes there are exceptions, but again, unless you just kill them, there will always be exceptions.
We are paying for healthcare anyway, we should just be doing it in a less-expensive fashion (which is to provide universal coverage)
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
Big surprise that EXC proves once again he knows jack shit about Canada. Biggest irony? Current budget failures are those of the Conservatives. You know, the Canadian equivalent to Republicans. When the Liberals were in power, the deficit was paid down EVERY year. Despite EXC's bullshit belief that healthcare bankrupts government.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Thank you for saying that, SaphhireMind. Your point is one that not enough people understand. If everybody could control their thoughts, emotions, and behavior, society would have profoundly fewer problems. People don't want to be disrespected and unappreciated, but their psychological freedom is limited.
You mean like the bank executives that were told by leftists there were cruel and racist if they didn't give loans to people with no money down and no ability to pay it back? Remember it was the FDR socialists that started Freddie and Fannie to guarantee mortagages for the poor. And the same politians that were supposed to stop AIG from commiting fraud are supposed to keep doctors and the medical industry from doing the same???? No thanks.
Something like that. They still don't want to put me in charge though. I'm waiting for the Apocolypse when people may finally realize there is no free lunch.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
You don't have to put a gun to other people's head to demand they pay for them.
No. I think people should realize things come with a prise. 200 years ago their was wasn't much medical science could do for people. Now we have it but it can be expensive if you want a cure for everything. People should decide on their own how much of slave they want to be to the medical industry. Should the Amish and Hippies get high tech medical treatment? It seems this is the trade off they made.
So I want a system that does not allow people to freeload all the time. So just demonstrate that you're breeding will not become a burden to others.
Ridiculous. You're saying only the government can be an insurance company. Why? Because they can run huge deficits and other entities can't? Because government can print money?
All you're doing is creating a massive monopoly that forces us to join.
People lived for millions of years without expensive health care. No one was killed. You are trying change the definition of killing to suit your needs.
By your logic then, I could claim you are killing people by not giving to a charity for starving kids in Africa.
I can claim then you are killing people because the money spent on health care is not going for environmental protection.
Plus killing doesn't really have any moral significance to me. I'm amoral.
I probably will soon take what I have and move out of the USA to a low cost of living country. But it's ridiculous to think the USA government won't soon be bankrupt and unable to pay social security and medicare that I've paid into for many years.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Brian, i know you admit that spelling is not your strong suit and normally i'd never pick on you for it, but i can't help myself: it's "hippocratic." "hypocratic" is veeeery close to "hypocritical," and thus too much of a freudian slip to resist!
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
EXC, you don't have a firm grasp it seems of the realities of health care. Btw, we do treat amish people fairly frequently in my NICU. We have an Amish family right now.
You have dodged and avoided some of my questions, but in the end, you are advocating rationing healthcare based on what you perceive their inherent worth is. (which is tied to money for you) I disagree. I think there needs to be some control in some of the utilitarian aspects, there is a lot of futile care that happens (which is highly expensive) done when families can't let go. It's hard to limit that, but it needs to be done.
I deal with a patient population that if they don't get admitted, they die. Period. End of story. If you want to tell that to the parents who have a random birth defect in their child or, despite all they do, they still have a premature child, you be my guest.
My son, now nine, would have died after he was born without expensive medical NICU care. Jackie Kennedy's son who died was at the same gestation as mine, and back then they would just watch and wait to see if kids born early would pull through or die, because they didn't know how to do anything else. A lot died. And some lived too. I'm pretty fond of my son most days, so I'm pretty glad that those treatments were available. btw, we had government health insurance.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
Of course, EXC lives in a world of shoulds and not in reality. He doesn't care to be (and I'll borrow from linguistic terminology, not having a corresponding idea ready at hand) descriptive, he has no need to understand the workings of this reality, he is retroactively prescriptive and applies his ideology to a reality in which he has shown no interest in understanding. He'll accuse the rest of us of being ideological and irrational, but largely, we're not even on the defence, but rather we're trying to illustrate a reality so that we can have a conversation about that and not the canard that EXC keeps throwing up for us to shoot at. What EXC does continually is to show that he's not willing to converse on the same terms as the rest of us with the same understanding of reality as the rest of us. He predicts and calls doom. He touts his own ideology as solution. He, for lack of a better word, is preaching. It's repetitive and it's chock-full of logical fallacies to boot. You know, there's a name for that behaviour ...
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
That's their choice to say they don't want to live in stressful world of technology development. But then when their kid is sick they sell out and use that modern 'English' technology to save them. Same with hippies and a lot of other people. They found studying math, science and medicine too stressful when they were in school. So this is a reason we have a shortage of doctors, nurses, medical professionals driving up the price.
If you don't want the stressful studing and work, why do you get the benefits? I'm not making moral judgements, it's just this situation is unsustainable.
What question have I avoided?
Here's one that everyone avoids: If we're all supposed to be the big happy socialist society that takes care of each other, why don't I have a say in how many kids people can have if I'm taking care of them? Socialism is like having a wife that goes out and fucks other men, gets pregnant and then expects me to pay for the babies. Except I have a gun put to my head so I can never get out of the relationship.
Life isn't so simple. If you take funds to pay for whatever expensive treatment the medical industry can develop you are probably taking them from things like education. So you save one child, but then another lives a life of misery and poverty because of lack of education resources.
And why don't we consider the doctors, hospitals and others in the medical industry murderers for not providing treatment of the indigent for free? Why are only insurance companies and people that don't want to pay sky high taxes murderers? Why aren't you a "killer" for not providing every last dime you have to feed hungry children around the world?
The situation we are in now is akin to kidnappers. We tell the medical industry we'll pay what every expensive price there is to save a few people. So they are encouraged to develop more and more expensive treatments. No one ever tells them no, if it could save one life or prolong and old person's life by a few years. Where does it end except in bankrupt governments and massive inflation? Do we ever tell them no it's too expensive?
If I join the ranks of the hippies and surfer bums by no longer "selling out" by going to work for capitalists, I'm no longer paying taxes to the welfare system. Why aren't these hippies and bums murders for not providing the tax money to payoff the medical bills?
Don't you feel guilty now that the food your son now eats is not going to some hungry child? Couldn't we have feed more hungry children with this money than spend a lot of money to cure just one sick child? I'm just taking your line of reasoning to it's logical conclusion.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Cartman? is that you?
Not at all, I've explained it many times but you want to pigeon hole me as a right wing loon.
Basically if you don't have at least basic medical insurance, you would get a letter from the government telling you either buy insurance or sign a waiver that you want to take the risk that you won't need any expensive medical treatments. If you can't afford the insurance, you can go to a social worker that would get you into a job training program and pay your insurance until you complete the program. You would also be required to do some public work to pay your insurance.
Basically you would only be denied treatment for expensive procedures if you tell society to fuck off, that I want to be a bum, hippie, drug addict, religious nut, etc...
If you think government run programs are so great, why not just have one program that gets people off welfare? Then we don't need any others. But your philosophy must be that the government can't education, rehabilitate or control overpopulation, so therefore we need to give these incompetents more money to run the healthcare system. Since they can't run the education and rehabilition system well, why give them more money?
Excuse me. Did I have any say in whether these people should bring another child into this overpopulated world?
You live in a world fantasy. You just keep passing out more and more unconditional welfare. Rewarding more overpopulation, irresponsible behaviors and failure to get needed job skills and punishing success. The only end game is bankrupt governments, inflation, environmental disasters, overpopulation, lack of infrastructure, failed schools, etc...
You claim that healthcare is not bankrupting governments, but now Canada will have to let more over logging, over mining, over fishing, polluting to occur to payoff the welfare system that is causing deficits. Things are a trade off, there is no free lunch.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Please, everyone, read the above. I'm not even going to bother rebutting it. There it is in all it's glory, EXC's own brand of crazy. Don't feed trolls.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Ad Hominem is all you got, huh?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
When strawman is the only thing you deliver, you can hardly expect anything else.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I kind of have to agree with them. When you don't know the difference between communism and socialism and you're trying to have a political debate, it's just not going to ever come to any sort of meaning or accord.
p.s. I don't think insurance is the only thing that needs reform.
p.p.s. The nursing shortage is from multiple reasons, including low pay/benefits causing people who could practice to leave nursing, retirement of older nurses and a lack of nursing faculty to teach new nurses. The doctor shortage is not an overall shortage of doctors, but a shortage of doctors willing to go into primary and obstetrical care, again with the lower pay, worse hours, malpractice and insurance issues. Nothing has a quick and easy answer.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Alright I am going to respond to most of the silliness that I have seen from a Canadian perspective.
First off I like to address the whole universal health care will bankrupt the US. No it won't, it hasn't bankrupts other countries it isn't going to bankrupt the US, what will bankrupt the US is the same thing that bankrupted Russia endless warfare in Afghanistan, and of course Iraq.
Second, about Canada running a deficit. Yes we have been running a deficit the last 2 years, then again we have also been in a recession, and the government has been trying to stimulate the economy, but for most of the last 10 years we have been operating in the black and saving money.
For the welfare part, in Canada, at least where I am at, there are job trainings and they actually require you to go to job interviews they set you up with, the government tries and does it's best to get people off of welfare, there are circumstances that do not allow people to get off of it, illness, injuries or other medical issues. Yes there are freeloaders however even the province that once had the highest amount of people on welfare, Newfoundland, in all of Canada, has now become the third lowest, why? Because the government invested its money in creating local jobs, yes they are not the highest paying jobs (and some are pretty damn good paying jobs as well, especially those dealing with Oil rigs, however most of the eastern provinces are working together to create new jobs for the area) but that part of the country, much like most of Canada, is finding ways to reinvent itself. What has California exactly done to reinvent itself? What type of new jobs has it tried to create? What does it do, or how does it go about trying to get people of off welfare? Does it create a better social safety net for people that lose their work?
How about the sick? I know friends in the US that pray they don't get sick because it would bankrupt them, hell my buddy Hernan's father got cancer, and it put him in bankruptcy because of the medical bills and he ended up in welfare, yet in Canada the chances of that happening are slim because we all pay for our health care with our taxes. We also have the option for private health care insurance to cover other costs that are not covered by OHIP in our case, and other experimental procedures as well. As a society you make sure the sick get healthy and stay healthy then the chances of people needing to declare bankruptcy or to go on welfare decreases therefore making the government money in the form of taxes (how people in the US fail to understand this most of the time is mind boggling or those against universal health care)
In Canada we tend to go to the doctor before it gets worse, while in the US most poor wait till it gets worse to go to the doctor, which means more time not working, more money spent on getting better and getting more in debt, as such it doesn't work and makes for a worse situation for the population never really able to get out of poverty. Yes in Canada we have poverty, all countries do, however at least the poor have a chance to get out of poverty and live a decent life without worrying what is going to happen if they get sick.
That's exactly the point. Most people do not have adequate insurance compared to the costs of treatment for catastrophic events. Something like 700,000 Americans claimed bankruptcy last year due to medical bills. These are people with jobs and insurance, not freeloaders. What the fuck is wrong with you that you don't have any compassion for other human beings? Every argument you advance is "Why do I..." The free market cannot solve major world problems. Period. Get over it and quit being so fucking selfish.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
I do know the difference. The communists want to put a gun to your head and take your earned property themselves. Socialists pretend to peaceloving, so they prefer to have the taxman and the sherrif do the dirty work for them. Guns are the unltimate source of political power, so one's political position is all about what the men with the guns should do or not do.
Why don't we just tell people they are "killers" for not studing to be a doctor or nurse and then volunteering their services for free? Why are only taxpayers and insurance companies "killers" for not sacrificing more?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
They can buy good insurance with enough money. The rich and politicians don't have this problem. So these people fall into one of these categories:
1. Too cheap to buy good insurance, taking a risk they won't need it.
2. People that were failed by education system and unable to get a good job.
3. Freeloader. People that prefer to not work or study hard would. Would prefer to spend money on other things like drugs. Want to live the life of a hippie, missionary, etc...
I think people in cataegory 2 that ask for help we can help if they cooperate with job retraining in a field like nursing. For category 1, have them sigh a waiver that this is the choice they make to do with their own money. For 3, if this is their choice nothing but very inexpensive and limited care to insure they don't become a burden to others.
Why do you even think compassion exists in the first place? Doesn't the fact that the socialists here are only "compassionate" with other people's money kind of prove it's a BS concept. They could decide just to have a charity take care of the poor, but they're not really compassionate, more like a mafia or street gang that shakes down anyone with money.
Humans are social animals so we look for opprotunities to comperate with others. To have a contract with others. But we're all selfish in our core. What unselfish act have you ever done your entire life? We only really care about ourselves.
So I believe we can have rational social contracts amoung members of a society. We can help people that want to be helped with health care if they want to contribute to society as well. But what these socialist want in unconditional entitlements based on this phony notion of compassion.
Why isn't the political system essentially the "free market"? Politicians market themselves and a free electorate picks them, right? We get rid of the ones we don't like. The difference seems to be we end up with a tyranny of the majority. We end up with 51% of the people wanting more benefits and the other 49% to pay higher taxes.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Most of us have first hand experience.
Who says they don't donate to charity also?
Giving aid is a short term solution. Most charities push for policy change in order to bring in stable long term solutions to these problems.
Proof?
In my experience, people have genuine compassion.
A good example is if you're reading a book or watching a film and you find yourself upset over what happens to a character, or wishing you could do something to help or advise them. There's clearly no selfish motives of something in return - is this imaginary character going to send you imaginary flowers in imaginary gratitude? The fact is, human beings have genuine empathy and genuine compassion. That's not to say that we're completely unselfish - that's the other extreme. But since we're not playing the "false dilemna" fallacy, we can recognise that human beings can have a degree of selfishness, but also have a reasonable degree of altruism too.
Should an individual/couple who choose to be childless support public education, state subsidized daycare or maternity leave? I used to think exactly like you ie. why should society be responsible for individuals life decisions on having children? Why should we live like the Swedes? Here's why.
Evidence shows that societies with mixed economies which include the European welfare states are healthier in all dimensions ie. crime, poverty, education, etc.. Why should that matter to number one ie. you. Why can't people be responsible for themselves? Independant of environmental factors, there is much evidence that individuals do not start off identical in the life race because of innate factors. Owing to genetic variation, there will be individuals (and I want to emphasize individuals) who will be smarter, physically attractive, healthier, etc.. It is a fact that we all vary in our innate natural endowments or lack of. Denying this would be like accepting Intelligent Design. That said, is society ultimately responsible for the less fortunate or even the lazy bums? In your absolute anarcho-capitalist culture, these folks simply do not vanish. On the contrary, they live and reproduce. And it is the insecure, overweight, the druggies, hippies, etc.. who tend to be the most vulnerable to irrational memes prevalent in the United States. And the worst of these memes is religion. EXC, in your free market dystopia the fundies will ultimately reproduce and this is my bottom line. And EXC, atheists like you and me are most unwelcome in such Christo-capitalist societies.
Contrast this with welfare states like Sweden wherein over 80% of individuals accept evolution via natural selection. Liberal social democracies with governments that provide broad safety nets for all IMO tend to secure the secular memes and promote a rational populace that allow even the few extreme atheist libertarians like EXC to survive.
EXC, please show me an existing Randian society that completely negates what I have just said.
There are advantages to cooperative behaviors among humans. So what does nature produce in us when a behavior is likely advantageous to our survival? Good feelings, right? Science can even measure this now and see what areas activate in brain and chemicals responsible for feelings. That's why sex feels good, eating high fat/calorie foods, exercise, etc... Same with 'compassion', it's one of your drugs to make you feel good. If you read my post on "Do we only care about ourselves", it would seem our compassion always has strings attached as well.
Part of what 'compassion' really is about social pressure. For example, look at how I'm scolded by people for being selfish and uncompassionate. I'm made to feel bad and worthless for being uncompassionate. So if I then become 'compassionate', isn't it just to be accepted and to get the good feelings that come with being accepted?
To me, this bleeding heart liberalism is kind of a drug. And they love it because they can get the warm feelings of "I'm compassionate" without spending their own money to give to a charity. And moral superiority over me make them feel superior as well. It's like free crack and you know you can't talk a junkie out of his fix.
They may, I don't know. But I would bet their giving is just to make themselves feel good, not to solve any real problems. That's why so many charities are ineffective and only enrich the founders. The charities exist to make the donors feel good.
Because it would make you feel better. You survival depends on being socially accepted, so you much show empathy to be accepted. But this is really an act we all put on. How is that any different than craving a cheeseburger? And what people usually do is the minimum to help the other as long as it doesn't cost you anything. That's why religious people will pray for you and socialists will say the government should do something.
The studies show people are more compassionate when others are looking. Beautiful people will get more compassion than ugly ones, etc... Everyone is always looking out for No. 1. Mother Teresa was held out as the ultimate compassionate person, if you Hitchens book on her, you'll see what a fraud she was.
I disagree. If you've been conditioned your whole life to believe 'I'm good when I'm compassionate', you will do seemingly compassionate acts as a boost to your own self esteem(i.e. feel better). We're continually conditioned with reward and guilt to be 'unselfish' and 'compassionate'.
Religion had to invent heaven and hell because we only are motivated by 'What's in it for me'.
I just believe we need to dump these notions in favor of rational reasons for cooperation. That is actually the way to end human misery and help us attain states of higher pleasure.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Actually I think there is a common cause for both. If you go to a poor third world country, it's not that they don't want these services. They can't, there is no money to fight against crime, poverty, education. There culture is just to have a high birth rate and a lot of people suffer and die because of these factors. There is no industry to pay for services whether they are public or private.
In Sweeden the culture is more pamper your kids be more responsible about having them. So they have fewer and their is more industry to produce a tax base to have these things. If Sweeden decided to privatize most government services, I don't think they would turn into Somolia in a few years as the Socialists here would claim. Because the culture is different.
But I think what counties like Sweeden and Denmark are doing is cultural suicide. Groups like Islam, Hippies, drug addicts and freeloader will eventually dominate and increase in number until they bankrupt the government and they are forced back to a more sane pay as you go approach to pay for services.
The question is "Are we responsible to each other?". No the socialist here would say yes as do I. But then they support a policy where the responsibility is one way. I'm responsible to them and their kids. But they are no responsible to get off welfare and limit their family size. So their rhetoric does not match the policies.
I why should I help them do this if they demonstrate no responsibility to society?
Actually I think the fundies like having us around. They need someone to demonize so they can see the works of the devil. How could preachers tell their flock how evil the world is without hedonists like myself around?
How many software engineers and software companies are going to be attracted to these countries with 60% or more income tax? They would use hardly any government services but basically pay for everyone else. The only workers/businesses that would move there are ones with low income and high demand for services from the government. So it would seem these countries have already sown the seed of their own destruction. I think what happens is societies become victims of their own sucess. Look at what happened to California since we became an entitlement state.
I think Ayn Rand should have listened to Mao before developing her political philosophy. But I guess she came before him.
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse Dung
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
EXC, you are my favorite troll here.
And you're one of my favorite irrational responders here.
Yes, let's have a society where we're all responsible to one another. So we should reward irresponsible behavior with unconditional welfare entitlements and reward responsible behavior with high taxes.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Preparing for burning man already? I swear they used wood rather than straw. Still, what you put together is quite impressive.
I swear I have seen it before though...almost like they are mass produced somewhere.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Hey what about me? Oh boy I must be losing it.