Is health care a right?

[MJZiggy]

I'm sorry to tell you guys this, but the guy who ran on a healthcare and economic reform platform won the election. Even here in the Romper Room. There will be some form of health coverage for people.

THANK OBAMA! Because we know that no one has coverage right now.

Yes, thank Obama, because those that don't will. If you have coverage, great, your insurance will not change. But he was voted into office on his policies and as much as you bitch and complain about it, this is still one of the major parts of his campaign platform and he is determined to get it done no matter how little you like having an extra insurance network in the world.

[Fosco33]

http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2008/03/a-detailed-anal.html

Cost is the issue - not reimbursement.

Companies can (and may) end coverage because they'd have to pay a minor amount to a public pool.

MJ/Freak - you missed the points. You didn't research my questions. You can say, health care is a right. And think that's all it takes to fix it. Laughable.

My point was - hc is not a right. It's a service. If it's truly a right that needs to be provided by gov't (like police, fire departments, etc.), then the workers in the system would be employed by the gov't. Since the system isn't a right and the Obama proposal doesn't make it a right, it will continue to bleed and likely have side effects for quality and improvements/portability.

Even investing in hc technology as a way to manage cost is a joke - HC is the only industry that has a 2X negative ROI on technology/cost. Obama makes huge promises and has little substance to back up the proposals. Without ripping apart the system from every angle will it be fixed without a focus on cost efficiency.

Also note, Obama (and Senator Grassley) will end property tax breaks for non-profit hospitals because charity care will be removed from the equation. That's an automatic 3-5% cost to the entire system automatically reduced from potential income. Right now, even the most well run hospitals, struggle to eak a small 'profit'.

BTW - I spend 80 hrs/wk fixing health care for the top rated hc consulting firm in the country. I'm pretty sure I have more relevant, poignant and reasonable ways to remedy the situation without pumping billions into a broken system and hoping it isn't abused/mismanaged/corrupt or inefficient. We work with the VA and almost every major health system in the country. We see the real issues and manage the cost and efficiency.

[MJZiggy]

There's a place on his website where you can weigh in on the issues. Why not offer up something more substantive than a question about a puppy?

[wist43]

Good lord people... I can't begin to fathom what some of you were taught about the Constitution in school...

The Constitution does not "grant" a single right... what it does is restrict the government. Rights do, in fact, come from God - according to our founders, and our traditional American societal understanding.

What do the amendments say, or are worded as such??? "Congress shall make no law... "

America is dying under the weight of leftist ideology... "those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"... left wing ideology has been around as long as recorded history, and it has killed every society it infected. Our founders studied the question, laid out the argument, and warned us not to let it happen here.

Goes to show you how dumb "the masses" are determined to be. America used to be about freedom, now it's about "what can the government do for me".

Of course, all governments do are control and manipulate people... that's not freedom, that's subjugation.

Doesn't matter what banner the leftist attack takes place under. Health care is just as effective as "Global Warming", is just as effective as anti-semitism, is just as effective as "working men of the world unite". Pick your rallying cry, they all lead to total government.

[Tarlam!]

Înteresting discussion.

In Germany, HC isn't a right. Health Insurance is legislated i.e. If you work, you will take out insurance. It's deducted from your income. You pay 50% and your employer pays 50%.

There are 2 types: Public and Private. Everybody must belong to at least a public fund. The costs are between 15%-20% of your gross salary for the public funds.

To qualify for Private, one must either be self employed or earn > € 48k p.a.

Interestingly, the Private funds cost less, offer better coverage and the funds are profitable. I will admit the premiums increase with age...

The public funds lose billions each year.

It may interest you to know, that for myself, my stb ex-wife and my 2 kids, my monthly premium in a private fund are about 1600 USD per month.



We now return you to your favourite programme...

[HowardRoark]

Interestingly, the Private funds cost less, offer better coverage and the funds are profitable. I will admit the premiums increase with age...

The public funds lose billions each year.

[HowardRoark]

To read this forum, you would think the whole place was a hard-core conservative, religious right extremist board. McCain didn't even win the PackerRats vote.

Yet rarely do we hear anything of substance from these people. Sure we get the from gex, or the from Ty, but rarely is there a very good defense of positions on the Left

Ziggy, I have a feeling you may be one of us. You seem way too open-minded and intelligent to be stuck under the thumb of the “Man.”

[Cy]

I'm sorry to tell you guys this, but the guy who ran on a healthcare and economic reform platform won the election. Even here in the Romper Room. There will be some form of health coverage for people.

THANK OBAMA! Because we know that no one has coverage right now.

Yes, thank Obama, because those that don't will. If you have coverage, great, your insurance will not change. But he was voted into office on his policies and as much as you bitch and complain about it, this is still one of the major parts of his campaign platform and he is determined to get it done no matter how little you like having an extra insurance network in the world.

Cy: Actually, what he has promised to do is force businesses to either pay for their employee's insurance or pay a 7% tax. Most businesses will easily choose the tax, because it will be cheaper and less paperwork. One by one businesses will hand their health care providence over to the state.

[Cy]

Good lord people... I can't begin to fathom what some of you were taught about the Constitution in school...

The Constitution does not "grant" a single right... what it does is restrict the government. Rights do, in fact, come from God - according to our founders, and our traditional American societal understanding.

What do the amendments say, or are worded as such??? "Congress shall make no law... "

America is dying under the weight of leftist ideology... "those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"... left wing ideology has been around as long as recorded history, and it has killed every society it infected. Our founders studied the question, laid out the argument, and warned us not to let it happen here.

Goes to show you how dumb "the masses" are determined to be. America used to be about freedom, now it's about "what can the government do for me".

Of course, all governments do are control and manipulate people... that's not freedom, that's subjugation.

Doesn't matter what banner the leftist attack takes place under. Health care is just as effective as "Global Warming", is just as effective as anti-semitism, is just as effective as "working men of the world unite". Pick your rallying cry, they all lead to total government.

Cy: Exactly! It's a fundamental differnence.

Our government does not "give" rights. It protects the rights we already have. But goods and services must by definition be contractually given from a producer to a consumer. And once you declare a good or service a right, then what you are in essence saying is someone else has a claim on ME.

Notice that subtle changes that leads to statism.

[Cy]

Because you don't die on the floor of a California emergency room from being denied a trip to the moon. It doesn't cause you pain. A doctor's care is not scarce.

How is the right to free speech endowed by our creator? It's endowed by our Constitution.

Or the right to gun ownership? Guns most certainly cause pain, damage health and cause the need for healthcare. By your logic, though, keeping weapons is not a right.

Cy: But you do die on the floor of an ER when no doctors are there. And it is simply a rather ignorant claim to say that a doctor's care is not scarce. Everything is scarce. Right now I don't have a doctor massaging my lower back. Care is scarce.

You say, "But you don't really need that."

And there enters the demon, because now my care is being managed by another, namely, you, who are going to determine what scarcity is, who gets care, and to what extent.

So, you fall back into the emotional outburst, "But what about the poor Mexican on the ER floor. O my God! O my God!"

And that is where discourse has gone. Because following the rationalist line to its ends may not satisfy our emotional yearnings, but in the end, they explain why more doctors are in the U.S. than in other socialized systems, and why care here is far more available than in other countries.

[mraynrand]

I'm sorry to tell you guys this, but the guy who ran on a healthcare and economic reform platform won the election. Even here in the Romper Room. There will be some form of health coverage for people.

THANK OBAMA! Because we know that no one has coverage right now.

Yes, thank Obama, because those that don't will. If you have coverage, great, your insurance will not change. But he was voted into office on his policies and as much as you bitch and complain about it, this is still one of the major parts of his campaign platform and he is determined to get it done no matter how little you like having an extra insurance network in the world.

Cy: Actually, what he has promised to do is force businesses to either pay for their employee's insurance or pay a 7% tax. Most businesses will easily choose the tax, because it will be cheaper and less paperwork. One by one businesses will hand their health care providence over to the state.

And once it's controlled by the state, people will flee state coverage like they flee from failing public schools. Like in Cleveland, where anybody who can flee to a parochial school or a charter school can't get there fast enough. Why? because for the majority of things, government control sucks.

[Iron Mike]

Care here is far more available than in other countries.

I'm gonna go ahead and pull the "apples vs. oranges" card out, because apparently some people here continue to equate "access to health insurance" with "access to healthcare."

[mraynrand]

Care here is far more available than in other countries.

I'm gonna go ahead and pull the "apples vs. oranges" card out, because apparently some people here continue to equate "access to health insurance" with "access to healthcare."

but they usually do it the wrong direction - equating those without insurance as being without access. Access is actually very good. Coverage has it's problems, but it's been discussed already.

[texaspackerbacker]

Re: Is health care a right?

I would like someone to explain to me how something that is subject to the law of scarcity can be a right.

What I mean is simply this:

Those things that are subject to the law of scarcity are by definition the purview of economics, and as such they are goods and services. We cannot, for instance, have a right to a trip to the moon, to gold, or to a cigarette boat. The law of scarcity prevents that from happening.

Rights, by contrast, are things that are universally shared. By virtue of being born, by having property, and by having life, we are granted the rights of life, liberty, and property. The only thing getting in the way of the universal enjoyment of our natural rights is not the law of scarcity, but the laws of tyrants. Tomorrow, if every government would agree, the whole world could enjoy full human rights without the exhaustion of a single resource.

Further, goods and services require person A to provide something for person B. If something is going to be called a right which is a good or service, then whoever person A happens to be would be the provider of that right.

In other words, rights, as historically understood, are seen to be endowed by our Creator, by nature, or by some universal entity bigger than man and his conventions.

Rights, as we are now beginning to understand them, are increasingly being seen as something endowed by other people, like doctors, or farmers, or most significantly, by the government.

But that's what happens when what was historically seen as rights is broadened to include goods and services.

So, if I have a right to what you alone are able to give...can you all see the dangers of this and where this is going?

The dangers of broadening this understanding of rights occurs precisely at the "Person A giving to Person B" point, because in the end, the government will never be Person A (because they are not in the business of goods and services), therefore they will necessarily have to FORCE another person, Person A, to give to Person B.

And any argument for rights that ends up with a collective body forcing a human being to be a producer of something for the sake of another is (a) immoral, and (b) doesn't work.

Why will it not work? Because in the end, Person A's mind cannot be tapped into and exploited. If we all have the right to the knowledge in Person A's mind concerning, say, treatment of cancer, we can make all the laws and use all the guns to force him to unload that knowledge for our sakes, but in the end, it is his choice. And under a system where he is forced to betray the intelligence of his profession, because it is claimed that the product of his mind is not his own, but belongs, by right, to others, he will very likely not be so keen to do so.

Where am I wrong?

Cy, I really hate to even give the appearance of siding with the forum bad guys (and girls) over you, and in a strict literal sense, I agree, there is no formal Constitutional RIGHT for health care.

I picture it like this, though:

Laws generally don't force us to keep your yard neat--at least not to the standard most people do. Laws don't force us to avoid going around in public filthy and stinky--but most people do keep themselves to a fairly decent standard that way. Lots of things are NOT legally on Constitutionally required.

We do what is generally considered the "right" thing in those areas, just the same. Why? Well, for most of us, it isn't a matter of giving in to social pressure. I, and probably you, too, tend say "Oh yeah, hell no" when social pressure is applied to follow the crowd. What most of us good normal Americans do, however, is take pride in the appearance of things associated with us.

We don't pay (either voluntarily or through government) for homeless shelters to be nice to the damn bums sleeping on sidewalks. We do it because it is ugly and disgusting having them around, and we want to get them out of sight.

It's the same thing with health care. It is kind of unseemly and in a sense ugly--below our high standard which decent normal Americans--which in most cases means conservative Americans--take pride in. I don't necessarily give a damn about the medical condition of poor people, but it's offensive to our senses to read all the silly sad crap about them dying or whatever due to lack of care--just like the freeloaders sleeping in the street.

The question is, what's the best way to rid ourselves of this nasty little problem.

Obviously, we can't just round up all the poor people and put them in camps, or something. Aside from the fact that even a solution like that would cost money, they might break out and kill us or something.

Most of us with good sense know that some Obama-esque government takeover of the health care system is a horrendous way of dealing with the problem too.

The fact is, there really AREN'T THAT MANY people who both need medical care AND lack the means to pay for it. Most people who don't have health insurance, I would bet, don't have it because they don't want it. They realize paying money for health insurance is like flushing money down the toilet.

IMO, the best solution is what we have right now. We actually have the best health care in the world right now, and the fact is, NOBODY goes without lifesaving or critical care in this country. Sure, there are a few who can't pay. They get their care. Hospitals and doctors absorb the costs--and presumably, pass them on to the rest of us. Yeah, that makes costs a little bit higher, but we can easily afford it, and it's a helluva lot less hassle than either of the other extremes: socialized medicine OR just letting 'em suffer and die.

Just look at it the same way you look at other little nuisance expense you have to keep up appearances.

[Freak Out]

MJ/Freak - you missed the points. You didn't research my questions. You can say, health care is a right. And think that's all it takes to fix it. Laughable.

My point was - hc is not a right. It's a service. If it's truly a right that needs to be provided by gov't (like police, fire departments, etc.), then the workers in the system would be employed by the gov't. Since the system isn't a right and the Obama proposal doesn't make it a right, it will continue to bleed and likely have side effects for quality and improvements/portability.

All I said was if you are going to take my money to fund your healthcare system I better be able to take part in it. I help fund the pension and healthcare coverage for the local cops and firefighters and am locked out of it. I help fund the pension and healthcare system for Feds and am not able to take part in it. They take my money through taxes and use it for their gain.