Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You need to get inside the mind of the government when defining what the word 'right' means in terms of health care. . . .
The degree of health care that is now considered a 'right' is the amount of health care that a person needs to stay healthy and alive so that they can keep working and paying taxes to the same government that determined their need for health care to be a 'right'.
In the United States - people are assets. The US as a government is a corporation and it wants to maintain the productivity of it's assets.
Healthy people result in more productivity and more taxes paid. Notice with the new ACA law - a person only has to pay in what they can 'afford'. This equalizes the burden of health care costs so that everyone has to pay for it, along with a lot that previously did not have to pay for it and still will not have to. The ultimate goal is to get everyone covered so that the sheep continue functioning according to what the farmer needs so that they can produce more wool. Nothing more and nothing less.
The corporation views taxpayers as assets. Taxpayers with health care are healthy assets.
No one has any 'right' to any particular level of health care. No one has any 'right' to have others subsidize or completely cover their health care.
Actually that is factually incorrect. Laws can and do establish rights, they do all the time and in this country several laws in fact grant the right of patients seeking emergency care. Treatment that must be the best that any emergency facility has to offer, otherwise those indigent patients will have an opportunity to rise to an income level where they will be able to fully pay for any subsequent visits. So, it is only a matter of public disposition that would be needed to grant even greater and more inclusive rights to their fellow citizens.
It isn't just about health insurance where some carry more burden than others. Realize that 4 out of 10 babies born are paid for by Medicaid and we all carry that burden. Maybe we should be looking at "obligations" rather than "rights".
(Mods - don't know if this should be in the health forum or not - I thought it might be a larger moral issue worth all of us discussing)
As a healthy person with money, it's clear now that I'm one of the people who will be balancing the new health care system on my back. And really if you think about it, the insurance system has always been based on the premise that healthy people will pay more in premiums than they get in services while unhealthy people will get more in services than they pay in premiums.
So, I keep thinking about what degree of health care I'm really willing to pay for other people to have.
What degree of health care is a RIGHT for EVERYONE (and thus those who can't afford the care should have it paid for by others in their society.)
I'm thinking that these are the health care services I think are a RIGHT for citizens in prosperous countries:
* Dental care.
* Vision care to maintain 20/20 in people under 70.
* Immunizations for people under 18.
* Setting broken bones.
* Diagnostic services
* Antibiotics (as long as they're really needed and not improperly prescribed.)
* All care for people injured in defense of our country.
Beyond that, I'm not sure.
Is it really someone's RIGHT to: cancer treatments, pain medications, any kind of care for people over 70, and etc.?
I can see many of you arguing that if those illnesses/problem's AREN'T treated it costs our society more money in the long run, but . . . does that make health care for those problems a RIGHT?
What degree of health care do YOU think should be a RIGHT for EVERYONE to have?
Well, how much freedom are people entitled to?
The reality is it took a while for us to figure that out, and it is getting tested, and re-examined all the time.
Same can go for any of our rights, including freedom of speech, and so on. Strangely, we rarely count economic costs that we all pay for that freedom in the equation but somehow for health rights it is the main concern. I think that is exactly what the health insurance corporations like btw.
So the answer is we do not know yet but threads like this are a good start, it needs to begin with a public discussion.
Personally, I think children are inherently entitled to any and all care they would need. For adults, the simple answer, is all healthcare that allows them to exercise their other rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Basically right to receive in emergency room to stable by law.non-emergency thennone actually ;you'll be referred to call a clinic here run by county for appointment.
No one has any 'right' to any particular level of health care. No one has any 'right' to have others subsidize or completely cover their health care.
Everyone has the right to work, to make their own way and to pay for their own insurance or pay for their own care on an 'as needed' basis.
We will only have the rights that we demand, period. If you don't like the laws in America or the way in which those laws are enacted then it's time for a change of address. When the citizens want something of benefit to them they must make their demands known, those demands create laws, laws create rights. Your assertions of whether anyone has a right to direct subsidization from government flies in the face of the last six years of huge subsidy payments to our citizen rats on wall street, this wealth transfer was the largest ever in the history of the US, right outta your pocket and into the silk pants pocket of those high rollers in Goldman Sachs, and you're worrying about health care?. Now you have something to really cry about......
Here come the Death Panels, folks. Over 70? Sick? Go climb on an ice floe and drift out to sea - out of our range of vision so we don't have to watch.
I was on the cusp of 70 when my aortic valve malfunctioned. I was surgerized and in six weeks, I was driving, auditioning, and played the role I had coveted for almost 15 years. Add to that, cooking, cleaning, shopping, mowing my lawn, babysitting grandchildren. Meaningful life, wouldn't you say?
Fast forward to age 74, when a cancer invaded my colon, and once again I was surgerized to remove the tumor and a big hunk of my digestive system. After six months of chemo, I was once again on the stage and living the life I had lived prior to the Invasion of my gut. It will be five years next month since that event and I'm still doing all the same stuff.
I can't say that I'd be too anxious to have another major surgery, but since my doctors all know me well, they know what level of after-care would be intolerable to me.
For all the crying about having to pay for health insurance to subsidize other people, don't you think you've been doing that? Medicaid, (or Medical Assistance) requires a portion of your taxes to fund it.
Medicare, which I have and for which I have paid during my working life and continue to pay every month is my right, since while I worked, I helped subsidize those who were already retired and needed health care.
Private insurance is costly, and the days of employer-provided policies are pretty much gone the way of the Do-Do, unless you have a strong union contract.
The recently-enacted health care plan was rushed so as to give President Obama some legacy to mark his tenure in office. Since we already had Medicare for the elderly, and Medicaid for the indigent, what was needed was coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. That would have been Big. (Sorry, all you folks who have to pay for your own).
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
