Do you support universal healthcare?

Lozlan wrote: Epignosis wrote: The T wrote: Rob, now I see how the Tea Party is so successful. Anyway, this gave me the idea for a poll. Let's see how many "slaverers" are here. (i'll create it later). By the way, let's say in this hypothetical world of yours there's just 10 doctors. If they don't come back, a whole lot of people will die since there is an epidemic. Put any large number that could be reasonably taken care by just 10 doctors. If there was a poll to decide whether they have to be forced to take care of these sick people, how would you vote? 2. How your position isn't one of slavery. I truly love how you've sidestepped the issue entirely by introducing an absurd strawman.  Bravo.

I didn't sidestep any issue.  I'm just tired of repeating myself.  T can show you what I said about health care in a thread he created.

There was no strawman.  It's very simple:  Forcing people to do work they don't want to do (regardless of the compensation, T) is slavery.  Black slaves got cornmeal and sheds.  That's compensation.  Still slavery.   Still evil.

Slavery = forcing people to serve others when they do not wish to do so.

In this scenario, T said it's okay for the government to force doctors to work to save lives.  That's slavery, pure and simple. 

T, I'll address the bulk of what you had to say tomorrow some time.  Not that what you say is more complicated, but it deserves more thought than this remark did.  Also, I'm watching the new Robin Hood right now.  lol

On other issues, I'm sure public education sucks and all of that. it has to be reformed I guess. Many things should change. In health care at least I just can't see other option as being reasonable... 

Would it include optical and dental as well?

The T wrote: Rob, now I see how the Tea Party is so successful. Anyway, this gave me the idea for a poll. Let's see how many "slaverers" are here. (i'll create it later). By the way, let's say in this hypothetical world of yours there's just 10 doctors. If they don't come back, a whole lot of people will die since there is an epidemic. Put any large number that could be reasonably taken care by just 10 doctors. If there was a poll to decide whether they have to be forced to take care of these sick people, how would you vote?

I'll participate in your poll if you explain two things to me:

1. How the Tea Party is so successful (they're not, relatively speaking)

and

2. How your position isn't one of slavery.

Rob, now I see how the Tea Party is so successful.

Anyway, this gave me the idea for a poll. Let's see how many "slaverers" are here. (i'll create it later).

By the way, let's say in this hypothetical world of yours there's just 10 doctors. If they don't come back, a whole lot of people will die since there is an epidemic. Put any large number that could be reasonably taken care by just 10 doctors. If there was a poll to decide whether they have to be forced to take care of these sick people, how would you vote?

The T wrote:

This scenario is too unlikely to warrant too much thinking.

The T wrote: Epignosis wrote: The T wrote: Epignosis wrote: To bring this closer to topic, let me raise this scenario (since T is fond of the hypothetical ): The USA has decided health care is a fundamental right and that everyone is entitled to it.  All non-elective procedures, doctor's visits, and preventative care are performed free of charge to the patient. Most doctors, however, have quit the profession for whatever reason (let's say they start a cult and live off the land).  And for whatever reason, fewer and fewer people are going into the medical profession.  In sum, there are very few doctors, and there are plenty of needy patients, and many people are dying of various conditions. Given that health care is a right, can (and should) the government force these doctors who abandoned the profession to take up their stethoscopes and walk treat the country's patients? I've never made up such a bizarre and improbable scenario. But I'll answer anyway.  Hence the wink, buddy.  Just messing with you. This scenario is too unlikely to warrant too much thinking.  The government would have its own force of doctors who would provide healthcare.   Drawn from where?  And with what qualifications?This scenario is too unlikely to warrant too much thinking. () Remember in my society not everything would be private. So there would be public hospitals. Staffed by whom? And if suddenly 50% of the population is dying, yes, force them to treat them by all means. A few individualistic pricks shouldn't just go to an island knowing that people will suffer because of their act.  So you are cool with slavery?  Neat.   This scenario is too unlikely to warrant too much thinking. But all of this is hypothetical... In that, Lozlan's robot scenario is much more interesting.   No it isn't.  Lozlan's avatar is more interesting.This scenario is too unlikely to warrant too much thinking.

You are theoretically okay with slavery.  That's all I have to know.  Emboldened for everyone's benefit.

The T wrote: Epignosis wrote: To bring this closer to topic, let me raise this scenario (since T is fond of the hypothetical ): The USA has decided health care is a fundamental right and that everyone is entitled to it.  All non-elective procedures, doctor's visits, and preventative care are performed free of charge to the patient. Most doctors, however, have quit the profession for whatever reason (let's say they start a cult and live off the land).  And for whatever reason, fewer and fewer people are going into the medical profession.  In sum, there are very few doctors, and there are plenty of needy patients, and many people are dying of various conditions. Given that health care is a right, can (and should) the government force these doctors who abandoned the profession to take up their stethoscopes and walk treat the country's patients? I've never made up such a bizarre and improbable scenario. But I'll answer anyway.  Hence the wink, buddy.  Just messing with you. The government would have its own force of doctors who would provide healthcare.   Drawn from where?  And with what qualifications? And if suddenly 50% of the population is dying, yes, force them to treat them by all means. A few individualistic pricks shouldn't just go to an island knowing that people will suffer because of their act.  So you are cool with slavery?  Neat.  But all of this is hypothetical... In that, Lozlan's robot scenario is much more interesting.   No it isn't.  Lozlan's avatar is more interesting.

Epignosis wrote: To bring this closer to topic, let me raise this scenario (since T is fond of the hypothetical ): The USA has decided health care is a fundamental right and that everyone is entitled to it.  All non-elective procedures, doctor's visits, and preventative care are performed free of charge to the patient. Most doctors, however, have quit the profession for whatever reason (let's say they start a cult and live off the land).  And for whatever reason, fewer and fewer people are going into the medical profession.  In sum, there are very few doctors, and there are plenty of needy patients, and many people are dying of various conditions. Given that health care is a right, can (and should) the government force these doctors who abandoned the profession to take up their stethoscopes and walk treat the country's patients?

Edited by The T - September 24 2010 at 14:51

Okay, a few fundamentals to address here...

First of all, why do I trust the government but distrust charities?  Now, bear with me on this one...

We are the government.  Or at least we should be.  There is this incredibly popular and incredibly destructive rhetoric in the USA that the government is some colossal shadow organization that is seeking to control our lives.  However, these are our elected officials.  They were put into office by us.  This means that, should they perform inadequately, we will remove them from office and find someone else.  The people of a democratic nation are in charge of their own destinies...or at least that was the intention of this particular system of governance.  If it no longer functions in this way, then it should be rectified...by us.  I believe in Socialism, and part and parcel to socialist reform is the transparency of government and the acknowledgment that the government exists to serve the citizens.  Ironically, neo-cons whine and bitch about Big Government, while simultaneously supporting pseudo-dictators (Bush) and, moreover, the oligarchy of wealth and privilege.  Then there are the libertarians, which are a whole different breed of over-privileged crazy.

Also, yes, we get 13 years of public education.  In which we learn practically nothing.  The public school systems in the United States are broken almost beyond repair.  Underfunded and ignored, plagued by such destructive legislation as No Child Left Behind, and (in many cases) teaching out of schoolbooks that are a decade old or more.  Almost more than I support any other line of reform, I advocate for the complete reevaluation of our public school system. It needs to be fixed, and soon.

Also...are you seriously saying that libraries would just randomly 'go on existing' without the support of our tax dollars?  Um...really?  I'll let you in on a little secret: the conservatives LOVE the lower class.  It's an entire legion of undereducated, exploited workhorses that the upper class can manipulate.  They justify it by claiming that 'anyone can succeed who puts their mind to it' and go on exploiting the lower class with clear consciousnesses.  If you took away tax dollars from libraries, they would cease to exist.  This would increase the stratification between the upper an lowers classes tenthfold.  The middle class would vanish as their means of acquiring free knowledge vanished.  Then the neo-cons and libertarians would have what they always wanted: an entire class of slaves to do their bidding.  Then they could finally make good on their threats of disposing of illegal immigrants (which they also secretly love, almost as much as they love complaining about them) and simply feed off the poverty and desperation of the vast American lower class.  Genius.

Finally, this whole correlation between being overweight and being poor...there is certainly some correlation, but the supposed 'obesity epidemic' in this country is largely a fabricated crises, designed to reinforce body stereotypes and make people spend countless millions of exercise equipment, diets, and other aspects of the massive diet industrial complex.  In many ways it's a cultural phantasm.  By the by, did you know that going by the body mass index, Brad Pitt is obese?  He should really do something about that, geez.