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Thanks, Flatline!
I honestly was confused about that.
so⋅cial⋅ism: –noun 1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Straight from the dictionary itself. Must’ve been a conservative who wrote such a cursed book!
Health care isn’t free, whether it’s public or private… and just when you think it’s “free”, it’s not. You act like the government’s got this bottomless pit of cash to spend on health care, when in fact the money isn’t the government’s to begin with. If no one worked, the government wouldn’t have any money because all of the revenue the government gets is taxes and that’s it (…of course, unless it thinks it has money by deciding to print a trillion dollar stimulous package which isn’t being backed up by the gold standard it’s supposed to represent, making the currency less valuable… hmm isn’t that what causes economic inflation?) All it’s doing is putting a burden on the highest bracket of tax payers, since people who don’t work at all pay no taxes, and people in the bottom brackets get most if not all of their money back at the end of the year when they file for return. So who’s paying for your “free” healthcare? I’ll give you a hint: they’re rich.
The reason it was mentioned that this sort of behavior by the government leads to complete control is because when the government takes from the top and gives to the bottom, where’s the incentive in striving to be successful when all the government is going to do is nickle and dime you? And how will the government get the money to pay for all these “wonderful” social programs when everyone feels like they don’t have to work because if joe blow can get the same benefits and not have to work, why should I? What does the government do then? They start making people work. And if people don’t work, they start punishing them. That’s communism.
joe blow…
All taxpayers pay for free healthcare. That’s why it’s considered free; If you had to pay out of your own pocket instead of combining taxes to pay for it, you wouldn’t be able to afford most parts of healthcare.
All of which is fine in theory, and I have no problem with capitalism. But I don’t think adequate healthcare is one of the things that should be a reward for striving and being successful in business (or inheritance), I believe it should be a fundamental human right.
Look at it this way. If you’re productive and successful, under either system you’re going to be paying for insurance, right? Either privately, or as a national insurance, or via your job as part of the pay and incentives package they employed you with, right? But for most of us paying that, most of the time we do not need medical attention, so you’re not getting anything (other than peace of mind, perhaps) for your money. So while you’re not using it, would you rather the money you paid rest in the hands of insurance companies and their stockholders, or be being actively used to help and treat sick or injured people? Seems a no-brainer to me.
Yeah, “taxpayers”, which isn’t everybody. Heck, even some of our politicians don’t even pay taxes (but should). Some of which write our tax code and… promote socialized medicine. Hmm… That’s very interesting.
I’m not saying the system doesn’t need to be fixed, but you wouldn’t fix a car that had a flat tire by replacing the engine. This socialized healthcare is not the way to go.
10/10
Getting social healthcare isn’t going to make anyone feel like they don’t have to work. They still need food and other essential commodities.
If anything, it would bring more people to the labour market, because less of them would be in debt to insurance companies and more of them would be physically able to do work in the first place.
It’s not a fundamental human right because it can’t be. Someone has to provide this service to people. It’s not something that is inherent. That’s like saying food is a fundamental right, yet someone still has to be able to produce and sell this food so he also can eat. It’s a service and services cost money. But instead of everyone working towards their own well-being (pulling their own weight, essentially), now you have everyone at the top paying for everyone at the bottom on top of paying for their own private insurance, and basically having to pay twice as much for health care. You have a gross amount of wages people earn on their paycheck at the end of the month or 2 weeks, whichever applies. The net income is after taxes. Just because someone doesn’t see that money before it gets to their bank account doesn’t mean they didn’t work/earn it. These taxes still belong to people that go into these programs. And if you’re a business owner, you lose money because you will have to enroll your employees in health insurance since the government wants to make it mandatory for everyone to have health insurance, like car insurance, and then businesses get punished if try to use pay cuts to make up for the cost. So not only are you, a wealthy business owner, having to pay out of pocket for your own private (better) insurance and still pay income taxes for everyone else, you’re losing profit because of it (which means you take home less money).
While private insurance may be costly, it is private and the law of economics works in favor of those who produce the better quality service for the lowest cost; meaning people will find a better provider if they’re not getting their needs met. That’s where competition comes in. Single public insurance has nothing to compete with and becomes the default for the those under certain circumstances. On top of that, public insurance can deny you coverage for alot more invalid reasons than private, yet you still are unable to switch to a better provider because there are none, (or you cannot afford it).
I understand that everyone wants to show compassion to people who can’t afford it. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the application in which the government wants to do it. If it’s not practical and it’s only going to make matters worse, then we shouldn’t be going down that path.
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Yeah, them CEOs… they got plenty of money anyway, those greedy lil bastids.
They don’t pay taxes, that’s just it. 86% of all federal income tax is paid by the top 25% of wage earners in the U.S. because it’s based on bracket percentages. It’s not hard to figure out that the more someone makes the more taxes they have to pay. And you’re always assuming that all CEOs/business owners/entreprenuers/rich people never pay their taxes and try to work the system, as if it were a requirement for them to do so being in that position. Some of our politicians don’t even pay their taxes, yet you’d rather them tell company owners to fork over their earnings to pay for the ridiculously expensive health care system the government is pitching. It’s hard to imagine what 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) dollars looks like when you’ve never seen it before, but that’s how much this program will cost. On top of that the bill is close to 2,000 pages of convoluted crap.
Isn’t the government already spending an absolutely obscene amount of money as it is to pay for the insurance of a small amount of the population?
Just because some politicians don’t pay taxes doesn’t mean we shouldn’t… though they should.
Just read this entire thread, tired out. I was originally really against government run health care(I’m a libertarian) and I still don’t entirely trust it but I do put it in the same lot as fire departments and police, it’s a basic necessity. Unlike food or housing, you don’t know when you will need it.
I think that before the U.S. tries to tackle a government option, why not do some healthcare reform. One, maybe two major things. 1. Make denying people on pre-existing conditions illegal. 2. I heard that healthcare has loop holes to the Sherman anti-trust act, close them. If true this is clearly raising costs.
And in reference to the talks on taxes. We need a consumption tax i.e. the fair tax, it puts power back into the peoples hands, is easy to understand, and allow politicians to concentrate on things that matter.
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Kumo, you’re arguing theory, capitalist theory, which is currently being disproven by governments with socialized health care all over the world. Theory and economic philosophy is all nice, but when the United States currently has one of the least efficient health care programs in the world (contrary to the mostly highly efficient nature of socialized health care) you need to stop theorizing and look at some hard facts. As has been said a thousand times before in this thread, socialized health care is implemented elsewhere and works, what the US has doesn’t, or at least not on any level that most of the population would consider acceptable.
You also argue the idea of too much government control. If you will consider the Great Depression. Government interference is what brought the US back (of course along with WW2), and regulations were implemented so nothing like that would ever happen again. And nothing did for quite a while, sure, there were recessions, that is the nature of any economy to expand and contract, but there was no huge economic crisis. However, after one Ronald Reagan decided it would be great to tear down those pesky economic sanctions and guidelines, the economy became vulnerable, once more, to just about anything.
My point is, government control is not inherently bad, or at least not in this day and age. Over the past decade or two, republicans have had their way with the country, stopping federal control wherever they can, but they’ve gone too far and that is the issue. Every country needs some level of federal control, most likely a balance between government and freedom. Essentially, a balance between socialism and capitalism. We see it work in some of the most economically stable countries in the world every day.
The other issue of a capitalistic health care system is the issue of the nature of capitalism. The fundamental human property which makes capitalism work is greed. Greed drives people to make money and become successful, thereby creating businesses and stimulating the economy. While one can argue it is clever to use such a negative quality of humanity to do such a positive thing is ingenious, it has obvious flaws. There are some places greed should never rain supreme, and nowhere is that more true than health care. Right now a good portion of the lower class, all of the middle class, and even a bit of the upper class are subject to that issue of capitalistic health care. A greedy company cares about its money and nothing else. I think it’s a safe bet to say that every major insurance company in the United States cares more about money than whether or not people live or die, and that is unquestionably inexcusable. It is something unavoidable with independent companies based on earning revenue controlling whether or not millions of people live or die, and it is something which many would tell you is outright wrong. I hesitate to use such a strong classification, but at the end of the day I’d rather have a government program specifically designed to help me, no matter how corrupted it may be, than a company fueled off of one of the largest vices of mankind weighing whether or not I’m worth a few thousand dollars.
You hit the nail on the head. Insurance companies make their profits by denying people coverage, thats just a plain fact of their business model. The less sick people recieve treatment, the richer insurance companies become (and the more congressmen they can buy to prevent reform). The US’ pathetic standing among first-world countries in terms of health care outcomes is pretty easy to comprehend in these terms.
Thats why the only meaningful health care reform is to take the profit motive out of health care and enact a single payer system, which sadly is never going to happen with the Center/Right Neoliberal government that’s in power now.
This, I feel, is the keystone of the libertarian mindset. It is also flawed.
Like pure capitalism, pure socialism, pure communism, pure fascism, pure democracy… they all work in theory and on paper, but pure libertarianism fails in practice.
It makes a bold assertion that everyone is responsible only for themselves; that the concept of “society” doesn’t actually exist. The idea being, if you’ll beg the use of an analogy, is of a burning house:
You have this guy smoking in bed. He falls asleep and the cigarette sets fire to the sheets. Minutes later, his house is engulfed in flames. In the libertarian mindset, he made a very poor choice and should lose his house if he can’t put out the fire. Again, this would be a fine (if a bit immature and selfish) mindset…if the man’s house is in the middle of nowhere and there are no consequences for anyone else. However, with the way the human animal interacts with others, the man’s house is butted right up against my house. That man’s poor judgment and actions affect others. And humans are not perfect. They will make bad choices.
Sure, if this man didn’t smoke in bed or otherwise make bad choices, I wouldn’t be affected, but he did and I’m now damaged. All of us are damaged. As an ex-libertarian, I still feel that I have the right to protect myself from others hurting me or at least lessening the impact of their bad decisions.
Which is why I’m for so-called “socialized healthcare”, ObamaCare, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Not because I feel they’re entitled to “free” health care but because we live in a civilized nation and “I’ve got mine” is both selfish and immoral, but also not practical. And if I don’t do something about it, then my house, which is butted up against yours, will go up in flames.
So everyone can’t be responsible for themselves, yet they should be responsible for everyone else? That makes no damn sense! :mean: Apply the burning house logic to the government; Their own imperfections and self interests affect an entire nation, let alone a small community of people, and you still would put your trust in the hands of Washington? I’ll tell ya what, dude… if you want the government running your life and making choices for you go right ahead, but myself and millions of others wont put up with it.
Once you separate “the government” from “we the people”, you no longer are talking about America. “The government” IS “we the people”. You then go on to put words in my mouth that I never said; that I want to “put my trust in the hands of Washington” or that I want “the government to run my life and make choices for me”.
These couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the REVERSE is true. I employ them. I want to run the government’s life and make choices for THEM. It has NOTHING to do with being “responsible for them”. It has to do with being “responsible for me”.
I’ll thank you to not resort to partisan talking points in the future.