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First, nothing is free. You pay for everything in life, one way or another. It's like me driving over the GWB bridge to get a free carton of milk. The toll alone is $ 12, but of course it feels good, because I pay zero at the register, correct?
We need to think in terms of TCO -- total cost of ownership; of receiving a service, being a benefactor of a service.
Healthcare is a right? What right? Under current law, Healthcare is an obligation, with penalties, which increase.
Either you get healthcare, or IRS will punish you. Does that sound like a right to anyone really?
If I understand you correctly from other posts you seem to be saying that we can't cut back on government spending for veterans, but that everyone else ought to be "left to their own" to find away to pay for their health care? In other words "give me mine", but to the hell with everyone else?
Nope...that's not what I'm saying. You are just using typical liberal speak to paint an opposing point of view as extreme, to make your point of view seem caring and logical. That is a tactic that most liberals use.
Of course I could do the same thing, but to the other extreme......what you're saying is........it is ok for some people to be lazy, never plan, never try to achieve anything, because when anything bad happens, we'll just get the government involved and they will make the hard working middle class, who did plan, had initiative, and worked to make life better for the family, pay for it. In other words " give me mine off the backs of others, but to hell with the hard working middle class?
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FTR, I don't like hypocrisy on the part of politicians either. However, do you understand that if all 535 Senators and Congressman were to stop taking benefits at all it wouldn't begin to compensate for the hundreds of thousands of veterans who rely on the VA and pensions for survival? Its a mathematical problem and when hundreds of thousands of people are entitled to benefits the taxpayer--not your congressman--is the one who must foot the bill.
Well, I think if anybody deserves to have the best benefits, then it is our veterans who risked their lives and made a sacrifice for this country and not politicians who make laws to benefit them and in the process destroy the country.
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I am sick and tired of people who view themselves as a cut above everyone else. I could care less about those who want to talk about "the dangers of socialism" or the alleged decline of individualism in this country. Many of the people who are affected by this conservative indifference to suffering are children who committed the crime of being born to the wrong parents.
Sounds to me like your problem is with the creator, mother nature, evolution, or whatever the first cause of everything is. You can call it conservative indifference if you want and pull out the old, it's the children.....blah blah blah. But my guess is you are probably hypocritical like most liberals. Unless you are giving Every Penny you possibly can to help world hunger, clothe the naked, invite the homeless in your house, giving up all of your free time to help those less fortunate than yourself, then you really have no argument.
So I'll use your words. I'm sick and tired of people who view themselves as more compassionate and caring than everybody else, but sit on their behinds, or at their keyboards in their nice comfy house, with their nice car in the driveway, while sipping on a latte while the very people they act like they care so much about are starving in third world countries and dying from not having fresh water. It's always easy to sit there and want Other people to cure the ills of the world, while you aren't doing All that you can. So unless you are doing All that you can, than you are really being a hypocrit.
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I want a system that provides some basic level of health care for everyone. I don't care if "rugged individualism", "free enterprise", or even some quality of care has to be sacrificed to get it. Give me what all the other developed nations in this world currently have.
My guess is, once you get what other developed nations have, you might long for the good old days. There is a reason those people in the other developed nations want to come here more than anywhere else. That has long been the case. But as we adopt more and more liberal policies, that will change, because we will become just like the countries they are trying to leave.
I want a system that provides some basic level of health care for everyone.
So, join the discussion about defining "some basic level of health care for everyone".
What degree of health care is everyone's right?
I know this topic readily lends itself to wider issues, but if we all could confine ourselves to really thinking about specifically what that basic level of health care is, what most of us think our health care rights are, we might get somewhere.
I had expected that this thread would involve people actually thinking about the treatments that people absolutely have a RIGHT to have. That's an interesting moral question.
But it seems that most of you believe that everyone has a RIGHT to ALL health care treatments for every possible health condition.
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Let me be one of the minority to suggest that we don't have a 'right' to anything. We get what we earn. That is a basic tenant of life. Dog eat dog, if you will.
What we 'want' is a different matter altogether.
In the greater picture what we have is a lot of people who would not otherwise survive being dragged along by the 'system'. Too stupid to not wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle, for instance? No problem, we provide you free medical care while you lay in a coma, or recover enough to lead a very basic existence. Unable to care for yourself, and certainly unable to contribute to society in any meaningful way.
I guess I am too much of a hawk, but wouldn't we be better off, have a stronger gene pool, and a stronger society if the people who can't survive, or in this case, choose not to have health care options (other than the free ones which we offer to everyone) were left to their own devices? Let's face it, we drag a LOT of people along who have serious physical and mental issues, or are just too lazy to care for themselves/provide health care options for themselves, and we give them a free ride on the backs of those who do pay. Just think about the billions of dollars we pay for those who overeat and become obese, for example. In other times/places/conditions, they would be left to fend for themselves. Not in modern society.
My view: you have a health issue? You demonstrate that you can pay, or you don't get health care. Very simple. Cruel? Is anything else in life similar? You get what you can pay for in all walks of life; why is health care any different?
Let me be one of the minority to suggest that we don't have a 'right' to anything. We get what we earn. That is a basic tenant of life. Dog eat dog, if you will.
What we 'want' is a different matter altogether.
In the greater picture what we have is a lot of people who would not otherwise survive being dragged along by the 'system'. Too stupid to not wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle, for instance? No problem, we provide you free medical care while you lay in a coma, or recover enough to lead a very basic existence. Unable to care for yourself, and certainly unable to contribute to society in any meaningful way.
I guess I am too much of a hawk, but wouldn't we be better off, have a stronger gene pool, and a stronger society if the people who can't survive, or in this case, choose not to have health care options (other than the free ones which we offer to everyone) were left to their own devices? Let's face it, we drag a LOT of people along who have serious physical and mental issues, or are just too lazy to care for themselves/provide health care options for themselves, and we give them a free ride on the backs of those who do pay. Just think about the billions of dollars we pay for those who overeat and become obese, for example. In other times/places/conditions, they would be left to fend for themselves. Not in modern society.
My view: you have a health issue? You demonstrate that you can pay, or you don't get health care. Very simple. Cruel? Is anything else in life similar? You get what you can pay for in all walks of life; why is health care any different?
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Cruel indeed.. I'd be dead if by your standard of what our society should be. I think we have evolved from being dog eat dog.. at least some of us have..
Healthcare, environmentalism, poverty, civil rights, etc -- these are populist causes, which started as benevolent movements. There are achievements in these areas, as long as long as the principal of a Limited Govt was in place. A limited Govt which does not infringe on the people's Rights explicit in our Constitution and its Amendments.
Radical left, in true Leninist fashion, has subverted the political process, and uses our inattentive, Video-game-obsessed society, and the naivite' of those who listen to 5-seconds news bytes, and turning these worthy causes into political cover for their real agenda -- a regress back into curtailment of individual rights. And thus regressing societies back to hundreds of years, where individuals become subservient subjects of the State, and are instruments in the social engineering schemes tyrants use to perpetuate their political power.
This is what really is going on with "healthcare as a right" BS. Radical left now just found another cause to subvert, and usurp power away from us, for our sake.
Let me be one of the minority to suggest that we don't have a 'right' to anything. We get what we earn. That is a basic tenant of life. Dog eat dog, if you will.
What we 'want' is a different matter altogether.
In the greater picture what we have is a lot of people who would not otherwise survive being dragged along by the 'system'. Too stupid to not wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle, for instance? No problem, we provide you free medical care while you lay in a coma, or recover enough to lead a very basic existence. Unable to care for yourself, and certainly unable to contribute to society in any meaningful way.
I guess I am too much of a hawk, but wouldn't we be better off, have a stronger gene pool, and a stronger society if the people who can't survive, or in this case, choose not to have health care options (other than the free ones which we offer to everyone) were left to their own devices? Let's face it, we drag a LOT of people along who have serious physical and mental issues, or are just too lazy to care for themselves/provide health care options for themselves, and we give them a free ride on the backs of those who do pay. Just think about the billions of dollars we pay for those who overeat and become obese, for example. In other times/places/conditions, they would be left to fend for themselves. Not in modern society.
My view: you have a health issue? You demonstrate that you can pay, or you don't get health care. Very simple. Cruel? Is anything else in life similar? You get what you can pay for in all walks of life; why is health care any different?
As cruel as this is, I don't object to anyone having this opinion.
What irritates me are those who have this sort of "laisse faire" view of life who believe their view should prevail even when a majority of people of the people of this country have signaled that they don't agree with this point of view.
We don't decide issues like this based on what a few individuals want. We hold elections and we elect representatives to Congress. If that Congress decides on programs to extend financial assistance to the impoverished than that is the law. If Congress decides to set up a program that mandates universal health care and the constitutionality of that program is upheld by our Supreme Court than, that too, is the law of the land.
Now, those people who advocate the point of view expressed above will try to make all sorts of arguments. They'll claim the laws are "unconstitutional" even when the highest court of the land says that they are. They will insist that no one has the right to make them pay taxes to support programs that they disagree with. Wrong, they don't get that choice in our country or the other ones that I know of.
If they don't like the ACA or any other piece of social legislation rather than sitting here posting on CDF, they should be out campaigning to have the laws repealed. If they succeed, than their viewpoint will prevail. If not, they can either accept the outcome or consider moving to a country that is not concerned with the welfare of all its citizens. Its that simple.
As cruel as this is, I don't object to anyone having this opinion.
What irritates me are those who have this sort of "laisse faire" view of life who believe their view should prevail even when a majority of people of the people of this country have signaled that they don't agree with this point of view.
We don't decide issues like this based on what a few individuals want. We hold elections and we elect representatives to Congress. If that Congress decides on programs to extend financial assistance to the impoverished than that is the law. If Congress decides to set up a program that mandates universal health care and the constitutionality of that program is upheld by our Supreme Court than, that too, is the law of the land.
We are not a Parliamentary Democracy. We can't vote on anything and everything. Congress has limitations on what kind of laws it can pass. Congress, like the President, when they take the oath, they swear to uphold the Constitution, nothing less, nothing more.
Our Supreme Court in its history has made some horrendous decisions, upholding for example slavery, or legitimize discrimination. It has taken American blood overturning these "Laws of the Land" that Supreme Court has upheld.
History has shown that Supreme Court is not Final Word. It is the American people, with their blood and tears who have ultimately decided what to do with the Supreme Court decision.
Either such statement is ignorant of the facts, or is another misrepresentation. In real life it is called a lie. It is a textbook application of the Leninist theory of public relations.
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