Health care is not a group service

The American Thinker ^ | August 29, 2009 | Michael Keehn

[Scanian]

Healthcare is a personal service, not a group service such as National Defense, Law Enforcement, and Fire Suppression. Each of those entities do not serve the individual, they serve the community as a whole. The police are under no obligation to protect you personally; if you need that, you need to hire someone. Fire departments suppress fire for the good of the area; if your building needs to be sacrificed so be it. Should you need better protection, again, you need to have your own equipment and staff. The Armed Forces? Well, 9/11 should tell you that even with their protection from foreign threats you are far from personally protected from harm. And should an armed force actually fight on US soil, you would find quite quickly, the fight is not about protecting you personally or your personal property, but protecting the freedom and sovereignty of the US as a whole.

Health Care as a group service is the horrifying tale where the individual becomes subservient to the greatest good of the state, just as in the above examples. The vexing problem with a socialist system for distributing health care is twofold. First each of us, should we not be killed suddenly, will reach a point in our lives where the health care we need to continue to live is either too costly, or does not yet exist. This establishes the paradox of an impossible question.

Philosophically the health care we need to survive cannot be a right if we all must face not having it and dying. The follow on part of that thinking then establishes a question, in the case where cost is the limiting factor: who determines if the care is too costly?

This is the second aspect of the problem. In the socialized system, eventually, someplace, somewhere, sometime, a government representative apathetic to your individual fight for life, will with a rigid budget and rules, make the decision that your life is no longer worth the peoples' effort to support it.

You will argue that private insurers make that call all the time, that statement while having the color of truth is completely false. Who decides what insurance to buy? I do. And in doing so I decide what is covered and what is not, and what limits if any are on the care provided. So the level, scope, and cost of my plan are completely at my disposal. So if I reach a point in my own care that lies outside my coverage, I can look only at myself and the agreements I made. But all is still not lost even in this case, should I decide the cost is worth it, and my assets sufficient, I can personally fund the care. Or I can make the decision to stop, if I decide the inevitable was upon my doorstep. See all of those 'I's in private care?

That is one true dread of socialized medicine. It robs the impossible question of the only humanity that can be offered, that it be I or my family, those most impacted, those emotionally vested, and those that must bear the cost, who make the decision of when to stop.

[wildbill]

But the liberals say that if you are obese then you affect everyone financially by your slob lifestyle. Therefore they intend to slim you down one way or another.

While I could lose a few pounds, at 69 I’m not sure I want to wear a govt. mandated brown badge on my sleeve indicating that some snot-nose kid at a McBurger must decline to serve me a half-pounder with cheese.

I’ll be gone soon enough, but I hate the thought that my grankids will grow up in a world like the book 1984 projected.

WE need change in 2010 and 2012.