Is Health Care a Right?

Q. · Feb 6, 2003

My point was that rather than send me PM's about how glad "they" are that someone is standing up to the "rightside" of this board...

Standing up? To two people? I think you are villifying us which I don't think is fair or accurate.

Secondly, I also think you are inaccurately describing the political bend of the board. I, as well, get PMs stating that they agree with me but don't have as much energy, if you will, as I to continue to post.

Q. · Feb 6, 2003

As a side note.... as I read these boards, especially this thread it is so apparent to me ( must be to others also) that so many of the debates fall on the left and right of issues. Health care, as an issue, seems to have the right side cheering for people working for their own health care and the working poor, old and sick can fend for themselves..... while the left tries to argue that every one deserves health care as a fundamental right, regardless.

I also don't think this is accurate either.

I can't speak entirely for Kevin, but yes, I applaud responsibility. But more so to the point of this healthcare debate that no one has answered, and Kevin has asked numerous times in various ways, when does it end? Where do those "rights" stop? At what point do you realize, "huh, these rights that I grant Group A are actually infringing on Group B's rights. " When do you stop? What health care is a right? Preventative services? Education? Flu shots? Or state of the art technology? Transplants? Grafting? Fetal surgery? Who pays for that?

Nurse Ratched, RN · Feb 6, 2003

I don't think it's fair to suggest that this is a right/left issue. I'm considered pretty left wing on a lot of issues by most of my friends. Actually, my stance is that I don't want gov't in my business, personal or otherwise, but neither do I expect gov't to play parent (divying up our allowances...)

researchrabbit · Feb 6, 2003

Originally posted by SmilingBluEyes
it's the respectful way in which you submit your opinions that grabs me the most. That I appreciate. ----IMO.

Thank you -- that is a wonderful compliment.

JMP · Feb 6, 2003

Susy

To answer your question- when does it stop? Once again, I remind you that I live in an enviroment that fosters and supports universal health care. I work in a large teaching hospital, in an ICU.

Every person in this country has a right to health care... and gets it. The system is set up so that all reasonable efforts to keep people healthy and when they do fall ill- they are treated. No one goes without, worries about a future if faced with illness and people have surgeries. Some things, like plastic surgeries, are not covered, of course. Citizens wishing elective surgeries, like a face lift, for example, pay out of their pockets.

Flu shots are covered by our health care system, as are check ups, hospital visits, etc. Granted it is not perfect. Our system has flaws. However, as I have stated many times, to me, it is peferable over seeing my fellow citizens without coverage.

I am proud of our system and I am proud to work in the system. I believe in preventaive medicine, screening, mother-baby visits, etc etc. Donors ( accident victims mostly) have come to our ICU and are harvested for transplants- all covered by our universal health care system.

I believe in responsible health care. Canadians need to treat our system with respect. Some abuse it, some use it more than others, some hardly ever go near it.....but it is always there.

Where does it end? Hopefully with universal health care for your great nation. IT would be a wonderful start------not end.

kmchugh · Feb 6, 2003

Originally posted by JMP
Where does it end? Hopefully with universal health care for your great nation. IT would be a wonderful start------not end.

JMP

This is the thing that worries both Susy and I, and you still ducked the question. It would only be the beginning. But then, maybe the question wasn't clear enough.

It might be a wonderful start. But where does it end? What percentage of my salary taken away as taxes is enough? Currently, I pay about 40%. When can I say take no more? 50%? 75%? When? The question here is "what is the top limit (in percentage) that my salary can be taxed to support social programs?"

You see, this is the real issue to me, and I think to Susy as well. We have lived with various welfare programs and such in this country since at least the 1960's. It started under President Johnson, and his Great Society programs. The idea was to "level the playing field, and give everyone equal opportunities to get ahead." Since then, we have seen the tax rates go up, and there is always someone with just one more entitlement, that without which, the poor are kept poor, and the playing field is not level.

I have on this thread been called cold hearted and selfish. Fine, I can live with that charge, if ANYONE could back it up. If anyone could show me what is heartless about what I am saying. Why is it heartless to say I'm paying enough for others, now I want to keep the rest of what I earn for me and my family? And does there ever come a point where that is an OK thing to say?

Or, can I never say that? Must I, in the name of equality, contribute an ever higher percentage of my salary in order to help those "less fortunate" than I? And if that is what I must do, who helps me when my contribution gets so high that I can no longer provide the kind of life for my family that I have worked so hard for? Who provides for my retirement when I can no longer save anything towards that? Who helps my kids when the majority of my money goes towards helping less fortunate families?

And if you have a limit, what do we do when we reach that limit, what happens when someone comes along with just one more entitlement, without which there can never be equality? That is the real question, the real practical problem that those who support one social program after another can never answer. There is ALWAYS one more. When do we say enough?

Kevin McHugh

JMP · Feb 6, 2003

Well Kevin, creating limits is part of a just and reasonable society. To approach the universal health care issue with "when and where will it end" is short sighted.

It would be an enormous task to create a system for your country like the one here....the Canadian universal health care system has been in place since the 1930's. I live in a province that taxes quite heavily, everything ( with the exception of food ) is taxed at 15 percent.....so every item is taxed. THen I of course have payroll tax. These taxes pay for health care, social programs, roads, education ( which is heavily subsidised here in Canada, government, etc etc) Yes we pay alot of tax. However..... it is the society overall that I am paying for...knowing everyone is looked after. I never would want it any other way......

THe system works here. It is something to be proud of. Similar systems are in place in Great Britian, Austrailia and parts of Europe (Sweden has a wonderful system)

fergus51 · Feb 6, 2003

Wasn't medicare later than that? I thought it was the 60s?

fergus51 · Feb 6, 2003

Kevin, I think everyone gets to decide that. If we had a mandatory insurance plan (you want a car you have to have insurance, same principal with a body) we could lay out what is covered and everyone would have to contribute financially. Say it covers the same thing as a basic health insurance plan and none of the fancy frills. Immunizations, ph, home care, NP/GP visits, basic generic drugs, basic surgeries (can be outlined specifically to exclude the expensive ones).... whatever.

Stargazer · Feb 6, 2003

I've stayed out of this thread 'til now, because it seemed to me to reach the point of futility many pages ago; nevertheless, it is still going on, and some effort seems to be taking place to restore a modicum of civility.

An economist on my other BB posted an excerpt today from a book called Darwinian Politics by Paul Rubin. Although the poster in question was using the book to discuss attitudes towards international trade, it struck me as very appropos in terms of this discussion and some of the points that JMP and fergus have been trying to make about universal health care or a national health service.

...The characteristics of the environment in which humans evolved must be considered. The relevant time period [called the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, or EEA] is the Pleistocene, the period lasting from about 1.6 million years ago to about 10 thousand years before the present (BP)... Intellectually modern humans have probably existed for about fifty thousand years, with the first forty thousand spent as hunter-gatherers. Selection pressures for certain behaviors and preferences would have led to reproductive success in that environment. The argument in this book is that modern humans have retained some of those preferences and may exhibit some of those behaviors.
One economic point is important in understanding the evolved nature of political preferences. In the EEA, there were probably very few gains from trade, except for exchange between men and women. That is, resources and incomes were probably relatively fixed, with little possibility of value increasing exchange or production, such as we see all around us today. Therefore, we may not be well adapted to think intuitively in terms of gains from trade. This explains why the results of the economic analysis of trade - that all parties gain from trade, that free international trade is welfare maximizing - are counterintuitive...
The result is that humans in many cases now tend to base decisions on zero-sum thinking when other forms of analysis would be useful... Our minds are built for understanding a zero-sum society...

Indeed, even when people do engage in mutually beneficial exchange, this mutual benefit does not motivate them. Rather, each aims at maximizing his or her own benefits. The fact that for trade to occur, both must benefit is irrelevant for each individual... Thus, there is no reason to expect that an innate mental module to measure gains from trade has evolved... Moreover, mental mechanisms work against this recognition of mutual benefit. Even in mutually beneficial trades, an aspect of competition is found. Both sides want to engross for themselves as much as possible of the gains... Therefore, in engaging in trade, an important consideration is to avoid being victimized. As a result, mental modules aimed at policing transactions have evolved. These modules focus on the zero-sum aspect of trade - that aspect dealing with the terms of the bargain, rather than the gains...

I do not want to be read as implying that trade is artificial or that people must be taught to exchange... People engage in mutually profitable exchange when it is possible, and they do so automatically. But for the reasons discussed above, I do believe that people do not have an innate understanding of the benefits of such exchange... This understanding is an example of something that can be learned but is not innate.

I think what fergus and JMP have been trying to say is that universal health care is not necessarily a zero-sum game. Your giving some, or more, does not necessarily equate to your getting less. It may be conceptually easier to look at health care as a pie to be divided up, but perhaps that's not entirely accurate.

To use just one example, by improving preventative or maintenance mental health care for currently underinsured populations, we could end up spending significantly less on issues like homeless shelters, law enforcement, jails and prisons, acute psychiatric ER visits and inpatient admissions. To use another, how much money could we save in NICU care by making affordable prenatal care more available?

I'm not saying this is THE answer, but I think it's a concept worth exploring. Are any of you who are arguing the "con" side at all open to the possibility that this is not necessarily a zero-sum issue? Why or why not?

JMP · Feb 6, 2003

Stargazer

Wow. Exactly.Agree.

Giving more does not necesarily mean getting less.

You are right on the message.

Sally_ICURN · Feb 7, 2003

Healthcare for all is a freedom. Let's forget about asking if it is a right. A single payer healthcare system in the United States will not cost a tax payer more, but that is what those who stand to lose something big would have you believe. What a single payer system would do is redirect the money that is already in the healthcare/social pool and stop the overhead by for-profit companies that drive up the costs of healthcare. It would not be managed by, only regulated by the government. It would be run by a single entity who's goals would be delivering quality, affordable, accessible patient care...not money. It would be less expensive AND everyone will have basic coverage, but will it ever happen? Change is on the horizon and it's coming to the forefront very very soon. It will be interesting to see what takes place in the coming months.

These sites are PACKED full of information and very easy to read and navigate. Please check them out.

http://covertheuninsuredweek.org/

http://coveringtheuninsured.org/

http://www.uhcan.org/

It's frustrating that so many people are taken for a ride by the propaganda that politics puts out there. If only people could open their minds enough to see that healthcare in this country is not about the welfare of it's citizens, it's about money...not the taxpayer's money...the money that's exchanged in the political and corporate scene. With all due respect, the monetary exchanges and politics hurt people like Susy and Kevin so much more than the financial hurt that would be thrust upon them personally to help ensure health coverage for every single person in this country. I'm genuinely concerned and sad about that and know that there are millions who share the views that Susy and Kevin put out here.

Facts:

There are 41.2 uninsured people in the US. 10 million are kids.

The uninsured represent 14 percent of the population.

Eight out of 10 uninsured Americans are from working families

9.2 million uninsured people have family incomes at or below the federal poverty level.

13.8 million have incomes under $25,000.

12.7 million have incomes between $25,000 and $49,999.

6.4 million have incomes between $50,000 and $74,999.

5.5 million have incomes that are at least $75,000.

The ten leading Managed care companies hauled in profits exceeding 1.5 billion dollars last year.

Pharmaceutical's = 20 billion in profits-more than auto and airline companies combined.

Corporate CEO's take in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in salary in addition to the millions in stock they hold in their companies.

What we have DOES NOT work. When will it end?