Healthcare is NOT a basic human right.

Nurses Activism

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If one were to read the Constitution one would realize that the Constitution does not grant anyone freedoms, liberties, or rights. The Constitution only protects freedoms, liberties, and rights from transgressions on part of the government. A right is something that is inherent to the individual, comes from that individual, and is maintained by the individual. You are born with such rights like the right to speak freely, the only thing that can be done to that right is to have it infringed. No one can grant a right to another, only limit or impede the exercise of that right.

Healthcare is a human invention that does not exist in the natural environment. Only through the work of others and through the taking of resources from one party and giving to another does healthcare exist. You cannot force someone to give effort and resources to another and call that a right. In the absence of human intervention the individual would live their lives and succumb to the natural forces which would act upon their bodies.

Do I think we should provide preventative care and basic primary care? Sure. Do I think that we can? Maybe. Do I think that healthcare is a basic human right? Absolutely not.

And you can cite all the *supposed* statistics you want from these foreign countries on infant mortality rate, cost per capita, etc. etc. The examples you've provided are laughable at best. I work with a nurse who came from the eastern bloc. She has said they are decades behind us in medical care despite being socialized, yet they have a lower infant mortality rate? I don't think so. The data you are referring to is so skewed it's pathetic. John Stossel did a FANTASTIC expose on socialized medicine in Cuba. He showed how the care really isn't as great as they say it is,and is really based on a class system. And the statistics have variables built in to boost the numbers to make them look good. It's on youtube, you should watch it.

You really love those anecdotes. Yours is a straw man. Why don't you compare the the healtcare systems of industrialized countries to ours? Look at their per capita costs, outcomes, and accesiblilty.

I hope you realize that the U.S.S.R. went out of existence two decades ago. Eastern Block?

You say my data (e.g., from the CIA) is laughable, but you can't explain why, and you have no data of your own. None. You have nothing but pointless anecdotes.

Are you seriously going to argue that France spends more per capita on healthcare than we do? (No, the spend approximately half of what we do.) Or that they have worse outcomes. (They have better outcomes on the average-it's not a difficult metric to measure.) Or that they have a shorter life expectancy. (It's longer.) Or that they have a higher infant mortality rate. (Ours is 1.7 times theirs.)

Explain France's system's numbers. I dare you. Once you admit that yes, what I said is true, then what? That we are inferior as a culture (all those indigent iPod owners with fancy fingernails), and we can't do anything like it?

See how the various countries implement insurance. You do realize, I hope, that with the ACA in effect, we will still have private insurance companies providing health insurance. There is no public option.

So then, what is your issue?

And yes you did say the US has "free market health care". In addition to your again circular reasoning of " The unregulated market has widely been shown to be a disaster. Do I need to list examples?"

Yes, you do need to list some examples. I have a huge doubt based upon your previous posts that you know what a "free market" really is, and I would LOVE nothing more than to obliterate the false examples you will surely provide.

According to your religion, unregulated enterprise will always do the best things for the citizenry — what's best for GM is best for the country. Their fiduciary responsibility, as private corporations, is to their shareholders. That is it. If they can increase their profits by poisoning a stream with tailings, destroying a towns water supply, then that is their responsibility. (If the town then has to truck in bottled water, isn't the town effectively subsidizing the offending company? Isn't that socialism?)

I trust you are familiar with the tragedy of the commons. Are you?

* The periodic runs on banks before FDIC insurance was a problem.

* The repeal of Glass-Stiegel and the near collapse of the large banks that inevitably followed was a problem.

* The environmental destruction that occurred when there was no environmental regulation was a problem.

* Monopolies are a problem. What would stop a company from buying up or forcing out of business all its competitors? Is that a good thing? Does Rand have anything to say aobut monopolies?

* Intellectual property laws.

* Air traffic control.

* Child labor laws.

* Making slavery illegal. (In a laissez-faire environment, what's to stop it?)

* Your nursing license, if your claim about yourself, as an anonymous person on the Internet, is true.

* Regulations regarding the running of clinical trials.

(See this U.S. News and World Report article: The Good Side of Federal Regulations; see this article from the Motley Fool: [securities] Regulation Is Good for America; U.S. Business Not Being Strangled by Regulation (Kenneth Rapoza in Forbes); Government Regulation is Good for Business (Geoffrey James, CBS MarketWatch))

If you want universal health care, move to Europe, or go to medical school and start your own free clinic here in the US, then tell me about how glorious it is.

No I don't. We're on our way to it. Do you think the ACA is just a dream? It's a step along the way that began with the VA system, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. Some states have other programs as well. Are you going to be able to live in a country that has healthcare universally available? Or will you have to move to...to where? Somalia? Congo? The North Pole?

Until then, just stop with the rhetoric. It's clear that you're a bleeding heart liberal, at least when it supports your own self interest anyways. Where are you on the wars Obama has started and exacerbated? How about the unlimited detention and state sanctioned murder of US citizens he has committed and supports? Where are you on monetary and fiscal policy? Bush's deficit spending was an abomination, even if it were only a fraction of Obama's, which is perfectly prudent? Get real.

It's all so clear to you? Interesting. It looks like Romney was a "bleeding heart liberal" a few months ago. You, on the other hand, care for no one but yourself. You drive on roads paved by the government, over bridges built by the government, protected by police provided by the government, and firemen and fire trucks as well. You work in a hospital that almost certainly gets government subsidies. Did you attend a state school, my scholarly friend? Even if you attended a private school, it was likely kept afloat by the government aid provided to most of its students. You live in a country with a functioning (but decaying) infrastructure, and you seem to think that it got there by magic.

Do you even realize that most of the the research for most of the drugs you use now was financed by the government, either in federal laboratories, or by research grants to universities? I know someone who is doing drug research at a private company (he's a molecular biologist), and that company (in fact, his project) is receiving government research grants.

So far I've replied to most or all of your points. So far you have replied to none of mine. You've simply attacked me personally.

I wonder why.

Wow, can't go to sleep, without waking up to a whole new batch of beans!!! A lot has been said and I want to reply, but due to the diversity this issue has risen, I am going to take a step back and actually solidify my responses before posting.

Specializes in Oncology, Med/Surg, Hospice, Case Mgmt..

The cost of healthcare has risen and is insane. This is one of the main reasons for the Affordable Healthcare Act. When everyone has coverage, it drives the cost down. The individual mandate would help even more. The scariest citizens right now are those young healthy people who choose not to have insurance coverage through their job. "Oh, I don't need that. I'm never sick". So, when one of these guys steps off a curb and gets hit by a bus, the rest of us will pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars for his months in the hospital and rehab. And he will roll away from all of the responsibility in a wheelchair my tax dollars paid for. The individual mandate would fix that, too. Everyone should have medical insurance. Period.

For those who say it's unconstitutional to require others have insurance or to fine people for not having it, well, we are required to pay taxes, right? I'm sure we can all agree we'd prefer to keep that money we earned, but we can't. I prefer for some of that money be spent on healthcare for our country.

Yesterday, I posted a story about a patient named Jennifer. In response to anyone who believes that they should not feel bad for a person like Jennifer who didn't go for her follow up testing after treatment for cancer, that's fine, you don't have to feel bad for her or her family. Just want to point out that she didn't choose not to receive follow up care, she really couldn't do it. She didn't have the money and the cost of the testing would have taken food and shelter away from her young children. Anyone out there not pay a medical bill in recent years? Do you know what happens when you don't? Anyone know how much a CT scan costs you if you don't have insurance? She had to make a decision no one in the USA should have to make. For anyone who thinks the Affordable Healthcare Act wouldn't have helped Jennifer, anyway.... we'll never know.

Specializes in geriatrics.

The Canadian philosophy is one of health promotion and prevention. I say this in response to various posts throughout this thread which are, "If someone shows up in Emergency, we treat them, with or without insurance." Many emergencies would be avoided if people had access to affordable medical care. The uncontrolled diabetic, for example, who arrives in emerg with an acute hyperglycemic episode. Maybe if he/ she could afford the doctor visits and meds, they wouldn't present in emerg. Or the person who presents with an acute MI. These are all too common. Using the rationale, "Well, we don't turn anyone away from emerg..." Not very forward thinking at all.

Back to the original topic...

To those who who argue for the existence of natural rights, either derived from nature or a spiritual source: You must start with axioms. Those axioms cannot be logically derived. Slavery and its like has been seen through known human history. Its like is also seen in the animal kingdom.

Our values (what some call rights) are derived from our culture, and where we are in our cultural evolution. At this point in our evolution, we have decided that access to health care is a right. Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP exist. EMTALA, the law (an unfunded mandate) that states that a hospital emergency room cannot turn away anyone who needs emergency care exists. That is in the U.S.

Other industrialized countries have a more uniform health care system, where all citizens have access to a good level of care (though more services are available to those who are willing to pay out of pocket). They have uniformity in administering their program (e.g, there is no need for a separate bureaucracy to handle indigent children versus the elderly), and uniformity in how they handle payments. Their focus is more on providing a good standard of care, rather than obsessing over your insurance coverage. That is borne out by objective measurements of performance.

Our system is collapsing under the weight of its complexity and inefficiency. In response to our values, and out of simple economic necessity, the American healthcare system will evolve toward something like what other industrialized nations have. Not necessarily Canada's (so let's put that straw man to rest, though Canada's system does have better outcomes at a lower per capita cost), but hopefully, it will borrow from the best that other systems have to offer. Perhaps we can improve upon those systems with our acumen in computer applications.

To those who don't like the change — the change is coming. It is inevitable. We will be bankrupt, or have little access to healthcare, if we remain on our current trajectory. The ACA provides the necessary framework for implementing reform, and some good ideas, but it is by no means the last word on reform. It will be amended, as all such laws are (Medicare, for instance). We will see how the law works, and we will change it to work better.

The existence of other industrialize countries' universal healthcare systems proves that we could do much, much better, unless Americans suffer from a deep character flaw, that we all want to defraud one another. I reject that premise.

Specializes in Dialysis.

Two states have experimented with trying to provide universal access to healthcare using medicare dollars. Oregon and Tennessee. The same arguments used to support Obamacare, lower costs and more access, were used in Tennessee by then governer Ned "well fed" McWherter. The exact opposite happened and at one point half of the state's budget was being spent on this one program alone. Access to care plummeted because providers could not survive on the low reimbursement rates. At one point there was not a single participating orthopedist within a 100 miles of Memphis, a city of a million people. Break a bone in Memphis and you might find treatment in Jackson 90 miles away. Since no one was denied admittance fraudulent MCO's were signing up people who didn't even reside in the state. Oregon's experience may be different but you would be hard pressed to find anyone in this state that thinks Tenncare was a good idea.

TennCare's troubling history - Nashville Business Journal

Specializes in Oncology/hematology.
Two states have experimented with trying to provide universal access to healthcare using medicare dollars. Oregon and Tennessee. The same arguments used to support Obamacare, lower costs and more access, were used in Tennessee by then governer Ned "well fed" McWherter. The exact opposite happened and at one point half of the state's budget was being spent on this one program alone. Access to care plummeted because providers could not survive on the low reimbursement rates. At one point there was not a single participating orthopedist within a 100 miles of Memphis, a city of a million people. Break a bone in Memphis and you might find treatment in Jackson 90 miles away. Since no one was denied admittance fraudulent MCO's were signing up people who didn't even reside in the state. Oregon's experience may be different but you would be hard pressed to find anyone in this state that thinks Tenncare was a good idea.

TennCare's troubling history - Nashville Business Journal

Hawaii has had statewide universal healthcare for years and it does work!

Specializes in Oncology, Med/Surg, Hospice, Case Mgmt..
Two states have experimented with trying to provide universal access to healthcare using medicare dollars. Oregon and Tennessee. The same arguments used to support Obamacare, lower costs and more access, were used in Tennessee by then governer Ned "well fed" McWherter. The exact opposite happened and at one point half of the state's budget was being spent on this one program alone. Access to care plummeted because providers could not survive on the low reimbursement rates. At one point there was not a single participating orthopedist within a 100 miles of Memphis, a city of a million people. Break a bone in Memphis and you might find treatment in Jackson 90 miles away. Since no one was denied admittance fraudulent MCO's were signing up people who didn't even reside in the state. Oregon's experience may be different but you would be hard pressed to find anyone in this state that thinks Tenncare was a good idea.

TennCare's troubling history - Nashville Business Journal

(BBM) No, no. Not so hard. It only took you 30 minutes. Me! Was lucky enough to be on it many years ago when I was a struggling single parent in nursing school. Not true no one was denied admittance. I know many people who would love to have it, but do not meet eligibility requirements. MCO's don't sign people up for TennCare, the state decides who is eligible.

Specializes in Dialysis.
Hawaii has had statewide universal healthcare for years and it does work!

Only if you have a job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Specializes in Dialysis.
(BBM) No, no. Not so hard. It only took you 30 minutes. Me! Was lucky enough to be on it many years ago when I was a struggling single parent in nursing school. Not true no one was denied admittance. I know many people who would love to have it, but do not meet eligibility requirements. MCO's don't sign people up for TennCare, the state decides who is eligible.

I have been here for the entire program. It has been tweaked since the democratic governor commisioned a study that found it was unsustainable. MCO's were responsibe for signing people up in the beginning and no one was denied. Look at the entire history of the program. Good intentions, but none of the promised benefits have occured.

http://www.memphis.edu/mlche/pdfs/tenncare/TennCare_Bulleted_Timeline.pdf

A state failed at implementing universal health coverage, so therefore, universal health coverage is impossible? Tell that to every other industrialized nation.

And tell it to Massachusetts, which has had for the past six years something very close to the ACA. Almost everyone, and virtually every child, is covered. The penalty for not having coverage is a non-issue.

Tennessee had so many uninsured people flooding into the system that the system was overwhelmed. Why were there so many uninsured in Tennessee in the first place? That was not an indication of success the way things were. You can tell me what administrative and funding issues TennCare sustained. In any case, TennCare may have been in part federally funded, but it is not the ACA, and it was not designed to provide universal coverage. It is a Medicaid program, aimed at those who qualify for Medicaid in general.

I suggest you look toward Massachusetts for a more useful comparison.

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