Is health care a right?

[Harlan Huckleby]

Access is actually very good.

This is just nonsense. People without insurance are forced to choose between health care and economic ruin. And the government programs to cover the poor or uninsurable have gaping holes.

Your "access" is theoretical, and really a word game. As a practical matter, many people are pressured into forgoing medical care.

[wist43]

Harlan... I'll just tell it like it is... tough, tough shit.

That doesn't give you the right to reach into my wallet, or your neighbors wallet to help your other neighbor.

You're a fundamentally dishonest person, as is anyone who thinks they have the right to help themselves to anyone elses hard earned money.

Your sanctimonious bullshit doesn't wash with me... you want to compare scars??? Trust me, you can't come close to me... I've been homeless, I've starved, I was kicked out on my own as a teenager - did I come asking for handouts??? Did anyone offer to help me???

Aside from living in a Chrisitian homeless shelter, I received no help in surviving.... and you know, what??? It was no one else's business. It was my struggle, and I'm a better man for it.

Tell your sob stories walking... bunch of whining assholes.

[mraynrand]

Access is actually very good.

People without insurance are forced to choose between health care and economic ruin. And the government programs to cover the poor or uninsurable have gaping holes.

Your "access" is theoretical, and really a word game. As a practical matter, many people are pressured into forgoing medical care.

What you say is true. Some people are in bad spots. No doubt. But access is still very good. And quality of care is for the most part outstanding.

[wist43]

And furthermore, for the boo-hoo'ers in here... my mother had quadruple bypass surgery without any health insurance.

Didn't have the money... worked out a settlement with the hospital for a fraction of what they owed, which still came to, what was for my mother a very large sum of money - $40,000 as I remember. Had to cash in some investments, the dividends from which they were living on.

They ended up getting rid of cable TV, internet, cut back on other expenses as well, but they get by. Don't see them out whining about, "poor me"... "everybody owes me"... "I deserve my cable TV back"... "boo fucking hoo".

She's not running around with her hand out... in fact, she's just as disgusted by you socialist pigs as I am. Bunch of whining thieves - you can hide behind perceived altrusim, but it's still thievery.

I dare any one of you to come and knock on my door and try to force me to open my wallet to pay for you or your neighbor - I dare ya!!!

Of course you won't... you don't have the guts. You hide behind government... use the power of the mob, and government force to do your stealing for you. Weak, filthy thieves.

[texaspackerbacker]

This is exactly what I'm talking about in the category of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"--and it sure as hell AIN'T broke.

Wist, the $40,000 "settlement" you spoke of undoubtedly left a larger figure unpaid, absorbed by the hospital, and passed along to the rest of us. I'm not complaining, though, and others shouldn't either, as this "settlement", others like it, and even complete write-offs are no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

To CHANGE--there's that dirty word again--our whole wonderful system and make things infinitely more inconvenient and probably a lot more expensive too, all things considered, for everybody would be just plain stupid--Obama-esque stupid.

Just about as bad would be to empower government to force people to pay for health insurance--kinda like with car insurance. Strange how some people who seem to be against government intrusion in a lot of venues can somehow see fit to advocate government sticking it to individuals to the tune of forcing people against their will to flush away money for health insurance.

[HowardRoark]

Strange how some people who seem to be against government intrusion in a lot of venues can somehow see fit to advocate government sticking it to individuals to the tune of forcing people against their will to flush away money for health insurance.

Yet, you have no problem with "us" being forced against our will to flush our money away in this manner:

Wist, the $40,000 "settlement" you spoke of undoubtedly left a larger figure unpaid, absorbed by the hospital, and passed along to the rest of us.

[texaspackerbacker]

It's a question of the lesser (or least) of three evils, and I see the status quo as clearly the least bad.

[Cy]

Harlan... I'll just tell it like it is... tough, tough shit.

That doesn't give you the right to reach into my wallet, or your neighbors wallet to help your other neighbor.

You're a fundamentally dishonest person, as is anyone who thinks they have the right to help themselves to anyone elses hard earned money.

Your sanctimonious bullshit doesn't wash with me... you want to compare scars??? Trust me, you can't come close to me... I've been homeless, I've starved, I was kicked out on my own as a teenager - did I come asking for handouts??? Did anyone offer to help me???

Aside from living in a Chrisitian homeless shelter, I received no help in surviving.... and you know, what??? It was no one else's business. It was my struggle, and I'm a better man for it.

Tell your sob stories walking... bunch of whining assholes.

Cy: And blessed are you that you've come to where you are at. So many people go through life waiting for some "they" to take care of them. They waste so much time that could be spent saying, "Hey, I'm the master of my own fate.

You came to that conclusion, and as you say, you are the better for it.

[Cy]

And furthermore, for the boo-hoo'ers in here... my mother had quadruple bypass surgery without any health insurance.

Didn't have the money... worked out a settlement with the hospital for a fraction of what they owed, which still came to, what was for my mother a very large sum of money - $40,000 as I remember. Had to cash in some investments, the dividends from which they were living on.

They ended up getting rid of cable TV, internet, cut back on other expenses as well, but they get by. Don't see them out whining about, "poor me"... "everybody owes me"... "I deserve my cable TV back"... "boo fucking hoo".

She's not running around with her hand out... in fact, she's just as disgusted by you socialist pigs as I am. Bunch of whining thieves - you can hide behind perceived altrusim, but it's still thievery.

I dare any one of you to come and knock on my door and try to force me to open my wallet to pay for you or your neighbor - I dare ya!!!

Of course you won't... you don't have the guts. You hide behind government... use the power of the mob, and government force to do your stealing for you. Weak, filthy thieves.

Cy: Preach it, brotha!

[wist43]

I have a way of killing threads, don't I???

[Partial]

I don't think it is.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Harlan... I'll just tell it like it is... tough, tough shit.

That doesn't give you the right to reach into my wallet, or your neighbors wallet to help your other neighbor.

You're a fundamentally dishonest person, as is anyone who thinks they have the right to help themselves to anyone elses hard earned money.

Your sanctimonious bullshit doesn't wash with me... you want to compare scars??? Trust me, you can't come close to me... I've been homeless, I've starved, I was kicked out on my own as a teenager - did I come asking for handouts??? Did anyone offer to help me???

Aside from living in a Chrisitian homeless shelter, I received no help in surviving.... and you know, what??? It was no one else's business. It was my struggle, and I'm a better man for it.

Tell your sob stories walking... bunch of whining assholes.

A Christian homeless shelter you say, aye?

Yes, I believe that government has a role in helping people.

I just forgot what thread I'm in - is this about health care?
Having a more efficient and humane health care system, like they have in, say, Japan or Germany, would not just be the right thing to do morally. It also can be good for business. Right now, businesses are strangled by health care costs, and the system is rotten to the core with inefficiency.

I can't speak to extreme anti-government people like Wist. The logic of his argument can be applied to the elimination of social security, public education, publicly financed roads. If you are against pooling our resources and taking collective action, so be it.

The small group of people in our country that want to go back to a 1800 style government are roughly equivalent to the small mobs in Russia that assemble every May 1 and wish for a return of communism.


Our healthcare system is the most market-oriented system in the world. And its the market effects that make it rotten.

[Freak Out]

Wist needs to take advantage of some publicly funded mental health care programs in his area...he really sounds like an angry, paranoid individual in need of some help.

[wist43]

Harlan... I'll just tell it like it is... tough, tough shit.

That doesn't give you the right to reach into my wallet, or your neighbors wallet to help your other neighbor.

You're a fundamentally dishonest person, as is anyone who thinks they have the right to help themselves to anyone elses hard earned money.

Your sanctimonious bullshit doesn't wash with me... you want to compare scars??? Trust me, you can't come close to me... I've been homeless, I've starved, I was kicked out on my own as a teenager - did I come asking for handouts??? Did anyone offer to help me???

Aside from living in a Chrisitian homeless shelter, I received no help in surviving.... and you know, what??? It was no one else's business. It was my struggle, and I'm a better man for it.

Tell your sob stories walking... bunch of whining assholes.

A Christian homeless shelter you say, aye?

Yes, I believe that government has a role in helping people.

I just forgot what thread I'm in - is this about health care?
Having a more efficient and humane health care system, like they have in, say, Japan or Germany, would not just be the right thing to do morally. It also can be good for business. Right now, businesses are strangled by health care costs, and the system is rotten to the core with inefficiency.

I can't speak to extreme anti-government people like Wist. The logic of his argument can be applied to the elimination of social security, public education, publicly financed roads. If you are against pooling our resources and taking collective action, so be it.

The small group of people in our country that want to go back to a 1800 style government are roughly equivalent to the small mobs in Russia that assemble every May 1 and wish for a return of communism.


Our healthcare system is the most market-oriented system in the world. And its the market effects that make it rotten.

I'm not "anti-government... I stand right beside our founding fathers, i.e. limited government.

You, on the other hand, stand beside Karl Marx... amazingly, you can't seem to make the connection that your advocacy of collectivism is advocacy for totalitarianism.

Your disdain for our founding fathers paints you as an anti-american leftist. Openly advocating "collectivism"... you do realize that collectivism and communism are synonymous???

Truly amazing.

[Harlan Huckleby]

we do many things collectively.

are you against NASA?

arguing the merits of capitalism vrs socialism (or collectivism, whatever you want to call) is for 9th graders. We have many elements of socialism in our system, layered on top of capitalism. It's not an either-or question and is never going to be.