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Why is healthcare a "right" now?

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irishScott said:
Because most people have entitlement personalities and think that others should pay to take care of them, and healthcare is the most dramatic facet available (images of dying people who wouldn't be dying if society just gave them a chance and other such bullshit).

Personally I consider electricity more vital for day-to-day life than universal healthcare. Where are the crowds screaming for our right to electricity?

In any case, universal healthcare isn't going to happen in the US any time soon because we're spending ourselves into a hole. I imagine, if the current trend continues, that congress will pass Universal Healthcare and a few months later the spending drain will have us in Great Depression 2.0, which will then produce a national hatred of Universal healthcare.
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How much are we spending on overpriced private healthcare insurance? How much do other countries spend for universal healthcare?
 
PaperclipGod said:
All our previous rights havent cost money - liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc. Why is living as long as technologically possible now a "right" and not a luxury? And why does it trump all our other rights? i.e., your liberty is impinged as youre forced to pay for other peoples healthcare.

Not really looking to rehash the healthcare debate... i'm just wondering about the moral/ethical shift that created this mindset. How'd we get here?

Punted to P&N
-ViRGE
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Your right to life doesn't trump all other rights. You think that because providing universal health care presents a burden to the overall society, that means it trumps all other rights. How come that same objection isn't made whenever your tax money goes to pay for national defense or schools? I guess right-wing minds are just incapable of seeing nuance; they get confused if there are shades of gray.

Every right is in tension will all other rights. You don't have an absolute right to free speech - certain speech is illegal. You don't have absolute liberty - there are places you're not allowed to go. You pay taxes that provide for the greater good, and one of those greater goods is universal health care.
 
I have the right to opt out of paying for a stamp and instead I can use the internet or other means for delivering my message.

I have a right to use/not use a bank that is not FDIC insured or I can keep my money under a mattress.

I have the right to not buy medicine from one drug company over another.

None of the things you've actually listed is imposed on a individual unlike subsidizing health insurance.
 
The thing is, private health insurance has had a negative impact on the prices of health services. I see no reason why it costs an arm and a leg to have a doctor look at your arm and leg. Private health insurance has caused prices to sky-rocket for uninsured people, to a point where getting health care without insurance is almost exclusively reserved for people with higher incomes, and yet, those aren't the incomes without insurance.

I guess I'm a libertarian, that's how I'd be labeled, but I still see the problems with the system. The root of the word doctor, means teacher, and I view health care on the same level as education, necessary for a free and functioning society. The statistics also point to universal health care being cheaper, and more efficient. This leads me to believe it is the right course of action.

I do not view it as a right, but rather a stepping stone so the people can fully realize their rights.
 
DucatiMonster696 said:
I pay taxes because I use services provide by the government. Hence why I a have right to have a say on how I get taxed and voice in determining what should be service provided by government or not.
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You also have the right to not pay taxes...

/be a trendsetter and show society how its done...
 
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UberNeuman said:
which "rights" are those?
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A man's natural rights.

I do not believe in the welfare state, abolish that, and give universal healthcare. Give people the right to live, but not off of you. Any money spent on supporting someone that can't afford health care isn't wasted, it's an investment in that human. They will continue to live and pay back into the system.

Believe me, I have moral qualms about supporting universal health care, I find myself in the "lesser of two evils" situation. If healthcare was affordable for the average joe, I wouldn't support universal healthcare.
 
UberNeuman said:
What are those?

/and it should be "A persons natural rights"
//for the PC crowd...
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Life, liberty and property. I'm a follower of Locke.

I do not think anyone should be forced to pay for another, that is why I have qualms about universal health care, and even public education. I temper that, however, with the knowledge that one needs access to a doctor and education to be able to live, be free and have property.

Health care has really only mattered for about 100 or so years, its a relatively modern invention. Yes, doctors existed before, but not in the sense they do now, they were quacks and charlatans. Today, one cannot exist productively in society without access to health care. I was born with a pre-existing condition, and because of that, I'd have to pay more for health insurance, just so I could afford health care. That is pretty messed up, seeing as I'm generally healthy in all other ways. In order to fix my broken arm, I have to pay more, because I have asthma. Does that sound like a rational system?

I actually believe that if the government took it on itself to provide healthcare, that would make people less dependent, overall, on the gov for its life. It would allow people to live life as they see fit, without fear of death, or undue financial burden.
 
Brigandier said:
I was born with a pre-existing condition, and because of that, I'd have to pay more for health insurance, just so I could afford health care. That is pretty messed up, seeing as I'm generally healthy in all other ways. In order to fix my broken arm, I have to pay more, because I have asthma. Does that sound like a rational system?
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It would seem you're against yourself....
 
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UberNeuman said:
It would seem you're against yourself....
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In more issues than one, my friend.

If you'd care to elaborate...


Or do you mean I have a vested interest in universal healthcare? I really don't. I've lived years without insurance, with asthma, and I could continue to live like this until I die(which is no big problem to me). The thing is, I just try to make sense of human society, its desires and goals, and oftentimes that pits me against myself.
 
DucatiMonster696 said:
Actual rights don't infringe on the rights of others.
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Oh yes they can. Extreme "right to lifers" believe the fetus' right to be born trumps even the mother's risk of death. Don't agree? Then you believe the mother's right not to risk death trumps the fetus' right to live.

Either way, someone's MOST BASIC "actual right" is infringing on another's most basic "actual right."
 
Well Thomas Jefferson did say you have a right to life and “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Basically what he's saying 'rights' are whatever we want them to be and we have right to effect change.
 
irishScott said:
In any case, universal healthcare isn't going to happen in the US any time soon because we're spending ourselves into a hole. I imagine, if the current trend continues, that congress will pass Universal Healthcare and a few months later the spending drain will have us in Great Depression 2.0, which will then produce a national hatred of Universal healthcare.
Click to expand...

The fact that we are in a financial hole is an even more compelling reason to have socialized medicine. Every other first world industrialized nation that has it spends far less in terms of percentage of GDP and in absolute dollars o health care. Basically, we can't afford the half-free market half-socialist system we have now.
 
Reagan made it a right when he signed COBRA, including provisions that people have to be treated at the ER regardless of ability to pay.
 
PaperclipGod said:
Why is healthcare a "right" now?

All our previous rights havent cost money - liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc. Why is living as long as technologically possible now a "right" and not a luxury? And why does it trump all our other rights? i.e., your liberty is impinged as youre forced to pay for other peoples healthcare.

Not really looking to rehash the healthcare debate... i'm just wondering about the moral/ethical shift that created this mindset. How'd we get here?

Punted to P&N
-ViRGE
Click to expand...

Just get real sick and find out
 
Perknose said:
Oh yes they can. Extreme "right to lifers" believe the fetus' right to be born trumps even the mother's risk of death. Don't agree? Then you believe the mother's right not to risk death trumps the fetus' right to live.

Either way, someone's MOST BASIC "actual right" is infringing on another's most basic "actual right."
Click to expand...


In this case, I think most everyone would agree its self defense. The mother should make the choice. If having the baby would kill you, you have the right to make that choice.
It can't be helped, just one of those rare situations in life.
 
DucatiMonster696 said:
I pay taxes because I use services provide by the government. Hence why I a have right to have a say on how I get taxed and voice in determining what should be service provided by government or not.
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LOL, quit kidding yourself. You pay taxes because the law says you will and if you don't you will go to jail. If the laws says we will have universal health care (or whatever plan we end up with), you will pay taxes for that too. Get used to it.
 
nobodyknows said:
LOL, quit kidding yourself. You pay taxes because the law says you will and if you don't you will go to jail. If the laws says we will have universal health care (or whatever plan we end up with), you will pay taxes for that too. Get used to it.
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We haven't gotten to that absolute point in which the law cannot be changed and is engraved in stone hence why its in court and being challenged by two dozen states.
 
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