Can Universal Healthcare Save America? What Would JV Do?

a reply to: ScepticScot

No my rights as enumerated in the Constitution are not to be infringed by the government, although the 16th amendment is debatable. Anything more is going to be Draconian and authoritarian. Social Democrats repeatedly cite the mention of welfare for the common good clause as a sign our Founders believed in socialism and intended it for the people. Yet they never set up such a system such as The New Deal or social security and the like during the formation of the new government, but they did provide for the common defense which is enumerated in the Constitution. I don't believe they ever envisioned a nanny state government which provides all the needs of all the citizens and I do believe that if any of them were alive today they would weep for the abuse of the people by a now tyrannical and over reaching govt probably worse even than the British rule was.

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Metallicus

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: coop039


Health care is not a basic human right.
I do agree that we spend to much money on other things, but health care is not a basic human right.

Why not?

You are the one that says it is a right for you to make me pay for your health care. We don't have to prove a negative as the onus of proof is on YOU for calling it a right.

I would never support a LAW that makes another human being responsible for someone else. I do not consent to being responsible for YOU. If you want to be responsible for someone that is why you have children.

All rights are subjective and not a matter of proof. Prove to me you have a right to anything?

That's a bs argument if I ever heard one. What gives government a right to confiscate my paycheck and give the fruits of my labor to someone I never met? Think about it. I am so sick of hearing the same old socialist welfare mantra that I am responsible for the lives of everyone else in the country and in foreign countries as well. I mean the whole giving to the UN to under developed nations. The UN is nothing but a Totalitarian One World Government creation devised by the elites for control of the people.

I wouldn't object to universal healthcare under the right circumstances; if everyone paid in a set percentage of their pre-tax wages, for example, and EVERYONE paid the same percentage...provided it was a reasonable amount. Not 30 or 40%. If everyone paid in, say, 10% I could support that. Most of us pay in that much in Medicare anyhow.

However, I do NOT think "healthcare" is a right. Health, yes. Health CARE--no.

The idea of inalienable rights, as set down in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, is that rights are something we are entitled to by simply being born. We do nothing to earn them, we do nothing to pay for them, and they cannot be taken away from us. So far, so good. There is nothing here that conflicts with the idea of healthcare being a right.

However, one of the key attributes of a right is that it does not require action on anyone’s part. It only requires restraint. Rights can be infringed on by others, but they don’t have to be actively promoted—they just exist.

For example: I have the right to life. This means that everyone must refrain from purposely killing me. That is all. It doesn’t require anyone to actively support my life. So, if I’m drowning and you purposely hold me under, you’re infringing on my right to life. But if I’m drowning and you stand on the bank of the river and do nothing, you’re not. It’s that simple. You are not required to actively promote my attempt to live, only to not actually attempt to take my life from me.

Likewise, the right to health doesn’t ask anyone to do anything but refrain from actively making me sick. The problem is that we confuse healthcare and health itself.

The right to health means that you can’t purposely cough in my face with the intention of giving me the flu. It doesn’t mean that you—or anyone else—must actively treat me if I get the flu on my own.

This is exactly what calling healthcare a right does. It asks a great many people to do a great number of things.

Requiring someone to provide something for us just because we need it is not a right. If it were, then it could be argued that we all have a right to food. Adequate housing. A car. A job. But no one argues that these things should be provided to us. They aren't rights, they're needs. We can't require someone to provide us with housing unless we're prepared to pay for it--that would be infringing on their rights. Why is healthcare different?

And that is precisely the case with healthcare.

a reply to: JesseVentura

Universal Healthcare can't be effectively implemented as long as we have a parasitic, greedy, corrupt government and corporate system.

It's also not the only thing needed. We need a complete destruction and rebuilding of this crappy Rockefeller
medicine system.

There is nothing worse than talking to poorly trained doctors who think they know it all when they have no idea how to treat human tissue. All of their answers are to poison the hell out of it to "make it better." And worse, to manage symptoms/side effects of those poisons with more poisons!

Modern medicine is anything but modern.

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus


Have you ever thought of this as not confiscating paycheck, but as buying from government? I personally pay 10% of my salary for single payer system. I might never need to see a doctor, but no one knows what might happen. If there would be some insurance company involved, there is always deductible and private corporations want to maximise their profit, so you can never be certain whether they will screw you over or not. They do not care, they want profit. In addition, this adds extreme additional costs to healthcare, as the employees of the companies, CEOs, boards, shareholders need to earn as well. Every additional employee adds something to the bill.


Here, the government works to minimise costs. Every hospital is public, doctors, nurses have fixed salaries based on experience. Minimal administration, lots of online services for making life easier (online scheduling etc)´etc etc. The nation puts in over 5 times less than USA into health system. Everybody gets it, whenever they need it. Personal experience ´- it took me 2 weeks to get a knee surgery from top surgeon in the nation (the person who has personal clinet list consisting of olympic winners, medalists, in short professional world-class athletes). So far, I am extremely satisified with the system. Whatever might happen to me, no extra costs come). This countrys national debt is less than 20%, several times lower than US one)...

Gaddafi gave his people free healthcare (free education, free electricity, full unemployment benefits, free land etc) and look what happened to him. Much safer for politicians to cater to the will of fascism.

a reply to: riiver

Choosing to go into a profession and being compensated for doing your job is not slavery.

You act like in a universal system people will be forced to learn to become a doctor and not be compensated enough to desire the position.

Becoming a doctor is still a professional choice, no whips or chains, and the incentive to become a doctor will still be monetary compensation. The only difference is how they get paid. If it's not enough the doctor can choose a different profession, they won't be tortured into complying or thrown in jail.

The whole forced labor thing is absurd, it's not a thing inherent to universal health care.

People still have full choice to become or not become doctors and to leave the profession whenever they wish. The only difference is, they don't set the prices. Which means they need to decide, is this job worth it or not based on the work to payscale ratio. If we don't get enough doctors we'll need to raise pay, if we do have enough they either chose the profession or are choosing to stay in that profession knowing the pay rates.

Universal Health care is not comparable to slavery and it's not forcing anyone to do anything. It's only restricting what people can do. Which is fine. We do that all the time, it's what laws are.

They go into the job knowing what's expected and can leave if they aren't willing to do as expected. What you're complaining about is about as silly as a janitor complaining about being 'forced' to clean toilets. It's an expected part of the job and if he doesn't like it the job's not for him.

We could even cut costs by having state run schooling for the medical profession and eliminate the absurd university costs. Any debt accrued can be eliminated in exchange for years of service. Like for every year working in your field, ten percent of your debt is removed without affecting your pay. Considering most doctors spend most of their money paying off school debt there's one hell of an incentive righr there.

It would save lot of people but would be expensive for the tax payer.

originally posted by: Taylor345
It would save lot of people but would be expensive for the tax payer.

Not if we had reasonable price caps on everything.
But you'd have to run it with both private and govt. insurance. (a reason for that, but I'm not going to explain )

Japan has national insurance and the private doctors can only charge what the govt. allows. Yet, hardly anyone complains. And its affordable too.

originally posted by: JesseVentura
Why do our politicians receive single-payer healthcare, while they deny it to the people who elected them? Today, myself and my Vigilant Producer Alex Logan break down what universal, single-payer healthcare is and what it would cost to ensure every American has the right to health. Would you support universal healthcare?

To be fair, a handful of them DO support single payer and would vote for it today if it were on the floor for a vote. An unknown number more would vote for it if it were politically safe for them to do so (for example, there are those in a swing district where they would be laballed a "socialist" and would likely get clobbered).

Biden is supposedly going to push for a public option which may eventually become single payer. We'll see.

A Medicare universal healthcare system could enhance the availability of healthcare services and the efficiency of healthcare within the United States, according to an article that was published in The Lancet. ... Additionally the universal healthcare system could save the lives of 68,000 people each year by ensuring that healthcare is available for every one of Americans

a reply to: JesseVentura

He looks nice, but he is an actor, not a comedian.

2020 should have taught us what universal healthcare looks like. There is no free lunch or healthcare or college education, all government can do is steal from one group to give to another and Robin Hood they are not.

a reply to: IsntLifeFunny

I think you have something personal with him and you shouldn't do that here!