Is Health Care a Right?

Gromit · Feb 10, 2003

Originally posted by OzNurse69
Since when is providing basic health care to every member of the populace, without fear, favour or discrimination, "capitulating to socialist ideas"??

Are you SERIOUS? Do you KNOW what socialism is??

It is a socialistic idea because you are redistributing my wealth w/o my choice, to give to (essentially) everyone. Remember Communism? The idea that everyone had the same? Nobody was better or had more? (well, that was the theory, at least, even though it wasn't truly practiced by those in power).

I have no problem with others having healthcare, and do not put up with discrimination, however, its NOT free, and if you are making a large segment of the populace pay for everyone to have 'free' healthcare, that is a socialistic principle.

Its not rocket science.

JMP · Feb 10, 2003

Gromit

Giving more does not necesarily mean getting less.

Become informed.

semstr · Feb 10, 2003

Gromit, communism = not sozialism.

KP RN · Feb 10, 2003

I can attest to the fact that YES, wealthy people from all over the world come to my city for health care. When they come here, they bring their entourage of employees, extended family members and dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into our local economy.

Money is no object to these people. Facilities here, Baltimore, Minnesota, and other American cities reap tremendous financial benefits from catering to this segment of people.

The reason kings and sheiks (spelling?) come to the USA is they want the best quality of care, and they want it in a timely fashion.

The American health care system is still based upon a concept called competition in a free market environment. As much as nurses are unwilling to accept it, health care is a business, just like food service, the oil business, and the housing industry. All industries are basic to life. Once competetion is eliminated you eliminate motivation to succeed, thereby decreasing innovation, quality of services, responsiveness to patients, and you fall into a slow moving inefficient government bureaucracy.

JMP · Feb 10, 2003

Karen wrote:

Once competetion is eliminated you eliminate motivation to succeed, thereby decreasing innovation, quality of services, responsiveness to patients, and you fall into a slow moving inefficient government bureaucracy.

Karen, living in a place that delivers health care with no competetion- I can tell you that innovation and quality and responsiveness does not suffer. We in Canada have a virbant and healthy health care system. No, it is not a perfect one, but I can tell you that we have everything done in a timely manner. I work in an ICU and everyone gets everything they need.... or they are air lifted to another Canadian center for it.

As long as your health care system is run like a business then your patients will be treated like customers and your health care will be a service to those who can afford it, which is OK except for the millions who can NOT afford it..... and that is the real issue, in my own opinion.

Karen wrote:

All industries are basic to life.

Well, I think that is not true.... I think we could live without many industries..however health care is much more.....it is a life saving operation, it is critical care when you are in a crash, it is LIFE saving! It is basic to society. It is at the core of fair and just society.

KP RN · Feb 10, 2003

Ah, my dear JMP, evidently, you seized the opportunity to take out of context the spirit of the statement "All industries are basic to life." So sorry for the semantic error, I meant it to read "Health care is a business, just like food service, the oil business, and the housing industry. ALL THESE industries are basic necessities of life."

But you knew that, didn't you??

I can see you are very, very proud of your Canadian health system. That's wonderful!!

My husband and I have very dear friends who live outside Toronto (in Mississauga). Funny thing is, when they need basic health care, they drive here to get it! Our gentleman friend lacerated his back on a glass fireplace door, and could not get seen by a doctor! He drove here to get sutured up! Our lady friend, was on a waiting list for over 16 months to get an MRI for a knee injury completed. When she could wait no longer, she came here to the States and was given some NSAIDS medication, which helped tremendously. Why is it that no Canadian doctor bothered to give her medicine??

I have theories:

1. It doesn't matter if you're a satisfied customer or not in your health system, because doctors aren't dependent upon satisfying anybody but the government.

2. Doctors aren't motivated to be thorough or complete because that doesn't build their practice.

3. Minimum care results in minimum expense, which makes the Canadian health system happier, not necessarily healthier.

OzNurse69 · Feb 10, 2003

Originally posted by Gromit
Are you SERIOUS? Do you KNOW what socialism is??

Duh, YES I know what socialism is, it's the "capitulating" part of the phrase that I take issue with......I just included the rest of the phrase to give it some context.

I'm out of here.....to quote another board member...."I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man....."

Stargazer · Feb 10, 2003

I think this article, posted on another thread by maia1212, is a brilliant illustration of everything's that's wrong with medicine-for-profit.

JMP · Feb 11, 2003

Karen

Don't be so defensive! Man oh man..it is tough to debate sometimes!

So, in reading your post am I to assume it is OK by your standards to have millions uninsured and left to pray that nothing happens to them vs. some anecdotal story about a fireplace and and someone's back??

Our health care system and others like it in Britian and Austraila and Sweden and Demark and many other European nations are not perfect and yes, sometimes people have to wait for non-life threatening illnesses and procedures..HOWEVER, no one and I mean no one, goes without anything. No one has to morgage their house for an operation, no one has to worry if their kids get sick or need surgery.

Please consider the outcomes when people do not have access to basic health care. Healthly outcomes are what we all want in health care...right? But you have to HAVE health care to HAVE healthy outcomes.

JMP · Feb 11, 2003

Something to consider:

Canada's Single Payer Health Care System - It's Worth a Look

full text

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/health/healthwatch/canada.html

An economic overview of America's system is: 42 million people are not covered.

According to a Harris Poll of all industrial nations, Americans are the least satisfied with their health care.

According the Harris Poll of all industrial nations, Canadians are the most satisfied with their health care

Ongoing misinformation perpetuates myths about long wait times for care, availability of high-tech care, and the amount and quality of medical research done. There are very small differences between the U.S. and Canada in these three areas. The large differences between the U.S. and Canada are in the tens of millions of people with no coverage or inadequate coverage in the U.S. The differences are also in peoples' losing everything they have and becoming destitute to cover medical expenses in the U.S. They're in the lack of preventive care in the U.S. which results in expensive treatment of illnesses in their later stages.

Gromit · Feb 11, 2003

Originally posted by OzNurse69
Duh, YES I know what socialism is, it's the "capitulating" part of the phrase that I take issue with......I just included the rest of the phrase to give it some context.

I'm out of here.....to quote another board member...."I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man....."

Ever notice how some people just resort to insults?

Why do you do that?

Did I start out by insulting you? (in case you forgot that too, the answer is no)

If you are out of here, then so be it. No real loss one way or the other. You can't have everyone see it your way (when you want to change everything to your point of view) so you resort to insults, just as others resort to saying that some are 'unenlightned'. Curious.

Often those who resort to such quotes as insults (i.e. unarmed opponent) are describing themselves

Even though I started out my youth on a farm here in Florida, I'm hardly just some 'never traveled anywhere' dumb farm hick.

fiestynurse · Feb 11, 2003

The ever useful slur regarding "socialism," with the assumption that must be bad, certainly unAmerican, and maybe even evil.

We can't trust the government to take over our health care system with a national health insurance plan. Let's continue to trust corporate America to provide for us.

Follow me on this one----

A message in response to news reports on the elimination of retiree health benefits by Bethlehem Steel and by Aetna.

Click on this link:

http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-te.bz.beth08feb08,0,3318142.story?coll=b

al%2Dbusiness%2Dheadlines

Bethlehem's workers should have expected this, as should all other workers with retiree benefits promised them by a corporation. After all, they were presumably adults when these deals with their company were done.

For some reason, millions of American workers in their prime were

convinced that their particular company was stronger, smarter nd had longer longevity than does the United States government. Where people learn such civics and economics has always been a mystery to me. But that is the "truth" they knew, perhaps because they had been taught it in high school or on TV or by their local Chamber of Commerce.

Did it ever occur to anyone that when the executive of the ABC Corporation in, say, 1975, promised a worker then that "the company" would purchase him or her $10,000 or more worth of health care 30 years hence (when that promising executive might be dead already), that such a promise was highly dubious on its face? How could that executive possibly have known that the

ABC Corporation would even exist in 2005? After all, it might have been wiped out in 1995 by a competitor in Shanghai or Singapore or Japan. If not that, it might have been wiped out by a future American genius, such as Jerry Levin of Time Warner, who virtually gave away that company to the shareholders of AOL, a fluffy virtual company whose stock would be called "funny money" if it were not so tragically worthless (not even to speak of

the geniuses who ran WorldCom, Enron and so on). If not that, the ABC Corporation might in the future be headed by a ruthless, greedy executive who might look to breaking such earlier promises as a nifty way to shore up the company's bottom line and, thereby, the value of his gazillion stock options--all to the loud cheers of an adulating financial press?

Where did Americans ever gain the impression that, over the long haul, a string of unknown future ABC Corporation executives of a corporation constantly being buffeted by global competition would be a more reliable source of retirement security than the government of these United States? Who teaches them these fairy tales? Can anyone enlighten me on this one?

In 2001, General Motors acknowledged in its annual report to have completely unfunded liabilities for retiree benefits other than pensions (mainly health care) of $34.5 billion. The company's net worth (shareholders' equity) that year was $19.7 billion. It gives you some idea of the financial pressures besetting the company for having taken on this social security system on

behalf of GM workers, current and former. Although Rock Wagoner, the current CEO, is widely acclaimed for his operating skill, GM's stock tanked when earnings were up recently, reportedly over the huge unfunded retiree benefit overhang (health care plus unfunded pension obligations that should,

ideally, have been funded). Can't you see some future GM manager simply throwing in the towel, union be damned? Sitting out a strike over that issue might be worth it to the GM shareholders and the executive's stock options.

I guess I am supposed to feel sorry for the Bethlehem Steel workers who might lose the promised health benefits, or for other workers who surely will in the years ahead. I don't. "Should have respected your government more," is what I would tell them. "Shouldn't call everyone who proposes to have government do what a private corporation cannot possibly do a

"socialist." Now sit back and enjoy your American dream, my friends. And a dream it was, if only you had thought about it."

Are you angry with this slamming of the hapless working stiff who is the victim of corporate abuse?

Are you angry with the corporate leaders who are depriving their hard-working employees of their promised benefits?

Are you angry with the union leaders who failed to assure that trusts that they fought for were fully and permanently funded?

Are you angry with the superfluous vested interests that are thriving as they continue to dispense the "government can't do it" rhetoric?

Or are you angry with yourself for your continued inertia when the need is so great? Do you still want to waist your time arguing about whether health care is a right!

Regardless, do NOT walk away from this message simply fuming. Do NOT simply leave it to others to take up the task of reforming health care.

The average American really does not understand the policy implications of various reform proposals. It will take a massive grassroots effort to educate the public. Each one of us, especially doctors and nurses, MUST be a part of that effort.

The Coalition for a National Health Program (CNHP) is being launched to conduct education and advocacy on the only truly workable, cost-efficient solution: a publicly funded, publicly-administered national health insurance program for the United States. Participation in the coalition will require "only" that you agree to support health care reform by mobilizing friends,

associates, organizations and the community in activities that advance the understanding of this option that is clearly the imperative. The strength of this movement will not be in funds, but in people: you, me, and everyone else that cares about the future of health care in America.

The CNHP website:

http://www.cnhp.us/