Interesting Video From Canada On Socialized Healthcare

[huskertim]

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[HuskersNow]

 

Me thinks you missed the point, while ironically demonstrating it. My rather obvious point is, that we are willing to accept the governments assesment on what is or isn't dangerous for us, unless it contradicts what we believe. Govt says pot bad, you say pot good. Govt says tylenol bad you say tylenol bad. See what I mean? Which facts do you choose to believe? If the govt is conspireing against pot (as you seem to believe), how come they couldn't be conspireing against tylenol.

 

BTW, I have made my pro-pot postion abundantly clear, so you can stop trying the snake oil sales pitch.

 

I do not believe that acetaminophen is bad because the government told me so, I believe it is bad because high doses can cause liver failure and death. Just because my stance on the health benefits of acetaminophen are similar to the government's doesn't mean that I just accept the government's assesment based on my views.

 

Also, the government agencies that are fighting the drug war depend on drugs like marijuana being illegal so that they can continue to exist and keep their jobs. It's beneficial for them to have as many drugs/pharmaceuticals illegal so they can do just that.

[huskertim]

The point wasn't a to engage in a personal attack on you (good thing pot doesn't cause any paranoia) but rather an indictment of peoples general hit and miss appraissals generally based more on bias then data. However, I stand by my contention that your perceived need to defend the cannabis illustates my point. I could be wrong (It happend once before) but I suspect that you wouldn't have been so compelled to respond if you hadn't felt a certain affection for this particular drug regardless of data.

[HuskersNow]

The point wasn't a to engage in a personal attack on you (good thing pot doesn't cause any paranoia) but rather an indictment of peoples general hit and miss appraissals generally based more on bias then data. However, I stand by my contention that your perceived need to defend the cannabis illustates my point. I could be wrong (It happend once before) but I suspect that you wouldn't have been so compelled to respond if you hadn't felt a certain affection for this particular drug regardless of data.

 

No I just shared my opinions on the two examples that you brought up. If you would have used caffeine and steroids as examples, then I would have shared my opinions on those.

 

I believe that acetaminophen is bad because I know that it damages your liver. There is plenty of evidence that it can kill you.

 

I believe that cannabis is not bad because I have no reason to believe that it is.

[Chef K]

I have a list of questions that I never hear anyone on the right or anti-reform crowd answer. I don’t expect you to answer all of the questions at any one time (although it would be interesting), but you certainly could pick three or four and give a honest factual answer*.

 

1. Why are we the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care?

2. Why are we the only nation in the world that allows insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions?

3. Why do Republicans say that a government run health insurance system will be more costly than a private system when actual administrative costs for Medicare are just 3% of the total expenditure and for private insurers are 14% of the total?

4. Why do Republicans claim that private insurance companies are better run than any government system would operate but then whine that a government system would be too efficient for private insurers to compete against? President Obama insists that a public system must be self-sufficient and not subsidized by taxpayers so it would be a level playing field.

5. Why are 31% of health care costs in the U.S. spent on administrative expenses while less than half of that expense occurs in single payer government run systems around the world? Over $1000.00 per person per year is spent on health care administrative costs in the USA.

6. Why do we rank 37th in overall quality of care and 72nd in overall health of 191 countries evaluated? The facts are that virtually every nation with universal care spends far less on their health care than we do with far better results.

7. Why do French men live three years longer than American men? Don’t they drink a lot, smoke a lot, and eat rich food? Could it be that their health care is far better than ours?

8. Why, if we have the most technology and spend the most money on health care, do we rank 29th in infant mortality rate? The rate our babies die in their first year is twice that of European nations. Why is it acceptable to Republicans to kill our babies unnecessarily?

9. Why would Republicans worry that a government bureaucracy would get between the patient and the doctor when they find it acceptable for private insurance companies do that right now?

10. Why, if Canadians have to come to the US for timely treatment as Republicans claim, are our border states’ hospitals not overrun with Canadians? Could it be that the vast majority of Canadians getting care in the US are doing so because they get sick during their 2-3 months as “snowbirds” in Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, and West Palm Beach? Studies by legitimate independent researchers do not support the antidotal “evidence” in the GOP ads.

11. Why are we are spending 50% more of our GDP on health care costs than any other nation? The average annual costs for countries with universal health care is 10% of GDP. France, with the best health care in the world, pays just 11% of their GDP versus our 16% of GDP.

12. Why, if Republicans are concerned about costs for businesses and the government, do they support a system that spends so much more of our business profits and government receipts (taxes) on health care than all other countries?

13. Why, if adjudication costs are going down (a statistical fact), are malpractice insurance costs continuing to rise? (More profits for the insurance companies?!?!).

14. Why do the top 5% of Americans use 50% of health care expenditures?

15. If our average American is getting “the best health care in the world” for an average insurance cost of $12,000.00; what do the Rolls Royce plans provide for $40,000.00? What is it that the wealthy are getting for their insurance dollars that the average American is not? Private rooms do not cost that much. Could it be that the best health care in the world is reserved for only the wealthy?

16. Why, if Republicans are worried about the bottom line, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without the ability to negotiate costs with drug companies? The result is that Medicare is paying 77% higher drug costs than other governments do.

17. Why, if Republicans are worried about deficits, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without a means to pay for it? President Obama has said that health care reform will be budget neutral and has reinstated PayGo requirements for congress. (PayGo = all new expenditures must be balanced by reductions elsewhere or paid for by new revenues).

18. Why are we one of only two countries in the world that permits television advertising of prescription drugs?

19. Why do Republicans say that there are ways of taking care of the problems with the health insurance industry and delivery of care other than what the Democrats want to do, yet they offer no actual plans that stand scrutiny?

20. Why, if Republicans have a better way of fixing health care as they claim, did they not do it during the Bush administration?

21. How do we claim a higher moral standing than others when we find it acceptable to make a profit on the misery and illnesses of our citizens when all other nations believe it is morally reprehensible to treat their people that way?

22. Why are the same “moral and Christian value” politicians who stopped health care reform fifteen years ago still putting insurance companies and private for-profit providers ahead of the citizens they claim to represent?

 

How can anyone argue against reform after honestly answering the above questions.

 

*All data and statistics used in the questions are from reliable and verifiable sources and not from liberal or conservative groups or organizations. The data may be found and verified easily through simple Google searches.

[SOCALHUSKER]

I have a list of questions that I never hear anyone on the right or anti-reform crowd answer. I don’t expect you to answer all of the questions at any one time (although it would be interesting), but you certainly could pick three or four and give a honest factual answer*.

 

1. Why are we the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care?

2. Why are we the only nation in the world that allows insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions?

3. Why do Republicans say that a government run health insurance system will be more costly than a private system when actual administrative costs for Medicare are just 3% of the total expenditure and for private insurers are 14% of the total?

4. Why do Republicans claim that private insurance companies are better run than any government system would operate but then whine that a government system would be too efficient for private insurers to compete against? President Obama insists that a public system must be self-sufficient and not subsidized by taxpayers so it would be a level playing field.

5. Why are 31% of health care costs in the U.S. spent on administrative expenses while less than half of that expense occurs in single payer government run systems around the world? Over $1000.00 per person per year is spent on health care administrative costs in the USA.

6. Why do we rank 37th in overall quality of care and 72nd in overall health of 191 countries evaluated? The facts are that virtually every nation with universal care spends far less on their health care than we do with far better results.

7. Why do French men live three years longer than American men? Don’t they drink a lot, smoke a lot, and eat rich food? Could it be that their health care is far better than ours?

8. Why, if we have the most technology and spend the most money on health care, do we rank 29th in infant mortality rate? The rate our babies die in their first year is twice that of European nations. Why is it acceptable to Republicans to kill our babies unnecessarily?

9. Why would Republicans worry that a government bureaucracy would get between the patient and the doctor when they find it acceptable for private insurance companies do that right now?

10. Why, if Canadians have to come to the US for timely treatment as Republicans claim, are our border states’ hospitals not overrun with Canadians? Could it be that the vast majority of Canadians getting care in the US are doing so because they get sick during their 2-3 months as “snowbirds” in Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, and West Palm Beach? Studies by legitimate independent researchers do not support the antidotal “evidence” in the GOP ads.

11. Why are we are spending 50% more of our GDP on health care costs than any other nation? The average annual costs for countries with universal health care is 10% of GDP. France, with the best health care in the world, pays just 11% of their GDP versus our 16% of GDP.

12. Why, if Republicans are concerned about costs for businesses and the government, do they support a system that spends so much more of our business profits and government receipts (taxes) on health care than all other countries?

13. Why, if adjudication costs are going down (a statistical fact), are malpractice insurance costs continuing to rise? (More profits for the insurance companies?!?!).

14. Why do the top 5% of Americans use 50% of health care expenditures?

15. If our average American is getting “the best health care in the world” for an average insurance cost of $12,000.00; what do the Rolls Royce plans provide for $40,000.00? What is it that the wealthy are getting for their insurance dollars that the average American is not? Private rooms do not cost that much. Could it be that the best health care in the world is reserved for only the wealthy?

16. Why, if Republicans are worried about the bottom line, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without the ability to negotiate costs with drug companies? The result is that Medicare is paying 77% higher drug costs than other governments do.

17. Why, if Republicans are worried about deficits, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without a means to pay for it? President Obama has said that health care reform will be budget neutral and has reinstated PayGo requirements for congress. (PayGo = all new expenditures must be balanced by reductions elsewhere or paid for by new revenues).

18. Why are we one of only two countries in the world that permits television advertising of prescription drugs?

19. Why do Republicans say that there are ways of taking care of the problems with the health insurance industry and delivery of care other than what the Democrats want to do, yet they offer no actual plans that stand scrutiny?

20. Why, if Republicans have a better way of fixing health care as they claim, did they not do it during the Bush administration?

21. How do we claim a higher moral standing than others when we find it acceptable to make a profit on the misery and illnesses of our citizens when all other nations believe it is morally reprehensible to treat their people that way?

22. Why are the same “moral and Christian value” politicians who stopped health care reform fifteen years ago still putting insurance companies and private for-profit providers ahead of the citizens they claim to represent?

 

How can anyone argue against reform after honestly answering the above questions.

 

*All data and statistics used in the questions are from reliable and verifiable sources and not from liberal or conservative groups or organizations. The data may be found and verified easily through simple Google searches.

As one reads through your list of questions, it becomes abundantly clear that what you consider to be anti-reform is any solution other than the idea of universal healthcare. Are the only two solutions to the healthcare problem either that we accept universal healthcare or keep the same fascist system that is in place today? I say no. It seems that while you place the blame on the right and others on the left, each disregards the fact that both parties, in the form of government, are responsible for the current mess. A quick glance shows that both party’s solutions are rooted in the common fallacy that government is needed to fix a problem that man himself cannot fix. Since government is made up of man, and only man, the notion that it can fix anything that man himself cannot fix is absurd.

 

The healthcare market, like any other market, is controlled by the laws of supply and demand. Any tinkering, by way of regulation, licensing, subsidizing, or other means only distorts the market and creates more and worse problems in the long run. In the current state, government has a monopoly on the tinkering, which means it causes and is essentially the root of the healthcare problem. There is not one aspect of the healthcare industry that is not affected by government meddling; either through taxation, licensing, regulation or control of monetary policy, which affects both producer and consumer choices. Since this is the case, wouldn’t true reform actually be to remove government from the equation altogether? In fact, I would submit that adding more government is not reform at all, but instead sheer insanity.

 

It has been suggested that high healthcare costs are leaving many individuals left without care; therefore the government is needed to intervene and make healthcare affordable to everyone. The problem with this is that by actually making healthcare more readily available, the costs rise even more and you eventually create a shortage of healthcare. This leaves you with the same problem as before, but with more regulation, worse care and overall less freedom.

 

This is simple economics. If more people are in the market for healthcare, the prices are bid up to a point that supply is in equilibrium with the demand. The price increase ensures an adequate amount of supply is produced to satisfy the increase in demand. In a socialized system, when the costs do rise, the government will be forced to regulate the prices, which eventually leads to a scarcity of supply or a decrease in the quality of care.

 

When government regulates the prices, they take away any incentive for new producers (supply) to enter the healthcare industry. This creates a shortage of supply and forces the existing supply to treat or take on the expanding demand. Anytime more people are forced to share a limited supply, the result is that each person receives a smaller portion. In healthcare the equivalent of a smaller portion of care is less quality care. The government could then regulate the exact type of care each person receives but this will only worsen the problem. So, instead of fixing the healthcare problem by implementing universal healthcare, government doesn’t actually fix anything but instead makes it much worse.

 

You point out recent healthcare rankings as proof that universal healthcare has been successful around the world; however this is an extremely premature assumption because those rankings taken from the World Health Organization are only based on short term reporting and can hardly take into account each individuals different healthcare experience. Yes, the final results may be slightly better than what the U.S. has experienced throughout its recent dabble into fascist healthcare, but that hardly proves that socialism has worked (Notice: I’m not refuting that socialized nations aren’t currently better off than the current US system, but rather that they still aren’t employing viable solutions). In fact, history has proven socialism to be a rather dismal failure and there are plenty of examples to choose from. One recent example in healthcare is the case of France.

 

France has been the so-called success story of nationalized healthcare. So much that it was even ranked as the top healthcare country in the world, but as of recent, the problems with such a system are starting to rear their ugly heads. Costs have skyrocketed causing those in charge to call for immediate action.

 

What will soon follow will be a rash of price controls, followed by more regulation, no actual improvement in care, more loss of freedom and in the end even higher costs. Is this the type of solution you believe will actually cure the problem? Henry Hazlitt pointed out that the problem with government solutions and policy is that it only looks at the short-term instead of the long term effects and also only the effects on those it’s meant to help not those it hurts. Read the articles below to see what a more rational solution to the healthcare problem would entail.

 

A Four-Step Healthcare Solution

 

The Real Right to Medical Care versus Socialized Medicine

 

Also, I still want to answer the questions you have posted, because I still think some of them are valid questions about our current debacle. However, many do not pertain to the solution I propose but regardless, I will go through your list and answer as many as I can in another post.

[SOCALHUSKER]

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[SOCALHUSKER]

Thought this article might answer a few of your questions also.

 

The Overlooked Solution For Healthcare

 

Discussing healthcare reform with an advocate of government control is frustrating. It almost feels as if one is speaking a foreign language — and in a sense, the free-market proponent is speaking a foreign language. The meaning usually doesn’t get through.

 

This is most obvious when the advocate of a State solution says, as President Obama said, “The scary thing is to do nothing.” Anyone who thinks that the free-market solution means doing nothing is either ignorant or dishonest. Sorry, I see no other alternative. It doesn’t take much looking to see that we have nothing like a free market in medical services and insurance. Insisting we do is an effective way to assure that the free market is never considered as an alternative to the current State-ridden system.

 

The statist also shows his lack of understanding (or of honesty) by loosely accusing the free-market advocate of “being in the pocket of the insurance and drug companies.” Is it impossible that someone could sincerely believe that the market solution is just and efficient? Those who throw this charge around miss a perhaps subtle point. A free-market advocate and big entrenched insurance companies could oppose the same proposal — say, a government-run insurance program — without having any other positions in common. The market advocate rejects not only the so-called public option; he also favors dismantling the entire protectionist-regulatory-monopoly-privilege system the insurance companies have enjoyed for generations. No insurance company favors that. Similarly, libertarians and pharmaceutical companies oppose government’s negotiating drug prices. But no Big Pharma company is likely to favor repealing the FDA, the monopolistic patent system, and other privileges because these interventions protect it from upstart competition.

 

There’s a deeper barrier keeping the honest advocate of nationalized medical care from truly hearing what the libertarian says: the (implicit) belief that medical care is a right, and its corollary, that no one should have to pay (very much) for these services.

 

This is where the discussion needs to be but usually isn’t, which accounts for the mostly unsatisfying outcome. There is no meeting of the minds on what is in dispute, much less on what ought to be done.

 

Someone who believes that medical care is a right will never accept that consumption of medical services should have anything at all to do with one’s income or wealth. That’s just wrong, he will think. What’s more, he’ll think there’s something deeply wrong with the market advocate for thinking this way. “What’s the market got to do with it?” he’ll wonder in horror. “We’re talking about medical care!”

 

The libertarian may never convince the statist, but the first (and perhaps the last) thing to be discussed should be whether medical care is a right. Of course, it can’t be a right. In the absence of a contract, no one can have a right to anything that must be provided by someone else’s labor. It really is that simple. The alternative proposition is in essence a slave proposition. Most people will never be persuaded by the excellent efficiency arguments against nationalized medicine — the fact that bureaucratic rationing and triage are inevitable with government in charge — if they cling to the medical-care-is-a-right theory. So we may as well have the debate there.

 

No Right, No Service?

The libertarian must also head the statist off at this pass: the inference that if you don’t believe health care is a right, you must believe that people of modest means would be — and even should be — without adequate medical attention.

 

Of course, this is ridiculous. Opposition to nationalized agriculture or housing doesn’t imply that people of modest means should starve or go homeless. When you consider how concentrated wealth was throughout history, it is astonishing how competent market-oriented society — despite all the State’s efforts to cripple it — has been at delivering necessities and one-time luxuries to the masses. From the Industrial Revolution onward, to the extent people have been free to engage in enterprise, it was regular people whose living standard increased by orders of magnitude.

 

The point is that markets deliver, and medical care has been no exception. If the price of basic care has soared since World War II, we can largely thank all the ways government has unhinged demand from cost considerations. Much medical care is optional or marginal, and if government, by disguising the true cost, makes it possible for people to overconsume it, those of modest incomes who don’t qualify for handouts will suffer the consequences.

 

It is simply wrong to believe that in a “freed market,” as Charles Johnson calls it, large numbers of people would go without medical attention. A free society would be richer at all levels than our semi-free society because it would have none of the barriers that today impede economic self-advancement. (See Johnson’s article on the matter.) A freed medical system would be competitive, entrepreneurial, and innovative in getting services to greater numbers of people at reasonable prices. How do we know? We’ve see the same pattern in other industries that are far less straitjacketed than the medical industry. In case after case, what began as luxuries for the rich have become commonplace items for nearly everyone. A government-free medical industry would have no income-preserving professional licensing, no paternalistic drug prescriptions, no competition-inhibiting patents, no monopolistic certificates of need, no protectionist medical guild. In their place would be competition and entrepreneurship, the discovery process that serves consumers in ways we cannot imagine in advance

 

Demand-Side Innovation

Innovation would also emerge on the demand side. Again we can refer to history. In an earlier time Americans (and Britons and Australians) of modest means, including new immigrants, obtained medical care through sophisticated mutual-aid societies and in particular the institution called lodge practice. Exemplifying what Tocqueville identified as an American penchant for setting up associations, early Americans established “friendly societies” not only for social contact but for the safety net later provided, in coercive and much inferior form, by the welfare state. One member benefit of these societies was access to a family physician with whom the group contracted on an annual basis. “Lodge practice,” historian David Beito writes, “became particularly extensive in urban and industrial centers. In 1915, for example, Dr. S.S. Goldwater, Health Commissioner of New York City, went so far as to assert that in many communities it had become ‘the chosen or established method of dealing with sickness among the relatively poor.’” Lodge practice flourished until State-empowered organized medicine, whose members’ incomes were threatened by this unorthodox competition, put the screws to the “lodge doctors” it reviled. Who knows how mutual-aid would have evolved had it not been crowded out by “Progressives” aping Bismarck and wielding the power of taxation? What we do know is that people found a way to make medical care “universal and affordable,” that holy grail the politicians still haven’t located.

 

Free people are resourceful even when their resources are modest. The key is to keep government out of the way.

 

Admittedly, the sick and destitute would have had trouble joining a mutual-aid society. But a free and prosperous society would also be a generous society. History demonstrates it. As in the past, philanthropic foundations, charity hospitals, teaching hospitals, and pro bono medicine would all combine to provide for those who truly could not make it on their own. Government intervention undoubtedly makes these things less common. If laws mandate that all hospital emergency rooms treat whoever shows up with whatever ailment, we can anticipate that charitable efforts will be less abundant than in a free society.

 

We will never achieve the medical system — indeed, the society — worthy of free people as long as we are trapped in the juvenile mindset that someone owes us medical care. It is an absurd doctrine — is that someone also owed medical care? But worse, it is fodder for political opportunists, who will exploit this demand to increase State power at the expense of freedom and therefore dignity. If we follow this path, rationing of medical care might be the least of our worries.

[SOCALHUSKER]

and another...

 

Health Care: An Anarchist Approach

[SOCALHUSKER]

Further proof that the governmet is bed with the same industry it is supposedly "protecting" consumers from. When the pharmaceutical industry jumps aboard, that's when you know things aren't quite right!!

 

Of course the drug companies would favor Obamacare. It restricts competition, allowing them to further monopolize the industry and reap the benefits of success with no regard for the customers. This will only ensure high costs, a lack of technological improvement, and more regulation down the road.

 

Drug Industry to Run Ads Favoring White House Plan

 

WASHINGTON — The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday.

 

The unusually large scale of the industry’s commitment to the cause helps explain some of a contentious back-and-forth playing out in recent days between the odd-couple allies over a deal that the White House struck with the industry in June to secure its support. The terms of the deal were not fully disclosed. Both sides had announced that the drug industry would contribute $80 billion over 10 years to the cost of the health care overhaul without spelling out the details.

 

With House Democrats moving to extract more than that just as the drug makers finalized their advertising plans, the industry lobbyists pressed the Obama administration for public reassurances that it had agreed to cap the industry’s additional costs at $80 billion. The White House, meanwhile, has struggled to mollify its most pivotal health industry ally without alienating Congressional Democrats who want to demand far more of the drug makers. White House officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

 

Many Democratic lawmakers have railed for years against what they consider the industry’s excessive profits and pointedly insisted in recent days that they do not feel bound by the White House’s commitments.

 

Sources briefed on the drug industry’s plans, speaking on condition of anonymity because the details remain confidential, say top officials of the industry’s trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, are scheduled to meet next week to finalize its fall plans. The final budget could be less or more than what was authorized, the sources said.

 

By comparison, President Obama’s presidential campaign spent about $236 million on television commercials while the campaign of the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, spent about $126 million. Few expect the opponents of the health care overhaul to muster as much advertising muscle as its backers, including sympathetic business groups, labor unions and ideological allies. The drug makers stand to gain millions of new customers from the expansion of health care coverage.

 

Ken Johnson, a spokesman for PhRMA, declined to discuss the specific sums. “Our board has agreed to make a significant investment in support of comprehensive reform,” he said. “Our August plan is pretty much in place, but we have not finalized all the details of the fall campaign.” He said it would include grassroots outreach as well. The scale of the drug industry’s plans was first reported Saturday by The Associated Press.

 

The drug industry has already contributed millions of dollars to advertising campaigns for the health care overhaul through the advocacy groups like Healthy Economies Now and Families USA. It has spent about $1 million on similar advertisements under its own name.

 

All of the commercials closely echo common Democratic themes about medical care for all, consumer protection and “health insurance reform.” Some supporters of the overhaul have hired public affairs and advertising firms with close ties to the White House and Senate Democrats, including GMMB, which worked on the Obama campaign, and AKPD, which previously included David Axelrod, who is now the president’s top political adviser.

[sarge87]

1. Why are we the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care?

Why do we have a Bill of Rights? Our rights as individuals grants us freedom from this sort of coercive power.

 

Why do you think the doctors in England take to the streets every year in protest of the government? They are by virtue, government employees. If I am a doctor, a human being, a citizen of the US, I have the right to go act on my own behalf. In other words, to provide my labor to the market in return for a profit. If I create a company that develops cures for illnesses, do I own my intellectual property, or does the government?

 

Show me one of these not-for-profit medical systems that produce the sheer quantity and quality of life saving technology and drugs that our system has produced. Students come here from other countries to learn their trade, because we have the best facilities, technology, and the best medical minds training these future doctors and nurses.

 

Government brings nothing to the table but bureaucracy and red tape.

 

2. Why are we the only nation in the world that allows insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions?

So, if I go and wreck my uninsured new car, and then show up at an insurance company demanding they cover my car after the fact....How dumb does that sound?

 

3. Why do Republicans say that a government run health insurance system will be more costly than a private system when actual administrative costs for Medicare are just 3% of the total expenditure and for private insurers are 14% of the total?

The agreed upon number of uninsured Americans is around 45 million or roughly 15.3% of the US population of 300 million, so that would mean there are 255 million that currently have private health insurance. In 2007, persons 65 or older on Medicare totaled 37.9 million which means that private companies are handling 6.7 times the number of people on Medicare. If you do the math, they are actually more efficient than Medicare.

 

4. Why do Republicans claim that private insurance companies are better run than any government system would operate but then whine that a government system would be too efficient for private insurers to compete against? President Obama insists that a public system must be self-sufficient and not subsidized by taxpayers so it would be a level playing field.

This is such a loaded question because I've never heard the words "government" and "efficiency" used in the same sentence before. Tell me what government program or GSE is efficient? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have gone to the government coffers three times since their initial bailout last fall. The US Postal Service is a joke, and I don't have to tell anyone how inferior the public education system is. We spend $10,000 per student - almost twice as much as any other country - and rank towards the bottom year after year. Amtrak? I can go on and on if you would like.

 

This is not an efficiency question but a monopoly question. The government has unlimited resources and will tailor the laws that will always give the government company unfair advantage eventually squeezing out the competition. This isn't about competition but control. How long would you think it would take before the controlling political party uses the GSE to create their own political fiefdoms?

 

5. Why are 31% of health care costs in the U.S. spent on administrative expenses while less than half of that expense occurs in single payer government run systems around the world? Over $1000.00 per person per year is spent on health care administrative costs in the USA.

Population. 300 million vs. France 61 million, Canada 30 million, England 60 million ect. ect. ect. It's comparing 1 big apple to a bunch of small grapes.

 

6. Why do we rank 37th in overall quality of care and 72nd in overall health of 191 countries evaluated? The facts are that virtually every nation with universal care spends far less on their health care than we do with far better results.

Check cancer survival rates in those countries. They rank far far less. Again the method the WHO went by getting the numbers have been disputed by many organizations explanation denoted in asterisks.

 

7. Why do French men live three years longer than American men? Don’t they drink a lot, smoke a lot, and eat rich food? Could it be that their health care is far better than ours?

They also work less. Genetics plays a factor also. The statistics here are skewed because the murder rate and traffic fatality rate is also higher in the US which is reflected in the study. Again we're comparing on great big apple to tiny grapes.

 

8. Why, if we have the most technology and spend the most money on health care, do we rank 29th in infant mortality rate? The rate our babies die in their first year is twice that of European nations. Why is it acceptable to Republicans to kill our babies unnecessarily?

Most of these countries lack our advanced neo-natal care, so abortion is pushed at a higher rate if a fetal abnormality is discovered such as Down's Syndrome. Cuban's have a 1:3 abortion rate is why they rank higher in this category. According to the same study, places like Singapore and Oman rank higher than most industrialized countries. Yet, there's not a major migration of sick people from our crappy US healthcare to go there if it is so good.

 

9. Why would Republicans worry that a government bureaucracy would get between the patient and the doctor when they find it acceptable for private insurance companies do that right now?

You can change insurance companies. Once the government has complete control, there is no escape and no recourse.

 

10. Why, if Canadians have to come to the US for timely treatment as Republicans claim, are our border states’ hospitals not overrun with Canadians? Could it be that the vast majority of Canadians getting care in the US are doing so because they get sick during their 2-3 months as “snowbirds” in Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, and West Palm Beach? Studies by legitimate independent researchers do not support the antidotal “evidence” in the GOP ads.

Explain why world leaders, entertainers, and others travel here for medical procedures rather than using their home country's "free" healthcare? Medical tourism to the US is a booming business.

 

11. Why are we are spending 50% more of our GDP on health care costs than any other nation? The average annual costs for countries with universal health care is 10% of GDP. France, with the best health care in the world, pays just 11% of their GDP versus our 16% of GDP.

I don't know where you get 50% more of GDP? It's more like 5%. Again population.

 

12. Why, if Republicans are concerned about costs for businesses and the government, do they support a system that spends so much more of our business profits and government receipts (taxes) on health care than all other countries?

What would change? All the same dynamics are here. Except now the government will own the labor of doctors, specialists, nurses, and violate the intellectual property rights of drug manufacturers. They will write laws giving the GSE advantages that the private sector will not have.

 

The President the other day tried to make a lame analogy comparing the Post Office with FedEx and UPS saying that they were competing quite well with the government, saying; "It's the Post Office that is having all the troubles.". A little known fact is the government tried unsuccessfully to give the USPS an unfair advantage over the other two companies by passing laws prohibiting FedEx and UPS from carrying First Class Mail. FedEx got around this by implementing it's guaranteed next day policy for delivering documents (pre fax machine days) which many businesses preferred than the normal 2-3 business days waiting for First Class Mail that USPS had.

 

13. Why, if adjudication costs are going down (a statistical fact), are malpractice insurance costs continuing to rise? (More profits for the insurance companies?!?!).

The legal and financial costs of medical malpractice in the U.S. amounted to about $17 billion in 2005, so I don't know where you came up with this. Follow the relationship between cerebral palsy and C-sections and you will understand. In 1985, then trial lawyer John Edwards won a settlement of 6.5 million dollars against a hospital and 1.5 million dollars from an OB/GYN doctor arguing that if a C-section had only been done for an unfortunate child, she would have been born without cerebral palsy. (He actually convinced the idiots in the jury he was channeling the unborn baby girl, Jennifer Campbell, who was speaking to the jurors through him.) This case set off a chain reaction of suits throughout the country, leading obstetricians to practice defensive c-sections. But curiously, there has been no change in the rate of babies born with cerebral palsy. As The New York Times reported: "Studies indicate that in most cases, the disorder is caused by fetal brain injury long before labor begins." All those Caesareans have, however, increased the mother's risk of death, hemorrhage, infection, pulmonary embolism and Mendelson's syndrome. Until there is true tort reform, which there will never be because of the trial lawyer dollars in the political coffers of Democrats, malpractice insurance will be expensive. Their argument will be the patient suffers without a monetary claim. Then my question here is why do other countries have a "loser pays" system for adjudication, but we don't?

 

In short, the threat of lawsuit causes doctors to order needless tests in order to cover their backsides which raises the cost of care to the patient.

 

14. Why do the top 5% of Americans use 50% of health care expenditures?

I don't know where you got this from...top 5%? It is true that 5 percent of the population accounts for the majority of health expenditures is because this accounts for the elderly who use the most expenditures the last 60 days of their life. Unless you want to call for a panel to say these people can't have that healthcare, because they're going to die anyway. Death panel anyone?

 

15. If our average American is getting “the best health care in the world” for an average insurance cost of $12,000.00; what do the Rolls Royce plans provide for $40,000.00? What is it that the wealthy are getting for their insurance dollars that the average American is not? Private rooms do not cost that much. Could it be that the best health care in the world is reserved for only the wealthy?

I don't know. Ask your legislators and their union buddies who will be exempt from the current plans being put together. They have the "Cadillac Plans." Let's see how Teddy Kennedy would have fared with his brain fart if he was taken to some run-of-the-mill clinic in the city instead of airlifted to Duke University, a private healthcare facility.

 

16. Why, if Republicans are worried about the bottom line, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without the ability to negotiate costs with drug companies? The result is that Medicare is paying 77% higher drug costs than other governments do.

Okay say we would do this. Will you take responsibility if those companies either (A.) Layoff thousands of workers or (B.) Move operations overseas. R&D is very expensive. BTW, Obama cut a deal with the pharmaceutical industry banning foreign imports of drugs. Of course, after this leaked, they denied it.

 

I am betting they made the deal back in March along with the go ahead by the AARP, which they have denied now, because the backlash by their membership was far greater than they imagined.

 

17. Why, if Republicans are worried about deficits, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without a means to pay for it? President Obama has said that health care reform will be budget neutral and has reinstated PayGo requirements for congress. (PayGo = all new expenditures must be balanced by reductions elsewhere or paid for by new revenues).

Conservatives all over did not support the Medicare drug bill at all and fought against it. Why do you think most Conservatives stayed home instead of voting in 2006? They were acting like Democrats spending money they didn't have.

 

Pleeeease...Pay go...Don't make me call you naive. The CBO has already said the health care bill would increase the federal deficit by $239 billion over the next 10 years. Medicare already has $54 trillion in unpaid liabilities. Social Security has $18 Trillion in unpaid liabilities. Enough said.

 

18. Why are we one of only two countries in the world that permits television advertising of prescription drugs?

Why not. They are companies advertising a product that is legal the last time I checked.

 

19. Why do Republicans say that there are ways of taking care of the problems with the health insurance industry and delivery of care other than what the Democrats want to do, yet they offer no actual plans that stand scrutiny?

They have several plans. In order to get a bill out of committee it has to have a Democratic sponsor. The Democrats decided in January that any Democrat who works with any Republicans would be punished. See Jane Harmon.

 

When the Republicans gained control of the House in 1994, Newt Gingrich passed a rule allowing for unlimited floor amendments as a goodwill gesture to the minority party so they wouldn't be shut out of the process as they were years before 1994. Committee Chairmanships were term limited to three terms so politicos couldn't establish individual fiefdoms in their areas of jurisdiction as was the case before then. The recommit motion was another way the House minority could slow progress of a bill, and it had been in place for over a hundred years.

 

Pelosi repealed everyone of those rules effectively shutting the Republicans out of the process.

 

20. Why, if Republicans have a better way of fixing health care as they claim, did they not do it during the Bush administration?

They learned not to touch third rail issues since the failure to reform Social Security. Bush outlined a plan that was favorable to the younger voters by being able to invest part of their accounts in a 401K type plan, but Democrats mobilized the AARP and other senior groups to defeat the bill. Kind of ironic really, because the same groups - AARP excluded, but not their membership - are mobilizing to kill this bill. When you propose to fund your bill by taking a half of a trillion dollars out of Medicare over ten years, it has a tendency to piss the old people off, and they reliably vote every election cycle.

 

21. How do we claim a higher moral standing than others when we find it acceptable to make a profit on the misery and illnesses of our citizens when all other nations believe it is morally reprehensible to treat their people that way?

Pleeeeease. Communists, Maoists, and Marxists killed hundreds of millions just because of political dissension. Now they find "so-called" morality and compassion? Wasn't it Democrats who kept whining about the right trying to legislate morality? Well there you go, I don't want to legislate morality.

 

In all seriousness, you're not talking about contribution but coercion. There is a big difference between "I will help someone" voluntarily and "You will help someone" enforced by threat of law.

 

22. Why are the same “moral and Christian value” politicians who stopped health care reform fifteen years ago still putting insurance companies and private for-profit providers ahead of the citizens they claim to represent?

I'm agnostic, but I figure the Christian's Jesus would not want capitulation enforced by the sharp tip of the Roman's spear.

 

****Many of these questions are derived from a report by the WHO in 2000 which is suspect and has been disputed by many independent studies. It's composite index of overall performance includes patient satisfaction and the accessibility of health care to low income and elderly people. But no actual patients or citizens of these countries were surveyed. Rather, the report relied on a survey of public health experts, many of whom did not reside in the countries whose responsiveness to patients and the poor they were rating.

 

Democrats have the majority in the House and a super majority in the Senate. What's the hold up? They can pass any bill they want. PASS IT ALREADY and quit playing politics. They're too chicken sh!t to pass anything without "bipartisan" cover. If they happen to ruin the US healthcare system, then maybe they might be able to run for dog catcher in say 50 or 60 years after the electorate has forgotten.

[sarge87]

Bump

[SOCALHUSKER]

1. Why are we the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care?

Why do we have a Bill of Rights? Our rights as individuals grants us freedom from this sort of coercive power.

 

Why do you think the doctors in England take to the streets every year in protest of the government? They are by virtue, government employees. If I am a doctor, a human being, a citizen of the US, I have the right to go act on my own behalf. In other words, to provide my labor to the market in return for a profit. If I create a company that develops cures for illnesses, do I own my intellectual property, or does the government?

 

Show me one of these not-for-profit medical systems that produce the sheer quantity and quality of life saving technology and drugs that our system has produced. Students come here from other countries to learn their trade, because we have the best facilities, technology, and the best medical minds training these future doctors and nurses.

 

Government brings nothing to the table but bureaucracy and red tape.

 

2. Why are we the only nation in the world that allows insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions?

So, if I go and wreck my uninsured new car, and then show up at an insurance company demanding they cover my car after the fact....How dumb does that sound?

 

3. Why do Republicans say that a government run health insurance system will be more costly than a private system when actual administrative costs for Medicare are just 3% of the total expenditure and for private insurers are 14% of the total?

The agreed upon number of uninsured Americans is around 45 million or roughly 15.3% of the US population of 300 million, so that would mean there are 255 million that currently have private health insurance. In 2007, persons 65 or older on Medicare totaled 37.9 million which means that private companies are handling 6.7 times the number of people on Medicare. If you do the math, they are actually more efficient than Medicare.

 

4. Why do Republicans claim that private insurance companies are better run than any government system would operate but then whine that a government system would be too efficient for private insurers to compete against? President Obama insists that a public system must be self-sufficient and not subsidized by taxpayers so it would be a level playing field.

This is such a loaded question because I've never heard the words "government" and "efficiency" used in the same sentence before. Tell me what government program or GSE is efficient? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have gone to the government coffers three times since their initial bailout last fall. The US Postal Service is a joke, and I don't have to tell anyone how inferior the public education system is. We spend $10,000 per student - almost twice as much as any other country - and rank towards the bottom year after year. Amtrak? I can go on and on if you would like.

 

This is not an efficiency question but a monopoly question. The government has unlimited resources and will tailor the laws that will always give the government company unfair advantage eventually squeezing out the competition. This isn't about competition but control. How long would you think it would take before the controlling political party uses the GSE to create their own political fiefdoms?

 

5. Why are 31% of health care costs in the U.S. spent on administrative expenses while less than half of that expense occurs in single payer government run systems around the world? Over $1000.00 per person per year is spent on health care administrative costs in the USA.

Population. 300 million vs. France 61 million, Canada 30 million, England 60 million ect. ect. ect. It's comparing 1 big apple to a bunch of small grapes.

 

6. Why do we rank 37th in overall quality of care and 72nd in overall health of 191 countries evaluated? The facts are that virtually every nation with universal care spends far less on their health care than we do with far better results.

Check cancer survival rates in those countries. They rank far far less. Again the method the WHO went by getting the numbers have been disputed by many organizations explanation denoted in asterisks.

 

7. Why do French men live three years longer than American men? Don’t they drink a lot, smoke a lot, and eat rich food? Could it be that their health care is far better than ours?

They also work less. Genetics plays a factor also. The statistics here are skewed because the murder rate and traffic fatality rate is also higher in the US which is reflected in the study. Again we're comparing on great big apple to tiny grapes.

 

8. Why, if we have the most technology and spend the most money on health care, do we rank 29th in infant mortality rate? The rate our babies die in their first year is twice that of European nations. Why is it acceptable to Republicans to kill our babies unnecessarily?

Most of these countries lack our advanced neo-natal care, so abortion is pushed at a higher rate if a fetal abnormality is discovered such as Down's Syndrome. Cuban's have a 1:3 abortion rate is why they rank higher in this category. According to the same study, places like Singapore and Oman rank higher than most industrialized countries. Yet, there's not a major migration of sick people from our crappy US healthcare to go there if it is so good.

 

9. Why would Republicans worry that a government bureaucracy would get between the patient and the doctor when they find it acceptable for private insurance companies do that right now?

You can change insurance companies. Once the government has complete control, there is no escape and no recourse.

 

10. Why, if Canadians have to come to the US for timely treatment as Republicans claim, are our border states’ hospitals not overrun with Canadians? Could it be that the vast majority of Canadians getting care in the US are doing so because they get sick during their 2-3 months as “snowbirds” in Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, and West Palm Beach? Studies by legitimate independent researchers do not support the antidotal “evidence” in the GOP ads.

Explain why world leaders, entertainers, and others travel here for medical procedures rather than using their home country's "free" healthcare? Medical tourism to the US is a booming business.

 

11. Why are we are spending 50% more of our GDP on health care costs than any other nation? The average annual costs for countries with universal health care is 10% of GDP. France, with the best health care in the world, pays just 11% of their GDP versus our 16% of GDP.

I don't know where you get 50% more of GDP? It's more like 5%. Again population.

 

12. Why, if Republicans are concerned about costs for businesses and the government, do they support a system that spends so much more of our business profits and government receipts (taxes) on health care than all other countries?

What would change? All the same dynamics are here. Except now the government will own the labor of doctors, specialists, nurses, and violate the intellectual property rights of drug manufacturers. They will write laws giving the GSE advantages that the private sector will not have.

 

The President the other day tried to make a lame analogy comparing the Post Office with FedEx and UPS saying that they were competing quite well with the government, saying; "It's the Post Office that is having all the troubles.". A little known fact is the government tried unsuccessfully to give the USPS an unfair advantage over the other two companies by passing laws prohibiting FedEx and UPS from carrying First Class Mail. FedEx got around this by implementing it's guaranteed next day policy for delivering documents (pre fax machine days) which many businesses preferred than the normal 2-3 business days waiting for First Class Mail that USPS had.

 

13. Why, if adjudication costs are going down (a statistical fact), are malpractice insurance costs continuing to rise? (More profits for the insurance companies?!?!).

The legal and financial costs of medical malpractice in the U.S. amounted to about $17 billion in 2005, so I don't know where you came up with this. Follow the relationship between cerebral palsy and C-sections and you will understand. In 1985, then trial lawyer John Edwards won a settlement of 6.5 million dollars against a hospital and 1.5 million dollars from an OB/GYN doctor arguing that if a C-section had only been done for an unfortunate child, she would have been born without cerebral palsy. (He actually convinced the idiots in the jury he was channeling the unborn baby girl, Jennifer Campbell, who was speaking to the jurors through him.) This case set off a chain reaction of suits throughout the country, leading obstetricians to practice defensive c-sections. But curiously, there has been no change in the rate of babies born with cerebral palsy. As The New York Times reported: "Studies indicate that in most cases, the disorder is caused by fetal brain injury long before labor begins." All those Caesareans have, however, increased the mother's risk of death, hemorrhage, infection, pulmonary embolism and Mendelson's syndrome. Until there is true tort reform, which there will never be because of the trial lawyer dollars in the political coffers of Democrats, malpractice insurance will be expensive. Their argument will be the patient suffers without a monetary claim. Then my question here is why do other countries have a "loser pays" system for adjudication, but we don't?

 

In short, the threat of lawsuit causes doctors to order needless tests in order to cover their backsides which raises the cost of care to the patient.

 

14. Why do the top 5% of Americans use 50% of health care expenditures?

I don't know where you got this from...top 5%? It is true that 5 percent of the population accounts for the majority of health expenditures is because this accounts for the elderly who use the most expenditures the last 60 days of their life. Unless you want to call for a panel to say these people can't have that healthcare, because they're going to die anyway. Death panel anyone?

 

15. If our average American is getting “the best health care in the world” for an average insurance cost of $12,000.00; what do the Rolls Royce plans provide for $40,000.00? What is it that the wealthy are getting for their insurance dollars that the average American is not? Private rooms do not cost that much. Could it be that the best health care in the world is reserved for only the wealthy?

I don't know. Ask your legislators and their union buddies who will be exempt from the current plans being put together. They have the "Cadillac Plans." Let's see how Teddy Kennedy would have fared with his brain fart if he was taken to some run-of-the-mill clinic in the city instead of airlifted to Duke University, a private healthcare facility.

 

16. Why, if Republicans are worried about the bottom line, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without the ability to negotiate costs with drug companies? The result is that Medicare is paying 77% higher drug costs than other governments do.

Okay say we would do this. Will you take responsibility if those companies either (A.) Layoff thousands of workers or (B.) Move operations overseas. R&D is very expensive. BTW, Obama cut a deal with the pharmaceutical industry banning foreign imports of drugs. Of course, after this leaked, they denied it.

 

I am betting they made the deal back in March along with the go ahead by the AARP, which they have denied now, because the backlash by their membership was far greater than they imagined.

 

17. Why, if Republicans are worried about deficits, did they pass the Medicare drug bill without a means to pay for it? President Obama has said that health care reform will be budget neutral and has reinstated PayGo requirements for congress. (PayGo = all new expenditures must be balanced by reductions elsewhere or paid for by new revenues).

Conservatives all over did not support the Medicare drug bill at all and fought against it. Why do you think most Conservatives stayed home instead of voting in 2006? They were acting like Democrats spending money they didn't have.

 

Pleeeease...Pay go...Don't make me call you naive. The CBO has already said the health care bill would increase the federal deficit by $239 billion over the next 10 years. Medicare already has $54 trillion in unpaid liabilities. Social Security has $18 Trillion in unpaid liabilities. Enough said.

 

18. Why are we one of only two countries in the world that permits television advertising of prescription drugs?

Why not. They are companies advertising a product that is legal the last time I checked.

 

19. Why do Republicans say that there are ways of taking care of the problems with the health insurance industry and delivery of care other than what the Democrats want to do, yet they offer no actual plans that stand scrutiny?

They have several plans. In order to get a bill out of committee it has to have a Democratic sponsor. The Democrats decided in January that any Democrat who works with any Republicans would be punished. See Jane Harmon.

 

When the Republicans gained control of the House in 1994, Newt Gingrich passed a rule allowing for unlimited floor amendments as a goodwill gesture to the minority party so they wouldn't be shut out of the process as they were years before 1994. Committee Chairmanships were term limited to three terms so politicos couldn't establish individual fiefdoms in their areas of jurisdiction as was the case before then. The recommit motion was another way the House minority could slow progress of a bill, and it had been in place for over a hundred years.

 

Pelosi repealed everyone of those rules effectively shutting the Republicans out of the process.

 

20. Why, if Republicans have a better way of fixing health care as they claim, did they not do it during the Bush administration?

They learned not to touch third rail issues since the failure to reform Social Security. Bush outlined a plan that was favorable to the younger voters by being able to invest part of their accounts in a 401K type plan, but Democrats mobilized the AARP and other senior groups to defeat the bill. Kind of ironic really, because the same groups - AARP excluded, but not their membership - are mobilizing to kill this bill. When you propose to fund your bill by taking a half of a trillion dollars out of Medicare over ten years, it has a tendency to piss the old people off, and they reliably vote every election cycle.

 

21. How do we claim a higher moral standing than others when we find it acceptable to make a profit on the misery and illnesses of our citizens when all other nations believe it is morally reprehensible to treat their people that way?

Pleeeeease. Communists, Maoists, and Marxists killed hundreds of millions just because of political dissension. Now they find "so-called" morality and compassion? Wasn't it Democrats who kept whining about the right trying to legislate morality? Well there you go, I don't want to legislate morality.

 

In all seriousness, you're not talking about contribution but coercion. There is a big difference between "I will help someone" voluntarily and "You will help someone" enforced by threat of law.

 

22. Why are the same “moral and Christian value” politicians who stopped health care reform fifteen years ago still putting insurance companies and private for-profit providers ahead of the citizens they claim to represent?

I'm agnostic, but I figure the Christian's Jesus would not want capitulation enforced by the sharp tip of the Roman's spear.

 

****Many of these questions are derived from a report by the WHO in 2000 which is suspect and has been disputed by many independent studies. It's composite index of overall performance includes patient satisfaction and the accessibility of health care to low income and elderly people. But no actual patients or citizens of these countries were surveyed. Rather, the report relied on a survey of public health experts, many of whom did not reside in the countries whose responsiveness to patients and the poor they were rating.

 

Democrats have the majority in the House and a super majority in the Senate. What's the hold up? They can pass any bill they want. PASS IT ALREADY and quit playing politics. They're too chicken sh!t to pass anything without "bipartisan" cover. If they happen to ruin the US healthcare system, then maybe they might be able to run for dog catcher in say 50 or 60 years after the electorate has forgotten.

 

Excellent points. My only question is, if you know this to be the truth, why aren't you an anarchist?

 

From The Real Right to Medical Care

 

the right to medical care does not mean a right to medical care as such, but to the medical care one can buy from willing providers. One's right to medical care is violated not when there is medical care that one cannot afford to buy, but when there is medical care that one could afford to buy if one were not prevented from doing so by the initiation of physical force. It is violated by medical licensing legislation and by every other form of legislation and regulation that artificially raises the cost of medical care and thereby prevents people from obtaining the medical care they otherwise could have obtained from willing providers.

 

This then is the concept of rights, and specifically of rights to things, that I uphold. One's rights to things are rights only to things one can obtain in free trade, with the voluntary consent of those who are to provide them. All such rights are predicated upon full respect for the persons and property of others. This is the concept of rights appropriate to rational human beings living in a civilized society. Henceforth, I shall refer to it as the rational concept of rights.

 

In sharpest contrast, the concept of rights held by the great majority of our contemporaries, especially the great majority of today's intellectuals, is a concept characteristic of savages, that is, of people who have not grasped the principle of causality and the fact that wealth must be produced, who believe instead that wealth appears as though by magic, and that they have a claim to it by the mere fact of needing it or wishing for it. This concept of rights I shall refer to as the need-based or wish-based concept of rights. It exists in full contradiction of the rational concept of rights and entails the complete violation of all rational rights. It is a concept of rights whose literal meaning is "I want it and therefore I'm entitled to take it."

 

According to this concept, people do have rights to jobs, houses, and medical care as such, just by virtue of needing or desiring them. Since a job entails the payment of money by the employer to the employee, and typically the provision of the use of part of the employer's premises to the employee, the notion of a right to a job as such – that is, with or without the employer's consent – implies an alleged right to take an employer's money against his will and to occupy his premises against his will, that is, an alleged right to trespass on his property and to rob him. Similarly, since a house, or any other material good, is a product of human labor, the right to a house as such implies a right to compel other people to build one a house, whether they wish to or not. It is tantamount to claiming a right to forced labor on their part. Finally, in exactly the same way, the alleged right to medical care as such implies an alleged right to force others to pay for one's medical care against their will or to force the providers of medical care, such as doctors and hospitals, to provide it against their will. It thus implies an alleged right to medical care as a right to steal and enslave. All such alleged need-based or wish-based rights are a contradiction of genuine, rational rights, which exist precisely as a moral sanction of the individual's freedom from such outrages.

[SOCALHUSKER]

bump

[sarge87]

Excellent points. My only question is, if you know this to be the truth, why aren't you an anarchist?

I'm not an anarchist because I believe there is a role for government, a limited one. The Constitution outlines the 17 enumerated powers of the federal government in Article 1 Sec. 8.

 

Any other laws are reserved to the States.

 

I just don't believe someone here should have to fund a federal earmark for someone living in another state. That's what state governments are for.

 

I am a Conservative, small "r" Republican with Libertarian leanings.