Do you support universal healthcare?

LinusW wrote: What's even worse is opposing universal healthcare purely on the basis that it's not a right. Other than that, this thread is full of good arguments for both side. And some of more dubious quality as well

I'm not one of those people who think universal healthcare should be done 'just because', but I do think that common sense and decency does play a part it in at some point. If we didn't want to look out for each other at some point, we wouldn't have half of what we do now, in my opinion.

LinusW wrote: LinusW wrote: Rights. Heh. One of the more disturbing debates I know of. Such an artificial system of classifying things. It only mirrors the majority rule of morality in most cases.  And it has nothing to do with standing above anything, at least not in my case. I just find it silly that people find some of these "rights" carved in stone while renouncing other "rights". It's just a matter of history, tradition and majority morality. I consider universal healthcare a right based on those three, and of course due to my own morality as well. But I can't escape the fact that it's influenced by what came before me.

Well naturally, but when a person comes into a debate such as this and begins speaking about commonplace beliefs and outlooks as if they are idiotic and trivial, it gets on my nerves a bit.

Rights.

Heh.

One of the more disturbing debates I know of. Such an artificial system of classifying things. It only mirrors the majority rule in most cases. 

Raff wrote: All I have to say is - I hope none of those 20-year-olds will have to learn they are not God the hard way. You can lead the most careful of lives, and still get sick and die - or have an accident not through your fault, and become disabled. I had a cousin, a very high-ranking judge, who died in under two months, at the age of 52, of a particularly virulent form of cancer. She had had checkups a few months before she died, so she did take care of herself - but that didn't prevent her from getting sick and dying all the same. As to healthcare not being a right, well... It is easy to say when you are 20. Lose your good health, and then come and tell me. I am sorry if this post implies any negative wishes on my part, but seeing people speak of other people's lives in such terms makes me sick. In the past few years I have seen the fragility of our human condition first hand, and like to believe it taught me a lesson.

Acknowledging that rights exist requires a firm basis of morality. I don't have one, besides common sense, because I don't know where it would come from. I may have feelings about some things--killing my mother would upset me in tons of ways, but I don't actually know on what basis I could condemn anyone for it on moral grounds. God is a convenient falsehood, paradigms of philosophers are arbitrary, and moral relativism is unenforceable. I don't know--hence, uncertainty.

By the way, I hope that my beliefs are not so easily swayed by emotion as to abandon them once bad things start happening around me. If I'm going to do that, I might as well get a lobotomy and forgo critical thought right now. And hey, I wonder if other people will pay to take care of me once I do it, too...

Negoba wrote: Well you all have had a reasonably civil discussion without me, so I'm going to keep out as much as possible. I am going tell my personal story to at least give a reason why I'm such a boor about these things.   I'm a primary doctor in a community clinic. We see mostly Medicaid, Some Private Insurance, and uninsured on a sliding fee scale. The uninsured range from small business owners who have elected not to carry coverage to workers for small businesses that don't carry group coverage to part timers and independent contractors who can't afford coverage to homeless. The homeless include substance abusers, mentally ill, and folks just down on their luck. I have plenty of patients who don't work but should be, and I have alot of patients that have no skills and the unskilled jobs simply aren't out there right now.   I deal with insurance companies trying to get out of paying every day. I deal with the fact that Medicaid doesn't pay their bills for months on end and many providers will not take patients with Medicaid. I'm left scrambling trying to figure out how to get people care every workday.   I have private insurance through my wife, who works as a doctor for a much bigger private system. Our care and coverage is excellent as long as we stay within their system which happens to include a world-class hospital, so we are really lucky.   Both my wife and I are children of teachers. When we were young, our families were poor but all the basics were provided for. Now our children have more privelege than they should despite our attempts to keep them grounded. I've been at both ends, and I am no more worthy of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness now than my father was as a beginning teacher working full time plus doing construction to keep us going. Yet the socio-economic difference is staggering.   I am the American dream, and it is not fair. I did not earn the differences in privelege I have. I was blessed with a love of science and some idea of how the education system works. The fact that I will get the best care in the world while the guys working in the steel mill get the shaft is not fair. They have a big group plan too, but their union negotiated terrible health benefits in exchange for no pay cut.   I frankly don't know what the answer is, but this isn't it.

You are clearly not a boor. But of candour, humility and honesty (Guilty as Hell).

akamaisondufromage wrote:   I have another question for our American friends (Its your debate after all).  Preventative healthcare has been mentioned a couple of times here (Not always with any sense) one of the ways of making any health system more efficient is to stop people getting sick in the first place so a lot of money has been spent in this country on things like cancer screening to catch it before it gets hold.  I am guessing that in the states you would have to pay for this so the majority of people would avoid it as I guess it is expensive.  How does the current system deal with this issue? Do you have any preventative healthcare?

Of course!  And if you are on an insurance plan, they will cover things like mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.  I assume Medicare pays for these things as well but I'm not 100% positive.

Our healthcare here is excellent, for the most part - our problems are not with quality, but with access and affordability.  

Good grief this thread's difficult to follow.    Anyway Yep Epignosis I've just been catching up on the last days posts and you did say you were off for a beer and wouldn't be coming back!  It's all quite interesting though. 

Raff wrote: As to healthcare not being a right, well... It is easy to say when you are 20. Lose your good health, and then come and tell me. I am sorry if this post implies any negative wishes on my part, but seeing people speak of other people's lives in such terms makes me sick. In the past few years I have seen the fragility of our human condition first hand, and like to believe it taught me a lesson.

In the past few weeks, I've gone through something similar.

My aunty passed away due to cancer, which was preventable, but due to her insanely spotty public healthcare, she didn't make it...

I have a firm belief she would still be here if not for the sh*ttyness of the Australian public health system.

I don't feel comfortably going into any more details, so I'll leave it at that.

What Raff said is right; Its hard to say until you're affected first hand by it.


-Joel



Edited by progkidjoel - September 04 2009 at 07:19

The really chilling future healthcare-by-insurance offers us is the genome. We will be assessed at birth and will have to pay differential premiums based on gene predictors. This may well be rational and economic, but something in me rebels when the medically disadvantaged are financially penalised.

This talk of individualism is, in my view, uninformed by history. We are a communal species. We achieve greatest efficiencies by cooperation, not competition. That's how we caught the mammoths, that's how we harvested our crops, that's how we defended our cities. It is only a country that believes these basic communal things secure that can indulge in rampant individualism - and we've seen in the wake of 9/11 just how draconian that country could be in limiting liberties in the quest for communal security. Even in the USA individual rights are subservient to those of the community. Those who think otherwise, the Constitution notwithstanding, might benefit from considering history.

So to healthcare. I live in a country where universal healthcare is a right. There is health insurance, and we do have a private system, but our public system is robust and works well. Like all such systems it is under pressure because of the baby boom bubble and the dramatic rise in elective surgery. New Zealand is not a democracy and is not socialist, but we as a people would never tolerate a system like that in the USA. To deny a fellow citizen access to care is tantamount to shoving them outside the gates of the city when the enemy comes into view. To withhold your largesse when someone else is in need - whether from their negligence or not - is one of the most selfish and abhorrent things a human being can do. I believe every single one of you who has participated in this debate would open the gates of the city, even if it meant a little more crowding and a little less food.

Bad word choice is all my fault, but any person with some intelligence could get the gist of what I was saying by the context alone. But, seeing as this is a political discussion, all rationality is throw out the window.