Learn some history. Healthcare/employer paid insurance IS A BENEFIT NOT A RIGHT

I won’t pass judgment on the number of times in which the OP misspelled healthcare, but it should not be overlooked when allowing it to shape your opinion on this posting because let us face it this is just that, an opinion. Let’s looks at something other than opinion and turn to what the constitution says. The very first sentence indicates that among the purposes for which the constitution was drafted was to “promote the general Welfare.” I hear you, this is open to interpretation—who’s to say that the original intent could have one day meant healthcare coverage.

I am curious to know where the OP sourced the information provided in the opinion piece, but let’s save that for another discussion. Instead, let us take health insurance beyond its point of origin. The question today becomes, is healthcare a right, not healthcare insurance because this day in age you cannot have one without the other. Healthcare costs have become so astronomical that without insurance, even a basic healthcare screening is costly beyond affordability for many people. If having access to affordable healthcare is indeed a right, then so is health insurance. Granted, creating access to health insurance that makes healthcare affordable one could argue this would not require access to contraceptives.

The question then becomes, which parts of healthcare should be a right and which should not. If we were to make the exclusion that access to contraceptives is not a right to which an organization must abide, then I ask what’s to stop at that point? If you can show that an illness is in direct result of self-afflicted behavior such as smoking, over-eating, etc, then shouldn’t any organization have the right to deny healthcare coverage to those afflictions if it does not align with the organizational directives? Let’s say I am employed by a cancer awareness organization, that organization could easily tell me they will not cover lunch cancer in the same manner that other organizations have chosen not to provide contraception. In this vein organizations could be allowed to legislate human rights at their whim.

Of course, there are easy answers to this argument, but then the powers that be would not be successful in dividing us over what truly boils down to petty issues, so we continue to argue over these things, get worked up over them, and the propaganda machine wins.

“love your neighbor as yourself” Matt 22:39

No, it's not.

You do not have a right to anything another human being has to provide to you.

We once had a segment of our society who thought that, and we fought a Civil War to free those whose labor they thought they were entitled to. Yes, you are siding with slave owners who felt they were entitled to the free labor of slaves.

How do you compare owning slaves who were forced, whipped and chained to perform a service, to taxes being used to provide healthcare for everyone? I really don't get how anyone can argue against a tax to provide life saving and medical help to anyone in need. Not helping your fellow man and watching him suffer and die because they can't afford health insurance, or they don't have benefits from their employer, is simply inhumane!

Where is your outrage for providing taxes toward a war machine? We spend 6 times more on military spending than China who is second in military spending. I would think saving a human life is more valuable than taking a human life.
It's twisted to think that the same people who are pro-choice to save the unborn, are also pro-military, pro-war, pro-capital punishment and against environmental regulations. Yet they can be against something that also benefits people and saves lives!

Everyone in a civilized society should have the basic right to have their life saved, or medical illness treated. If we don't believe in that, than I guess humanity really hasn't progressed to the point where we can be called civilized.

a reply to: yeahright

But the thing is that benefits are an enticement to better workers. Let's face it, the employer chooses who will work for them. Put up a benefits package and some will work for their wage AND that package. If not for the package they may work elsewhere. Let's look at this logically.

Except the truth is that everyone already has access to healthcare and the same right to engage in this service as anyone else. The true issue, and the one that is disguised by such verbal smoke and mirrors, is that people want someone else to pay for it and therein lies the debate.

a reply to: NavyDoc

How can you say that when 1 out of 6 people don't have healthcare? Not only that, not everyone has equal coverage! It's simply the haves and the have nots. The majority of people who complain about providing health care to the uninsured are those that are insured. Lose your job, lose your healthcare coverage and watch how your perspective changes on healthcare.

originally posted by: Chiftel
Private property and inheritance are benefits, not rights.

LOL. Nope. They are rights and enshrined in the Constitution.

originally posted by: WeRpeons

Except the truth is that everyone already has access to healthcare and the same right to engage in this service as anyone else. The true issue, and the one that is disguised by such verbal smoke and mirrors, is that people want someone else to pay for it and therein lies the debate.

a reply to: NavyDoc

How can you say that when 1 out of 6 people don't have healthcare? Not only that, not everyone has equal coverage! It's simply the haves and the have nots. The majority of people who complain about providing health care to the uninsured are those that are insured. Lose your job, lose your healthcare coverage and watch how your perspective changes on healthcare.

I've had rough patches and have made things work, I started out in abject poverty, so I have a great perspective and the "silver spoon argument does not fly with me.

Nothing you said obviates my position--that the real question is not if one has a right to healthcare, but who pays for it. You said it yourself--I want someone to pay for their healthcare.

How far do you force your fellow man to cover your bills? We were told by "progressives" that "everyone had the right to own their own home" and with HUD and Freddie and Fanny we go the housing debacle and an economic collapse.

I don't think anyone ever said employee health benefits are a right. What they are is compensation for work. Some jobs have full, some have partial, some have none. I think what you are misunderstanding is that a lot of people, and I agree with them, feel that health care is a right... as for the source of that health care, I'd rather it not be through employers or the government for that matter. Health care should be affordable without the government or your employer having to pool in order to obtain packages for people. How we go about that I don't know.

What I do know is that it should be no ones fking business if I want birth control or an abortion. If I'm being partially compensated with health benefits, I ought to not be subjected to the whims of my bosses or the theocratic Courts on what those benefits cover, if they cover prescriptions then it should cover all prescriptions, if it covers medical procedures then it should cover all medical procedures within the price bracket of the plan. MINE, MY benefits that I earned, MY health, MY body, MY fking CHOICE.

a reply to: SunnyRunner360

Is everyone over looking the fact that when the constitution was written there was no such thing as a healthcare system.....therefore suggesting that the healthcare system provided by the gov is a constitutional right is a moot point.....

If that's the case then since I have a constitutional 2nd amendment right. I demand that the gov supply me w personal firearms!

a reply to: intrepid

a reply to: yeahright

Personally I think that people should be more interested in what they can do as opposed to "rights". "Rights" is what's gotten us into this fear factor crap in the first place.

originally posted by: intrepid
a reply to: yeahright

But the thing is that benefits are an enticement to better workers. Let's face it, the employer chooses who will work for them. Put up a benefits package and some will work for their wage AND that package. If not for the package they may work elsewhere. Let's look at this logically.

Well said. The coupling of healthcare and other benefits to work happened during WWII when the FDR froze the maximum wage for labor. With a great demand for labor and a low supply of labor (there was a war on, you know) businesses started offering benefits packages including healthcare to get the employees they needed since they just couldn't offer a higher wage. Ever since then, healthcare has been connected with employment whereas before people would generally purchase insurance for catastrophic events and pay out of pocket for maintenance issues. Having competition and the payer and the consumer of healthcare be the same individual kept costs down. With a third party payer, consumers are less concerned about what they consume (somebody else has the bill, right?) and thus consume more.

Costs would go down if we returned to the model of buying catastrophic insurance and paying as you go for maintenance. If car insurance covered every oil change and the gas fill up, it would be as expensive as health insurance.

a reply to: NavyDoc

ExActly. Every single area the gov has taken over from the private sector has been a mismanaged disaster.....

originally posted by: SunnyRunner360
I won’t pass judgment on the number of times in which the OP misspelled healthcare, but it should not be overlooked when allowing it to shape your opinion on this posting because let us face it this is just that, an opinion. Let’s looks at something other than opinion and turn to what the constitution says. The very first sentence indicates that among the purposes for which the constitution was drafted was to “promote the general Welfare.” I hear you, this is open to interpretation—who’s to say that the original intent could have one day meant healthcare coverage.

I am curious to know where the OP sourced the information provided in the opinion piece, but let’s save that for another discussion. Instead, let us take health insurance beyond its point of origin. The question today becomes, is healthcare a right, not healthcare insurance because this day in age you cannot have one without the other. Healthcare costs have become so astronomical that without insurance, even a basic healthcare screening is costly beyond affordability for many people. If having access to affordable healthcare is indeed a right, then so is health insurance. Granted, creating access to health insurance that makes healthcare affordable one could argue this would not require access to contraceptives.

The question then becomes, which parts of healthcare should be a right and which should not. If we were to make the exclusion that access to contraceptives is not a right to which an organization must abide, then I ask what’s to stop at that point? If you can show that an illness is in direct result of self-afflicted behavior such as smoking, over-eating, etc, then shouldn’t any organization have the right to deny healthcare coverage to those afflictions if it does not align with the organizational directives? Let’s say I am employed by a cancer awareness organization, that organization could easily tell me they will not cover lunch cancer in the same manner that other organizations have chosen not to provide contraception. In this vein organizations could be allowed to legislate human rights at their whim.

Of course, there are easy answers to this argument, but then the powers that be would not be successful in dividing us over what truly boils down to petty issues, so we continue to argue over these things, get worked up over them, and the propaganda machine wins.

“love your neighbor as yourself” Matt 22:39

Certainly they should--an entity should have every right to determine a benefits package and the other entity should have every right to accept it or not.

Before the Obamacare nonsense, I lowered my healthcare premiums by being a non-smoker and non drinker and maintaining a healthy weight. They even checked my blood for nicotine. Since I was a low risk because I did not engage in such behaviors I got a discount.

a reply to: WeRpeons

What happens when you have a right to health care and there is no doctor to provide it for you?

You get the VA. I resent that my taxes were stolen from me to pay for such a shoddy system, and that veterans were forced into it only to be made to wait until they died. What good were those taxes that were stolen from me?

And if health care becomes a right, what happens to all those who become doctors? Are they then a public good? Does it become illegal for a doctor to refuse to treat you for any reason? What rights does a doctor have when it comes to when and how he or she performs that service you now have a so-called right to?

Why on earth would anyone want to become a doctor anymore? You would have no control over your own talents at all, but would forever be at the beck and call of everyone else. Sure, doctors live to serve, but I don't think any of them live to enslave themselves to the state and its people.

in this day and age, why basic necessities aren't free to use, including health care, is completely beyond my human comprehension

originally posted by: EyesOpenMouthShut
in this day and age, why basic necessities aren't free to use, including health care, is completely beyond my human comprehension

Because those basic necessities cost something. Who pays for that?

And in the case of health care, it is a service provided by a skilled individual, not a commodity. So, you are asking someone to spend a good decade or longer after their basic schooling in even more school in order to learn to provide something you then say they should provide for free. How do they make a living? And what sort of compensation are they owed for sacrificing a decade or more of their lives for difficult schooling before they start providing this skill for free at your beck and call?

Pretty soon our doctors will be no more educated than our average public school teacher, and the state of health care in this country will be no better off than the state of most public education which is to say that you might as well just never see a doctor in many parts of the country because your odds of living will be better.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: EyesOpenMouthShut
in this day and age, why basic necessities aren't free to use, including health care, is completely beyond my human comprehension

Because those basic necessities cost something. Who pays for that?

And in the case of health care, it is a service provided by a skilled individual, not a commodity. So, you are asking someone to spend a good decade or longer after their basic schooling in even more school in order to learn to provide something you then say they should provide for free. How do they make a living? And what sort of compensation are they owed for sacrificing a decade or more of their lives for difficult schooling before they start providing this skill for free at your beck and call?

Pretty soon our doctors will be no more educated than our average public school teacher, and the state of health care in this country will be no better off than the state of most public education which is to say that you might as well just never see a doctor in many parts of the country because your odds of living will be better.

so basically all that is a fancy way to say "because of money" right?

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

*quirks eyebrow*

a reply to: ketsuko
yep. that just happened