The American Government shutdown

[Hazard]

Memo to the Supreme Court: Health Care Is Not a Right

By Richard M. Salsman

One need only read the legal briefs or hear the oral arguments made before the U.S. Supreme Court last week on the constitutionality of just one provision in the 2700-page ObamaCare law (the mandate to buy health insurance) to recognize that both sides blithely assume that "health care is a right." The law itself and many of the Justices also assume it. Thus most everyone in this alleged "debate" is merely quibbling over how much the rights of health care providers will be violated - for that's what a mythical "right to health care" entails.

In fact, health care is not a right. It's a valuable service provided by intelligent, hard-working professionals with years of painstaking education and training, people who, like other Americans, deserve equal protection under the law, people who, like other Americans, have a right to their own life, liberty, property and the pursuit of their own happiness. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug-makers, and health insurers are no more "servants" of the masses, or even of those in need of health care, than are businessmen, bankers, teachers, journalists, or truck drivers servants of those who need their services. If you want to pay for the services of health care providers, simply do so; if you can't afford it, try to negotiate a discount, or pay by installments, or seek access to private charity; but you have no "right" to take from health care providers what they're not willing to supply.

Notice how everyone claims to have "standing" in the ObamaCare case, a genuine interest or right at stake, yet nowhere found "standing" at court are the producers of health care - the doctors, nurses, hospitals, researchers, drug-makers, or health insurers. They are presumed to owe a "noble" and selfless duty (i.e., their time, talent, income and profits) to patients; they are not at liberty to work on their own terms, but only on those dictated by demagogic politicians, or decreed by power-lusting regulators, or demanded by needy patients. The producers are to be mere means to the ends of others. Consumers allegedly have a "right" to what health care providers provide, a "right" to say what will be provided, when, and at what price.
Note to sentient beings who might still be participating in the ObamaCare "debate:" this is a form of slavery.

Instead of political theorists and legal jurists rejecting out of hand the legitimacy of slavery - whether of health care providers or of those who are forced to purchase something - only the scope and degree of the slavery is being "debated" before America's highest court, as if it's a civilized question to begin with. Also, the debate arises under the supposedly sacrosanct tradition of "deliberative democracy," meaning mob bull sessions (or see the placard-wielding screamers camped out on the steps of the Court). You see, if the majority mob today wishes to get something, they simply get to get it, even if in getting it they enslave others. That's "democracy," or what Winston Churchill labeled "the worst form of government, except for all the others," but which is, in fact, the worst form of government period. Yes, people, the Germans voted for the Nazis.

Some or all of ObamaCare may be upheld or struck down when the Supreme Court renders its decision in June, but regardless, notice how no one has bothered to rebut the claim that health care is a "right." As such, there will likely be no sound remedy in the Court's decision; providers' rights will still be violated. But observe: the rights of health care providers have already been broadly and routinely violated for nearly five decades now - since at least the mid-1960s - also with no legal redress. It happened because government gradually took over much of the health care sector. In 1960 less than 5% of health care spending in the U.S. came from government; today more than 50% of it does so. With such funding always come "strings attached;" in this case, strings have been weaved into a noose around the necks of health care providers.

It is revealing that almost no one complained about these ever-tightening nooses around the necks of health care producers - least of all the appeasing producers themselves - yet now there's much gnashing of teeth among consumers of health care who only now are realizing that they too will be forced to suffer the consequences of socialized medicine, that they too will suffer mandates, that they too will face the faceless Washington bureaucrats intent on ignoring them as they suffer and die in lines waiting for rationed care, as occurs routinely in Britain or Canada. Only now are the so easily-deluded masses realizing that as consumers they depend on producers, that if, as consumers, they encourage, vote for and condone the enslavement and impoverishment of the producers, there will be nothing left for them to purchase, at any price. Welcome to the real world, to the world of rational self interest and the Law of Supply and Demand; you can hate these principles of robust life, if you wish, Almighty Consumers, but they (and reality) cannot be conned, not even by the confidence men who tell you " health care is a right," even as doctors go on strike.

Recent complaints about excessive and exorbitant health care costs invariably fail to acknowledge that the problem itself derives from the false and immoral claim that "health care is a right," for that's what animated the push for Medicare and Medicaid back in the mid-1960s. Only after those schemes took hold did the costs of health care and health insurance race ahead of general U.S. price inflation. As mentioned, in 1960 less than 5% of health care spending in the U.S. came from government, but after decades of Medicare and Medicaid, combined with an aging population (a trend which private-sector insurance actuaries have easily and prudently handled, but politicians and HHS bureaucrats will not), that share has increased to more than 50% of all such spending. As in the case of college tuition and housing, so also in medical care: when government foots more and more of the bill, the bill grows more and more, and disproportionately so relative to other prices. When people then complain about higher costs, government boosts subsidies; in short, having caused the fire, it "cures" it with more gasoline; the arsonist plays the fireman who saves the day.
How much has U.S. government subsidization of health care disproportionately boosted its cost since Medicare and Medicaid were adopted in 1965 (and subsequently expanded)? In the three decades before 1965 (from which we get the oldest available price series for medical care), the cost of medical care in the U.S. increased by an average of 3.3% per year, while the broad CPI rate rose by an average of 3.0% per year. In the 1960s this miniscule differential (0.3% point), due mainly to higher quality health care, was used - along with the claim that "health care is a right" - to "justify" public subsidization of health care for the elderly and indigent. The result? In the three decades after 1965 the cost of medical care in the U.S. skyrocketed by 7.7% per year, while the broad CPI rate rose 5.5% per year. Quality improvements played some role in this, but quality also has declined in places, with less and less access to an increasingly socialized system; subsidies have played a huge role in the medical cost inflation seen since 1965; price increases only accelerated in the wake of Medicare and Medicaid, and they out-paced the CPI rate even more so than previously. Instead of scaling back these two culprits, Congress over the years only expanded them, to the point where it now piles on mandates and controls, allegedly to "cure" a systemic menace which was caused in the first place by its own subsidies and decrees.
Instead of treating the root cause of the ailment of out-sized health care inflation, health care "reformers" over the years have demanded still more subsidies and even broader coverage, which has only further inflated costs. In response, reformers demanded "cost containment" policies, like the HMO act (mid-1970s), or the price controls imposed according to DRGs ("diagnostic related groups") in the 1980s. Every economist knows that inflation plus price controls cause shortages, but policymakers ignored the principle; in time a growing number of people had to go without health insurance coverage, and many started arriving at emergency rooms, as free loaders, demanding care. They too were said to have a "right" to health care, so in 1985 Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which required hospitals to admit and treat arriving patients even if they couldn't pay. Instead of requiring these free-loaders to pay their way, ObamaCare mandates that everyone else pay the tab, and surrender their health care freedom in the process.

Many other atrocities are embedded in the ObamaCare law beyond the mandate to buy health insurance. There are mandates that health care providers not charge 'too much," or make "too much" money, plus mandates that they charge loss-making prices, and decrees that insurers accept applicants with pre-existing medical conditions, or charge them no more than anyone else, plus mandates that they insure "children" up to age 26 as part of their parents' health insurance plans. Those who are challenging ObamaCare before the Supreme Court don't seem to care a bit about the mandates imposed on producers; they're bothered only by the mandate imposed on consumers. The right-wing lawyers and Attorneys General claim to be stout defenders of the U.S. Constitution, but they're sure selective about it; they assume that there's some inherent conflict between the producers and users of health care, that not all parties to trade in the sector deserve equal protections under the law, because, at root, they share the belief of ObamaCare's left-wing defenders that health care is a "right," thus that suppliers have no rights, but only a duty to serve, as serfs.

The claim that health care insurers somehow deserve the above-cited controls because they "benefit" from the ObamaCare mandate that consumers purchase policies is absurd, just as it was absurd in the 1960s when it was claimed that doctors and hospitals would "benefit" from Medicare and Medicaid subsidies, and absurd that pharmaceutical firms would "benefit" from the prescription drug benefit that was added to Medicare in 2003. In all these cases providers were worse off after the subsidies than they were previously, because with such funds come strings attached, strings which constitute nothing less than the insidious bonds of servitude.
Defenders of ObamaCare before the Supreme Court last week argued from precedent, reminding the justices that there were already scores of mandates embedded throughout America's semi-socialized health care system - including the mandate that you pay Medicare/Medicaid taxes out of your paycheck, and EMTALA, which (as discussed above) requires hospitals to admit and treat non-payers who show up at emergency rooms. True enough; such injustices certainly do exist. But why should they persist? These existing mandates also violate rights, and violate the Constitution too, and all the while are contributing to the very problems complained of in the current medical system. So why retain them, let alone praise them?

How brazen are these statist lawyers, these alleged defenders of 'justice" who unabashedly cite existing injustices in current medical legislation as a valid pretext for intensifying and spreading still further instances of injustice. The Supreme Court, instead of interpreting existing medical mandates (injustices) as a legal "justification" for condoning still more mandates (injustices), should be asking the defenders of ObamaCare for a detailed list of those mandates currently embedded in scores of existing U.S. laws, and then strike them all down at once, as a violation of the 13th Amendment's prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude. But don't hold your breath. This Court, like all those before it over the past century or so, will likely condone the violations of property rights and contract freedom that are rife throughout ObamaCare.

The Court long ago stopped protecting economic liberties, on the ground that capitalism was "unjust," and that democratic mobs had a "right" to mooch and loot whatever they wished from an "elite" and right-less minority. Likewise, today's Court believes in a "right" to health care, so it'll likely endorse the ultimate contradiction, the one all statists condone, despite its illogic and immorality - that there's a "right" to violate others' rights.

[Hazard]

^^^^ a good read on how America has gotten into this healthcare mess

[Hazard]

This is the last viewpoint/write up ill post. This goes into what I've been saying about healthcare here in America. It's not a born right..... But this explains the American way and what rights we do have guaranteed.

It's worth the read for those who are actually interested in America's history and future.

Health Care Is Not A Right
By Leonard Peikoff (1993), updated with permission by Lin Zinser (2007)

Delivered under the auspices of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine at a Town Hall Meeting on Health Care in Costa Mesa, California, on December 11, 1993

Introductory Note by Lin Zinser: In today's proposals for sweeping changes in the field of medicine, the term "socialized medicine" is never used. Instead we hear demands for "universal," "mandatory," "single-payer," and/or "comprehensive" systems. These demands aim to force one healthcare plan (sometimes with options) onto all Americans; it is a plan under which all medical services are paid for, and thus controlled, by government agencies. Sometimes, proponents call this "nationalized financing" or "nationalized health insurance." In a more honest day, it was called socialized medicine.


Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea--which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical--it does not work--but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral. This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice. I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan--not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it--to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance.

What is morality in this context? The American concept of it is officially stated in the Declaration of Independence. It upholds man's unalienable, individual rights. The term "rights," note, is a moral (not just a political) term; it tells us that a certain course of behavior is right, sanctioned, proper, a prerogative to be respected by others, not interfered with--and that anyone who violates a man's rights is: wrong, morally wrong, unsanctioned, evil.

Now our only rights, the American viewpoint continues, are the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. That's all. According to the Founding Fathers, we are not born with a right to a trip to Disneyland, or a meal at McDonald's, or a kidney dialysis (nor with the 18th-century equivalent of these things). We have certain specific rights--and only these.


Why only these? Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want--not to be given it without effort by somebody else.

The right to life, e.g., does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions, the products you make, to keep them or to trade them with others, if you wish. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they voluntarily agree.

To take one more example: the right to the pursuit of happiness is precisely that: the right to the pursuit--to a certain type of action on your part and its result--not to any guarantee that other people will make you happy or even try to do so. Otherwise, there would be no liberty in the country: if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness. Your "right" to happiness at their expense means that they become rightless serfs, i.e., your slaves. Your right to anything at others' expense means that they become rightless.

That is why the U.S. system defines rights as it does, strictly as the rights to action. This was the approach that made the U.S. the first truly free country in all world history--and, soon afterwards, as a result, the greatest country in history, the richest and the most powerful. It became the most powerful because its view of rights made it the most moral. It was the country of individualism and personal independence.

Today, however, we are seeing the rise of principled immorality in this country. We are seeing a total abandonment by the intellectuals and the politicians of the moral principles on which the U.S. was founded. We are seeing the complete destruction of the concept of rights. The original American idea has been virtually wiped out, ignored as if it had never existed. The rule now is for politicians to ignore and violate men's actual rights, while arguing about a whole list of rights never dreamed of in this country's founding documents--rights which require no earning, no effort, no action at all on the part of the recipient.

You are entitled to something, the politicians say, simply because it exists and you want or need it--period. You are entitled to be given it by the government. Where does the government get it from? What does the government have to do to private citizens--to their individual rights--to their real rights--in order to carry out the promise of showering free services on the people?

The answers are obvious. The newfangled rights wipe out real rights--and turn the people who actually create the goods and services involved into servants of the state. The Russians tried this exact system for many decades. Unfortunately, we have not learned from their experience. Yet the meaning of socialism is clearly evident in any field at all--you don't need to think of health care as a special case; it is just as apparent if the government were to proclaim a universal right to food, or to a vacation, or to a haircut. I mean: a right in the new sense: not that you are free to earn these things by your own effort and trade, but that you have a moral claim to be given these things free of charge, with no action on your part, simply as handouts from a benevolent government.

How would these alleged new rights be fulfilled? Take the simplest case: you are born with a moral right to hair care, let us say, provided by a loving government free of charge to all who want or need it. What would happen under such a moral theory?

Haircuts are free, like the air we breathe, so some people show up every day for an expensive new styling, the government pays out more and more, barbers revel in their huge new incomes, and the profession starts to grow ravenously, bald men start to come in droves for free hair implantations, a school of fancy, specialized eyebrow pluckers develops--it's all free, the government pays. The dishonest barbers are having a field day, of course--but so are the honest ones; they are working and spending like mad, trying to give every customer his heart's desire, which is a millionaire's worth of special hair care and services--the government starts to scream, the budget is out of control. Suddenly directives erupt: we must limit the number of barbers, we must limit the time spent on haircuts, we must limit the permissible type of hair styles; bureaucrats begin to split hairs about how many hairs a barber should be allowed to split. A new computerized office of records filled with inspectors and red tape shoots up; some barbers, it seems, are still getting too rich, they must be getting more than their fair share of the national hair, so barbers have to start applying for Certificates of Need in order to buy razors, while peer review boards are established to assess every stylist's work, both the dishonest and the overly honest alike, to make sure that no one is too bad or too good or too busy or too unbusy. Etc. In the end, there are lines of wretched customers waiting for their chance to be routinely scalped by bored, hog-tied haircutters, some of whom remember dreamily the old days when somehow everything was so much better.

Do you think the situation would be improved by having hair-care cooperatives organized by the government?--having them engage in managed competition, managed by the government, in order to buy haircut insurance from companies controlled by the government?

If this is what would happen under government-managed hair care, what else can possibly happen--it is already starting to happen--under the idea of health care as a right? Health care in the modern world is a complex, scientific, technological service. How can anybody be born with a right to such a thing?

Under the American system you have a right to health care if you can pay for it, i.e., if you can earn it by your own action and effort. But nobody has the right to the services of any professional individual or group simply because he wants them and desperately needs them. The very fact that he needs these services so desperately is the proof that he had better respect the freedom, the integrity, and the rights of the people who provide them.

You have a right to work, not to rob others of the fruits of their work, not to turn others into sacrificial, rightless animals laboring to fulfill your needs.

Some of you may ask here: But can people afford health care on their own? Even leaving aside the present government-inflated medical prices, the answer is: Certainly people can afford it. Where do you think the money is coming from right now to pay for it all--where does the government get its fabled unlimited money? Government is not a productive organization; it has no source of wealth other than confiscation of the citizens' wealth, through taxation, deficit financing or the like.

But, you may say, isn't it the "rich" who are really paying the costs of medical care now--the rich, not the broad bulk of the people? As has been proved time and again, there are not enough rich anywhere to make a dent in the government's costs; it is the vast middle class in the U.S. that is the only source of the kind of money that national programs like government health care require. A simple example of this is the fact that all of these new programs rest squarely on the backs not of Big Business, but of small businessmen who are struggling in today's economy merely to stay alive and in existence. Under any socialized regime, it is the "little people" who do most of the paying for it--under the senseless pretext that "the people" can't afford such and such, so the government must take over. If the people of a country truly couldn't afford a certain service--as e.g. in Somalia--neither, for that very reason, could any government in that country afford it, either.

Some people can't afford medical care in the U.S. But they are necessarily a small minority in a free or even semi-free country. If they were the majority, the country would be an utter bankrupt and could not even think of a national medical program. As to this small minority, in a free country they have to rely solely on private, voluntary charity. Yes, charity, the kindness of the doctors or of the better off--charity, not right, i.e. not their right to the lives or work of others. And such charity, I may say, was always forthcoming in the past in America. The advocates of Medicaid and Medicare under LBJ did not claim that the poor or old in the '60's got bad care; they claimed that it was an affront for anyone to have to depend on charity.

But the fact is: You don't abolish charity by calling it something else. If a person is getting health care for nothing, simply because he is breathing, he is still getting charity, whether or not any politician, lobbyist or activist calls it a "right." To call it a Right when the recipient did not earn it is merely to compound the evil. It is charity still--though now extorted by criminal tactics of force, while hiding under a dishonest name.

As with any good or service that is provided by some specific group of men, if you try to make its possession by all a right, you thereby enslave the providers of the service, wreck the service, and end up depriving the very consumers you are supposed to be helping. To call "medical care" a right will merely enslave the doctors and thus destroy the quality of medical care in this country, as socialized medicine has done around the world, wherever it has been tried, including Canada (I was born in Canada and I know a bit about that system first hand).

I would like to clarify the point about socialized medicine enslaving the doctors. Let me quote here from an article I wrote a few years ago: "Medicine: The Death of a Profession."

"In medicine, above all, the mind must be left free. Medical treatment involves countless variables and options that must be taken into account, weighed, and summed up by the doctor's mind and subconscious. Your life depends on the private, inner essence of the doctor's function: it depends on the input that enters his brain, and on the processing such input receives from him. What is being thrust now into the equation? It is not only objective medical facts any longer. Today, in one form or another, the following also has to enter that brain: 'The DRG administrator [in effect, the hospital or HMO man trying to control costs] will raise hell if I operate, but the malpractice attorney will have a field day if I don't--and my rival down the street, who heads the local PRO [Peer Review Organization], favors a CAT scan in these cases, I can't afford to antagonize him, but the CON boys disagree and they won't authorize a CAT scanner for our hospital--and besides the FDA prohibits the drug I should be prescribing, even though it is widely used in Europe, and the IRS might not allow the patient a tax deduction for it, anyhow, and I can't get a specialist's advice because the latest Medicare rules prohibit a consultation with this diagnosis, and maybe I shouldn't even take this patient, he's so sick--after all, some doctors are manipulating their slate of patients, they accept only the healthiest ones, so their average costs are coming in lower than mine, and it looks bad for my staff privileges.' Would you like your case to be treated this way--by a doctor who takes into account your objective medical needs and the contradictory, unintelligible demands of some ninety different state and Federal government agencies? If you were a doctor could you comply with all of it? Could you plan or work around or deal with the unknowable? But how could you not? Those agencies are real and they are rapidly gaining total power over you and your mind and your patients.

In this kind of nightmare world, if and when it takes hold fully, thought is helpless; no one can decide by rational means what to do. A doctor either obeys the loudest authority--or he tries to sneak by unnoticed, bootlegging some good health care occasionally or, as so many are doing now, he simply gives up and quits the field." (The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, NAL Books, 1988, pp. 306-307)

Any mandatory and comprehensive plan will finish off quality medicine in this country--because it will finish off the medical profession. It will deliver doctors bound hands and feet to the mercies of the bureaucracy.

The only hope--for the doctors, for their patients, for all of us--is for the doctors to assert a moral principle. I mean: to assert their own personal individual rights--their real rights in this issue--their right to their lives, their liberty, their property, their pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence applies to the medical profession too. We must reject the idea that doctors are slaves destined to serve others at the behest of the state.

Doctors, Ayn Rand wrote, are not servants of their patients. They are "traders, like everyone else in a free society, and they should bear that title proudly, considering the crucial importance of the services they offer."

The battle against socialized medicine depends on the doctors speaking out against it--not only on practical grounds, but, first of all, on moral grounds. The doctors must defend themselves and their own interests as a matter of solemn justice, upholding a moral principle, the first moral principle: self-preservation.


Concluding Note by Lin Zinser: In addition, we must join the doctors in their defense and in our own. Hospital administrators, nurses, physical therapists, health insurance companies, and patients must speak out against these plans, on moral grounds, as a matter of justice. If the doctors become slaves, so will we all.


Leonard Peikoff is the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute, and the author of The Ominous Parallels and of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, the definitive presentation of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. He is currently at work on his third book, The DIM Hypothesis.

[Hazard]

President Obama believes that health care is a right for every American. This is a perversion of the Founding Fathers' idea of rights. There is an abundance of problems associated with ObamaCare but not enough attention has been paid to the dangerous philosophy behind the law. The underlying problem with ObamaCare is that too many Americans now see health care as a human right rather than a good.

The Declaration of Independence states that we have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That doesn't mean that other people should be forced to sustain our life or make us happy. Many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the negative rights listed in the founding document. A negative right is a right to not have something done to us. The right to not be killed, the right to not have our property confiscated and the right to not have our speech punished are negative rights.

These legitimate rights do not place obligations on anyone except to not infringe on the rights of others. Otherwise, people are free to do as they please.

Progressives have invented so-called positive rights that are listed nowhere in our founding documents. A positive right is a right to something such as health care, housing, and clothing. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims that everyone has a right to health care. Of course, there's no such thing as free health care. The government has no money of its own which means that it cannot "give" anyone health care without first taking away something from someone else.

There is a big difference between a need and a right. Health care is a basic need that everyone is free to pursue. This means that the government cannot infringe on our right to pursue health care but no one owes us health care. Health care is a good just like food, clothing, and shelter.

Positive rights contradict the very notion of rights. The so-called right to health care infringes on negative rights by imposing forceful obligations on taxpayers and health care providers. What about the right of the taxpayer to keep the fruit of his own labor? Should a doctor ultimately decide who he treats--or should he be forced to treat everyone whether he likes it or not? To say that we have the right to someone else's time and services takes us back down a dark path in American history.

A right is not something someone gives you- it's something that no one can take away.

Those who reject the idea that health care is a right are not dismissing the importance of health care. Quite the opposite is true. Health care is too important to be left to the incompetent federal government. Due to a lack of proper incentives, government generally destroys everything they touch. The government has never been able to run anything more efficiently than the for-profit private sector.

Anti-ObamaCare activists are often accused of being selfish, greedy people. That isn't the reality. ObamaCare was passed under the guise of compassion. But as the late economist Murray Rothbard said, "it is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost." There is nothing virtuous about spending other people's money without their consent, no matter how well-intentioned the cause. Where's the compassion for taxpayers--who are forced to foot the bill?

Theft is seen as immoral in practically every society on earth. Most of us would never dream of stealing money from a neighbor to give to someone less fortunate. Why then do some people demand that the government do it for them? Private charities that run on voluntary donations are the best way of helping the poor obtain health care, not government welfare that relies on force and coercion.

President Obama seems to believe that he can simply repeal the economic law of scarcity. There will never be enough of anything to satisfy all human wants. People can complain about the alleged unfairness of reality, but the fact is that health care will always be a scarce good. No laws can change that fact.

Bad ideas have bad consequences. The idea that health care is a right has led to more government involvement in health care. Government now pays for more than 50 percent of all health care costs in the United States. In order to stop government control and increase freedom, Americans must reject the idea of so-called positive rights. Health care is a valuable good that would be better left to the free market.

[Hazard]

Here's an idea America.....


Marijuana is inevitably going to be legalized for recreational use. It's already started happening.

Legalize it federally..... Take the tax revenue, the savings from not incarcerating 800,000 people a year, the savings from not raiding grows...... And use that money to fund a government insurance plan for the needy and those with pre-existing conditions.

The money will never run out..... Everyone will be covered..... And no civil rights will be violated.

Lmfao

[--->>405<<---]

did u actually read all that haz??

[Fcastle357]

did u actually read all that haz??

Lol it will take euro four years to read that.

[Hazard]

did u actually read all that haz??

I did actually...... Lmao. I've known about those - that's why I argue my point so much lol. If we follow our constitution - what's happening now is wrong.

You can't argue with the constitution - so why is this going thru?

Its all very interesting at the very least

[Hazard]

Lol it will take euro four years to read that.

He, of all people, should read them. He's always preaching European ways but doesn't understand why we do things the way we do.

[Fcastle357]

I did actually...... Lmao. I've known about those - that's why I argue my point so much lol. If we follow our constitution - what's happening now is wrong.

You can't argue with the constitution - so why is this going thru?

Its all very interesting at the very least

It's going through because the constitution is being interpreted by people with agendas. It's not a right but its now just a tax. If you don't get insurance you pay a tax. That's how it got through the courts. So very wrong.

[Hazard]

It's going through because the constitution is being interpreted by people with agendas. It's not a right but its now just a tax. If you don't get insurance you pay a tax. That's how it got through the courts. So very wrong.

Yea.... The whole bill is under the guise of compassion. The govern doesn't give a fvck about your uncles diabetes. They want their money.

[bobnknob]

Views on healthcare aside. I don't see how one can shut down a whole country. What about border protection? What about Federal police? This just seems crazy. In aus there a clauses in the governor general and the queen to dissolve parliament if they have "lost faith" in them. Does the usa have anything like this?

Pretty much the only thing that got shut down is the national parks. Obama and all of the other people in office are still getting paid. The shut down is a joke. I think its rediculous that the democrats and republicans cant sit down and work this out.

And obama care gives way too much power to the government. The government is supposed to be for the people and they are forcing this upon us.

"When it comes to government, less is best"

[Hazard]

From a VA website


The debate about whether the price increases are Obamacare's "fault" are ongoing, but as working citizens of the nation, the take-home is that prices are increasing, and more and more people are likely to need to depend on Medicaid or the Obamacare insurance exchanges to get coverage. Administrators have already been caught off guard by the expense of covering the "uninsurables" (individuals with pre-existing conditions). The 5 billion federal dollars set aside to support those people is already running out.

[Java Man]

Great posts.

Most of the congressional membership didn't even read the full text of this act. It was pushed through in a big hurry right before a recess, by democrats merely to make obama look good, so he could have his 'signature' legislation and make good on his campaign promise no matter how ill conceived or poorly implemented. If I remember correctly not a single.republican voted yes.

Now we have a much larger mess than we did before. Not only that, we will have to undo all of that which had been implemented once the reality hits the public of how unamerican and what a terrible idea this is.

As with all things academic we could debate or agree forever. The question is, what can we do about about it? What ARE we going to do about it?

Edit: I don't want to make a republican vs . Democrat issue out of the above. My point there with the votes is just to show that this cannot be called the will of the people when the people were only half represented. I say put this act to a popular vote on the next federal ballot. Lets see what the people really want.

[ppwc1985]

You know what really needs done in this country, get rid of most of congress, senate. Everyone has access to the net or has a smartphone, set it up to where we the ppl vote on all these issues instead of our supposed representatives. That way we will know the will of the people as in WE THE PEOPLE.

[Flagg]

Ok but if you lived here you would pay only 12k or so for ur healthcare..... And thats with a badass plan with a low deductible if any. Your employer here may actually pay for your healthcare......

To each their own...... Right? Should everyone be the same? What's good for one may not be good for the next. We have the freedom to choose - we aren't just told "this is how it is" - until now actually.

But if I'm correct that 70k he pays covers more than hospital treatment and will go on lots of other things like emergency services, public transport, defence, welfare, etc..

[Euroholic]

You know what really needs done in this country, get rid of most of congress, senate. Everyone has access to the net or has a smartphone, set it up to where we the ppl vote on all these issues instead of our supposed representatives. That way we will know the will of the people as in WE THE PEOPLE.

I have often thought of this. Sounds like the only way to have a "true democracy" the only problem is there are so many stupid radical leftist people out there who should not be able to vote. Rhodesia comes to mind. Only smart working people of society could vote

[Euroholic]

Just Close the thread down flagg. there happy with no healthcare no sense of Community. I have to chuckle with the posts about how health care is not a right. But lets make it a right for every one to own a ar15

[Euroholic]

Everyone is different i suppose with different believes.

[DSM4Life]

No believes healthcare is a right until they become sick or try and get coverage with a preexisting condition. I know a lot of people in that boat and it's not pretty. Would I'd pay higher taxes to provide healthcare for all? In a heartbeat.

[Euroholic]

No believes healthcare is a right until they become sick or try and get coverage with a preexisting condition. I know a lot of people in that boat and it's not pretty. Would I'd pay higher taxes to provide healthcare for all? In a heartbeat.

Im not the biggest enthusiast of family and people but im still happy about paying my taxes to help others.

[lovbyts]

No believes healthcare is a right until they become sick or try and get coverage with a preexisting condition. I know a lot of people in that boat and it's not pretty. Would I'd pay higher taxes to provide healthcare for all? In a heartbeat.

The only problem with that is the money would never go where it should.
Most all our taxes go into a GENERAL fund and used and their discretion, 90% never accounted for.

Ever wonder why that school levy never built those new libraries or bought the computers they were supposed to? Ever wonder why the hiked road tax never seems to fix the roads? Most all taxes are BS and just helps line someones pocket.

Healthcare is a mess but Obamacare is not the answer. If it ends up being the tool to fix the solution by finally forcing a change then great but it itself is going to make things worse.

It's estimated within a year 2x as many will be without insurance and those who have insurance are finding out it will cost them 2x as much as they are paying now. Also a LOT of hospitals, specialty clinics such as Children's Hospital that deal with cancer patients isnt even covered.
Children’s Hospital sues state over exclusion from exchange plan networks | HealthCare Checkup | Seattle Times

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The problem is doctors/clinics have to charge so much because how expensive insurance is. Insurance is WAY to much because of the bogus lawsuits that are allowed to go forward due to crooked judges.

[Rwy]

Why the interest in having the u.s. be like the rest of the world? Country envy.

Country envy. This country ****ing blows lol

Europe blows the US away

[DB1982]

Also how is it fair for a guy who makes $10m to pay $200,000 for healthcare when someone else pays $2000 or less?

They'd never get that shit passed here

You are literally worried about 1% of the American population while the other 99% get screwed. Trust me the %1 aren't struggling to feed their families

The rich have never really paid their fair share of Taxes they find a loop hole to abuse. Just like the poor use a loop hole to get back more then they paid in.

The real question is why is a man struggling to make it while having no insurance. Fighting for 1% of the population who more then likely made their fortune off the backs of the other 99% . By cutting their wages, benefits and retirement all in the name of more profit for themselves or shareholders.

Keep fighting their fight pretty soon there will be no middle class.

I honestly can't stand political talk nobody can agree on anything. And yet you guys wonder why nothing ever happens in our government. Because everybody wants to argue n point the finger but never fix the problem.

I am not a Democrat nor am I a Republican!
I am an American .
Who see's there is a terrible problem facing this country.
And I am worry about the future my kids will be forced to live in because we were to blind n stupid to do something about it when we had the chance.

So the next election don't vote for a candidate simply because their a Democrat or Republican. Vote on their merits.

Stop putting Rich people in the office who no nothing about what the majority of this country is going through.

Put someone who is willing to put his neck on the line for the greater good of the country.

We all know were the problems lies but nobodies willing to stand for a change.

So let the government keep all of us divided that's what they want.
A country divided is a country waiting to be ruled.

I'm not talking about an over throw of our government I'm simply talking about getting the trash out of Washington.

[Hazard]

I am not a Democrat nor am I a Republican!
I am an American .
Who see's there is a terrible problem facing this country.
And I am worry about the future my kids will be forced to live in because we were to blind n stupid to do something about it when we had the chance.

So the next election don't vote for a candidate simply because their a Democrat or Republican. Vote on their merits.

Stop putting Rich people in the office who no nothing about what the majority of this country is going through.

Put someone who is willing to put his neck on the line for the greater good of the country.

We all know were the problems lies but nobodies willing to stand for a change.

So let the government keep all of us divided that's what they want.
A country divided is a country waiting to be ruled.

I'm not talking about an over throw of our government I'm simply talking about getting the trash out of Washington.

This is my view 100%

My gf said she voted for Obama because he was a democrat an he was tired of the republicans fvcking up.

No she regrets it...... She said she finally see's what I've been saying about doing research on a candidate and understanding what they're for.

[Hazard]

Just Close the thread down flagg. there happy with no healthcare no sense of Community. I have to chuckle with the posts about how health care is not a right. But lets make it a right for every one to own a ar15

This is what I'm talking about man..... You have no fvcking respect for the basis on which our country was founded.

You hate Marcus telling you that Australians suck..... You took offense.

This shit is in our constitution..... It's our backbone. Like it Or not - you don't live here. If you feel so strongly about what goes on here how bout you come live here, pay taxes, become a citizen, and do something about it.

[Hazard]

No believes healthcare is a right until they become sick or try and get coverage with a preexisting condition. I know a lot of people in that boat and it's not pretty. Would I'd pay higher taxes to provide healthcare for all? In a heartbeat.

My ex-wife had a "pre-existing condition" - they called it pregnancy! She wasn't covered! I had to pay for visits to the doc, ultra sounds, etc. if those tests aren't done - you can be reported. I didn't cry about it..... It was what it was. Sure it sucked...... But it's life. I wasn't the first and won't be the last......

It would be selfish for me to expect YOU to pay for it.

[Fcastle357]

I am a father. If my child was sick I would do whatever I had to do to make him well. I would steal, cheat, and kill if I had to. I would beg and ask for help. But I would never EXCPECT someone else to take care of my problem. Euro we have guns and want guns because its the only thing that stands between us and a fvcked up government like we are starting to have.

[Fcastle357]

Country envy. This country ****ing blows lol

Europe blows the US away

Why don't you leave. Instead of doing a cycle save the money buy a plane ticket.

[Rwy]

If I was filthy rich I would certainly leave.

[DB1982]

I am a father. If my child was sick I would do whatever I had to do to make him well. I would steal, cheat, and kill if I had to. I would beg and ask for help. But I would never EXCPECT someone else to take care of my problem. Euro we have guns and want guns because its the only thing that stands between us and a fvcked up government like we are starting to have.

Honestly do you really believe our little pee shooters stand a chance against our militaries weapons????

Sure the nations people might have the numbers. The person with the biggest stick will win. So the government would simply only need a few hundred thousand soldiers to still control this country.

That's the stupidest reason to own firearms in this day n age. Sure your point was valid 2-300 hundred years ago. But no longer is that statement true.

[Fcastle357]

Honestly do you really believe our little pee shooters stand a chance against our militaries weapons????

Sure the nations people might have the numbers. The person with the biggest stick will win. So the government would simply only need a few hundred thousand soldiers to still control this country.

That's the stupidest reason to own firearms in this day n age. Sure your point was valid 2-300 hundred years ago. But no longer is that statement true.

Yep your right lets give up our pee shooters blindly follow the government and go to sleep. Wake up and see whats going on. Why do you think the government wants our guns? To keep us safe? Damn arguing with you people is useless.

[Hazard]

Honestly do you really believe our little pee shooters stand a chance against our militaries weapons????

Sure the nations people might have the numbers. The person with the biggest stick will win. So the government would simply only need a few hundred thousand soldiers to still control this country.

That's the stupidest reason to own firearms in this day n age. Sure your point was valid 2-300 hundred years ago. But no longer is that statement true.

Yes and no.....

Sure they have the weapons to destroy the population but would they? Would they really level this country? If they did who would be left?

Also..... If we got into a war with our government you can bet your ass other countries would be on our side. Russia maybe?

The point is..... The people that found this country found it important enough to put Ito our constitution. When did we start forgetting that? When did we start saying "fvck it..... We're screwed anyways...... Lets just do what the government thinks best"

Idunno...... I'm not for a government take over lol but I'm for individual rights and small government. Once you give up one right...... It's a slippery slope.

"Even peace may be purchased at too high a price" - Ben Franklin

"A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?" - George Washington

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."
- George Washington

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington

One of the more important ones......

"The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon."
George Washington

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
James Madison

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." James Madison

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."
James Madison

Last one....

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." - James Madison

[Hazard]

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." - James Madison

Look at the patriot act and all the NSA/CIA shit going in right now. These things may have been said hundreds of years ago but they still apply today.

[Matt]

I know this is off topic but ive just spent two weeks with many of you guy's from the US and i have to say it was an absolute privilege, made some good friends and had a ball. I sure one way or another you will sort this mess out....

[DB1982]

Yep your right lets give up our pee shooters blindly follow the government and go to sleep. Wake up and see whats going on. Why do you think the government wants our guns? To keep us safe? Damn arguing with you people is useless.

Your taking my statement WAY out of context.
I was simply saying that your previous statement about over throwing the government with pistols n rifles is so far fetched and absurd to use as a reasoning behind gun ownership.
A far better reasoning for gun ownership would be to protect my loved ones n property or because its my constitutional right.

[Rwy]

Its crazy how different people see todays world we live in

[Euroholic]

I only mention it hazard bevause you guys keep going on about it. Ive said my bit ill lay off. Just one thing tho about the guns tho. You say its your right to have guns. It was also my right as a white australian to shoot and kill black people at one point. My point is things change with the times. You dont burn women as witches anymore.

[Flagg]

Guys I am enjoying the debate a lot but a couple of you need to calm down, yes I am looking at fcastle and euroholic. I admire both of your passion but you can't start referring to others as "those people". If you don't like something, try and argue why without telling someone to get a clue. I do agree with what you're saying Euro, but easy on how you express yourself.

Hazard to answer something you asked earlier, the idea of universal health care had been around in the UK since the early 1900' s, but it was officially passed just after WW 2. I have to say I'm amazed that the doctors wage packet comes before the well being of the patient. I agree with DB 1982 pretty much on everything he has said.

[RaginCajun]

China and Japan warn US on default - FT.com


is this a threat?