Sorry, I should have known that, as an engineer, you like things specified clearly in exact terms.
I totally agree, the government needs to keep its sticky fingers out of the health care business completely.
However, government intervention and control now seems to be a fact of life, and I don’t see that changing any time in the foreseeable future.
I should have stated this explicitly as an underlying premise.
As such, I made my original comment questioning whether the government has any business denying treatment for reasons of lifestyle, and more importantly, over health issues that are unrelated to the nature of the treatment in question.
I believe the government has no business making those decisions, regardless of how the payment actually happens.
My comment was directed to a poster who seemed to be OK with that sort of government involvement. Sadly, it looks like he’s going to get the death panels that he seems to want.
“I believe the government has no business making those decisions, regardless of how the payment actually happens.”
I agree with this, but you and I both know that unless you pay for the service directly at the time, someone is going to tell you what you get.
Most people it seems, even conservatives here, want their stuff. Obamacare, medicare, and all the rest of the government programs have destroyed medicine for everybody in this country. The right answer is to get rid of all of that. But of course that will never happen.
I posed the question that way, not because I’m an engineer, but because I wanted to provoke debate. You ended up much more sensible than I thought based on the comment, but your context explains it.