Posted on 11/18/2007 8:41:55 PM PST by Jim Robinson
You do realize that 40% of our wages go to taxes as it is. If we bump it up for healthcare, soon the taxpayer will have nothing left.
But then, that's what socialists would love, isn't it?
If you think this government program won’t be rampant with fraud, greed, graft, corruption, profiteering and pocket lining, not to mention plain old government abuse, bribery, power grabbing, meddling, intrusion, ineptitude, incompetency, inefficiency, etc, running up the costs you’re nuts.
I agree there will be a big fraud problem with this socialist program, but I wanted to add that law-abiding practitioners would rather not enroll simply because they get paid less, not more. That's one of the reasons I retired at 65---working more, getting paid less. Besides, I hate bureaucracy.
Good luck with that argument—I’ve used it for the last time with the Mitt fans on this board, and I’ve finally given up. I guess their definition of socialized medicine is “if someone else does it; if MY guy does it, it’s conservative fiscal policy.”
MA has nothing to do with it; Romney was what he is all along, he just tries harder to hide it now.
ie, socialism. We need to dump any caps and socialist programs and return to free markets, not compound the problem by adding even more government involvement.
The worst thing that ever happened with health care in this country was the government getting involved in it. Driving up the costs of care and expanding the bureaucracy. For all the folks that think Socialized medicine is so wonderful, ask them if they want the people who brought us the DMV deciding our medical needs.
-—Where is that written in the constitution? -—
When the Constitution was written slavery was legal, women couldn’t vote, and health care as we know it didn’t exist.
Now health care can make a substantial difference in the number of years we live and in the quality and productivity of those years. Health care is not a commodity on the same order as a big screen television or new automobile.
Where is the constitutional amendment that authorizes socialized health care?
I just saying that health care has improved and become important to the point where we may very soon be debating a constitutional amendment on this point.
Hopefully, Republicans would say no to authorizing socialism. It’s antithetical to freedom. Doesnt work anyway. Socialism sucks!
I agree.
Heaven on earth---I'd come out of retirement for that.
IMHO the money wasted with socialized medicine is bad enough, but the control the govt would have over our lives would literally be overwhelming.
I'm so tired of people who insist this is soooooo much better than the Socialists' alternative.
When will they wake up to the fact that this is just the camel's nose getting in the tent, and once the gubmint gets into the Healthcare business FORCING THE COST ON ALL OF US, there is no stopping the creeping socialism taking over 1/7th of the economy, period.
Hillarycare is what you will wind up with, where we all pay for OTHERS' insurance, and wealth redistribution continues on its merry way, while people just let it happen by the boiling-the-frog method, thinking SOMEHOW, it's only going to get us all "a little pregnant".
Keep the government out of our lives, as the Constitution provides, and let EACH be responsible for themselves to choose and to not choose what THEY want for themselves and their families.
We'd all like to be driving that BMW, Cadillac, Mercedes, Porsche, etc., but that doesn't mean it's a "right", nor does it mean that the gubmint should make my neighbor pay for it!
OOPS!
I just posted the same concept before I read your post.
LOL
Needless to say, you are right on the money! Self-determinance and personal responsibility are the bottom line, just as you say.
>>
We’d all like to be driving that BMW, Cadillac, Mercedes, Porsche, etc., but that doesn’t mean it’s a “right”, nor does it mean that the gubmint should make my neighbor pay for it!
>>
Look, I know we all get carried away in posts, but this is somewhat extreme.
Health care is not a luxury.
The waving of hands in the air and demanding that I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S HEALTH CARE sounds all very conservative and macho, but what does it do to address pre-existing condition exclusions? Answer: Nothing.
The problem here is conservatives have jobs with health benefits and do not understand that this is not the norm. It is the exception.
Group plans are EXPLICITLY not allowed to exclude pre-existing conditions. Individual or non group plans are. If you have a child with a chronic illness, you can’t get that illness insured and you can’t pay for it yourself.
Is the conservative position going to be that the child must die? Is that position going to win any elections?
The CRITICAL truths in this debate are twofold — that conservatives have jobs and have zero visibility into the reality of the problem, and that the pre-existing exclusion for chronic illnesses Is Not A Rare Thing. This is the norm. There has to be a mechanism in conservative thought to help the unfortunate when the unfortunate are the norm.
Adjusting insurance risk profiles by insisting that all the population be in the cost / benefit mix is a HUGELY less tax demanding solution than a single payer, government administered plan. Something has to be done for the NORMAL case of no group plan and pre-existing conditions within the context of conservative thought and the crossing of one’s arms, pushing one’s lower lip out and saying NO is not going anywhere at all in the debate.
Having been accused of presenting a "macho" argument (one that argues that individual choice and responsibility are not an issue to those who support burdening others with one's expenses), it will be very difficult to reach you.
On the captioned text above; I'm sorry, but I missed the part of the U.S. Constitution that requires taxpayers to fund the expenses of an individual when such expenses exceed his ability to pay. That's the point, no matter at what point in history or at what "evolution of the medical system" you use; please show me where in history taxpayers were legitimately required to fund someone elses' medical expenses (I know that Medicaid and other entitlement programs have been created in social engineering efforts that have been foisted upon the public, but that does not mean they are supported by the taxpayers themselves; it merely means that the socilaization of America has evolved over time by government fiat).
In rural America, if you fell off a horse and broke a limb, you could ride to the country doctor to get the bones set or whatever, and you paid the doctor. Now, with modern medicine, you are complaining that you think the neighbors should pay for the doctor care for you (or your family), as they have a "moral obligation" to do so? On what basis do others have the responsibility to pay for your problem? The analogy of having others pay for your Cadillac was to show that because you see it as a "need", it's automatically the neighbors' expense, whereas I see it as your problem and your expense. That's the perspective I have, and if that's not compassionate or sympathetic, well, that's the way it goes. I'll pay my way, and you pay yours....it's a simple concept. If you can't afford it, why is it MY problem?
Well, a properly conservative perspective is entitled to ask if one person cannot afford health care for a chronically ill child, then why is it the legal responsibility of the public at large to fund it. Certainly all conservatives are properly on guard against attempts to legislate charity, like this.
But . . . it already happens and it is very explicitly in the Constitution. The farmer in Washington state who might wake up one morning and face a Canadian military base on his property cannot fund defense of that property. He cannot alone buy tanks and fighter aircraft. He would have to turn to the US taxpayers for help defending his own personal property and well-being. So when you state:
“I’m sorry, but I missed the part of the U.S. Constitution that requires taxpayers to fund the expenses of an individual when such expenses exceed his ability to pay.”
I point to this in the very first paragraph of the Constitution:
“. . . provide for the common defense, “
And if you look just one word beyond that ending comma you find:
“. . . promote the general Welfare,”
and thus we have explicit text in the Constitution that justifies legal imposition or a requirement for conservative thought to embrace the idea of subsidizing the general physical welfare or wellness of the populace in a minimal way beyond zero.
“. . . provide for the common defense, “
Common defense? Defense against what? Expenses? Food? Clothing? Shelter? Gimme a break....a health care expense is NOT what this paragraph EVER was intended to address, but rather INVASION or ATTACK on the County. That argument you posted is a non-starter.
And if you look just one word beyond that ending comma you find: “. . . promote the general Welfare,”
LOL....the "general" welfare? An individual's personal expenses are "the bold general welfare
Is my Cadillac the "general welfare" that is to be provided also?
You can twist the words the same way the Liberal/Socialist-agenda judiciary has been doing to instill so many special interest "rights" that CLEARLY are not provided in the U.S. Constitution that you want, but any common sense plain reading does not support a welfare state.
Socialism IS the welfare state, where individuals lack of responsibility and EVERY "need" is supposedly required to be provided by the Gubmint (which means in effect the redistribution of income from those who have, to those who have not).
If you want to have a socialist medical system, don't even try to justify it by citing non-applicable contorted interpretations of the Constituiton; because the provisions you seek are clearly not there and never were intended to BE there.
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