Do you support universal healthcare?

Dean wrote: The Antique wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: The right stems very concretely from Article I Section VIII of the Constitution which details the very limited uses for which Congress may tax. Welfare systems certainly don't fit into this. Also the use of a graduated tax systems totally b*****dizes the whole ordeal. I'm for tax collection for basic manners much along the lines detailed in the Constitution, but only assuming it is done so as a flat tax. Because 10% of $10,000 and 10% of $1,000,000 are definitely equivalent burdens for people to bear (pick any percentage, whatever you think the flat tax should be, my point still stands). That only works if the disposable income is equivalent, which it can never be, regardless of the expenditure required to maintain a $1,000,000 lifestyle.   Also, a $1,000,000 paycheck is structured to account for a higher tax-rate - if the base-rate was always 10% then that salary would never have risen above $700K in the first place.

Dont you mean if the disposable income is an equivalent percentage?  This is still unlikely, but a bit more reasonable.

Also it doesnt make any sense that businesses would pay more to their employees to compensate for higher tax rates.  If all of a sudden the government increased taxes on everyone by 10%, businesses wouldnt suddenly have an extra 10% to pay out to all their employees, they would continue to pay the same amount.  What would make a business want to pay someone more just because more of the money is going to the government instead of their worker?  If anything it would discourage them from raising wages.

rpe9p wrote: Dean wrote: The Antique wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: The right stems very concretely from Article I Section VIII of the Constitution which details the very limited uses for which Congress may tax. Welfare systems certainly don't fit into this. Also the use of a graduated tax systems totally b*****dizes the whole ordeal. I'm for tax collection for basic manners much along the lines detailed in the Constitution, but only assuming it is done so as a flat tax. Because 10% of $10,000 and 10% of $1,000,000 are definitely equivalent burdens for people to bear (pick any percentage, whatever you think the flat tax should be, my point still stands). That only works if the disposable income is equivalent, which it can never be, regardless of the expenditure required to maintain a $1,000,000 lifestyle.   Also, a $1,000,000 paycheck is structured to account for a higher tax-rate - if the base-rate was always 10% then that salary would never have risen above $700K in the first place. Dont you mean if the disposable income is an equivalent percentage?  This is still unlikely, but a bit more reasonable. Also it doesnt make any sense that businesses would pay more to their employees to compensate for higher tax rates.  If all of a sudden the government increased taxes on everyone by 10%, businesses wouldnt suddenly have an extra 10% to pay out to all their employees, they would continue to pay the same amount.  What would make a business want to pay someone more just because more of the money is going to the government instead of their worker?  If anything it would discourage them from raising wages.

Maybe this will help.  If you're making $1,000,000 and get hit with a $50,000 health care charge, no big deal.  If you're making $25,000, you're screwed.  What should we do with people in this situation?  Let them go bankrupt?  Good luck, we've reformed bankruptcy laws to help out the poor creditors.  Let them rot?  Sorry you couldn't afford $400 a month to pay for health insurance, too bad.


Edited by Slartibartfast - September 02 2009 at 06:53

Syzygy wrote: A definite yes. However it's funded, any citizen of a civilised country should be able to get health care that is free at the point of delivery.

Well put, there can be no such thing as free health care.  But having them check your wallet before they take care of you is ridiculous.  I've been to the emergency room a few times myself.  They check you out a little, check your wallet, and then treat you.  I have company provided health insurance by the way.  I work at a small firm and the premiums keep going up and up and up, just like health insurance company profits.  Coincidence?  I think not.  By and large I have no problems with the health care I've received.  Not to say that I haven't had problems.  We've tried health care for profit and, hello?, it's not working.


Edited by Slartibartfast - September 02 2009 at 06:56

Mr ProgFreak wrote:   As far as I know that section speaks of "general welfare of the United States" ... I don't see why that should not include the health of the people. Using taxes to pay for antibiotics and vaccines would be a good start.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Antique wrote: I speak of fair because those people, while paying more money, are not facing any greater of a burden because of this extra cost. They have more money, so they can afford to pay more. Moreover, need I remind you, we are part of a community. Helping out those who have less than you is something that needs to happen in a community. If people are too greedy to do that enough in order to get what needs to be done done, then the only alternative is for the government to coerce them. Not getting it done is defeatist and is not acceptable. I find this highly disturbing. They can afford to pay more, yes, so they do as 10% of x is more than 10% of y when x>y but it's still get equal. Helping out those that have less than you I believe is a moral responsibility and not within the realm of government control. Also the structure of other binding under the federal government is so ridiculously far from a community you can't use that word. Further "what needs to be done" is highly subjective and determining such decision by what the majority deems so just opens up our government to become a hired plunderer for the masses.

I would fully agree with you that helping out those that have less than you is a moral responsibility. Ideally, I would also agree that such giving would be out of government control. But the libertarian utopia of rich people helping out poor people does not exist.

The reality is that people, in general, act in such a way to maximize their own self-interest (not a problem), and, if they have the power, they do so at the expense of others (very big problem).

The only practical way to right the immoral inequalities that result from this is for government to step in. Wringing your hands about it and saying that it's personal responsibility solves nothing.

As for your "plunderer for the masses" comment, I think that the government being more responsive to the general will of the people would be incredibly far from a problem. Obviously you have the problems inherent in a democratic system, but to my knowledge no one has devised a better one.

The Antique wrote: Yes, fluctuation is possible in terms of what people can do with their natural assets, and yes, people who put in hard work are going to do better (as they should). But a lot of people work very hard, but do so in thankless jobs (due in part to their natural abilities/the situation into which they were born, and due to the fact that someone has to do those jobs), and are hardly able to make a living wage. Pure free market capitalism is not a meritocracy based solely on how hard you work, and thus the division of wealth it creates is plagued by arbitrary, unfair inequalities. You keep dropping that line, but it still means nothing to me.

I assume you're referring to the term "arbitrary." Let me explain. There is no morally relevant reason for many of the inequalities that result from free market capitalism (skills you are born with and the class you are born into, which have empirically observable effects on where people end up within the capitalist hierarchy, are not morally relevant reasons, they are natural accidents).

The reason this matters is that these inequalities result in certain people having very high standards of living while other people have no realistic chance of ever achieving a similar standard of living (SoL). Moreover, these people at the bottom (in terms of SoL) exist below the poverty line (which seems like a reasonable cutoff for what counts as an acceptable SoL).

It is morally unacceptable to stand idly by while this happens if you have the power to change it. The government has this power, individual people do not (at least not on the same scale), or if they do, they choose simply not to use it. Individuals are not getting the job done of insuring an acceptable SoL for all US Citizens (we'll leave non-citizens out of it, they complicate things), so the government must do it.

The Antique wrote: Unlike blue eyes (which is indeed arbitrary), unequal wealth distribution has a profound negative effect on people's lives. The same could be imagined of blue eyes. They were certainly profitable in Nazi Germany.

The only way blue eyes could result in such a scenario is if someone was doing something immoral. In Nazi Germany, the gov't was committing the grossly immoral practice of giving certain people special status for an arbitrary characteristic (blue eyes). The solution is not for the government to make everyone have the characteristic, it is for the government to stop the immoral practice causing the inequalities.

If you could show that a true free market capitalist system would result in bringing up the bottom of society to (at the very least) an acceptable SoL, I would be perfectly happy to accept the libertarian position (since, in showing that, you would also show that current gov't practices result in the unacceptable aspects of the inequalities in the first place, and thus should be dropped). I do not like government intervention as a general rule. My natural instinct is to be a libertarian, but there are real life complications where that is simply not feasible, given my other goals of ensuring that people are able to have an acceptable SoL.

The Antique wrote: It is this negative impact (coupled with the arbitrariness of the distribution) that gives the government it's moral right to correct the situation, not the arbitrariness alone. Moreover, stop treating this like an absolute principle. You can take ANY absolute moral principle and justify horrible things with it. I am not proposing hard and fast principles, just guidelines. Well the direct results of the guidelines you are proposing justify horrible things.

You have not succeeded in showing this.

The Antique wrote: While high taxes may be prima facie wrong (aka to be avoided if possible), letting people die because they cannot afford health care is also prima facie wrong, and strikes me as far worse than those taxes. Letting someone die is hardly a crime and is a blurry moral issue too. It's not the government's job to force people to adhere to such issues of morality especially ones so far from universal agreement. I know you agree with that. I believe the wealthy owe a debt to society, but I don't believe in any forced collection of that debt.

I was under the impression that if you can (potentially) save someone's life by calling 9-1-1 and you don't do so, then you can be charged with a crime for that. But even if you can't, it's really not that blurry of a moral issue.

Certainly there are moral questions that ethicists debate (is not saving a life the same as ending a life), but as a general rule it is accepted that letting someone die is, at the very least, prima facie wrong. And I think if you asked most people about this, you'd find that they agree. They might disagree about just how wrong it is, but not argue that it's not wrong.

I believe that it is the government's job to protect it's citizen's rights (life, liberty) and to ensure, to the best of it's ability, that all citizens have access to a reasonable SoL. I agree that wealthy people owe a debt to society, and I don't think they have a moral right to weasel out of paying it. Since a reasonable SoL can only be guaranteed by coercing them into giving via taxes/threat of imprisonment, I do not have a problem with that coercion. I don't like it, but I like the alternative less.

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Edited by akamaisondufromage - September 02 2009 at 12:54

^^  Its a funny old world we live in!  ^^   This makes it look like I think letting someone die is 'hardly a crime'  It wasn't me said that honest  I will have to learn how to quote properly then these things wouldn't happen. 

The Antique wrote: Health care good.

akamaisondufromage wrote:   Quote Equality  Letting someone die is hardly a crime and is a blurry moral issue too. It's not the government's job to force people to adhere to such issues of morality especially ones so far from universal agreement. I know you agree with that. I believe the wealthy owe a debt to society, but I don't believe in any forced collection of that debt.

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Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Doctor wrote:   Of course, here in Germany, it is a crime not to help someone.  You can't just stand by and watch someone die if you can do something about it.  You can go to prison for that and rightfully so.  It's funny because you would say something like this but probably complain about me pushing my morality on you if I said abortion is wrong.

Didn't the final epsiode of Seinfeld involved them being arrested or tried for witnessing a crime but doing nothing to prevent it?  I'm not a fan of Seinfeld but I vaguely recall either hearing or seeing this.