Practically speaking, it means that millions of people can be conned into thinking other people can and will pay for everything they want from the doctor.

Practically speaking, so many people are ignorant of what "rights" are that they are willing to define anything they want as a "right".

Responsibility is for other people. Gimme!

This guy wants me to pay for something. What is he, nuts?!

Practically, it means removing restrictions on doctors and patients so that health care can be given inexpensively as possible.

It also means you have a responsibility to get health care, not a right. So, if you keep whining about not being able to afford it, yet you keep supersizing your McDonalds order and blowing money on other frivolousness, then don't complain about the cost of health care. It costs money to get good care, and most of us have to give up something we would have liked in order to take care of ourselves and our families.

Of course, its easier to ask all those "rich Americans" to sacrifice so you can have your government health care and your wants...

Practically, it doesn't play at all. Look at what the Federal Government is authorized to do. It's in the Constitution.

The late and unlamented Soviet Union was an example of this in practice. "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work" is going to become familiar to a lot of us before this is done. Ignorant people make easy victims.

Practically, it means removing restrictions on doctors and patients so that health care can be given inexpensively as possible.

And the practical way to do this is to GET RID OF THE HMOs. All of 'em. Just because Teddy Kennedy created them (or the idea of them) doesn't mean they're any good. (Oh sure, they're good for the CEOs who run them. They're just not good for anything else.)

o.O

Health care means so much to people... I don't understand how you could keep it running smoothly with anything but capitalism.

I'm not talking about insurance companies that became HMOs, I'm talking about HMOs that "manage" multiple insurance companies, like, United Health Care, or Oxford, or Aetna. HMOs (Health Management Organizations) are NOT the same thing as your run-of-the-mill insurance companies. Before HMOs, individual insurance companies ran their brand of insurance separately, as opposed to under one umbrella for several different insurance companies. The HMOs are run by businessmen, and they very infrequently have a medical background. The CEOs for these HMOs have but one job - to make sure that the HMOs make money. They're not about providing the best medical care. They're about providing medical care as long as they make a profit and can give passable medical care for the least expense. There are medically necessary procedures being denied by some HMOs because it would eat into their bottom line, whether the doctor(s) insists the patient(s) needs that care or not. It's shameful, really. Actually, the whole HMO thing started out as a good idea, but greed got in the way of actually making the process easier for the insured patients and the doctors who treat them.

As much as the gubmint has trampled the constitution already, why would this be a surprise?

Radwaste nailed it in the first post. What people want, has now turned into "I gotta right", not "I want that so I will work toward getting it".

The entitlement attitude that the gubmint has fostered with all the freebie giveaways.

Where's Brian? It's after 8am on the West Coast, and I wanna get it out of the way.

Maybe he's being industrious, so that he won't have to tell his doctors that "they'll eventually get their money."

I had aetna and LOVED them. They spent in the neighborhood of $300k on us and never dithered about one dime of it. I now have United, and am pretty happy so far.

Yes, these companies want to make a profit. So do you, so do drs, so does everyone. If too many people are denied care on their watch, it will blow up on them and they will cease to make money. The government has no such incentive to keep you alive. Plus, they can be sued. Government can't.

Everybody on your feet!... Let's do the Cabbage Patch dance!

McArrrrr-dle!

McArrrrr-dle!

McArrrrr.....

Crid, much as I love ya, I just don't get why you keep harping on brian for not buying medical insurance. He's SELF-insuring. He has money and will pay cash for his own medical expenses. If he gets cancer or something huge and can't afford chemo treatments, he's going to allow himself to die. (Which is exactly what I would do, even though I have health insurance through my employer.) I don't see why this bothers you so much. Sure, it must be making some insurance company somewhere sick, to think that here's this young, healthy guy who wouldn't cost them anything, who they could soak for premiums in order to fund the old bluehairs' medical expenses. But if health insurance is going to cost him thousands of dollars a year, it doesn't take very many years of saving that money to have a nice, tidy sum accumulated (earning interest) that he can use IF medical expenses ever come up. You jump to the conclusion that he would cost other people money if he ever went to the hospital. I don't.

Plus, they can be sued. Government can't.

Oh yeah, they can be sued. For waaaaaaaay more money than you or I have to retain a lawyer in the first place. And the time it takes to go through the litigation process, well, let's just say it takes so long, the patient in question could concevibly die while waiting for a settlement. It's happened.

Look, I had Horizon Blue Cross, which is out of NJ but also participates with Blue Cross Blue Shield here in CT. It was fine, I had no complaints. What I was trying to say that the CEOs who run the HMOs are extensively overpaid; and the HMO workerbees are doing the work that the original insurance companies' workerbees were doing well enough on their own without intervention by the HMOs. The HMOs were supposed to play a supporting role in helping resolve insurance claim disputes, and now they've become entities unto themselves, and at times make people jump through hoops to get treatment and/or healthcare that should be given without the extraneous crap they make patients and doctors go through. Some HMOs are better than others, obviously. I'm just saying that they aren't really necessary, and they eat up a big chunk of money that would otherwise go to treatment and care of patients.

> why you keep harping on brian

I haven't been clear? Not a problem! Let's review!

> He's SELF-insuring. He has money
> and will pay cash for his own
> medical expenses.

This individual is not a spring chicken... Any number of circumstances –some growing ever-more probable with each sunrise– could require immediate and hideously expensive treatment. These are bills that only the wealthiest of us could afford to pay without warning, and this person has made it clear that he doesn't have that kind of wealth.

When told that the community will therefore have to pick up the difference, as it would for an illegal immigrant, he replies that his caretakers will "eventually get their money," as if this were a satisfactory response to a profound debt. In fact, he's not self-insuring: He intends to be as stingy as possible about paying these bills.

As noted in my first comment today, I want capitalism to pay for health care. I want medical providers to do their absolute best work: The way to encourage that is to pay them.

For this individual to skirt through midlife without insurance is like a drunk driver who has three screwdrivers but drives home without killing someone: Such a person has no business counseling others on motoring policy. Rather, such a person is the best friend Pelosi and Obama and Barney Frank ever had! After all, y'know, they're just watching out for the little people.

In summary, it's an integrity thing. This individual's comments are always phrased with a tone of freshly-piqued grievance, always with a precious cussword, and quick retreat to sarcasm. Yet he's counting on others to wipe his ass... The tone is not appropriate.

I agree that there is no such thing as a "right" to health care. However, unless we're willing to deny care to those without insurance and watch them die on the streets, it's impractical.

Solutions are a requirement to have a minimal level of insurance (like many states do for car insurance) or a level of free "safety net" care that's low enough to encourage people to have their own coverage and high enough to satisfy our minimal moral requirements.

"If he gets cancer or something huge and can't afford chemo treatments, he's going to allow himself to die. (Which is exactly what I would do)"

Rightt... Heres the thing, I'm bipolar and suicide has had a very appealing lure. But even in my lowest moments I was scared shitless of dying. And I was crazy. Good luck thinking you wont go out with a good fight.

Consequeces of socializing medicine: shortages. The only way to pay for this pipe dream is to cap prices. This will lead to rationing of care. In Canada, we can free-ride off the US to postpone the eventual reckoning. Who will the US free-ride off of?

The solution: complete deregulation. It's always shocking to hear but that's the solution. Remove the licenses and government control at the HMO, hospital, clinic, and all other levels. But most importantly, eliminate the FDA. Health care would almost immediately become affordable to 99% of the population and the myth that the FDA actually protects anyone would be over and done with.

HMOs were supposed to save the day in the 80's. One big idea was that getting regular care would reduce long term health care expenses. That turns out not to be the case (people who never see the doctor often suddenly drop dead from a heart attack which is a bad result but reduces health care costs).

The other idea was that putting a "gatekeeper" (usually your GP) between the patient and specialists would reduce costs. This does generally reduce costs but often annoys patients and led to their unpopularity. If someone voluntarily accepts restrictions on their freedom of choice in order to save on premiums that's fine by me.

There are many cases where decisons involving tradeoffs between cost and benefit needs to be made. I'd prefer the patient to make those choices rather than the patient's employer or the government.

> Good luck thinking you wont go
> out with a good fight.

This is a really important point. Especially when they're healthy, people disguise their discomfort about tragedy with naïve bravado.

Suicide is a problem. But people are like other animals: By reflex, and by dint of the very distinctive powers that nature has equipped them, they will struggle to live.

by which nature has...
etc

Sorry. You knew where that was headed, right? Sure you did.

The right-wing can get as hysterical as they want, I will still tell you this: I want national health insurance, and I want to soak rich people to pay for it.
I would like to see health care outlays capped at some fraction of GDP, and no lawsuits (binding arbitration only for complaints about medical treatment). I believe in euthanasia, especially for the elderly, and "libertarian" women, to hold costs down.

The problem isn't the existence of HMOs, it's that it's so difficult for people to change their health insurance or health care providers. The customers of health insurance companies are the employers, not the people being covered. We need to decouple health coverage from employment and move to a system where providers offer options and individuals make decisions.

Crid:

Such a person has no business counseling others on motoring policy.

Chickenhawk!

Crid:

Rather, such a person is the best friend Pelosi and Obama and Barney Frank ever had! After all, y'know, they're just watching out for the little people.

A double lie. Not only am I not what they are looking for (I simply wish to pay for what I consume), they are not watching out for anyone but themselves and those from whom they receive their pay.

Crid:

In summary, it's an integrity thing. This individual's comments are always phrased with a tone of freshly-piqued grievance, always with a precious cussword, and quick retreat to sarcasm.

In other words, you have simply assumed that I am a freeloader. The one time I decide to amuse myself by playing your stupid game, you declare yourself victorious and that you'd been right about him all along. Except that you're just as wrong now as you have ever been.

Crid:

Yet he's counting on others to wipe his ass...

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Crid:

The tone is not appropriate.

No, what's inappropriate is your hubris in assuming you have a right to impose costs upon me for things that hold no value for me. What's inappropriate is your continued assault on my character based upon YOUR closely held value for your pathetic life.

Ppen:

I'm bipolar and suicide has had a very appealing lure. But even in my lowest moments I was scared shitless of dying. And I was crazy. Good luck thinking you wont go out with a good fight.

I've never been afraid of dying. I don't find the idea of dying at someone else's hand or as a result of their incompetence appealing, but I don't fear death per se.

Maybe I'm atypical, but I don't see what the big deal is. You're born, you live a while, you die. It is the way of things. You wanna interfere with that cycle for yourself? Be my guest. Just don't ask me to finance it. I won't ask you to finance me either.

Deal?

My fiance and I were talking about this the other day: how he loves HMOs and wishes he was still in one. He was recently diagnosed with a minor but annoying medical disorder, and it took FOREVER to get him to go to the doctor because he had to find one that was taking new patients, which is harder than it should have been in one of the largest cities in the world.

He's happy going to whatever doctor happens to be there. He doesn't need a personal relationship with his physician. Which is why, when someone in his office was diagnosed with swine flu and he came down with the symptoms of a sinus infection around the same time, I encouraged him to go to a walk-in clinic. His own doctor said she could see him in 10 days.

Walk-in clinics became my first choice after my primary care doctor was going to make me wait three months for an appointment when I suffered sudden and almost complete hearing loss in my right ear around Christmas. And I have insurance.

All very silly, but I admire your deft use of boldface.

"Good luck thinking you wont go out with a good fight."

Dying isn't something I want to do, but someday it's going to happen to me - it's an absolute certainty. It happens to EVERYONE - if you don't die of something, you die of nothing. If I got cancer, no I would not mess with all that chemo and those expensive treatments, which make people feel worse than the cancer itself and probably won't help much. I would just enjoy the life I had left and that would be it. Lots of people do that. It doesn't mean they don't enjoy life or care about living. But I don't think those treatments prolong life so much as they prolong death. Not interested. (Ditto for nursing homes.)

i-holier-than-thou said:

> I want national health insurance, and I want
> to soak rich people to pay for it.

Hell, let's just soak you instead... more fun.

> no lawsuits (binding arbitration only for
> complaints about medical treatment).

Binding arbitration is pretty much as expensive as a lawsuit, but without a lot of the same procedural protections

> I believe in euthanasia, especially for the
> elderly, and "libertarian" women, to hold
> costs down.

I believe in euthanasia for you...

"Especially when they're healthy, people disguise their discomfort about tragedy with naïve bravado."

I watched two grandmothers wither away in nursing homes with the brains of turnips. (Paid for by our tax dollars, naturally.) THAT is what I'm scared of.

The naive bravado comes from people who think that if they just have enough (of other people's) money and pay for enough treatment, and keep going back to the doctor, or find the RIGHT treatment, and so on and so on, they will live forever. Millions can be spent on your last six months of life, and you're still going to die.

Pirate Jo, I respect that position, but I find the morality of my own situation a little sticky.

We need money (some of it coming from insurance, the rest out-of-pocket) simply to maintain a human quality of life for my mother until she dies. Someone to change her diapers, clean her surgical wound regularly, feed her and bathe her. She has passed on chemo and physical therapy, which would be meaningless at this point. It's not a matter of fighting death: We know she is going to die and we have accepted it. But it's still awfully expensive to give someone a human existence while they wait for death.

My deepest sympathy, MonicaP.

Simple soulution,, stop cleaning the wound and stop taking any pills other then pain pills

Simple soulution,, stop cleaning the wound and stop taking any pills other then pain pills

That's where the moral dilemma comes in: I have the right to refuse medical care for myself, but not to tell a woman who no longer has the means of finding her own aide or health care (but is still mentally competent) that I'm going to send her on the express train to grandma's house via medical neglect.

There's practicality, and then there's deciding that people aren't even worth the most basic human care.

Besides, have you ever smelled someone rotting from the inside out? Not good for relations with the neighbors.

Monica, actually I have. I'm actually really glad that he had already written up what would be allowed and not allowed to keep him alive, because as he was dying his children were all about keeping him alive no matter what the costs or whether or not he wanted it. Kind of the opposite of your problem I suppose.

I don't know what the answer to getting our country better healthcare is, I’ve been trying to muddle through all of the ideas proposed. I'd say bigger regulation of the industry and bigger dings to people who choose to get health affecting conditions. No one complains that you have to pay a higher life insurance rate if you smoke or do high risk activities, more health insurance companies should do the same. People overweight should pay more, though I wouldn’t suggest the current BMI charts as a way to mark someone as obese/overweight or not. As far as regulation, I'm not sure what we could change without it being gamed by the insurance companies or the users of the health insurance. I think most people agree that children shouldn't have to suffer for their parents sins (as much as possible) and should be covered. How do you do that in a way that doesn't discourage other people from paying when others can get it for free by being cheap and lazy? That's the question.

We should have healthcare that isn’t connected to our jobs, perhaps companies can change their benefits to include paying into whatever plan that their employee already has, with all of the tax deductions they already get. I’d also like some sort of changes in what is a preexisting condition or not. Even through company insurance, where I get approved right away, if anything comes up in the first six months it still counts as preexisting if they want it to. When I moved to a new state and had new coverage, about two months in I needed an MRI, they made me pay for the whole thing out of pocket because I had headaches before I was on their plan and that was the reason the doctor put on the form.

I don't think we should force all people to have health insurance. I've heard the argument that you are mandated have to have insurance to drive a car, and that health insurance should be the same. I don't view it as the same since you can choose not to drive.

Oh, and people should be able to die if they want to. When I was in Washington state we passed a law that would allow this. If you feel ok with dying now, without pain, and without spending tons of money that you might not have (and debts passed on to your family members), who is the state to say that it's a crime?

Oh re: the title of this post. I remember my driving instruction teacher getting very angry at the class and yelling "you do not have the right to drive! You earn it!"

There's lots of things people assume they have rights to, some is just because of the advancement of technology (everyone assumes they have a right to clean water, electricity, etc.) and some is just because people have never been taught personal responsiblity.

"However, unless we're willing to deny care to those without insurance and watch them die on the streets, it's impractical."

I think we have to ask WHY does someone not have health insurance.

There are a slew of reasons why I would feel fine seeing my tax dollars pay for someone's health insurance (like, someone who is mentally disabled and can't really hold down a job. I don't think we should let them die/wander the streets of Boston and shoot up drugs in the common. Kinda like they do now.). But for people like brian - who simply choose not to get health insurance and gladly welcome death if he cannot afford life-saving treatment - then I'm ready and willing.

(Nothing personal, brian, but that would simply be holding you to your own promise which I'm sure you're okay with.)

But given the choice of how to spend a few billion bucks: I'd pick government-subsidized health insurance for each and every person in the country (illegals and all) over bank/auto bail outs and even this "war". It's not only cheaper but tangibly more helpful.

A note for anyone planning their own medical future: I was told that hospice will honor a DNR, but, if someone panics and calls 911, the EMTs will disregard it unless we also get a non-hospital DNR. Check in your state.

Gretchen:

But given the choice of how to spend a few billion bucks: I'd pick government-subsidized health insurance for each and every person in the country (illegals and all) over bank/auto bail outs and even this "war". It's not only cheaper but tangibly more helpful.

But it's also demonstrably false.

All cost estimates (which are indistinguishable from lies) aside, the real cost to insure everyone in America is probably somewhere on the order of $3-5 trillion PER YEAR. This assumes, of course, that everyone gets every bit of medical coverage they convinced themselves they are worthy of.

Which we know cannot happen. Which leads us to who gets to decide who is denied what treatments. And our government can't figure out how to pave roads effectively.

The single biggest argument against Universal Health Care is that the worst and dimmest among us will be the ones charged with making the decisions of life and death.

If that's not enough to convince you that it's doomed to fail, nothing will change your mind.

"All cost estimates (which are indistinguishable from lies) aside, the real cost to insure everyone in America is probably somewhere on the order of $3-5 trillion PER YEAR."

If that's truly the cost then I'll withdraw my comment. Of course I'd like to know where that figure comes from.

I was just listening to this discussion a few nights ago on NPR and their figures were do-able. Of course. It was NPR...

I don't actually support nationalized health care outright, I just feel helpless in deciding how my money is spent. It would be better, in my eyes, for the money to pay for health care over other shite. Best case scenario is that I don't pay for other, able bodied people's health insurance; a fucking joke "war"; bailouts; or have my MA sales tax go up 1.25% in two weeks.

Amy,

You try to promote rational thinking, so consider this fundamental question: what do you mean by a "right"? And who is it granted by? Assumedly you do not believe that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. Are we then limited to the rights spelled out in the Constitution centuries ago? I haven't read it in a while, but I don't remember fire departments listed in there, but we seem to have decided as a society that we all benefit by not privatizing certain services.

I get that you object to the rich paying a higher tax rate than the poor for some reason (which is another argument for another time -- though I'll plant the seed that there are a lot of newspaper publishers that once made a lot of money off of the labor of you and your fellow ink-stained wretches; should they not pay a higher share to support a capitalist system that enabled them to get rich in the first place?) However, hiding behind the canard that any right not spelled out explicitly in the constitution should be verboten is specious, if not disingenuous.

Do you believe we should provide emergency health services for the poor? If so, do you believe that preventative health care leads to lower costs than relying on the emergency healthcare system? So isn't it a net plus for everyone then to have some base level of health care available to all? As with public education, doesn't society as a whole benefit from a healthy, educated workforce to draw from?

It also means you have a responsibility to get health care, not a right.

Uh, sure. Except for when I was between jobs and called around looking for private health insurance and couldn't get it AT ANY PRICE. Because about a year-and-a-half earlier, I'd taken Wellbutrin for a couple of months.

When I gave up on calling insurance companies and called an insurance broker instead, he asked what prescriptions I'd had filled in the last 2 years and laughed at me when I said only 2 fills on a Wellbutrin prescription and 1 fill on a pain prescription, both more than a year in the past. Told me there wasn't a single company that would cover me.

I was in Ohio, where there's no requirement that insurers have to offer coverage to everyone. Until there is, saying that all people have the duty to obtain their own coverage is oversimplistic, at best.

"The single biggest argument against Universal Health Care is that the worst and dimmest among us will be the ones charged with making the decisions of life and death."

That is an insult to our Founding Fathers. That is why they made sure that an idiot like you will never have a job in the White House or Congress.

The leaders of this country who survived this democratic and brutal election process cannot be the "worst and dimmest" among us. It is simply impossible as our Founding Fathers made sure of it.

Universal Health Care is going to happen no matter it make sense or not. Our instinct to preserve human species as a whole is way more powerful than free market theory. Mother Nature made sure of that. It will even justify screwing over the rich to pay for it.

Your mother told you already. No one promised you that life is a fair deal.

Gretchen:

If that's truly the cost then I'll withdraw my comment. Of course I'd like to know where that figure comes from.

Well, considering that most estimates put total US outlays for health care at about 3.5 trillion per year, I'd say it's a safe guess.
Which means MASSIVE tax hikes.

franko:

If so, do you believe that preventative health care leads to lower costs than relying on the emergency healthcare system?

There's no evidence to support the assertion that preventative care leads to lower costs, higher life-expectancy, or greater quality of life.

Fail.

So isn't it a net plus for everyone then to have some base level of health care available to all? As with public education, doesn't society as a whole benefit from a healthy, educated workforce to draw from?

With our most expensive in the world public education system, we rank somewhere below the median of industrialized nations in quality of educational output.

Fail.

Are we then limited to the rights spelled out in the Constitution centuries ago? I

"We" are not limited by the Constitution. The government is limited by the Constitution. If the Constitution does not explicitly tell the government to provide something, it cannot do so. Show me where universal health care is in the Constitution.

Fail.

That's three fails in one post. Surely a new record. You don't even get a copy of the home game.

Chang:

That is an insult to our Founding Fathers. That is why they made sure that an idiot like you will never have a job in the White House or Congress.

The leaders of this country who survived this democratic and brutal election process cannot be the "worst and dimmest" among us. It is simply impossible as our Founding Fathers made sure of it.

You don't even read what you write, do you? If you think that any member of our government, elected, appointed, or hired, is in the same intellectual league as any one of the founding fathers, you are off your chump. In fact, I wouldn't take the entire combined intellectual firepower of the House and Senate against Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.

The Congress is comprised almost exclusively of people who couldn't make it in the Real World.

Universal Health Care is going to happen no matter it make sense or not. Our instinct to preserve human species as a whole is way more powerful than free market theory. Mother Nature made sure of that. It will even justify screwing over the rich to pay for it.

Actually, the "rich" will simply do as they have done everywhere else - move. Unless you wanna go all Soviet and seal the borders to prevent it.

And I think it's cute how you think that Universal Health Care has anything to do with preserving the species. You really ought to climb out of mommy's basement and see the Real World.

Chang, the Founding Fathers "made sure" of what? And how? By writing the Constitution? Haven't you noticed that it makes no difference? The Constitution has been soundly ignored, which is precisely why we are in such a mess! And yes, the "worst" among us ARE the ones in the White House and Congress. I don't know about "dimmest," since they seem to be smart enough to have carved out a pretty sweet deal for themselves. But I don't know where you get the idea that anything the Founding Fathers thought or did makes any difference to the current administration. I only WISH it was true.

And franko, the Constitution doesn't "give" us our rights. It simply commands the government to protect the rights we already have, largely by limiting the size and scope of said government. And we are talking about the *federal* government here. The Constitution makes no mention of fire departments because it is up to states and smaller levels to make decisions about things like fire departments.

Also, regarding this: "As with public education, doesn't society as a whole benefit from a healthy, educated workforce to draw from?"

Government schools are the worst thing that ever happened to education.

Biggest health care problems facing Americans? Obesity and smoking. No amount of government intervention is going to cure stupid.

I want national health insurance, and I want to soak rich people to pay for it.

Not only are there not enough rich people to pay for it, there are not enough taxpayers to pay for it. Total federal tax revenue in 2006 was $2.4 trillion. Predictably, receipts are way down this year.

Soylent Green is people! It's PEOPLE!

Or, if we are doing old movies about the future of humans, perhaps we can get renewal on carousel?

The future is not as I envisioned it when I started envisioning it in the 60s. but it still is kinda cool.

I have a living will. Pull the plug, donate the organs, then the rest of my body to the nearest medical school so medical students can play with my dead winkie. Or sell me to some desperate necrophiliacs, I'll be dead, and won't care. Or sue.

I don't understand how Crid can seemingly be upset with Brian for not buying insurance and yet not go whole hog into determining that Crid's health care is a right.

If we think Brian must buy health insurance than don't we end up with Obamacare in which we all will be forced to buy health insurance to protect Crid?

Is the problem here the word "right" as opposed to "citizen voted upon shared responsibility and privilege?"

Amy, if healthcare is not a right (or "citizen voted upon shared responsibility and privilege"), why should we as taxpayers pay for any amount of emergency care? (Or pay for fire, police, schools, or anything?)

Shorter libertarian, you have the perfect right to have your house burn down, you have no right to ask me to pay for your police, firefighters, fda, ftc, ....

If we as citizens can vote for an FDA or FTC paid for by taxes, why can't we as citizens vote for Obamacare or Wydencare or Cridicalcare?

Do citizens have a right to practice medicine? Apparently not. Do doctors have such a right? Maybe as a free speech thing? Again, it's clearly not an unrestricted right.

So I don't see how having all citizens voting for a legislative branch that passes Obamacare or Cridicalcare is any sort of unconstitutional action.

When those citizens overwhelmingly oppose such a thing, then as representatives they are obligated to oppose it on our behalf.

We voted for representatives, not philosopher-kings.

Shorter libertarian, you have the perfect right to have your house burn down, you have no right to ask me to pay for your police, firefighters, fda, ftc, ....

If your property is sufficiently close to mine that its burning down jeopardizes me, then I have a right to demand, at the very least, that you not burn my property down.

This is done with community services because it's not logistically sane to do it any other way. But you'll note it's also local, not federal.

And that's the biggest piece of it right there.

"Do you think the federal government should guarantee health care for all Americans, or don't you think so?" Americans favor guaranteed health care for all, by a margin of 62%-38%.

> seemingly be upset with Brian for
> not buying insurance and yet not
> go whole hog into determining
> that Crid's health care is a right.

Huh?

What are ou trying to say?

"What are ou trying to say?"

One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.

"If your property is sufficiently close to mine that its burning down jeopardizes me, then I have a right to demand, at the very least, that you not burn my property down."

If I understand Crid, he is saying he demands you not burn down his community with your unpaid bills.

"I want national health insurance, and I want to soak rich people to pay for it."

I love comments like this. It identifies the abymally ignorant, who cannot understand that all they are doing is making it harder for themselves - to get "rich".

Hey. Go tell the guy in the double-wide he can't have his flat-screen TV, because you need free medicine.

I'll wait.

"But I don't know where you get the idea that anything the Founding Fathers thought or did makes any difference to the current administration."

The Founding Fathers, the highly educated all old white male slave owners, required that to be the president of the United States, you should be a natural born citizen, who is at least 35 years old. There was no other requirement.

As a result, we have a young black leader in the White House to lead us into the next four years. I do not want you to make a haste judgment on the current administration, which is only six months old.

Remember that this country never failed to produce its competent leaders during the crisis in the past. As a result, we are still the biggest economy in the world. The second biggest, Japan, is not even half of our size. Yes, we have issues but so as every other nations.

The Somalis pirates still demands U.S. dollars not euros for the exchange of hostages. The Chinese keep buying our treasuries as they have more faith in our economy than their own.

The day that the Somalis pirates demands euros, then, we will know our current administration failed and our Founding Father was wrong about the qualification to become the president of the United States.

"Actually, the "rich" will simply do as they have done everywhere else - move. Unless you wanna go all Soviet and seal the borders to prevent it."

The tall border wall in the South tells others, rich or poor, one message. This country is a paradise and everyone wants to get in but no one wants to leave. Specially the rich.

Jerry conveniently leaves out the bit about "until taxes are mentioned".

In other words Americans overwhelmingly support guaranteed healthcare for all as long as someone else is paying for it.

If I understand Crid, he is saying he demands you not burn down his community with your unpaid bills.

And therein lies your problem. My failure to have insurance does not affect Crid nor his community one lick. If the hospital is unwilling to take cash or credit, I don't get care. I don't see why that is so hard for him to understand. I can see why you can't understand it, but Crid has shown SOME inclination toward being intelligent.

"The Founding Fathers ... required that to be the president of the United States, you should be a natural born citizen, who is at least 35 years old. There was no other requirement."

You also had to own property in order to vote.

"I do not want you to make a haste judgment on the current administration, which is only six months old."

Yet the current administration has been pretty hasty in racking up spending and debt. Not the only administration to do so, obviously, but it's not being "hasty" to say this one is just as bad, if not worse, than the past ones.

" ... why should we as taxpayers pay for any amount of emergency care? (Or pay for fire, police, schools, or anything?)"

Federal.
State.
Local.

Please learn what these words mean and how to apply them in sentences.

You know sterling if the chicks on the pleasure circuit look like this

http://boyculture.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c2ca253ef01157159d061970b-400wi

carousel might not be so bad

> The tall border wall in the South tells
> others, rich or poor, one message. This
> country is a paradise and everyone wants to
> get in but no one wants to leave. Specially
> the rich.

Are you kidding? There are large communities of wealthy American expats in many places across the Carribean, Central American and South America. People from the Cayman Islands aren't flocking to the US.

Don't forget Mexico. There's a flourishing expat community there. Also all over southeast Asia.

When it gets too expensive to live here, those with means vote with their feet. Why do you think Congress wants to subject American citizens abroad to all the taxes they can regardless of repatriation of funds?

Pirate Jo, what's the difference regarding police, fire, fda, ftc, plum island, and fed, state, local? All those entities can tax by virtue of a) our votes, and b) guns.

How do libertarians separate out that one is okay and the other not?

My point is that the American People state over and over again that they would vote for universal healthcare. And they have elected a legislature and President who might do that, and a President who campaigned on it making it clear to all what his plans were.

How would enactment of health care reform thus be any different to a libertarian than creation of the FTC, or FDA, or USDOT or fire, police, or any state agencies?

Are the libertarians saying we have some sort of right to a USDOT but not to healthcare? Or are the libertarians as is often the case preferring an existence that has nothing to do with what the US People have or seem to want? Maybe the libertarians are just saying that as part of free speech and free commerce anyone is entitled to practice medicine, bill anyway they want, and our recourse to bad docs is through lawsuits.

Brian's a funny guy. I point out to him Crid's reasoning, and he says Crid is smart and I'm an idiot. Okay.

Jerry - you aren't reasoning, you're being insulting.

I know of nobody who claims that we have a "right" to any federal agency. Or is any libertarian who doesn't first give a list of all the things they want gone not sufficiently libertarian to argue against the concept of "healthcare" as a right?

Your problem here is you are being snide and trying to get "libertarians" to admit that they are not "libertarian" on some random issue, and therefore they have no right to an opinoin on this issue. BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!

Just because the people want it or do not want it is not terribly relevant if the Constitution does not support it. But here we have a case where people who don't have a clue that healthcare doesn't grow on trees support giving it to everyone as long as there's no cost. When they find out there's a cost involved, and they're likely to be on the hook for it, they're against it.

The default behavior in any instance ought to be that the government should not be giving things to people, taking things from people, or telling people how to do things.

There are two things that need to be considered before this is ever violated - first, is it Constitutional? If so, then is it acceptable to the nation?

In the first place, "universal healthcare" is no more Constitutional than the Department of Education. That should be the end of it, but the bulk of Congress don't give a flying fuck about the Constitution.

That people are turning against this scam called "universal healthcare" as they find out what's really in the bill ought to give the congresscritters pause, but they're too stupid to do that.

But like I said, you aren't arguing, you're condescending.

Because people can easily leave a state and still be U.S. citizens. You don't have to expatriate to find one of the 50 other states that suits your needs, if the one you live in is milking you dry for taxes and you don't think it's benefitting you in any tangible way. If you got the federal level out of everything except for what the Constitution tells it to do, and left the rest to the states, you'd have 50 states competing with each other over the best place to live.

One or a few of them might very well decide to enact some kind of state-run health care system. Might actually work out well for Colorado, since it has the lowest obesity rate in the U.S. But let the people from Colorado decide. Those of us who don't want it can live in states that don't have it.

Anyway I don't buy it, what you say about "universal health care," and the majority of Americans supporting the idea. Depends on what you mean - does it mean "everyone has health care" or "everyone is forced into a government-run system where they can't even choose their own doctors."

Luljp: I forgot Farrah Fawcett was in that movie.

The Logan's Run version of care for the elderly is taken care of. Your hand flashes, your time is up, and you walk into a death trap thinking that you might be 'renewed'. Kind of a futuristic, non-denominational version of '72 virgins in the afterlife'. And they were babes,

Obviously not a solution for this problem. I have health care and it keeps me at my job, when I could go make a lot more money in the real world, as opposed to university world. I don't like that. But Obamacare scares the crap out of me. I'm no expert, but ultimately I expect there will be some major changes, but I don't believe all this shit is going to get passed. If it is, I'm moving to Mexico, only a few hundred miles away. I already have many colleagues my age that have moved to Costa Rica. Not being unpatriotic, but, well SHIT.

> I point out to him Crid's reasoning

Jerry, I don't want to make fun of new Americans of distant heritage or anything, but from what sense I can make of your comment, you have zero understanding of the discussion here. I might be wrong about that, but you're just not being clear.

Pirate Jo, I am not aware of any state that doesn't have an insurance commissioner (picked at random and I really don't know), or cities / counties that don't have police or fire departments.

But I'm just trying to suss out the libertarian view of these things in the sense that the libertarian guy quoted at the top says health care is not a right, and well, I guess there are tons of things that are not rights, but that the citizens voted for.

I think there are many polls, but it's not to hard to find that many of those many polls suggest people would like universal health care.

If the people vote for a President and Congress that said they were going to work on this and then do so, how is this any different than (when I was in) California about a decade ago having a bunch of guys running on how they were going to totally reform the insurance agencies bleeding us all dry?

The People may not have a right to health care, but so what? The People doesn't have a right to fire protection and yet everyone votes for it anyway. And the People don't have a right to public schools and yet we still have public schools.

Brian keeps on telling me I am an idiot, and condescending, and not reasoning, and not arguing, but all I am doing is asking a question about the relevance of the statement that people don't have some sort of right to health care, and yet they voted for it anyway.

Me? I find the argument from the doc that McArdle linked to pretty compelling. However it's not clear to me that he's as in favor of a go go go all insurance totally free market laissez faire approach that whats-his-name quoted above and Brian seem to want.

I agree Crid that there seem to be several people here that have little understanding of what they are talking about. It's probable I am one of those.

I honestly don't know how to coordinate your upset with Brian with what I think are your typical beliefs. The only way I can do so is to figure you're not upset that Brian won't pay for insurance at his age, you're upset with the attitude he takes in not paying for insurance at his age.

Who cares what his attitude is?

Does he have the right not to pay for insurance or not? If he suddenly needs and takes $500,000 of medical care and we give it to him how does his being a jerk matter?

Maybe I'm not clear, but I don't know what you are writing about.

Do you want Brian to buy insurance?

Do you want Brian to be forced to buy insurance?

If Brian doesn't buy insurance do you think we should refuse to treat him? What are the extents of treatment he should be given?

Do you just want Brian to have a better attitude?

If you think Brian should be forced to buy insurance, how is that different from Obamacare?

> Does he have the right not to pay
> for insurance or not?

He absolutely does. He can do whatever he wants, and he can say whatever he wants... And I can note that his personal conduct is not so responsible as to authorize his endlessly condescending tone.

Sign up today for CCAP: The Crid Condescension Authorization Program. Benefits include - being able to have an opinion about a topic Crid doesn't think you have a right to, protection from Crid's withering attacks on your morals, character and intellect.

Sign up today!

Seekers—

Don't bother with the paperwork... I'll find you.

his endlessly condescending tone (crid)

Aww. Fuck crid's tones. He's too sensitive. That boy needs an ass kicking and a free beer. Sipping Martinis is getting him all pussified.

Brian, I enjoyed reading your comments. Amy, I liked the ARI article.

There was some question about how to determine what the federal government is allowed to do. Naive suggestion: the Constitution, including the 10th amendment.

There was some question about what constitutes a right. There are rights and then there are rights.

Human rights. Constitutional rights. Civil Rights.

Going left to right, each is a subset of the one on the right. I suggest that when we encounter a conflict of rights, we give precedence to the smallest subset, that is the next one on to the left.

So, let's ensure we're talking about the same thing. The language of rights is ambiguous. One person says "right to health care" and he means "civil right to health care" while the receiver thinks "human right to health care." This kind of equivocation is irritatingly common.

I read the ARI piece as saying there is no human right to health care. I agree. But can there be a Civil Right? Probably, if it doesn't' conflict with a Constitutional Right. It seems to me that it does, though. And procedurally, it's seems clear from the 10th amendment that the federal government has no jurisdiction over health care.

I'm conflicted about Civil Rights. Why can't an apartment complex rent only to singles or couples without children? Why can't a black law firm hire only blacks? I dunno. But I do know that Title VII is probably unconstitutional, and would be pronounced so even under this Supreme court. So there.

Your mother told you already. No one promised you that life is a fair deal.

Yes, she did. I had to figure out for myself that when someone uses it in an argument it's because he has nothing to say.

There was so much nonsense in your post that I don't know where to start, but I'll go with this:
Our instinct to preserve human species as a whole is way more powerful than free market theory. Mother Nature made sure of that.
We don't have an instinct to preserve the human race. Universal health care is driven by people who are either looking for a free ride and who are ethical but ignorant of basic economics.

Brian,

Shape up and get a better attitude. You're an irresponsible condescending fucking jackoff.

And that grey shirt with the stripes? It's stained and way too small.

*cough*douchebag*cough*

> He's too sensitive. That boy needs
> an ass kicking and a free beer.
> Sipping Martinis is getting
> him all pussified.

They always laugh at the graceful ones...

They always laugh at the graceful ones... (crid)

They also laugh at the hubristic ones...

Don't be coy! You adore me! People can tell!