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| Thread: Well, the US now has an insurance mandate |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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mvassilev
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posted March 22, 2010 04:19 PM |
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posted March 22, 2010 04:27 PM |
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Rasism takes away peoples rights/options, based on your parents, since race is.
By not having free health care you take away rights from the people who can't pay. Being able to pay depends on your economy, and I can be quite sure that economy is based on your parents (in 99% of the cases at least), unless you're over 25, in wich case your education (options) are based on your situation when you were under 25 (loop).
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Corribus
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posted March 22, 2010 04:29 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 17:47, 22 Mar 2010.
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@Minion
I don't know where you live, but I think you don't understand what the current (well, previous) status of healthcare in the US was, and what exactly this new bill will do. Prior to this bill, everyone in the US had health coverage - but not everyone had insurance. Hospitals did not turn people away. I would be the first to admit the system had some major problems. This bill is not a healthcare bill; it is primarily an insurance regulation bill. Insurance companies will now be regulated like utilities. Unfortunately, this bill will fix none of the major problems with the current US healthcare systems (over-litigation and over-consumption, just to name two). In fact, it will exacerbate them. People will now be encouraged to over-consume EVEN MORE than they did before. After all, if you're not paying for your insurance, why should you be judicious when using it? I say this even before saying anything about worrying over the program's cost to the American taxpayer. So you have a system that's expensive and won't really fix any of the biggest fundamental problems.
Moreover, for this:
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Article 25.
Perhaps you can explain to me how the distinction is made between: (a) the right of people to be able to obtain "a decent living" (as you put it) through smart, healthy choices, and (b) the right of people to be entitled to "a decent living", as provided by the government.
That is: I agree with you that one of the fundamental properties of a free society is that people have the liberty to make a "decent life" for themselves. The government has a responsibility, if you will, to ensure that an environment exists so that people can be healthy if they so choose. However, the government does not have a responsibility to actually force people to live a decent life, or, for that matter, to pay for it (to be more specific: to force everyone else to pay for it). By the same token: everyone has the right to practice free religion, but everyone does not have the right to have a church built for them in which to practice their religion. I think the difference between you and me is that while we both might agree that people have the right to lead a healthy lifestyle, you believe that a person has no responsibility for their own welfare and that the right is one of entitlement to provision by the government, whereas I believe that the individual rights of a person extend only to their ability (and, equality) to lead a healthy lifestyle if they want to but the responsibility for obtaining that lifestyle is a personal one. We believe the responsibility for a person's healthy lifestyle rests with different entities.
Furthermore, I would like to aver that if you indeed believe that (a) a person has a right to live "a decent life" (by which you mean, in part, a healthy one) and (b) it is the government's responsibility to ensure that a person is taking advantage of that right (which I still don't see that you've justified), then you must, I would think, agree that it is the government's responsibility to outlaw things that would otherwise be unhealthy. Such as: smoking, drinking, having unprotected sex, driving, rock climbing, skiing, staring at the sun, playing too many video games, not exercising enough, eating hamburgers, playing football, etc., etc. It seems to me to be a contradiction to suggest that the people have a right to be provided with healthcare at the government's expense and at the same time the freedom to make unhealthy choices. After all, if it's the government's responsibility to make sure everyone is healthy, isn't it the government's responsibility to make sure nobody is going anything unhealthy? I find it much more comforting to know that I have the right to do what I want, even if it endangers my own health - so long as it endanger's nobody else's. I have the right to smoke in my own home; I have the right to eat french fries; and I have the right to lay on a beach without sunscreen. Of course, with that right comes responsibility - the responsibility to pay for your own health problems down the road.
It seems to me immensely unfair to expect that the government will honor your right to live your life the way you want to live it, but at the same time pay for the consequences of those actions to your personal health.
Also, just to forestall the inevitable counterargument: I completely understand that not all health problems are the consequence of personal choices. It's also virtually impossible to make a case-by-case distinction on those grounds, so a government policy which provides "free coverage" to problems that are "accidental" (getting flattened by a falling tree) but not those which result from personal life choices (cancer from smoking) is not possible. Nevertheless, when it comes to what is right and what is fair, you still must take the above into consideration. And in any case, accidents happen in life - it's not everyone else's responsibility to insulate you from probability. A tree could fall on your house just as easily as it could fall on you: is it the government's responsibility to ensure that your house is free from accidents of nature, too?
(By the way, I made some assumptions about what you believe in the above paragraphs - if my assumptions are wrong or inaccurate, I do apologize. I do not intend to put words in your mouth. I speak only of what your statements seemed to imply.)
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Who says that it is your responsibility? But I take it that you mean why do I have to pay my taxes that are used to ensure the "decent life" of everyone. Because you are part of the community. Maybe we have a different view on a "decent life" and hence I am having trouble responding here. You are not hoping for a "every man for himself"-society are you?
I beg to differ, and the question you pose does not accurately reflect what I believe.
Yes, I am part of a community, but you and I clearly have differing ideas of what being part of a community means, what benefits it bestows and what responsibilities it entails. To my mind, being part of a community means that we all put work into the system and we all take an energetic payment out of the system. In this case, work can mean both actual work and money (which is just a placeholder for energy, really). The money collected by the government in the form of taxes goes to programs which benefit everyone, equally. And everyone is responsible, equally, for putting money into the system, because everyone who is a member of a community shares the same degree of responsibility to ensure that the community endures. So when I pay my taxes, which I am happy to do, I expect that that donation goes towards things that benefit everyone, including me. Otherwise, why would I want to be part of the community? Is it an obligation to be part of this community? Was I ever given that choice? Hmm. That's a whole other philosophical issue I suppose, but the point is that the purpose of taxation is not to fund the laziness of people who don't want to contribute. It's not fair to put the burden of responsibility of some people and let other people just slide by.
So, I'd like to turn the tables on you and say: why shouldn't you have to pay for your own healthcare? You're part of a community, after all, and to keep that community functioning, everyone has the responsibility to pay into the system equally and take out of it equally. You have the right to belong to that community and the right to partake of it's benefits, but the responsibility to pay your fair share to make sure that those benefits last. What it seems to me is that you think everyone has the right to partake of the benefits, but not everyone has the responsibility to pay into the system. Everyone has rights, but only a select few have responsibility. That seems to me to be the recipe for a system that will ultimately fail.
I have two simple anecdotes for you that might illustrate this point.
First anecdote:
At my last job, we had a weekly meeting for our whole group. I decided to organize a donut fund whereby everone interested in eating a donut paid a dollar into a pot, and on the day of the meeting I went to the store and the money on donuts for the whole group. In the beginning, I'd say that generally about 80% of the people paid a dollar. This was more than enough to buy donuts (but not enough to buy other luxuries that we might have all enjoyed, such as, perhaps, coffee). Of course, everyone, including presumably those who didn't donate but excluding those who didn't like donuts, ate the donuts. The fact that non-payers ate donuts was somewhat irritating those of us who actually paid a dollar, but there was generally a surplus of donuts, so even those of us who donated got what we wanted. So there was no complaining at first, although there was a definitely feeling of understated resentment and annoyance. Nevertheless, I noticed that gradually the percentage of people paying diminished. Evidently, those who were paying saw that people who weren't paying got the same benefits as the people who were paying. So what was the motivation to pay? Seems like good logic. Unfortunately, that logic, sound as it was, led to the demise of the system. As my funds diminished, so too did the surplus of donuts, until there weren't enough donuts to go around. Then we were left with the awkward problem of who got donuts. Naturally, the people who got donuts were those who conspired to arrive at the meeting first - regardless of whether they paid or didn't. This greatly irked the people who paid but didn't get there early enough to get their much deserved donut. Here they were, paying for donuts and getting nothing, whereas people who paid nothing but were just very astute at taking advantage of a broken system reaped rewards with no responsbility at all! This you might guess had the effect of reducing the pool of funds greatly, and before long I had no money at all aside from the money I was contributing by myself. Well I could continue to fund everyone's goddamn donuts myself, eventually to the point where I'd go broke - perhaps I could borrow from a bank? - or just ditch the program and then nobody would get any stupid donuts and we'd all go hungry. Which is what I ultimately did - the great donut project died and for a while everyone was pissed.
What's the point of the story? Well, here it is: most people in the system (the office) liked donuts. I (office leader) noticed that people were spending a lot of time getting donuts. Everyone had to go to the store individually to buy their donut. So I developed a program whereby everyone paid me and I bought all the donuts myself. This program was made possible by the fact that we all belong to a community; it was just the sort of thing that a community is good for. The program increased greatly the efficiency of donut purchasing and consumption because rather than everyone buying donuts separately, I made one trip and got donuts for everyone. Of course, this increased the burden to myself slightly, but the goodwill earned from the community made that sacrifice well worth it. I will add that those members who didn't like donuts and thus felt that they had nothing to gain by participating were not required to donate money - that would have been disruptive to the harmony of the community and would not have really made much sense. No sensible community would require people to donate money to a donut program when they didn't eat donuts - that would be a sure way to me being replaced as community leader! Sadly, the value of the program to those who liked donuts was completely derailed by a few people who wanted to enjoy the benefits of participating without actually having to pay to participate. Most people were happy to pay their fair share. Some were just cheats who wanted to scam the system and get a free lunch - er, breakfast. So what happened? The system ultimately collapsed and we were forced to go back to the inefficient way things were done before: everyone brings their own donut. Plus of course now we had feelings of ill-will.
I'm sure you can take the learning points from that story without me having to spell them out for you in clear english. You might think this is merely a silly simple analogy with no relevance to anything. I argue that it is relevant to everything. What I see in the donut story is a microcosm of what will happen to our society if the entitlement programs keep piling up. That camel can only hold so many entitlement straws - spine fracture will become inevitable.
Second anecdote:
In my current employment, we have a poker club that meets periodically on evenings. The club is by invitation. One of the features of this club is that everyone brings something to eat, which is shared, pot-luck style. Everyone usually brings something substantial. But there was this one guy who never brought anything. He liked to eat all the food, but he didn't want to have to take the time or spend the money to bring anything to share with everyone else. Naturally, everone found this quite irritating, but again nobody said anything because generally there was such a surplus of food that nobody really cared. Corruption and freeloaders are to be expected, and generally any system will tolerate this to a point, as the donut example above illustrates. However, in this case, we just got fed up with the injustice of the thing and decided to kick the freeloader out and invite someone else.
Tell me, Minion, was it just to kick this person out of the club? Or does a person have the right to free food at everyone else's expense - a "decent living", if you will? Don't you believe that being part of a community, while bestowing rights and benefits on every member, also entails responsibilities for every member? Isn't that how a community functions efficiently? Or are you entitled to all the benefits of a community once you become a member, regardless of whether or not you pay your dues? How can you expect a community to function properly when only a fraction of the community is required to put work into the system to support the entire community, especially on programs that they don't themselves enjoy?
Is it right (just) to force diabetics to pay money so that sugar-lovers may eat free donuts? I say no.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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mvassilev
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posted March 22, 2010 04:30 PM |
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By not having free health care you take away rights from the people who can't pay.
No, you don't. If you can't pay, then you don't get it. It's quite simple. You don't have the right to be provided with anything. You can be given something voluntarily or trade for it, but you have no right to take something from someone.
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in wich case your education (options) are based on your situation when you were under 25 (loop)
No, not really. Anyone can get a good education.
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DagothGares
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posted March 22, 2010 04:41 PM |
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They change their mind on a whim (or .. for money depending on who you ask), and change it back just as quick..so if NOBODY can be trusted..it comes down to the best of the worst.
Well, don't elect that guy next turn.
After a while the better ones will stay in office longer.
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And even worse, I can't possibly understand how you can give up your nations sovereignty to the EU.
Well, a european country is usually about the same size as one of your states. So... Yeah, I'd just like to point out that your states aren't even recognised as a separate entity anymore, unlike our nations.
Perchance a rather naive argument, yet you understand me, right?
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who's going to pay for this?
Your army is kind of bloated. Perchance you can cut in that for a bit for a while.
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ohforfsake
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posted March 22, 2010 04:47 PM |
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I think much of the debate/discussion in this thread originates from a disagreement upon what functions lies within the purpose of government.
I don't know exactly what this healthcares implications are, but I can say it is my opinion that one of the main functions of government is to take care of its people (each and every individual) via the ressources and technology available.
Doing so, by giving as much freedom as possible, but as the ressources and technology is limited, it must be prioritized what functions the government must uphold first and foremost.
I believe these are:
Health protection (both in form of hospital and police), education opportunites and a transport system.
I think the reason government/state is a good idea, is because you get a certain percentage from all peoples earnings, in return everyone gets the opportunity to get the most basic needs/rights fulfilled.
Though I do also advocate for the possibility to declare independency of government given you don't want to pay tax. In return you don't get any of the advantages of government, which I believe in the long run will be much more expensive (as you'll have to hire private guards, who can take any hire they please, heck even steal from you without risking much, having to have an own way of getting electricity, of taking care of health problems, etc.), so doing so, I think would not be a way to save money (the egoistic perspective), but because you really disagree with what the government is doing (like when Saddam tortured his own people).
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ByteBandit
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posted March 22, 2010 04:50 PM |
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What I really hate about this new health care stuff is that if you have the money to pay for good health care, you have to wait your turn to be cared for with those who don't pay. This is not fair at all. I was against it for this reason. All democrat Senators and Congressmen will be out of a job because of this, the republicans will take over and plunge us back into the dark ages.
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Corribus
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posted March 22, 2010 04:52 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 16:53, 22 Mar 2010.
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@Ohffs
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I can say it is my opinion that one of the main functions of government is to take care of its people (each and every individual) via the ressources and technology available.
I fundamentally, whole-heartedly, and most vehemently disagree with this statement. It's the main function of YOU to take care of YOU. It's the main function of government to ensure that you have the same capacity to take care of yourself that everyone else enjoys.
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ByteBandit
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posted March 22, 2010 04:59 PM |
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Government should take care of its people? NO! NO! NO! Being a capitalist, this is something that I could never sgree to. Less government is the best government. That's when it's effective.
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Keksimaton
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posted March 22, 2010 05:11 PM |
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We could try and see how this might in the end help YOU take care of YOU, so that YOU don't feel too bad about this incident.
Perhaps this healthcare thingy might help prevent social exclusion and therefore, have a few less socially excluded people causing trouble in the streets or something, I don't know.
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xerox
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posted March 22, 2010 05:14 PM |
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I completly agree that it's the governments job to take care of the people in "their" country. What else is the point of having a government otherwise? That a few select people should earn a lot of money on their country and don't care about those that live in it?
And just because the country I live in is in the EU (which I am a bit worried aboút too, it looks more and more like a country...) doesn't mean we have lost all our traditions etc even though we have had a lot of international influences which is just a new and refreshing thing.
Mmm tacos... pizza... kebab.
I agree with that healthcare etc is a human right and the government should work to accomplish the goals of human rights for everyone. Nobody should be looked down upon.
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del_diablo
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posted March 22, 2010 05:33 PM |
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Quote:
What I really hate about this new health care stuff is that if you have the money to pay for good health care, you have to wait your turn to be cared for with those who don't pay. This is not fair at all. I was against it for this reason. All democrat Senators and Congressmen will be out of a job because of this, the republicans will take over and plunge us back into the dark ages.
So why was this bullsnow better before? From what i hear the bill only forces the healthcare companies to do their damn job, its not near anything at all yet.
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ByteBandit
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posted March 22, 2010 05:33 PM |
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Let's suppose you make a lot of money. And you pay a lot of money for the best care for you and your family. And a pregnant woman comes in for an abortion with no money and is bumped ahead of you because the government says that's okay. How would you feel about that? That would anger the Hell out of me! You, paying for the best care money can buy, and her with nothing. Before you answer, remember....you have to imagine yourself with enough money to pay for this coverage, and not think of it from a third party view.
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del_diablo
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posted March 22, 2010 05:40 PM |
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Why are you making a flawed hypotetical case?
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Elodin
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posted March 22, 2010 06:00 PM |
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Quote:
@Ohffs
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I can say it is my opinion that one of the main functions of government is to take care of its people (each and every individual) via the ressources and technology available.
I fundamentally, whole-heartedly, and most vehemently disagree with this statement. It's the main function of YOU to take care of YOU. It's the main function of government to ensure that you have the same capacity to take care of yourself that everyone else enjoys.
Yep. The loony libs believe the government should take care of you cradle to grave. Communists.
The leftist loons in Congress proved they don't care about democracy. The federal government mandating people buy health insurance is tyrany and is not Constitutional.
It is possilb the courts will overthrow the bill if a case reaches them before Obama has the chance to furthur stack the court with leftists. Anyways, I expects tons of cases to be filled.
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mvassilev
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posted March 22, 2010 06:00 PM |
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ByteBandit:
We're not to the point that it's that bad yet, even with this bill. All it does is force people to have health insurance.
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Elodin
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posted March 22, 2010 06:04 PM |
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States are already lining up to sue the government. And individuals will have their turn at it too.
http://www.mystateline.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=147064
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mvassilev
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posted March 22, 2010 06:06 PM |
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Unfortunately, the Supreme Court doesn't care about the Constitution any more.
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posted March 22, 2010 06:13 PM |
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The leftist loons in Congress proved they don't care about democracy. The federal government mandating people buy health insurance is tyrany and is not Constitutional.
Yep, and I'm sure that happend because he's from a left side party. The right side parties (that have the power in Sweden right now) did that same thing several times the past few years.
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bixie
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posted March 22, 2010 06:14 PM |
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Edited by bixie at 18:15, 22 Mar 2010.
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Yep. The loony libs believe the government should take care of you cradle to grave. Communists.
The leftist loons in Congress proved they don't care about democracy. The federal government mandating people buy health insurance is tyrany and is not Constitutional.
It is possilb the courts will overthrow the bill if a case reaches them before Obama has the chance to furthur stack the court with leftists. Anyways, I expects tons of cases to be filled.
Dude... Come to britain... there you will see how loony leftists a democratic country can be. Hell, go to france, who've got a communist part as one of their seats.
Also, i note, the little aliteration you do there, very good, very chic. I will like to counteract with your fundie-mentalcase, kak-handed crass conservativism with my own, my rude rightist friend.
I would agree on the unconstitutional part, however. as far as I'm aware (having studied american history at a first year undergrad level), the government is only allowed to intervene in terms of military, monitary, and international affairs. this might be a nation wide scheme, but it isn't nessecarily constitutional. and thus you could refute the ideas of amendments to being constitutional, despite the fact that they have gone through countless amounts of scrutiny.
Also, you're forgetting that President Obama is a havard law graduate, so when it comes to the constitution, He should really know his stuff. Also, Mvass, Yeah, I'm pretty sure they do, considering that they're the ones who are most familiar with it.
and no, Liberals do not believe that the government should take care of you cradle to grave. that is known as a nanny state, and liberals don't want that. Liberals want everyone to be free, their name comes from "Liberty". freedom from poverty and freedom to get good healthcare will help that.
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