Thread: Should the Government Provide Free Universal Health Care for All Americans?

Originally Posted by SiliconMagician

I mean, one of the primary casus bellis of the Revolutionary War was punitive taxation:

Taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION was the key issue, rather than just taxation itself - the fact that America was a 'colony', and not represented in parliament, even though its people paid taxes to the UK. The new tax was the trigger that set it off, but not itself the key issue.

Originally Posted by SiliconMagician

Taxation is a necessary evil that should be kept to a minimum and never, ever used to force compliance or change social behavior!

I'd agree that it should never be 'punitive' (never be used to 'price something out of existance'), but I don't have a problem used to encourage (Note: 'encourage', NOT 'enforce') behavioural adjustments in certain curcumstances, as long as the additional taxation raised is genuinely required for meeting the costs created by those behaviours, as it is with things like smoking and alcohol. They create costs (under UHC, although drinking also has other social costs in terms of policing and so on), and the costs should be met by those who use them, so it makes sense to me - the fact that it encourages people to use them less (and create less problems for themselves and society as a result) is really just a side bonus to the main purpose - people paying for what they do.

It could be said that the private insurance system does the same through premium adjustments, and to an extent it does. Where it falls down for me, though, is the fact that it can genuinely leave people 'out in the cold' from effectively healthcare, even when they have modified their behaviours to stop doing so much of what was causing them problems, via the 'pre-existing condition' clauses.

Originally Posted by SiliconMagician

My question is, what are Americans going to do when a UHC, because society pays in, gives society the moral right to interfere in those unhealthy lifestyles?

What are Americans going to say when nanny Government starts taxing everything it considers unhealthy, or outright takes it away, because the liberal politicians feel they have the moral duty to protect society's "investment" in your health? Suddenly your body is no longer yours, but part of the social collective and Universal health care puts an unfair burden of responsibility on you to live a lifestyle society, through Government, deems you must.





Not just scary for incompetence, but scary because America is full of busybody freakazoids who love to control people en masse through political movements. They think the radical Christian Social Cons are the only ones with a controlling streak? No, Liberals can be just as bad if not worse.

They will demand exceedingly high taxes on everything they deem "unhealthy" and boss the rest of us around through hitting our hip pocket, and liberals love to use taxation as a means of social change. They never outlaw anything, they just price out of the range of the average person and suddenly only rich people get privileges that once were available to all Americans before busybodies got involved.

This is how you end up with situations like in Europe where only the rich get to drive cars regularly, where only the rich get to own single family homes outside of the city, etc.

Firstly, the USA is a long way in front of Europe on the banning of things. New York, the home of the free market was the first city in the world to ban smoking. It is also now talking about bringing in some of the harshest alchol laws in the world.
The USA in general has highly controlling laws on the sale of alchol and it is heavily taxed. You can die for your country in the US before you can have a drink.
The unhealthy foods will never be banned in the USA, simply because being one of the most corrupt goverments in the world, it wouldnt want to lose all the $$$ that Macas "donates" to politicians.
Second, i can only assume from your comments that you have never been to Europe. Most pensioners in the Europe have cars. As for housing, i think someone from a country that has some of the biggest slum housing in the world needs to be careful about what they say. Being from Europe, pretty much everyone i know owned there own house by the age of 23. Have a wander down to Florida and see how many of the houses there are second homes to Europeans. Not rich ones, just every day guys like plumbers and builders.
If there is a place on the planet that show inequality between rich and non rich it is the USA. Republicans want that gap to widen. They want to stop tax increases on the rich even though most pay less tax than low wage earners. Donald Trump admitted that he pays less tax than his cleaners. But that is the republican way. After all the poor arent the ones giving big donations to the politicians (read bribes).

Originally Posted by savage-republican

Ok then whose fault is it that America has high rates of obesity? Is it the fault of private insurance, is that 9 billion in advertising asking people to go out and over eat? The problem with America is that it is full of people who have no desire to take care of themselves. It is about cigarettes and alcohol and the consumption of fatty sugary unhealthy foods, and all the other stupid behavior. Does private insurance cause diabetes? what about heart disease and lung cancers? Really, most of the issues with Americas health has to do with unhealthy lifestyles.

Besides, I acknowledge that our system is not perfect, but letting the inept American bureaucracy take care of health coverage, sounds scary to me. The American government is inept in everything it tries to do and this includes the military.

The sole reason that 15% of Americans don’t have health care even though health care cost more than double then other countries is because America has a privatized health insurance sector. Anyone saying different is clueless. The VA delivers vets 30% higher quality care at 40% of the cost, same with Medicare

Originally Posted by Makedde

Its funny that our government can supply UHC to 22 million people, but the US governement (which is richer than ours) cannot afford to supply UHC to its people.

Not only that, America spends 700 billion on the military yearly, but can't even set up a UHC for the people the military is supposed to protect.

I think that there needs to be some type of reform, no doubt, and I don't know much about the "quality of life" details/results of many of the choices, but when looking at it using a moral compass, the idea irks me.

Nobody is entitled to anything, the government doesn't owe people "free" health insurance, or whatever people like to call it. People don't want the government to decide what they eat, but it's okay for the government to wipe their butt? Besides, nothing is free. There is always someone paying for it, and it is not their "moral duty" to do so.

Originally Posted by mupp3tbab3h

I think that there needs to be some type of reform, no doubt, and I don't know much about the "quality of life" details/results of many of the choices, but when looking at it using a moral compass, the idea irks me.

Nobody is entitled to anything, the government doesn't owe people "free" health insurance, or whatever people like to call it. People don't want the government to decide what they eat, but it's okay for the government to wipe their butt? Besides, nothing is free. There is always someone paying for it, and it is not their "moral duty" to do so.

It comes down to what is the role of goverment and what is the nature of society. I would have thought a basic principle of goverment is to carry out actions for the benefit of its population. One of the fundamental benefits any population can have is access to health care. The current system operates on a lottery. If you are lucky enough to find an employer that either pays you enough that you can afford private care or they offer you it as part of your salary, then your fine. But is you arent lucky enough then you die.

For any society to function there has to be a element of each part of it wanting to help or look after others. Thats not socialism, its a fact. Its why the armed forces exist and stops anarchy. Healthcare has to be part of that. Anybody who thinks that the lowest paid part of the population has no right to health care is clearly a sociopath.

Next, if the US wants to be taken seriously as a leading developed country, then it needs to get its health care beyond that of the developing world. At present, the childbirth mortality rate in the US is about the worst of any developed nation. There are African nations that are better.

Lastly, and this is the bit that makes me laugh. The USA parades itself as a place of high economic understanding, yet it refuses, for purely political reasons to accept that it is cheaper to have UHC. The current system allows for billions of dollars that US people pay in to insurance companies to create a profit and a lot of that profit goes out of the country to the multinational hedge funds that own most of shares.

You are paying for your healthcare and your paying too much. Your paying for the healthcare + profits + huge advertising budgets + lots of exucutives + administration of claims - one company recently spend $9 billion on advertising, another spent $6 billion on adminisatration processing claims. Thats $15 billion that in a UHC would have been for patient care.

The bit that i think a lot of Americans dont understand with their private care offered by their employers is that its not free. The budget the company is spending on it is comming out of the budget that your salary comes from. Anyone who works internationally knows this. I live in Australia and my package includes private health care. But the guys who work in other offices where this isnt private health policy get a higher salary because the company isnt paying their healthcare.

The hidden economic benefits are huge. There are millions of lost working hours in the US economy because of people being away from work ill that would either not be ill or have a shorter illness if they had free healthcare at an earlier stage in their illness. This is a massive drain on buisness and goverment revenue in lost taxes. It then creates later revenue loss as patients that could have been treated cheaply and easily at an early stage end up in a public hospital requiring expensive treatment.

In harsh economic climates, the USA needs UHC because it can not afford not to

While I agree to helping with health care costs may be a government function what I can't get by is that the real problem with American health care is the cost. You need health insurance, because it takes 10K these days to treat a sprained ankle.

Most of the costs are because of over regulation, and subsidization of stupidity. (Look at the congressional analysis of the alarming increases in health care costs.) Seriously, why can't we first fix the cost. Yeah, this means we probably have to vote against our elected officials that refuse to cap malpractice awards, and those who decided to play doctor, and pass a bunch of stupid regulations.

Once that is done, we can work on providing a public subsidy for those who can't afford it. Seriously, I wish I could afford to drive a Lexus to work, but I have a mini Yaris instead. It's not because I don't want the other, it's because I don't have the money.

Originally Posted by bclark

While I agree to helping with health care costs may be a government function what I can't get by is that the real problem with American health care is the cost. You need health insurance, because it takes 10K these days to treat a sprained ankle.

Most of the costs are because of over regulation, and subsidization of stupidity. (Look at the congressional analysis of the alarming increases in health care costs.) Seriously, why can't we first fix the cost. Yeah, this means we probably have to vote against our elected officials that refuse to cap malpractice awards, and those who decided to play doctor, and pass a bunch of stupid regulations.

Once that is done, we can work on providing a public subsidy for those who can't afford it. Seriously, I wish I could afford to drive a Lexus to work, but I have a mini Yaris instead. It's not because I don't want the other, it's because I don't have the money.

Actually the real reason American health care cost so much is we have a privately controlled helath system. Medicare is a govenremnt controled one and it costs 40%.

The Medical industry of the USA will not stand for anyone messing with their growing profits. That is why the medical industry pays billions each year to lobby the government to allow free market medical industry.

Originally Posted by Clint Torres

The Medical industry of the USA will not stand for anyone messing with their growing profits. That is why the medical industry pays billions each year to lobby the government to allow free market medical industry.

Bingo!

Putting profits before people's health.