Health care a right or privilege

lindarn · Apr 6, 2012

Doesn't this country have Universal Education? Everyone gets a free public education, even illegal alien children, who snuck into this country with their parents.

So what is the issue of having a single payer system? Do our elected officials complain about their single payer, government system? That we are paying for. Or Medicare patients?

Medicaid Patients? The American taxpayer is paying for HEALTHCARE FOR EVERYONE EXCEPT THEMSELVES!!

Why is that? Because the insurance companies have brainwashed us into thinking that Single Payer Healthcare is evil, Comminust, and paying for slackers, bums, etc.

They have done a good job of doing that. It is time for the American Public to accept Single Payer Healthcare, like we accept Single Payer Education.

The Insurance companies are only protecting their cash cow, the American Taxpayer. They care nothing for us.

Do we not provide education for everyone, even the education slackers, who cut school, don't do their homework, etc? Retired individuals, who have no children in our public school systems, still pay for education everyone, yes, including, illegal alien children.

It is time this country got got on the bandwagon, and set up a single payer system.

We are slaves to the insurance companies, until we do.

JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Somewhere in the PACNW

MunoRN, RN · Apr 7, 2012

This is not an issue of American health care. This is an issue of humanity. We humans have evolved to the point where health care should no longer be a privilege, but a right. It's a necessity, just as much as food, clothing, or shelter is.

Dear Kandy... you make the point better than I could. If health care is a right, then so must be food, and clothing, and housing. If that is true, then I am not entitled to better health care than you. And you should not be eating better than I. If you live in a 2 bedroom walk-up apartment, then I have no moral right to a 3 bedroom 2 bath home of my own. And... btw... if you can't afford to fill your 15 gallon tank with 4$/gallon gas, then I should have my gas money pinched so you can. I bought a new lab coat two weeks ago. When did you buy your last set of scrubs? Is that fair? Do you have a Littman Cardiology II? How can you say you are egalitarian when I am forced to get by with a plain old (and I do mean old) basic Littman.
You may in fact need the full package of ACA provisions including contraception. I haven't ovulated in 20 years and I do not. However, in the interest of fairness, I must have the same insurance as you. I don't have minor children, but I will pay just as if I did because we must all have the same "access".
When you make the grand claim that everyone has the basic human right to material goods, and when you empower the central government to rule over the distribution of those goods, you don't live in a developed first world country any longer. You live in a very, very, very large Cuba.

Right or wrong., "basic" needs are a right in this country- food, clothing and housing. That doesn't mean everyone gets to have the same house, it just means we'll at least make some minimal effort to make sure everyone has the opportunity for shelter, not necessarily a mansion but at least a shack.

I really don't see how someone's basic right to be free from suffering is the same as your right to the best stethoscope. There is no argument to made for your moral right to a better stethoscope, but there is one to be made that we have some minimal moral obligation to help someone who's dying in front of us.

There are a great many things that my insurance payments go to cover that I have no need for either, but at the same time their are things that I may need covered that others will help pay for. There's a whole 'nuther argument to be had about to what degree we should share risk. In many states for instance, women pay much more for coverage, mainly because they live longer, I wouldn't assume that you'd necessarily come out ahead if you only pay for what you need.

MunoRN, RN · Apr 7, 2012

Similarly, in the ACA, each American must have the same insurance, even though this makes no sense at all. We cannot risk the fact that one American would have a benefit that another does not. Because it wouldn't be "fair."

PPACA does not require each American to have the same insurance, in fact it makes no effort streamline our widely varying insurance plans in any way. This is why the rule to allow consumers to buy insurance across state lines was developed as a group of compacts, this allows for the widely varying plans and plan requirements from state to state.

YOU were the one who said food and shelter are rights, just like health care. Apply the methods of the Affordable Care Act to these commodities. Same insurance for you and me? Similarly, same food as well. And if you and I must have identical policies to provide equal access... then you and I should have the same square footage to live in. Health care, food, shelter, clothing... it's all the same. It's all about justice and equality.
I agree with you. This is completely asinine. But this is how it is done. As soon as you turn a necessity into a right, you create a moral imperative for fairness, equality, justice and sameness of that right to all people. Whenever that has occurred in any culture, it has required forced redistribution.
Welcome to Cuba, amigo. (Didn't Michael Moore tell us the best health care is in Havana? Made a whole movie about it. Why do you think I'm so far off base? I think the facts are on my side.)

Single payer is not communism, not even close. Single payer still allows for varying levels of coverage and depends heavily on for-profit, free market driven competition in care delivery. Medicare is a single payer program and has been around for more than 40 years, yet it hasn't turned us into a communist country.

While Michael Moore did over-hype the Cuban health care system, the fact remains that their statistics are nearly identical to ours, some even better, yet in equivalent monetary value we pay 14 times what they pay per person. We pay 14 times what Cuba pays to be ranked 37th in healthcare by the W.H.O., compared to Cuba's rank of 39th.

Nobody will argue that we don't want to become Cuba, although if we don't reign in our healthcare costs by treating conditions before they get out of control then yes, you're right, we'll become Cuba.

tewdles, RN · Apr 7, 2012

We don't have health care rationing now???

Really?

Does anyone really think that the indigent in heart failure needing a new heart gets the same care as a former elected official?

Do we really think that the medicaid patient requiring a new liver gets the same opportunity at transplant as the rich and famous actor who drinks too much?

Honestly, does the poor woman get the same access to prenatal care and OB services as the wealthy woman?

Does that woman even have the same access to family planning, oral contraceptives, or other preventative health care?

To ration something is to establish a fixed portion...do we really think that this is not happening, as we speak, in our current health care model???

CompleteUnknown · Apr 7, 2012

I would love Universal health care. I could retire! The only reason I'm working is to have health insurance. I love my dogs and I'd be out training every day and most weekends, I could be off running an AKC hunt-test or field trial. Wow. That would be great.
As long as you can PROMISE me there would be no rationing, I could have whatever doctor I want, and he and I could have any care, medicine or tests we thought was necessary. Excluding of course, cosmetic stuff.
Very honestly, I have two artificial knees. I don't know how long those things last. But if in 20 years I need to have new ones put in... I don't want anyone telling me I'm too old.
But for the non-US members here... we do have an obstacle in the form of our Constitution. If we are going to have Universal Health Care, it has to be able to pass Constitutional muster, and the way the Congress went about this Affordable Care Act was dubious on many fronts. A lot of smart people say that a truly Universal Care, with single payer, would be Constitutional. But politically, the Democrats did not think they could get it passed. So they came up with a hybrid approach that satisfies very few.

I honestly don't know what to say to that. Maybe it's just semantics but the concept of something being 'denied' is foreign to me. Things are done or not done based on need and clinical judgement, not based on age. A 95 year old is usually not the same as a 60 year old in terms of their general health, ability to withstand surgery, recovery time, and the likelihood of a successful outcome no matter what the procedure is. I would think that the average 95 year old would be unlikely to do all that well after a knee replacement so it would be a risk/benefit thing. That would be the same anywhere wouldn't it? There comes a point in everyone's life where the risks of certain surgeries or treatments outweigh the possible benefits. That doesn't mean that that surgery or treatment is being denied based on age. It's being denied because the patient would be worse off afterwards. If it was thought that the 95 year old would survive the surgery and their life would be improved by the knee replacement, I don't see why they wouldn't receive it.

In general terms, the government has an interest in keeping everyone as healthy as possible because that keeps costs down and people who are sick aren't productive although I'd like to think there's some altruism there too. The government would rather fund the knee replacement than a nursing home bed because the knee replacement is cheaper. The government would rather fund free annual mammograms and bowel cancer screening for those over 50 so that things can be caught while (hopefully) still with a good chance of cure. It would rather fund free whooping cough immunisation updates for new parents and grandparents in an attempt to prevent the current whooping cough outbreak from getting any worse. It would rather encourage people to manage their chronic illnesses by providing affordable and easy access to doctors and medications than have people presenting to the hospital for what can be managed in the community.

Our system is certainly not perfect but I'm glad to have it.

brainkandy87 · Apr 8, 2012

I tap out, jmqphd. I can't debate with someone that is more stuck in 1955 than Marty McFly.

Exhaustipated, ADN, BSN · Apr 8, 2012

I'm still stuck on the comparisons to the American public education system. We all get public education so we all should get healthcare? Have you seen our education system lately? Since public education was instituted, our education standards have been on a downhill slide. Nowadays, more money seems to go to paying the administrators than to educating our children. Program for music and the arts are being phased out for lack of funding, even when shown to improve our children's thinking skills, while the moneymaking sports are being expanded. Our local high schools can't afford assistant band directors, but the football team has 8+ coaches and asst coaches. Education itself is substandard, our children our only being taught to pass tests (because the schools lose government funding if enough of the "right" kids don't pass), and they're failing miserably when it comes to college because of that.

That's our government-run education system. Is that really what we want for our healthcare, as well?

tewdles, RN · Apr 9, 2012

If we dismantled public education we run the very real risk that only those who could afford it would learn to read, write, and cipher. It would, in no way, benefit our country if the masses were uneducated and only the elite or wealthy could afford even basic schooling. Already, "public" college education is in danger of becoming (again) an expensive and unachievable goal for lower income youth. We certainly don't want that same paradigm applied to our K-12 students, IMHO.

I agree that our priorities need to be readjusted in the school system and we share the disdain for the imbalance of support when it comes to sports vs. other essential education like readin, writin, rithmatic, music, art, shop, etc.

lindarn · Apr 9, 2012

We already are running the risk, that only the rich, or those fortunate to work of companies who provide medical bebefits for employees, will have medical insurance. There is already that discrepancy.

Parents can home school their children, and provide them with a decent education.

You cannot provide the medical care most of us need in the same fashion.

Yes, there is waste in public education, but is there not equal waste in our hospitals? The fancy artwork and piano in the lobby, when there are insufficient nurses at the bedside? The plethora of hospital administration and management when nurses are run ragged from deliberate short staffing?

We can fund a Single Payer System for this country. Our elected leaders lack the incentive to do so.

JMHO and my Ny $0.02.

Lindarn, RN ,BSN, CCRN

Somewhere in the PACNW

ctnjason · Apr 14, 2012

Mark my word...... rather its education, health care, energy, or any major life affecting aspect of life, to fix the problem you must first do one thing: GET THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OUT. I do not know the "solution" to the problems but booting the feds out of medicine altogether would get us off to a great start.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Apr 14, 2012

We already are running the risk, that only the rich, or those fortunate to work of companies who provide medical bebefits for employees, will have medical insurance. There is already that discrepancy.
Parents can home school their children, and provide them with a decent education.
You cannot provide the medical care most of us need in the same fashion.
Yes, there is waste in public education, but is there not equal waste in our hospitals? The fancy artwork and piano in the lobby, when there are insufficient nurses at the bedside? The plethora of hospital administration and management when nurses are run ragged from deliberate short staffing?
We can fund a Single Payer System for this country. Our elected leaders lack the incentive to do so.
JMHO and my Ny $0.02.
Lindarn, RN ,BSN, CCRN
Somewhere in the PACNW

I just participated in a femoral-popliteal bypass on a demented 88 year old! Those of you who take care of vascular surgery patients understand the level of patient participation required in the post-op period. We can assume that this kind of assault is going on thousands of time a day in this country. For those opposed to rationing: There can never be RATIONAL health care without RATIONING. Before we decide how to pay for it, let's stop paying for absurd care. This is going to be really, really rough but it HAS to be done. For the previous poster who worried that single-payor wouldn't pay for her future knee replacements; as long as you're using your knees, why wouldn't they pay. It would be irrational not to keep you moving and comfortable. Now, when the 400 pounder shows up for knee replacements, that's another story. Deal with the problem that's causing your crushed knees, get a gastric bypass, do what you have to do so that your knee replacements will last more than five years. Surgery and ICU is where the big bucks are being sucked into a black hole. I don't begrudge anyone primary care - it's humane AND cost-effective. The sticky wicket comes with big-buck expenditures with very little reward to anyone except the medical-industrial complex.

ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP · Apr 14, 2012

This is a current discussion topic for a masters class. Is health care a right or privilege? What do you think? What do you think about the Affordable Care Act? Do we need universal health care? The answers to these questions will be used during a debate in a Nursing Ethics and Policy course. Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Only in America do people think that health is something a privilege and not a right.

Shame.

We could learn something from Europe.