Someonerandm, place yourself in the situation of people who can’t afford healthcare for a moment. It’s a basic necessity that should be available for everyone, yet it is not.
It’s easy to be against free healthcare when you can afford it.
Pretty much all of western Europe, as far as I’m aware, has social healthcare, and has had it for a long time, and we don’t have totalitarian governments.
Great. I’ll take 2 and 3. No one has ever suggested that health care would be free. If they are, they’re either oversimplifying for “bumper sticker politics” or they don’t know what they’re talking about.
We’re already paying for health care for everyone. It’s the most expensive kind.
I think what Someonerandm is saying is that there is a “slope” that leads to totalitarianism. He believes (and, please, correct me if I’m wrong!) that health care crosses a line where it’s going to be difficult to near impossible to stop the slide.
Where I come down on this is that ANYTHING at all, no matter what you want to say, could be a “line that shouldn’t be crossed” that, if crossed, will make it hard to near impossible to stop the slide into totalitarianism. Including the rating of video games such as the ESRB does.
If the argument could be used to say anything for anything, then the argument is deeply flawed.
I realize that, but I was trying to say that, even if you consider that argument valid, healthcare should still be socialized, because just like police and fire departments and whatnot, healthcare is a basic necessity everyone should be able to enjoy.
I totally agree, but I could make the case that police and fire departments could lead to totalitarianism and dictatorship. I was just trying to show the flaw in the argument.
Health care is one of the most basic necessities, yet there are things that ARE socialized that aren’t basic necessities, yet I hear no complaints about those services.
I do understand their argument. I just find it deeply flawed.
I agree, I really can’t believe people are willing to let their compatriots go bust because they were ill or linger on untreated.
Fun side note: I am now getting ads for stopping gov. run health care on this site.
On topic, lets get of of hypothetical situations based on theory and not fact, and get back to health care. I am in a much less speculative mood today. So my main argument is the government is incapable of managing anything without miles of regulations and laws being liberally applied to everything. I don’t want my health to be put into that screwed up situation.
“they had better do it now, and decrease the surplus population”
I am more against it than for it, but I understand the need for it…the USA just is going to break itself paying for it if Obama’s theory doesn’t work out(the healthcare paying for itself). I could ramble for a paragraph about how programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the most expensive government programs…but I won’t.
Someone pointed out that there are already some types of service, such as police force or fire department, that are paid “by everyone so they can be free for everyone”.
Now imagine someone who has an impenetrable, fireproof fortress protected by 50 contracted security guards. Why should that person pay for cops, if that person will never need cops? Why pay for fire department if the anti-fire protection is provided privately by huge tanks of water and fireproof materials used in construction?
Why should someone who has private helicopter have to pay taxes from which road-reconstructions are financed, if that person only flies between his/her house and office?
You should all remember one long-valid fact: TAXES are a form of racketeering payment that the rich and semi-rich pay so that the poor don’t go and take their property for themselves.
As long as the life of poor people is “bearable”, they will be pacified and you can keep making a lot of money. Once their lives become unbearable, they will rob you of everything you have, no matter how many bodyguards or security guards you employ.
“Why should someone pay for X if that person never uses X.”
Because in the case of healthcare (and other things), it’s something that benefits society as a whole.
If more people have access to decent medical facilities at a payable price, there will be less people that are forced into poverty, or that are forced to stay poor.
More thriving people results in a more thriving society, which benefits everyone in that society.
Burbinator, you are fundamentally correct; however, some people subjectively measure their happiness / satisfaction by observing how many people are in worse conditions/situation than themselves.
A rich person is not rich because of its wealth. A rich person is only rich because most others have less wealth. If I had 1 million dollars right now, I’d be propelled among Top 250 richest people in the country where I live. In USA, I would only be among Top 1 million, in Saudi Arabia, I would consider myself “mid-class”.
On the opposite: A person that earns less than 50 dollars a day in USA would be considered poor. In my current country, that’s slightly above average income; in India or North Korea, you would be very wealthy.
So the same wealth has totally different meaning depending on where you live.
And here is where healthcare can backfire: Those who have some job and can aford some health insurance would suddenly feel on the same level as those without jobs / healthcare. Suddenly, the level of “happiness” would drop, even though it seems strange that people want others to suffer, but it’s true. You need the feeling that somebody is in worse shit than you, and public healthcare could actually make it so that those without jobs (insurance paid by country) have the same options as you (insurance taxed on your income).
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Out current economic problems are caused by stupid leaders of corporations and stupid government programs. NEWSFLASH: Every one does not have the right to a home. Also, there are many examples of how when every the government does something it strangles it in needless laws and regulations. Campaign finance reform, for example. Also, if politicians did not bail out companies, and allow capitalism to work, then we would be better off.
Also, its not that I consider the slippery slope concept to be wrong, it is that I do not want to argue a strictly theoretical argument with you. The fact is that our world today has never happened before (shocking, no?) and as such, there are no historical examples of what happens to a socialist country over an extended period of time (more than 50 years).
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I’m pretty sure my country has been socialist for more than 50 years. And pretty much every western European country along with it.
I’m pretty sure that them Britlanders are more conservative than the rest of Europe.
They still have socialized healthcare, at the very least.
I know! I hate the bailouts too.
Money that could of gone to fixing the economy, or SOMTHING, given to car company CEOs so they can blow money on Legos while their company runs into the ground. Oh, but we’ll just give them more money!
Logic does not exist here.
Edit: While I’m on the subject on how poorly our government spends our taxes, look here:
https://cogsdev.110mb.com/cwcki/index.php/Chris’s_games
The picture speaks wonders.
And now they’re going and paying out huge bonuses again, very dumb. And the Obama Administration barely seems to care.
You’re shitting me?
I think I’ll sit out on this argument. On one hand, Healthcare should be among Police and the Fire Department as basic necessities of a society. On the other hand, there a billion different ways the government can fuck this up the ass, and we’ll be the ones that have to pay the price.
Plus, I’m only 14, so I have not had the painful experience of paying taxes yet.
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