Cheney would "probably be dead by now" if not for his federally funded health care

pickledpepperRN · Dec 16, 2007

Of course you are smart enough, and if not, we've discussed it before.
The free market works and works well providing you: food, entertainment, transportation, telephones, clothing, appliances to make your life easier, hundreds of ways in hundreds of items, daily.
It works and works well. You get to CHOOSE the best combination of price and quality for your lifestyle. The gov't doesn't provide you with one size fits all of any of this stuff. Who would want it? Everytime that's been tried, it's been an utter failure
You want to pretend that healthcare is different. It is not. The best combination of quality and price, for the most people possible, is the free market. A true free market doesn't like to leave anybody behind. EVERYBODY is a potential customer. THAT is why census data has shown that even the poorest Americans routinely have access to some surprisingly sophisticated technology, such as cell phones and cars.
We have discussed how the free market is superior, even in healthcare: orthodontics and laser eye surgery are examples. But, if you want a good COMPARISON, I pointed out to you in the past the difference between the prices and availability of the heavily regulated prescription drug market and the OTC market. With the OTC market, you have astounding choice at competitive prices. With the prescription market, you have limited choice (the gov't uses your doc as a gatekeeper) at astounding prices. They are both regulated. The difference - being less regulated, the OTC market gives more freedom to choose. Even with a less-than-optimal free market menaced by the gov't, the OTC market nevertheless thrives. When was the last time you paid a hundred bucks a month for an OTC drug? I thought so. The same companies make all those drugs. Why do they treat both markets so differently? The answer is simple: they actually have to compete more in the OTC market. And. It shows.
~faith,
Timothy.

OK, I finally think maybe I get what you are thinking.

Let me know if I "get it".

There is no place where the free market is working to provide all needed healthcare for those who need it for life and health.

But if somehow the government(s) would leave companies and providers alone somehow everyone could afford all the healthcare they need.

What am I missing? It doesn't make sense to me.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Dec 17, 2007

OK, I finally think maybe I get what you are thinking.
Let me know if I "get it".
There is no place where the free market is working to provide all needed healthcare for those who need it for life and health.
But if somehow the government(s) would leave companies and providers alone somehow everyone could afford all the healthcare they need.
What am I missing? It doesn't make sense to me.

You aren't missing a thing. You nailed it.

The problem with healthcare today is that the gov't has rooted out the free market. It is the basis of the anti-competitive policies that has resulted in our employer provided health system and the gov't protected insurance companies that supply that care. The left wishes to hold up those Health Insurance Inc companies as all that's bad about the free market. Free? No. It is an example of all that's bad when you let the gov't dictate what you can have.

As a result, the free market has been rooted out of a marketplace that depends upon the gov't to price the free market out. In doing so, 47 million Americans are also priced out of the market.

There is no place the free market is providing that care BECAUSE of gov't interference. The government IS THE PROBLEM. Giving it more control will not make things better but far worse.

THE GOV'T IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

It never was.

The free market is the best mechanism to provide the best combination of quality and price to the most people. And businesses want to reach EVERY LAST CUSTOMER.

You might make healthcare 'universal' with gov't. What you are trading, in quality and access for almost everybody, as a result, is nothing short of criminal. A 'fair' share in a dismal outcome is neither fair nor compassionate. To anybody.

The only practical solution to our current healthcare problem is to rid ourselves of the problem. THAT problem is gov't interference. Rid the system of gov't mandates and tax breaks to business to provide you with an insurance policy you could not afford on your own (by design) and WATCH the free market flood people with the power of AFFORDABLE CHOICE.

The gov't is the problem. How could it possibly also be the solution?

~faith,

Timothy.

pickledpepperRN · Dec 17, 2007

First I'm wondering how this never done no system could be accomplished.

Then where is the middle ground?

I don't want to eliminate standards. Legal regulationsa regarding licensure and competence of those of us providing the care, sanitation, and other requirements to protect patients from cheap quacks.

A man came to the ER after cleaning a garage with rat droppings. The next day he was diaphoretic and SOB. He wanted to be tested for the Hanta Virus.

He tried to refuse and EKG.

Loudly he said, "I did not come here for expensive tests. I am the customer. I will not pay for the EKG!"

He was in CHF with ST elevation.

He never believed the ER doc until his physician came and explained to him that he was having a heart attack.

Should patients just be customers? Should they choose what care they want?

As a patient advocate I am concerned about this.

ukstudent · Dec 17, 2007

A man came to the ER after cleaning a garage with rat droppings. The next day he was diaphoretic and SOB. He wanted to be tested for the Hanta Virus.
He tried to refuse and EKG.
Loudly he said, "I did not come here for expensive tests. I am the customer. I will not pay for the EKG!"
He was in CHF with ST elevation.
He never believed the ER doc until his physician came and explained to him that he was having a heart attack.
Should patients just be customers? Should they choose what care they want?
As a patient advocate I am concerned about this.

Are you saying that under the system you advocate that patients would no longer have any choice in medical care. At the moment patients have the right to refuse any med or treatment. Would this be gone?:trout:

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Dec 17, 2007

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.676:

Here is the the bill that lies before the Senate. It does address quality and methods of payment.

Jolie, BSN · Dec 17, 2007

Should patients just be customers? Should they choose what care they want?
As a patient advocate I am concerned about this.

Patients already are customers with the right to refuse any intervention they don't want. Our current system allows that choice, and any future system should also. Regardless of the method of payment, no one has the right to force unwanted care on anyone.

I think the opposite is more of a problem in our current healthcare system: patients demanding care they don't need (largely because they are not directly responsible for payment.)

mscsrjhm · Dec 17, 2007

The current 'health plans' are exactly as said: pre-paid health care. (Most people cannot afford actual health insurance.)

With these plans, non-emergent surgery requires thousands of dollars prior to the surgery. Doctor visits requires large co-pays, as does testing and medication. Requirements are very stringent, imposing additional monies by refusing payment when subscribers fall into loopholes. Many people do not buy these plans because they cannot afford it, and it is not worth the large percentage of their paycheck to pay for a healthcare plan that doesn't provide healthcare.

Millions upon millions of people buy these plans in good faith, only to find themselves using the same form of healthcare used by the uninsured: ER visits, putting off essential surgeries or procedures, doing without medications, and wondering why.

These are the 'responsible' people. But it isn't working.

Universal healthcare for all will someday be in the same pages of history as child labor laws, women's sufferage, free public education, civil rights, and many other societal issues. Change is inevitable, and it must change for the good of all.

20, 30, or 50 years from now we will be telling our grandchildren how tough times were when we couldn't go to a Doctor and (as my mother always said-) "we did without".

Nope, it is time to progress. It won't be easy, and it will take multiple lifetimes to work out the kinks, but it is time to start the process and continue the growth of this country.

IMHO

Mschrisco

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Dec 17, 2007

Universal healthcare for all will someday be in the same pages of history as child labor laws, women's sufferage, free public education, civil rights, and many other societal issues.

I disagree.

To expect that you can expropriate from ME to give to somebody else, unearned, is a form of slavery. My earnings are the result of MY labor. However much you determine should belong to someone else, unearned and ungiven by me, as their 'right', THAT quotient is how much of a slave you believe that you can legally make me out to be. So, the goal becomes, not what is right, but rather, how much can you get away with before I rightly refuse and rebel at the concept being made a slave to a mob's rule and whims? The ash heap of history is filled with such failures and evils.

THAT is where stealing my production at the point of a gov't gun and giving it unearned as a 'right' to those that did not produce it - THAT is where such ideas will be associated, with like horrors, such as the tyranny and slavery that it is.

A social policy that embraces sloth as a human right and penalized production as a selfish creed is an unspeakable evil. A social policy that believes that it is the rightful role of gov't to determine how much production should be redistributed from the producers and given, unearned, to willful non-producers is nothing short of tyrannical.

To think that you will get the same amount of production from me and the rest of the producers, no matter how much you steal - that is simply wishful thinking. The world doesn't work that way. To think that you will reduce the number of the 'needy' by rewarding their self-induced need with the fulfillment of their every whim as a 'right' - that is simply wishful thinking. You will create legions of people that learn the lesson you wish to teach: that being productive is somehow morally questionable and being needy is morally superior.

It is not moral to grant, as a human right, sloth and inactivity. It is not moral to protect 'the people' from themselves and their need to work. It is not moral to steal in the name of 'the greater good'. The ends do NOT justify the means. Good doesn't work that way.

NOBODY is entitled to my earnings but me. NOBODY has a 'right' to my earnings but me. Not even if you vote it. Our Constitution absolutely FORBIDS such votes, if you care to read it. Why?

BECAUSE IT IS IMMORAL.

And, worse, uncompassionate, for everybody involved.

NOBODY has a 'right' that involves making unearned demands upon my labor and my life. Nobody. If this is such a great idea, then do it without my inclusion. IF my inclusion is required to make it so, then you are properly suggesting that I am to consider it nobility to be your slave to 'the greater good'. But, what if I do not find nobility in the role of the slave that you would vote for me? What IF - - - I - - - REFUSE?

What if I refuse? What would you do? What could you do? In THAT event, I could rightly assume the role YOU created as the noble needy. How could you deny me? You'd HAVE to help me, or you'd be dishonest to your own moral code: my need is paramount to the cause. It doesn't matter WHY I'm in need; just that I am. What happens when you so penalize production that ALL OF US choose to become needy and nobody produces? If it's a dirty crime to make money, then shouldn't we all stop trying? Shouldn't we ALL go on welfare? It's my right, isn't it?

Aren't I thusly entitled, by your own moral code?

"As a basic step of self-esteem, treat it as the mark of a cannibal any man's DEMAND for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is HIS property." - Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged" page 970.

~faith,

Timothy.

mscsrjhm · Dec 17, 2007

We do all agree that something needs to be done, and soon. It will be an emotional journey toward that something, lots of ups and downs.

Mschrisco

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." Socrates

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Dec 17, 2007

What if I refuse? Don't you think this happens, daily, in smaller ways?

Have you ever not worked overtime, because that extra shift would change your tax status and you'd end up paying more than it was worth to earn the production of your work?

Have you ever outright cheated on your taxes? No? Ever push the boundaries? A little?

Have you ever changed the way you do things: have babies, buy houses, sell items, because of the tax advantages or disadvantages to be had. For example, I have chastised my wife that we really, truly, didn't need the tax break of a child born this year; the baby could have waited, for tax purposes, until her due date next year. But that doesn't mean I won't claim the deduction and the credit to be had. Right?

Have you ever not changed jobs because of the implications of losing/changing your health insurance? Did you know that insurance is provided by your employers at the bribe of a gov't tax break?

Isn't your maximum production shaped and changed, everyday, by the pointed gun of the government? Don't you comply to those demands, effectively limiting your potential economic output?

Don't you, in a variety of ways, REFUSE to be the gov't stooge; it's slave. Don't you resist?

How much can the gov't get away with?

How much?

Or, to sum this up in an easily recognized axiom: you cannot tax yourself into prosperity.

Too bad, it sounds like so neat of an idea - everything, for nothing.

~faith,

Timothy.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Dec 17, 2007

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." Socrates

"(The mystics) agreed that morality demands the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind, that the moral and the practical are opposites. . . (They) agreed that no rational morality is possible, that there is no right or wrong in reason - that in reason there's no reason to be moral. Whatever else they fought about, it was against man's mind that all your moralists have stood united." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged., page 926

Your quote is exactly on point and frankly, I was shocked and surprised that you would use it. But, it makes so much sense. In order to get people to willfully neglect their own self-interest in favor of granting it unearned to the undeserved, you must first convince them that there is no use in using their brain. If you think about it, this view of morality is what makes no sense.

And so, the counter-argument is easy: Think!

I'm not trying to be rude or violate TOS. This, however, is a crucial premise to the concept that you don't own your own labor and that you should feel morally guilty about not wanting to be enslaved into the forced service of others. Such a concept depends on the premise of: Use your FEELINGS; not your MIND. Or, as ably put by our former President: "I feel your pain!" Don't think; act. That is a concept relevant to the discussion.

~faith,

Timothy.

mscsrjhm · Dec 18, 2007

Perhaps this one:

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."

Will Rogers

(Gotta love Will Rogers)

Mschrisco