Adam Carolla on Healthcare

What an idiot.

First:

When he talks about wrecking your moped and going to County USC and getting patched up, that's not HEALTH care, that's EMERGENCY care.

And sure, everyone has access to EMERGENCY care.

But emergency rooms, free clinics, etc. will patch you up or give you an antibiotic, or stop a heart attack.

But they don't have the resources to treat Cancer, to give follow-up care for the heart attack, or to treat any other long term condition.

That's the difference between EMERGENCY care and HEALTH care.


It may make Adam Carolla feel better to think that everybody gets what they need from charities, but it's not the truth.


If you're going to say that "Healthcare is not a right." then be a fucking man and own it.

"Poor people who can't afford it, should die for lack of ability to pay for it. And I don't care because I'm rich."


To say "Healthcare is not a right, but people get treated anyway" is equivocating EMERGENCY care and HEALTH care. It makes his argument seem rational and less cold hearted. But it's a fallacy.

And it's hiding his elitism behind charity.



But he really shows his true colors at the end when he advocates basically forced sterilization for the poor (shoot 'em up with Norplant).

If you argue, even in a glib offhand remark, for absolving someone's right to reproduce just because their poor, then I'll absolve Adam Carolla's right not to have his money forcibly removed from his wallet to pay for a poor person with Cancer.


Who the fuck listens to Adam Carolla's podcast anyway.

His right to be relevant expired long ago.

 

What about the poor people who can't afford to pay for other poor people's health care?

Higher taxes suck for anybody with higher expenses than income.

 

Maybe it's just his tone, but this guy seems like a real douche.

I wonder how he feels about 'Trick or Treating'...

You expect me to give you a handout? The candy is on the roof. If you're lucky it might trickle down.

 

Not everybody who's against government regulated healthcare gets turned on by trickle down economics.

But he does sound like a douche, i agree.

 

As in all the other recent healthcare threads, I'm not advocating for any particular kind of heatlhcare system.

I'm not saying he's a douchebag because he's rich and doesn't want to pay for poor people.

I'm saying he's a douchebag because he at first seems to be taking a position of "Who cares if poor people cant' afford healthcare." by proclaiming HEALTH care to not be a right.

Fine. I agree 100% so far.

But then he tries to make it seem less cold-hearted than it is by trotting out the fallacy that EMERGENCY care is the same as HEALTH care and everyone has access to EMERGENCY care so therefore everyone has access to HEALTH care.


If we live in a country where people who cannot afford HEALTH care die for lack of ability to pay for it, then fine.

But let's agree to own it.

Rightwingers and Libertarians need to stop saying "America's healthcare system is the best in the world" and "everybody has access to what they need through Emergency rooms and charities".

Because it's the logical fallacy of equivocation. HEALTH care and EMERGENCY care are not the same.


If we don't acknowledge this fallacy and acknowedge that some people die for lack of access, then the healthy are living in a fantasy world thinking that everyone gets what they need, when it is demonstrably not the case.


We have the best healthcare system in the world. If you can afford it.


If you can't afford it, you're better off living in Canada or the UK or France or shit even Cuba. Because at least in those places, you are guaranteed to get the same as everybody else.

But in the US. if you are poor, you don't have access.

So for the poor, we don't have best he system in the world.

The most profitable maybe. The most advanced absolutely.

The most effective? Only if you only gauge effectiveness as how it treats the 85% that can afford it and completely disregard the 15% that cannot.


Healthy Americans all like to feel better about being in the privileged 85% by saying "people without insurance can just go to a free clinic or the emergency room and get treated".

But it's not true.

And for someone who cannot afford it, our system is not the best.


Just admit that. Live with it. Be happy that [you] are in the 85% that has access and pray that you never find yourself in the 15% that doesn't.

Don't go preaching to the 15% that lack access that our system is "better" than those other countries because it more fair to the privileged 85% because they aren't financially accountable to the other 15%.

Because it's only better in subjective ways that the 85% define as being better.

For the other 15%, it might as well be Zimbabwe.

 

How is Emergency Medical care not Health Care? They heal you, and go about trying to make you healthier therefore it is Health care.

 

Or if you're a congressperson or a foriegn diplomat.

 

opinions are like assholes...

i do agree with his stance on poor people having kids, though. they just shouldn't.

 

What's the difference between fixing a problem with the wiring in your house, and calling the Fire Department when it catches fire? They're both about you not dying in your house.

What's the difference between getting your car fixed after an accident and changing your oil? They're both making your car drivable.


Emergency care is a subset of Healthcare. All Emergency care is Healthcare, not all Healthcare is Emergency care.

Everyone has access to the subset Emergency Care, but not to the meta-category of Health Care.

Healthcare is getting a lump checked out BEFORE it metastasizes and turns into stage 3 lung cancer.

Emergency care is showing up to the hospital unable to breath.


And if you show up at the Emergency room unable to breath because of stage 3 lung cancer, then they will just give you oxygen until you are strong enough to leave or keep you comfortable with pain killers until you die.

They won't give you 6 months of Chemo or radiation.

 

You should know by now that libertarians favor a free market health care system, as opposed to ours where private corporations lobby congress for public subsidies.

The state is the largest consumer in the health industry.

It is still nice that people have that privilege though.

Not sure if free clinics are legal or prominent due to sue-happy retards, a lot of people argue for deregulation so that we can have free clinics again.

Not really though.

But I agree that Adam Corolla is an idiot.

You'll never inspire social change if you don't rely on hyperbole.

 

I'm not really trying to inspire Social Change just arguing Semantics