I, in fact, do. Attempting to quantify human life is impossible for anyone other than yourself. For me, the reality is that I care more about my car than I do your life. I would not sacrifice my car to better your life. I am not bound by an agreement or contract to sustain you or elevate your standard of living. Likewise, I would rather spend the fruits of my labor on myself than on you or anyone else. In fact, I would sooner burn my money just to watch it burn than willingly shell out money to help pay your bills. Similarly, I do not expect you to pay anything for me. And I like the idea of letting hospitals make a profit because I think nurses and doctors should be paid and given incentive for what they do. I like knowing that if I am paying for an operation that I can afford quality. I like knowing my doctor has a reputation for doing what he or she does well and paying more for it. Every single person should not have health insurance. It is not a right. Mankind has existed for longer than health insurance has existed, it is a business. You are not entitled to anyone else's labor. Whoopido!
So what? This is called the broken window fallacy. It is partly why courts exist. It's funny, in business this is called an externality. The BP oil spill in the gulf is an externality. If you are using this argument in your favor you are effectively using the same argument to justify your means . If that's where you stand, fine. I just wanted to point out the hypocrisy. And it shouldn't be? Thanks Captain Obvious. This is what we're arguing against. This is just a lie. Universal health care forces all of us to pay for whoever gets sick. If you want to pay for my health insurance I'm going to start going to the doctor a lot more. That's going to increase the amount you have to pay. That's unsustainable.
The individual accounts are much more complicated, and administrative costs higher for individual vs. corporate accounts. In general, the insurance companies prefer to receive one monthly payment for, say, 1000 people that work for a corporation, than keep track of incoming payments for 1000 individuals -many of whom will not pay on time, if at all. It's the difference between selling cake by the ton, or the crumb. Companies also have their own employee benefits departments, which eliminates many questions and problems that would be directed to the insurance carriers, who would have to pay many more customer service people and systems to handle these issues.
I don't see how the US would impose a health mandate without murdering and imprisoning people. Why would anyone listen to the US if they weren't going to attack people for not abiding by their mandates?
Whether we have a universal system or a private system, you STILL end up paying for other people's health care. Who is subsidizing your health care while you "work with your creditors"? Doctors and nurses still have to get paid... This is like saying if you make drugs legal, people are going to start shooting heroin. Most reasonable people aren't going to go see a doctor when it's not necessary, just because they can. But as far as I'm concerned, go see a doctor more often. Your preventative care will save me money in the long run.
That's the responsibility of the hospital and the people who shop with them. The current system is what we are arguing against. No, this is like saying "If everyone pitches in and pays for heroin addicts heroin they will do more heroin." Want to argue against that? Too bad when people are hurt or think they are hurt they tend to become unreasonable. They become more unreasonable when they don't have to worry about whose money is being spent on them. Right, if everyone went to the doctor every day it wouldn't affect the supply of healthcare or raise costs at all.
Sure, it's between you and the hospital, but where does a hospital get money from? From the people who pay their bills on time. I get what your argument is, it's just not based in reality. You still can't even name one single place where your philosophy has been successful. It's simple, you can't afford health care, but it's being provided to you anyway because doctors have sworn an oath to take care of their patients. So who is subsidizing your health care while you work it out with your creditors? Except not everyone is a heroin addict. EVERYONE uses the health care system, therefore everyone should pitch in. It's quite simple. I don't want you to subsidize my health care, I want you to pay for your own. Health care should be treated like any other part of our infrastructure... you use it, so pay for it. What psychological study is this based on? Or is this just your opinion? So everyone is going to start going to the doctor every day if health care is made universal? Is this happening in Canada? The UK? Australia? Italy? Germany? Hong Kong? Brazil? WHERE is this happening?
^^ i don't use the health care system at all. in fact i refuse to see a Dr for any reason...ever. why should i have to pay for your health care?
I've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes over the past 15 years. Explain to me how YOU would be paying for MY health care? Can you promise me you'll never get injured in an accident? That you'll never get cancer? That you'll never get heart disease? Can you promise that you'll never see a doctor... ever?
If something is "free" it will be used more than if it had to be paid for out of pocket, thereby increasing demand of (insert anything here) and raising its cost. Also competition is stifled in third-party payer schemes because no one shops around to find the cheapest price when they aren't paying for it themselves. I don't need a study to prove that. It's human nature and self evident. The problem is costs, and only the free market can bring costs down. This is what happens when government "provides" services. Their costs rise until its ultimately totally unsustainable. Only the free market can raise the standard of living for all, state socialism has never, and will never work. It's a path to ruin always and forever.
No one believes that universal health care is "free". It's still being paid for out of pocket. The difference is everyone pays for it, because everyone uses it... rather then some of us subsidizing others through higher insurance policies and higher medical bills. There can still be competition in a universal health care system. Pharmaceuticals and medical technology are still produced in the private sector. Doctors can still own private practices. You can still buy private insurance to supplement what the government provides. So again... where is this cheap, free market health care? You can't continue to say something works over and over and over again, without being able to give one single bit of real world evidence other then theory and hypothetical situations. Your chart has nothing to do with anything. Health care costs have been rising for a number of reasons, including advances in technology and people living longer life spans.
the norwegian government has their hands all over its healthcare, why does their healthcare cost half as much as ours when compared to GDP? your faulty comparison doesn't really hold up too long. if you compare other countries, the USA's healthcare system has the least amount of government intervention, and the countries that have full state involvement, in some instances even banning for-profit healthcare companies, why does theirs cost so much less and have clear and obvious better results?
By the way... every. single. one. of these countries has a higher average life expectancy then the US, by at least 2-6 years. So not only do they pay between 70-40% less for health care per capita, they are living 3-8% longer then we do. And they all have universal health care systems. Except for one, that is.
sweetheart your tax money, like the rest of ours, is piss in the ocean. we will never see a dime of that money again. it is not a system of benefits that you pay into (the supreme court has made this clear on no less than 5 occasions) this is what you are missing. socialized anything is theft. it is the few paying for the many. why is it such an alien concept for you that the one should pay for the one? i can't promise you that i will never see a DR. my wife has already told me that she will not honor my wishes that i never receive medical treatment for anything. but i can promise that i will never willingly seek medical treatment or willingly accept a single dime of assistance from any government agency for any of it. some people would rather die than be party to theft. unfortunately moral principles are in short supply in the entitlement generation.
Its not our fault we're 'entitled'. We have these new things called technology these days y'know Why not use it to help Everyone? Is that really such a bad thing?
Why do we spend so much more money than everyone else on health care? It's because as a country we're less healthy then they are! It has nothing to do with socialized vs. private healthcare. Penelope, you said yourself you've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the government. Don't you think that money could be used to make healthier lifestyle choices? The key to a healthier society is... wait for it..... EATING MORE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES! Getting more exercise, having less stress, and drinking more (non-flouride/chemical saturated) water! But with free socialized healthcare for everyone.... who cares what we eat? who cares how healthy you are? Cause if something goes wrong you can just go see the doctor for FREE and get some prescription pills for FREE and skip merrily along. Socialized healthcare would be a horrible mistake... I just hope states can have the option to opt-out of it. I'm losing more and more faith in this country by the day....... But I will never lose all hope. NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So you can't answer the question? How would you be subsidizing MY health care, when I pay my fair share of taxes? Right... I'm suuuure if you broke your arm tomorrow you'd just let your mangled stump hang off of your body for the rest of your life. How would you work? Who would subsidize your crippled ass? I'm sure your wife would be thrilled with that situation!
I can pay taxes and still eat fruits and vegetables. I'm not getting the connection. If eating healthy and exercise were the magic cure all for everything, we wouldn't need a health care system at all.
Yes and? Every business that exists today runs on people paying their bills. Except Government. See the national debt lately? Then doctors making the choice to care for you anyway should be the ones floating your bill. I didn't take their oath, apparently that's a part of theirs. I'm not responsible for the decisions you and they make. I'd rather deal with doctor's who didn't take an oath and only care about making money. At least then I know the system would be honest. And not everyone is a cancer patient. How can you say that everyone should pay in when everyone's degree of care is different? A script for cold medicine should not cost the same as chemo or be forced to participate in the same system. Likewise, you should be able to choose which healthcare system you want to participate in and what level of care you want. Yeah, because our infrastructure is doing so well. Maybe we shouldn't fix something by breaking it more. Also, you do not get to decide who to assimilate in to your infrastructure. If people don't want to do it why do you have such a problem with letting them make their own choices? You. Don't. Know. Better. Than. They. Do. I dunno, set someone on fire and ask them to debate what John Stuart Mills would say about pornography legislation. I doubt it's going to happen. Similarly, tell a child after they fall and scrape their knee they shouldn't be crying. I think proof by induction is simple enough for this one. Why not? If it's free and I wake up with a runny nose why wouldn't I? Especially if I can take a sick day? The fact remains if something is free there is more incentive to use the service than if it is not.