Freedom: Guns versus Health Care

People talk about our ability to own guns in the US as though it demonstrates our freedom. I disagree with this and my biggest argument is how in the US our health insurance is tied to our employment.

I'm curious, does anyone else see the way health care works in this country as a detriment to our freedom?

 

No. Im free to buy whatever healthcare I want. I get more than I need with a $50/mo membership at a local 'co-op' clinic. Unless you think I could get the same deal from the state, then doing it the way other countries do it would force me to pay more than I need to for my healthcare. Thats the opposite of freedom.

 

Not in the least.

 

Well, there's this thing called the 2A which details our RIGHT to owning a weapon. That has nothing to do with healthcare, of course so I have no idea how these two got lumped together.
I see that you can pick and choose a lot of your options when it comes to health care, smells like freedom to me.

 

No freedom is absolute, not firearms and not health care.

To describe health care in this country is to state that we have the Star Trek devices almost instantly available, a plethora of insurance plans from group to individual, to our freedom of what to eat, how much, and so forth. If you go to the ER for a serious ailment, on your own or by ambulance, you are immediately treated. It is after the treatment or during the treatment which you will be asked detailed questions on you such as where you live, do you work, do drugs, alcohol, etc now or in the past, and so forth. Most hospitals are "nonprofit" which means they must treat everyone, including the indigent.

Finally, health insurance is not tied to employment. It is the easiest way to obtain such insurance without the hassle of pre-existing conditions. You may be able to obtain individual health insurance through a state exchange program or through the ACA with different levels of plans. But that too is your choice. Furthermore, since 2017, the individual mandate is no longer required, so you are still free to choose whether to have health insurance or not.

But that is not true from around the world. In some countries, you must "pay" first, usually a substantial deposit, before even being treated despite the country being "socialist."

 

Guns and health care both cost money and you are not prohibited from buying either.

So what's the problem?

 

You are dealing with two different arguments here.

Posters who say "they are taking our guns away" will say that even if you are required to check in your guns at the airport and produce a FFL license.

Those that are saying "health care is a right" are arguing about access to health care and how expensive health care is.

See the difference?

 

Only to those that can't get it

 

Does your local ‘co-op clinic pay for your medical care if your hospitalized for something major or if you need cancer treatment or will you have to pay possibly tens of thousands out of your own pocket to cover medical costs?

 

I am certainly no expert on health care or guns, but your assessment of the state of health care in the US doesn't align with my personal experience or the small amount of reading I've done on the subject. For example, it is my understanding that for those who live in rural America, nearby hospitals are often difficult to find, and those that do exist are increasingly being closed or lack the equipment and services available in metropolitan areas. So, instant availability and Elysium re-atomizers isn't a thing for a lot of folks in the US, but we do have good stuff like life flight to help with this. Do you know how much a life flight costs if you are uninsured? Google it.

If you think that mentioning that we have the freedom to choose what to eat and how much of it to eat and so forth as being of value to the discussion then I would respectfully suggest that my argument is about health care, not health. But, yes, I do agree that much of our health problems could be mitigated by better diets and more exercise.

Most hospitals are non-profit? Do you have any ability to back this up?

Regarding your assertion that health insurance is not tied to employment, I can assure you that it absolutely is and this assertion seems to indicate to me that you simply don't know what you think you know about it. In the private sector part of our society that I participate in, our health care is provided through our employer and nobody is obtaining their health insurance outside of their employer's plans. When I was finally let go from my employment with a company that I put up with for far too long, my health insurance was void at the end of the current month in which I was let go. Do you have any idea how much it would have cost me to carry on with my UHC plan under cobra law? Carrying that plan forward to the full term allowed by cobra, 18 months, would have cost me about $2k a month for a total of $36k and that plan was one of the more recent developments in plan options over the past decade+ that covered catastrophic costs but not much else until I first spent an additional $5k out-of-pocket. Do you have any idea of what that plan was covering in terms of my wife's MD Anderson lymphoma treatments and what options were available to me to replace that coverage without obtaining employment with an employer with a sufficient company plan to pick up what UHC had covered? Do you actually believe that there are non-employment plans available that provide coverage equivalent to employment plans? I did the research, and they do not exist.

No freedom is absolute, eh? Thanks, Alwassa, I had been curious why I kept having problems obtaining a full auto surplus M60 and I guess I've been fully expecting to live forever with free health care provided by the collective until you cleared this up for me.

 

Actually, it seems to me that the angle I view this from is that the way health insurance works is that it binds folks to their employers and becomes an increasingly important consideration to changing employers for employees in an age group from around 50 to 70 years old. If an employee, or their spouse or child covered under their employment plan develops a condition that requires extraordinary care such as cancer then that employee is economically under most circumstances precluded from even thinking about changing jobs without first securing assurance that the new health insurance plan will cover the treatments.

 

They only cover the treatment they can provide. Probably doesnt include things like major surgery. Its OK because Im more comfortable living my life with the understanding that theres ways I might die than I am spending all my money trying to prevent all of them.

Even so, I figure I'm better off financially spending some of my healthcare funds eating healthy, taking suppliments and exercising than I am trying to pool my available healthcare resources with people who primarily eat cheetos and mountain dew surfing their 'big and tall'-rated couch all day.

 

You can eat healthy, take supplements and exercise all you want and you can still get cancer and have to pay over $100,000 for treatments. Got that kinda cash burning a hole in your pocket do ya?

 

I appreciate your point of view and share it to a theoretical extent, but you are familiar with the phrase, there are no atheists in foxholes? And you understand the applicability to our situation with respect to health care costs and lack of insurance in the US? If you are only covered for something like say antibiotics if you come down with pneumonia by your $50/month coop coverage, but you end up in the hospital for pneumonia I doubt very much that you would rather die than have the medical help. The bills that you'd then be stuck with could potentially put you into a financial bind that would hassle you for years.

 

Firearms are purchased by individuals from nearly infinite choices. It does not cost others anything to financially support that choice. State sponsored healthcare is exactly the opposite. One is freedom, the other is not.

 

The issue is that I don’t have to depend on other people’s money to exercise my right to own a firearm. If healthcare is a right, it requires all tax payers to participate and prop that right up.

 

No. It has nothing to do with freedom. It is about who pays for what.

 

So we should end medicare and medicade?

 

Am I supposed to have my mind changed and my freedom protected by Gov. Newsom?????? Shirley you jest.

 

Yes, end it incrementally so people have worked their whole lives under that system aren't destroyed. But, yes, eventually end it.

 

I guess I've gotten spoiled here lately having had some interesting discussions about tech and stuff with another couple of members actually participating more or less in a discussion. Fascinating amount of knowledge these guys have, and actually reading posts with content. Military history, tech and its applications in video processing and modern combat arms seem to be areas in which one of the guys posts are always informative. Unfortunately, he seems uninterested in discussing politics here, or has given up on it may be more likely since he's been around here since at least 2009.

Let me try and make a few clarifications.

I don't believe there is any such thing as a right, god-given certainly not anyways.

Rather, I view it as that there are agreements that we have reached pertaining to things that we can and can't do as individual members living in a mutually interdependent biosphere on the third rock from the sun.

Healthcare to me is actually something that has characteristics associated with it that need to be addressed for their applicability to everyone's personal interest.

Like sewage systems and potable water systems. These systems are fundamental features of health care, are they not?

I'm not "given" sewage services or water services - I pay for them every month.

I pay for health care insurance every month, in a system that binds this to my employment if I want to have coverage that is actually sufficient to limit my exposure to less than about $5k in the event I need to go to the hospital or worse, go for cancer therapy. For this coverage I think it's around maybe $200 a paycheck, every two weeks. Here's a sample of what an independent plan with somewhat similar coverage looks like:



That's $15k + about $600x12 = $7.2k for a years bet that I get sick and need it....

 

Yet the same people talk about abortion as freedom and rights but they don't want women to have guns to defend their freedom and rights.