Is access to health care a basic human right: or a privilege?

I'm definitely open to alternatives. Do you have any?

 

Uh lets addres this:

"So it is more moral to let people who can't afford health care to just die from treatable diseases?"


So who said this? Please provide me the quote.

 

The problem with the metrics is, something like "infant mortality rate" depends on how you define it, and they don't define it uniformly. Also, hard left countries like Cuba actually lie. You can twist these stats to make a case for anything.

Forget race, ought to compare the US with countries with huge populations and lots of land and that would be China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and maybe the old USSR. Like I said before, Canada and most of Europe had the chance to play social engineering because they had a friendly country paying for their defense.

I still contend you can only pick two: affordability, access and quality. The trouble with Americans (most of them) is they want it all and that's just not going to happen. When push comes to shove, the American left ALWAYS backs down on single-payer because it dawns on them that they want the same level and quality of healthcare for everybody but the cost of doing so is out of this world.

 

I always wonder where the American concept/approach to medicine fits into this debate. The image is fading, of course, but so many stories, true and fiction, inVolve the medical doctor as the most respected citizen, especially the lone small town doctor. He has a big house, a swimming pool, maybe a tennis court, and often serves on the school board or other entity. So if a young person is bright and ambitious, people start telling him he should be a doctor. Then jokes go forth, such as 'he's going to be a doctor because he likes to spend money.'

It's been an indefinitely long time, long but I remember a few figures showing the money & status thing is far from the same nearly everywhere else. In Italy, for one country, medicine was not a highly paid profession at all.

And today, if you go to your PCP, you will probably be referred to another, and maybe another, and the will make appointments at labs or places, often without even asking the patient anything about time or money (as long as they have coverage of some kind). This makes for bad experiences. All these referrals and tests, under the guise of making sure the condition is not more serious, surely contributes greatly to the exorbitant costs of care, so then it's claimed Americans pay so much but have a lower life span. Well, the reason I haven't been to a doctor in 4-5 years is because of this junk. I began a threadthe last time I went,.about these same things, and said I would have to be near death to go again. So far,.I ain't (near death or been to a doctor).

 

Nobody. It is just what would happen if Medicare suddenly ceased to exist and you left it up to individuals to find an insurance plan that a person with no money can afford. I'm open to alternatives ideas other than government solutions.

 

Medicare is for the elderly and it, too, is insolvent. America has a roughly 20 trillion dollar national debt and leftists worldwide think that we should have some more welfare so that we can follow their failed examples. The American people outside of the one quarter who are leftists do not like government and think that government is unable to deliver on issues of medicine.

 

Not how it works, Einstein. The Constitution works on a principle of enumerated powers. That means that if the power is named in the Constitution, the government cannot do it.

That's the whole point of Article 1, Section 8. AI. S8 lists those things the federal government can do. All powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states and the people.

Ah, straw men. the last refuge of people too stupid to discuss issues.

First nobody is talking about letting people die.

Second, that one thing is immoral does not make something else moral.

 

Oh, maybe the American press is lying but we are hearing that the government lawyers not only said that the infant could not have any other treatment but also that his parents could not remove him from the English hospital to seek treatment outside of England--as if the infant were government property administered by the English political hacks, no?

 

The idea that a bunch of Latin American failed states have better healthcare than the USA is absurd. If that were true, Democrats would be moving to Latin America to live cheap and enjoy good healthcare.

 

But what about all of the Americans who are pouring over the Mexican border to get to Mexico and Central America for their great benefits? Oh, wait....

 

And you know this because...?

 

No, it's not. Medicare is funded by a payroll tax. It is an entitlement. It is not funded from general fund taxes.

I think it is awesome that you can speak for all leftists worldwide and the three-quarters of non-leftist Americans. That's quite a feat.

 

You're wrong there, Medicare is not paid for by only FICA any more:

Medicare is funded primarily from three sources: general revenues (41%), payroll taxes (38%), and beneficiary premiums (13%)

The Facts on Medicare Spending and Financing

and it is insolvent, big budget hog and it's not going to get any better because of all those aging baby boomers.

 

For decades Medicare has been paid for with the Medicare tax (1.45% on employers, 1.45% on employees). A small amount of it comes from FICA funds. The traditional idea of Medicare as originally conceived, now called Medicare part A, gets none of it is funding from general fund taxes. But, you're right, when you add in Medicare part B and the Bush prescription drug coverage (Medicare part D) it turns out that 41% of overall Medicare funding comes from general funds.

I want to say thank you for posting this info, but now I'm depressed to know that so much of Medicare part B and part D come from general funds!

 

Uh...no. Your press if they are saying this are misinformed (I'm loathe as a lawyer to accuse anyone of lying): the lawyers to whom you refer are employed by the Great Ormond Street Hospital Foundation Trust, which is the board administering the hospital where Charlie is being treated. The Trust is autonomous of the UK Government Department of Health although funded by it.

An analogy from my own career: until 16 years ago I did a lot of criminal defence work. Nearly all of this was funded by the Legal Aid Board which in turn was funded by the government. Did that mean I 'worked for the government'? No, I worked for my clients; I was independent of the government and owed my clients a professional duty of care. The judges before whom I appeared were similarly funded by yet independent of the government.

 

That is good. So how do people who cannot afford insurance get medical care? If there is a private way to do this, I am more than happy to get behind it.

Like I've said before, I don't really care where the funding comes from or which ideology is used. If an all private system can deliver quality health care for everyone including the poor, homeless, elderly, etc I am all for that. I don't see how that would work so I am all ears for the solution.

 

First, we get the government out of it. Then, they go to a doctor.

A good first step would be to seek out a local "cash only" doctor. They're usually able to charge just a few dollars for their services. Likewise, you could go to a concierge doctor where, for a fee, which is usually much less than premiums and deductibles (and isn't it interesting that you guys never seem to want to talk about how premiums went up 140% under Obamacare and how deductibles are so high under Obamacare that many working families cannot afford to pay them), and you get unlimited visits and treatment.

Regardless, it's still unjust and immoral to steal from one person because of what your talking points lead you to believe might happen to another.

 

And why would these doctors offer free or virtually free services? Will they need to be like overseas missionaries and raise funds from charitable groups? How many doctors do you suppose would do this compared to the number of people that need these services?

 

They're already doing it. Believe it or not, not all doctors want to hire five or six people just to sift through insurance claims and sit on the phone with insurance companies all day.

We already have cash only doctors. Who charge only a modest fee for their services. You go in and their prices are on a pamphlet or on a big board, like at a fast food restaurant.

Our youngest son just had to have a physical for football. Cost $15. Under Obamacare, on top of the 140% increase in premiums, the deductible would have been 10x that.

We have a "doc in a box" on virtually every corner here, it seems.

Why would they have to raise funds when capitalism allows them to make a very nice living? Because they have lower overhead, they can also invest in better and newer equipment.

We have a doctor friend who is not cash only, but because I'm interest in free market solutions to problems, we've talked about this. He says that the ones he knows make about as much as doctors who do take insurance.

 

That is great that cash only doctors can work in areas that can pay. I'd like to see their numbers and what services they offer. But there are still fees and many folks that cannot pay even those fees. What about them?

And then there is the hospital system as well.