Question for libertarians & conservatives

Often I am told by you guys that "yuo don't want to pay for the health care of others' and that complaint is also accompanied by one that goes something like 'especially if their life style choices lead to their ill health ( obesity, smoking/lung cancer, etc )'. I hear that complaint from libertarians and conservative/libertarians a lot. This leads to a question.


Now then, on the latter point I base the following question:

in a couple of states ( Alaska and I believe Idaho ) owing to a shortage of ICU beds due to Covid, they are rationing health care. i.e. under a policy called 'Crisis standards of care" or Crisis Care for short, i.e., rationing beds to only those who are likely to survive. So, someone decides, if you are dying, whether or not you can be saved, and if they
so decide, you will be given care. If not, you are not admitted to the hosptical and you are left to die. This unfortunate state of health care is due to an increase of Covid cases.

But, here is the inescapable fact: 99.5% of the ICU Covid beds are occupied by the UNVACCINATED. What they are doing under Crisis Care is prioritizing life threatening Covid cases that they deem might live via treatment. This is a life style CHOICE they made, and it's causing others who were vaccinated, including those who need care for reasons whether or NOT due to covid, to not receive care IF their illness is life threatening and they deem there is a likelihood you will die even if provided care. Bye bye dialysis patients. Some have died, to date.

So, by your own logic, we should not included the unvaccinated in priority decisions, owing to it being a 'life style choice'. Now I made no mention of whether the unvaccinated are republicans or democrats, it is notable that both would be in that group. It would end the need for rationing ( crisis care ) and things would return to normal for the vaccinated folks. Without the crisis standard, every one would get admitted, whether they are dying or not, Covid or not, which is the norm.

Now, I am a liberal, I am against that policy (of prioritizing care based on life style choices), my policy is to ignore politics and go strictly by need, and I support the crisis care management policies enacted in those states.

But, I want to check with y'all and see if you are consistent in your political beliefs:

So here is the question:

Are you for or against including the unvaccinated in priority decisions, the unvaccinated of whom have resulted in crisis standard of care?

Another fact, 50% of COVID ICU cases are obese, and should they be excluded in priority decisions ( noting that not all obese are overweight because of life style choice, they have problems due to metabolism ) ?

And same for smokers?

Where does it end?

 

One cannot speak to the totality of everything that anyone could ever possibly say, but sincerely, I have not heard this particular caveat being injected into that debate from Conservatives and /or Libertarians. It most certainly is not as prevalent as you seem to imply. It seems to me like the whole lifestyle choices argument is the domain of the left. That is not how Conservatives/Libertarians tend to think. They tend to go to the side of personal responsibility as far as paying their own way while also favoring the freedom for the individual to do as they please. For example, I often hear of Conservatives/Libertarians favoring abolishing motorcycle helmet laws based on personal freedom to do as they please, but I have never heard them argue that therefore they should not get healthcare because of it.

It seems to me that you are falsely putting those words into their mouths so that you can turn around and argue against those false words.

 

I am surprised at the lack of posts discussing the government's coverage of hospital care for the uninsured when being treated for covid. Surely that is universal healthcare. Are people for it or against it? What should happen to a person without coverage when they are hospitalized with covid? If they die, should their family be burdened with the cost?

 

The same way that you treat any other emergent life threatening condition for an uninsured patient. In other words, they treat the patient until their life threatening status has ceased.

 

Given the lies already told by leftist regarding covid, I have no reason to believe your opening statement is true.

 

This is clearly an attempt to catch 22 right wingers. I’m curious to see what answers people come up with.
I have no answer because I don’t have a conservative view on healthcare (which is why I hate people being forced into one label or another but that’s another topic)
Question for you OP. Should we be forced to pay for the aids treatment of people that don’t take that prep drug? HIV prevention drug
We can do this all day long as this concept doesn’t just apply to vaccines
As you said “where does it end”?
I don’t know and have no good answer

 

The vaccine is not as effective as being healthy. The vast majority of those with severe covid symptoms are the same unhealthy, obese people in the first part of your question.

The part you are leaving out is that you are paying for the bad habits themselves, and then paying to treat the conditions you were forced to create. The vast majority of illness is the result of a poor diet consisting of mostly subsidized foods/beverages. You mention smoking, but the same tobacco companies are producing food products.

Limiting government to a minimum would drastically reduce illness.

Just look at the result of big government: We spend more per patient than any other country and our population is fatter and sicker than ever.

 

It's your postulation, you tell me where you think it should end?

I think like any medical emergency it should be treated based on severity. If an old person comes to the emergency room with pneumonia and they did not get the pneumonia vaccine should the hospital turn them away? Someone with Shingles? Someone with Hepatitis? How about the flu, about to run down and get my yearly vaccine.

 

Where are you getting 99.5%. That appears to be vastly overstated.

 

Humans have the gene to care for one another. Most of us have compassion for our fellow man regardless of how they became injured/sick. If you smoke and get lung cancer you are cared for. If you drink excessively and get cirrhosis you are cared for. If you jump out of an airplane with a parachute and the parachute fails to open and you are injured but you survive you are cared for. I'm conservative and hate to see people smoke or drink but I say let the medical profession do triage and I'll stay out of it. Otherwise it gets too complicated. KISS.

 

I wouldn't have posited the question if I hadn't seen it a number of times from libertarians and conservatives.

 

I support medicare for all devoid of politics, lifestyle choices. I believe I made a statement to that effect in the OP.

 

So, I will modify the question to consider all poor lifestyle choices:

Are you for or against including the unvaccinated (and those who made poor lifestyle choices leading to ill health) in Crisis Care priority decisions?

 

But that is what 'not wanting to pay for other's health care, especially those who lifestyle choices led to their ill health' is consistent with.

You are only confirming my OP.

 

Then instead of YOU describing their position and proceeding to argue against YOUR characterization of their position, perhaps you should have just made this response to them when they said what you now allege they say?

Your characterization does not describe the Conservative and/or Libertarian mindset, so it seems really bizarre that you run into this as much as you say you do.

 

Oh, my position is medicare for all, regardless of lifestyle choices, so it's moot question if I'm asked to answer it. If Covid caused Crisis Care, then that policy goes into effect. However, those who chose not to vaccinate are causing the debacle, which is causing those whose lives might be saved to die because they were prioritized out of the line up for ICU Beds.

No, the question only has relevance for those who declare they 'don't want to pay for other's health care, especially if their life style choices contribute to their illness', which is to say, a few held by libertarians and libertarian/conservatives.

 

I mean it sounds more like not wanting to pay for others healthcare regardless of whether the person is sick through their own fault or not. I'm not sure what they envision though in the modern era. Got leukemia? SOL if you didn't buy insurance, or if your insurance pulls the rug out from under you with the fine print, or whatever. They'd rather see people die than help pay for others.

 

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covi...hospitalized-2021-covid-patients-unvaccinated

 

The purpose for insurance isn't to cover the sporadic trip to the doc - its there to cover the big stuff. So if hospitals are going to cover the big stuff, why would anyone purchase insurance?

And yes, I know people use insurance for their doc visits - but if that's their only purpose, it would be like purchasing car insurance for oil changes.

 

if you mean lifestyle choice as in sitting on their a** all day and not working then yes, Conservative and/or Libertarians do not support paying for their healthcare. If you mean sin tax type things like booze, cigarettes, or even overeating, no that is not something that Conservative dogma advocates not having their insurance pay for.

The only person I have seen positing the concept of "especially those who's lifestyle choices led to their ill health" is YOU. That is most certainly NOT a part of typical Conservative thinking. You really should have responded to someone putting for this notion rather than making a thread accusing the whole of Conservatism for that mindset. You may find someone to take your bait and argue against you out of reflex, but that will prove exactly nothing.

 

Hospitals, by law, cannot turn away people in need of emergent, life sustaining care. Your pontification on why would someone then purchase insurance has no bearing on that reality.

 

So I'm just asking - if people will have their emergent care provided without cost to them, why would they buy insurance? And why are so many people going bankrupt and fretting over hospital bills?

 

That's a poor model. If routine visits aren't covered, people are incentivized against getting preventive care, and this leads to worse outcomes and more expense.

Having people buy insurance is also a poor model because some people barely get by and don't have the money left over for this kind of expense, particularly if they have expensive pre-existing conditions. And if they barely have the money left over, how many of them are really going to buy it before they're old and concerned about their health? They'll chance it, and then the rest of us pay the bill anyway when a small percentage of them declare bankruptcy for medical expenses they can't pay, or when they use the resource-intensive ER since it's the only place that'll see them regardless of ability to pay.

Healthcare is a right. The main reason it wasn't included in the constitution is because it wasn't effective back then. Without your health, you can't enjoy any other liberties anyway. It's not always fair who gets sick and who doesn't, and healthcare is a way of providing more equal OPPORTUNITIES (not outcomes) for all.

 

The hospital can't turn them away. But they'll still charge them 50k. If they can't pay, they declare bankruptcy and the hospital eats the cost and passes it on to others. Emergency rooms are big money losers. People buying insurance isn't a good model at all, but for different reasons.

 

You're preaching to the choir! I am all for a universal style healthcare so that people are not relying upon insurance corporations to take care of them when they get sick. I don't believe that 'healthcare' should be a 'big business' in such a highly evolved and wealthy nation.