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You can't make a good evaluation of a "capitalist" system of health care in the U.S. unless you look at how it worked before and after government started getting involved and make a comparison.

Example: Years ago many organizations (including religious) gave FREE health care, a reason so many hospitals still have names like St. Marys / St. Jude etc.

How was it so free? You had some organizations that simply cared about helping people through funded charity, the churches whether you love em or hate em some of them still do provide free services like this because it also propagates their religion / beliefs. Also, many serious medical students and volunteers(they still exist) during that time worked for FREE at these hospitals because that was how they earned their necessary time for their doctorate.

Government can be aptly blamed for setting a low bar - why would your company try to set a lower price when you are already gauranteed a payment by programs at a level that the gov sets. That ERASES a competitive price, along with a theory of a competitive market.

I'm really a big fan of the whole thought process that whenever a private organization does something that's unpopular, it is somehow the government's fault.

Also, why should people's lives be for-profit?

RETIRED.
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Why would government intervention make health care more expensive in the US when every other developed country has more government intervention and lower prices? The British healthcare system is entirely run by the government and is significantly cheaper than what you get in the US, while still providing high quality care.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Super market food prices.

I can make a lot of analogies about this, here's a couple I really like.

- The supermarket doesn't investigate if you were hungry before you enter the store and they won't deny you food if you were.
- If you can't afford steak, you can easily pick up hamburger meat. If you can't afford chemo, you're dead.
- The supermarket doesn't refuse to give you a stack of frozen pizzas if you've been paying in advance for those pizzas for years.
- If, for whatever reason, you can't afford food, there's always soup kitchens.

etc.

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That's not always the case. Sometimes the unpopular things private organizations do are just plain shady business practices, but if you have to confuse clear-cut cases of regulations leading to unintended detrimental consequences with outright chicanery to make your case, that should give you some clue as to how shaky your case is in the first place.



You're avoiding the crux of the subject. What is there about being alive and providing for yourself that is "free?" We have been on a path of creating 'rights' out of thin air whenever it is political convenient to do so. That only works because our public education system has deteriorated to the point that the average person comes away from twelve years of education with no basic understanding of the principles embodied in the Constitution, among other things. You have a right to your body and your property. Healthcare, however, is someone else's body or bodies and property. In order for you to exercise a "right" to healthcare, someone else has to be deprived of their rights.

While it may be repulsive to our deepest senses of concern for our fellows, healthcare is a commodity. If the basis for creating a "right" to healthcare is that it is a necessity, that line of reasoning opens the door to all other necessities being a "right," as well. That means, just as USD pointed out, that this line of reasoning would extend to other commodities that are necessities. Where do you re-draw the line once you've arbitrarily erased it to soothe your conscience? Furthermore, once you've told the masses that they have a "right" to necessities of any type, how do you re-draw it?

The superior man resolves to walk alone, and is caught in the rain. He becomes bespattered and people murmur against him.
Where is the blame in this?--The I Ching

In other words, shit happens. Trying to address that is laudable, but sometimes in our rush to fix what is basically the nature of universe, we make the problem(s) worse.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

The same principle can be applied to property "rights". When you own private property, I am deprived of the benefits that I could gain from that land. There's nothing inherently right or wrong about ownership of private property, just decisions that societies have made.


What's wrong with the necessities of life being regarded as basic human rights? Most decent societies consider things like food, shelter, education, and health care as basic human rights alongside intangibles like liberty and equality, and so governments and private organizations put systems into place so that everyone has access to them. If someone can't afford enough food, there are income supplement programs and food banks for that purpose.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

I'm not sure what 'principle(s)' you're applying, but by that logic, I'm currently "depriving" you of the four dollars in my pants pocket. There are resources that cannot be private property, like the air we breath, but how do you decide if someone's house is "depriving" someone of the pristine forest they desire? You have to have an objective system in place that outlines who has the right to certain resources, which is why we recognize private property rights, at least here in the US. The other choices range from outright chaos to government ownership, and there are very few choices, if any, in that range that don't come complete with a buttload of down-sides less preferable than any we have with a system of private property rights.



You're liberally applying some fairly subjective criteria regarding what constitutes a "decent" society. How can you have liberty when you're made a slave to the needs of your fellows? Are people who end up being held to different standards treated or viewed as equal?

I appreciate that you recognize private organizations in response. Before we adopted the idea that government should be a mechanism to address these concerns, there were charity organizations that provided for the indigent. They weren't perfect, I'm sure, but neither is our current system. I believe that a system where people participate to assist those in need voluntarily is superior to a system that mandates charity (and can you really still call it charity if it's mandated--is fulfilling an obligation thrust upon you in any way charitable?) because...well, there's no single reason. When people make that personal choice to involve their time and/or money, they're invested enough to choose what they feel is the best charity/method to address the issue to which they're contributing aid. I think that leads to more effective/efficient organizations. I have serious doubts about the ethics/morality of forcing people to contribute to what is basically a charity effort against their will, for the benefit of people with whom the contributor has no connection. I am of the opinion that were these charitable efforts were put back in the hands of private charities, and the government no longer needed to generate revenue for them, the tax burden on the average tax-payer would become such that they would have more disposable income and would be more inclined to contribute (something like 60% of our current domestic spending is for entitlements). I'd be interested to see if this had a "Laffer Curve" effect, wherein more resources would be allocated to these efforts, and if those efforts would be more efficient without the several layers of bureaucracy built into our current public system.

My primary concern were we to attempt to return to a system of private charities to address issues is that many of these efforts in the past were led by religious institutions/organizations. Aside from the usual issues involved with the Catholic church and its attitude on subjects like abortion, which would need to be addressed, I fear that not enough people are involved with these types of groups to support them the way they once did. The silver lining to this, though, is that there also used to be many civic organizations not directly affiliated with a particular religion that filled in the gaps. Membership in those organizations, like the Lion's Club and International Order of Odd Fellows, has drastically fallen off. I would like to think that many of these organizations would see a surge in membership when the average person would have more time and/or disposable income because of a drastic reduction in their tax burden.

Maybe that's wishful thinking, but the US is still a nation of incredibly charitable people. I could probably look up stats, but I'm under the impression that we privately still give more per capita than most other nations. My way of thinking could be wrong, but I don't think it could be as wrong as our current system, where we throw more and more money at our problems only to watch them continue to grow.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

So I read most of that and I didn't really see you address why healthcare shouldn't be for profit, with the sole exclusion of:

Which pretty much directly translates to:


Also, I don't think I'll ever understand this whole "if we give boatloads of money to the rich, hopefully we'll get a couple drops of it" thing, especially since it worked for us for the entire Bush administration. Then again, I don't really get the whole religion thing either, and putting such blind faith into people who have historically fucked everyone below their pay level is pretty much the same thing.

RETIRED.
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I don't keep garbage around just because it happened to accumulate.

I'm not sure what else to say, then, because I really didn't think your thinking was that simplistic. It's wrong to take someone and make them work for someone else's advantage against their will for no recompense, but your argument is basically that it's OK so long we make it a matter of degrees and allow them to keep some of the fruits of their labor. If the person who is being forced into this subservient role against their will objects, they're just saying, "fuck you?" I refuse to believe that your thinking is that juvenile.



Who says we should be giving "boatloads of money to the rich?" That's as much a distortion of the markets as anything else I've discussed. It's a big part of the crony capitalism that's the source of many of our current troubles. If anything, our tax system should be simplified, with all shelters, subsidies, and loopholes eliminated. Everyone should pay the same percentage rate on their income. The "rich," which in your mind means wealthy but in reality means high income earners (and there's a difference), would still end up paying more even with a flat rate just because they make more.

You don't get the "religion thing?" Religion used to be a big deal in this country. Like someone else said, there's a reason so many hospitals are named after a saint. Religious organizations, despite your narrow focus on their errors, which admittedly are many, were (and in some places continue to be) the instrument of charity here and abroad. I suggested that private charities might not be up to the task were we to turn to them to pick up the slack because traditionally many of those institutes were religious in nature, and I don't see America as the church-going country it was 60-150 years ago. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially, as I said, given a certain group's stated opinions on controversial subjects like birth control. There were/are still many secular groups that would fill those gaps. I once read an interview with Penn Gillette where he discussed his views as an atheist, and how you didn't necessarily need religion to have morality wherein he discussed charitable works done by an atheist group with which he was involved.

My point is that we've been trying the government as a mechanism of charity approach for over 60 years now, and the problems we were trying to address have only gotten worse. We've seen the results. The amount of money we throw at it via this method isn't a factor, because the expenditures never show any of the desired results regardless of their size. It's time to try new methods.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Take a look at the teeth of the general populace of britain, but maybe they just love their dental. Or ask a concerned patient how long it takes them to get an MRI so they can possibly prevent an early death if they can just find out what kind of treatment they need.

Dunno what definition of quality is over there, but I def know what sucks and doesn't.

And as for blaming the government- no one always has all of the answer, but the argument is that the government isn't always the cause of the problems, but it has a natural tendency to make most of them worse.

American society is so individualist, most people fail to realize that they are part of a larger community, and it requires sacrifices (sometimes personal ones), to better the society/country as a whole. What's ironic, those that see assisting others with heathcare as some sort of infrigement on freedom are also those that claim to be fiercely nationalistic.

'Mememememe, it's my money, mine I don't want to help contribute to the advancement of our nation, I'm going to pout and throw a hissyfit'.

We've got to move beyond this petty assumption that individuality (or the sham of it), it what can return America to being the golden child of the world. We need to invest in our population, our society, and if that means overhauling healthcare and having everyone pay an extra 60 bucks once a year - it needs to be done.

Also, Jubber, I'm assuming you attended public school?

You know what, I don't think educating the masses is a good thing, and paying for it infringes on my freedom to shit on piles of money and snort coke. Education isn't like freedom or liberty, it's not really a basic right, they can get it some other way, right?

Considering how bad the public education system has gotten in the last 50 years, and how most of the people who can't afford to go to private school(not that they're much better, bad students are bad students are bad students) don't ever get a real education anyway, i'm inclined to agree with you.


jokingly, of course.