Healthcare is 'a privilege...not a right': GOP lawmaker

Originally posted by irishchic
Go to get my monthly refill last week and the lil' darlin in front of me with 2 dirty kids in the cart goes to hand the pharmacist her "government card" that entitles to her to pay NOTHING for the same $126.00 a month allergy drug (Singulair)

Here in the UK, if I developed an illness that required the very same allergy medicine, I go to my GP and get a prescription and pay a whacking great sum of...wait for it...£7.10. And its the same charge regardless of income or market cost of medicine

It seems to me that the current US system is nothing short of a scam to force people to pay the pharama-corp cartel's high prices for medical treatment and rates of insurance.

The NHS and National Insurance system may have its bad points, but having access to universal healthcare anywhere in Britain regardless of ability to pay for treatment required far outweighs the negatives

reply to post by dawnstar


I can appreaciate your frustration. I just came back from paying my property taxes and this is real sore spot for me. I have been fighting with my local government and I have written the governor so many times that all I have to do is typ the first two letters of his name and full name prints to his email address.

We complain about the impact of Universal Health care but we don’t make a peep when people that have worked hard all their lives, paid their dues and a lot more are evicted from their homes and placed in the streets. We say nothing when homes that they worked hard to pay for are taken in tax sales because their government decided that the home that they bought forty years ago is now worth some ridiculously outrageous amount of money and suddenly they are being hit with tax bills that are three times what they have coming in.

To add insult to injury the state will then let some guy who has a little extra change in his pocket to come along and buy that house for the payment of those back taxes> This guy is so happy with himself; he feels that he is so lucky and such the clever investor.

Now they admit that the costs of those homes were over inflated. What does that do for the people that have already lost their homes or are struggling to stay afloat while trying those taxes that has been declared a fraud.

People are quick to want to talk about the person that bought a house that they thought they would and later found that the house was above means. I can understand the anger with those house flippers and the greedy bankers and agents that perpetrated fraud on the American people but where is the outrage and the support for those innocent people that are drowning in the by products of these scams?

The government is going to take your money and they are going to spend it. I would rather that money be spent to keep the people of the country healthy then to line the pockets of the thieves.

I often work in a nosocomial environment and I can assure you that there are a number of factors that influence health and the possible spread of disease and the poor, the uneducated, the young and the elderly have more of those factors going against them.

You “will” pay for health care in the end. You just have to decide if you want to pay up front to stay well or in the end to get well.

Whether healthcare is a right or just the right thing to do will make little difference when you or someone you love is dying in your arms because you allowed illness and disease to run rampant in your country.

I would like to add that is very easy to look at young women with children and see what appears to be fickle and irresponsible behavior. It is easy to look at that young girl talking on her cell phone seeking attention and company while she has a couple of dirty little rug rats in tow and think ill of her. I see some of these young girls too and some of these girls are really having a hard time trying to cope because they “are” young and they “do” have these little children and they “don’t” know what to do. Some are alone because they have husbands that are struggling through painful rehab or numerous surgeries trying to make it back to something they can call a normal life. Some of these young girls are trying to deal with the fact that their husbands and their children’s father will never be coming home from a war that they still are confused about and can’t make sense of.

Every young girl with children isn’t carrying this weight but some are. Do you really think you can tell the difference by just looking at them?

When do we stop judging and start helping and start changing our country for the better?

We know the government isn't the answer; we are.

reply to post by NightSkyeB4Dawn

ya, well, the young mom taking her kid to the doctor for an excuse to get out of work is my coworker, she at the moment on disability for her third pregnacy....by the third father....
I think the father works where I do also, at least he was yelling through the shop at the top of his lungs that it was his baby too, and she had better tell mom about it soon or he would...
now, he's just coming up with excuse after excuse as to why he should have to pay child support....

to tell ya the truth, I am irked at her, I am irked on him, and well, I am a little irked at my boss for wasting tax dollars requiring her to bring in a doctor's note everytime she misses a day's work!

I already informed him of my policy of not going to the doctor till I have paid for all of the last visit..it's the only way I can keep those bills down to a workable level! he ever starts pressuring me to come in with excuses well, he'll be seeking a new employee before it happens!

to me, it seems quite obvious, can't see why it isn't to everyone else....
there's 46 million or so uninsured, underinsured people out there. there's alot of people who need help with their healthcare. can anyone really claim that it's constitutional to take money from someone who is laying in bed going nuts trying to figure out just where in hell's creation she is susposed to be getting $2,000 so she can get a broken bone set and hopefully get back to work just so someone else can come up with an excuse for being out of work for a day, when well, there was really nothing wrong with the baby to begin with, she just didn't want to get into trouble for being out of work again?

either take the tax money out of the healthcare system entirely, the research, the training of doctor's and nurses, and yes, the help that is given to the "poor" or well, AT LEAST MAKE AN HONEST ATTEMPT AT MAKING SURE THAT ALL THAT NEED THE HELP GET IT!
the fact that so many aren't getting the help they need has been common knowledge for about a decade, so where's the danged attempt?
as for you republicans who are moaning and groaning about your precious tax money being used...what, you think that the rest of us have been chipping in to build this great system just for your privileged little arses?

For those of you who love universal health care think again about why you love it as you read my points.

Have you ever known anyone with Medicade, Medicare, or Tricare, "military insurance." They are horrible. I had to right my congressman to get my grandmas medicare to pay hospital bills, they refused for some reason, and don't get me started on tricare. I have never seen longer lines than those at a base clinic and since they are so long you get the equivilant to a Nursies assitant check you out so you can go back to work. The service members can not get in because of the families and the families always go because hey its free. I used to go just to get ibuprophen because I did not have to pay for it at their pharmacy. Everyone did. That is why the lines are so freaking long.

It"s free, what a joke, those of you that work will see that they already take medicaid out of your check for people who either don't work or work very little, so now that you have everyone to support what do you think that little premium that is already comming out of your check is going to do, go down? The best ran government office is the POST OFFICE so imagine how much you hate trying to get a package sent off, now imagine that is what you have to go through with health care only much much worse because of all the forms, having to make appointments, phone calls, it will be horrible because well you can't switch to another company so why do they care if your happy or not.

Universal health care is just another way to fill the pockets of greedy CEO's. Think about it for a second, if they replace your employer based healthcare with government based what happened to the money they employer paid for your insurance. Some of it will go to taxes to help pay for the uni healthcare but most of it will go into someones pocket and do you think they will give you a raise since it saved them money, no. So now you are taxed higher and make the same wage.

Incompantancy of the politicians we elect is mind blowing. You can not make it that far without kissing a lot of butt. So when it is time to vote on the budgets for things like this everone that helped them get where they are is going to get some money in the form of earmarks. Don't you just love it when they tell you they will help you and they really just help themselfs. And what happens when a budget filibuster happens do we just go without healthcare for days, weeks, months. People can not get dialisis and other life saving proceders. No Thanks.

Anyone that supports universal healthcare gives our government way to much credit. Every day they rob us of states rights, The ability to more effectivly govern ourselfs, and just lay out more oppresion. If anything it is a state issue but Abe Lincoln took states rights away from us long ago so now we have to suffer under federal opretion. Countries were not ment to be this big.

The federal government owes me these things,
1. Protection from other countys and other states in the union,
2. Relations and trade agreements with foreign countries and other states
3. Infastructure to make these things possible.
4. Protection of rights I have that my state should never be able to take away.

Health care just did not make the list. For some reason people keep expanding on what was ment to be done with the fed so now we have this mess and we give people we voted 4 six figures a year to piss money away they should not be recieving in the first place. I no universe should it take the fed more money to run that it does an state but they took our rights and we let them. I saw we but I mean the north in the civil war.

I doubt it was a blunder. Don't you know what the UN and these elitists think about you're human rights?

Not even water is a human right, you didn't know that?

reply to post by bcroper


well then why did all those fine republicans when they ruled washington start stripping down all those funds that are being sent into the healthcare system? gee, if I remember right, instead of doing that, they started another big arsed program to provide a select few perscription drugs!

could it be...oh no!!...that the republican party had their hands into drug companies pockets for so long that they owed them a big one?

like I said, either take the money out of the system, or well...make a decent effort to help all those who need it, not just your little pets, and not at the beckon call of the healthcare big wigs!

Healthcare is not a right.

Someone please explain to me why you think I should pay for your healthcare. No matter how you answer, it is robbery. Robbing Peter to pay for Paul's irresponsibility.

Someone should lob right back at this guy that "taxes are a privilege, not a right."

When you dump a ton of your money into the government, why on Earth is it a "sense of entitlement" as some say, to expect that the money you give your government will be spent in ways that benefit you?

Taxes used to be imposed in time of war in the US, to pay for the costs of defense. Now, they exist all the time. To pay for all sorts of things. It is not a sense of entitlement that makes people want something for their money that they can use. It is good common sense.

Besides, the government is one of the main reasons medical care is so damned expensive, (cowtowing to the demands of cartels of Doctors to limit the amount of MD's that can graduate in any given year) and so they need to be part of the solution. At the very least to undo the oligopoly they helped create.

www.applet-magic.com...

Around 1900 there was a concerted effort on the part of physicians in the U.S. to restrict the supply of doctors; as they termed it, "To practice professional birth control." First campaigns were conducted in every state to require doctors to pass an examination in order to practice medicine in that state. That was easy for everyone to accept as reasonable. However it is one thing for the government to create a program of certification and yet another thing to create licensing. Certification provides consumers with information whereas licensing is always a vehicle for restricting supply. In the case of physicians it was then specified that in order to take the examination a candidate had to be a graduate of an accredited medical school. Somehow that deviated from the goal of requiring competency for medical practioners. But most would accept that as probably basically wise. Then came the clencher. Who was to be the accrediting agency for the the medical schools. The task was given to a committee of the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA is basically the union for doctors, or perhaps more accurately the guild for the doctors.

reply to post by spaznational


well, if I am unable to afford the care....why should my tax dollars be going into the research to develope your drugs and state of the art medical treatments?

this cuts both ways!!

The United States is the only industrial nation on earth that doesn't have a universal health care system in place.

All other countries lacking universal health care are third world nations.


Outside of the US, every single industrialized nation on earth enjoys universal healthcare as part of their citizenship.

And we're not socialists.
Just saying...


Ultimately it's up to you.
But the US did sign those U.N documents stating it as a requirement... if you disagree, you have the right to leave the U.N.
We can find a new location for the headquarters.

Originally posted by 44soulslayer

The "right" to healthcare cannot be enforced without committing fractional murder on some other person (ie the rich man), therefore it should be unenforceable, and therefore doesn't exist.

So let me get this straight, you believe people who can't afford to buy the prescriptions they need should suffer just because you believe rich people shouldn't have to pay a little more in taxes? Furthermore you equate this little increase in taxes as "fractional murder ... of the rich man"? Go cry me a river inside your mansions.

I hope more Republicans start making the same argument you're making, that way the rational people won't have to ever worry about having a Republican as President ever again.

Originally posted by spaznational
Healthcare is not a right.

Someone please explain to me why you think I should pay for your healthcare. No matter how you answer, it is robbery. Robbing Peter to pay for Paul's irresponsibility.

Ill pose this again as I did earlier. Im a taxpayer. Im not going to tell how much Ive paid but Ill tell you the past four years Ive paid more than most people make. Ive never recieved anything from the government nor do I want anything. Id rather have my money. Instead my money is being used to pad banksters paychecks, subsidize big oil, ag, and pharma, and Im stuck paying a huge healthcare bill. When do taxpayers like me say you know something when am I going to get mine? I pay into the system and get crap in return. Im for small government and low taxes but the fact is big government is reality and all these bailouts, subsidize, and big corporate welfare is reality and neither dems or repubs want to change this so alls we have to work with is reality and not some wet dream. The fact is things are slow and its getting harder and harder to pay that $750 per mo ins fee. Ive paid my share in I think I want a piece back.

Originally posted by skeptic1
reply to post by Blanca Rose

 

The prices are outrageous, true. Due to a chronic illness, I see how crazy things are on my bills.

But, it is not the government's job or responsibility to provide healthcare to everyone just because prices are high. They already manage Medicare and Medicaid and we see how screwed up they are.

It is not a right. People are not entitled to anything from the government. It is not their job to prop people up and take care of them and provide form them from cradle to grave.

Health care would not be a problem if the medical establishment was not a defacto monopoly. We have doctors in mansions with bank accounts to match. We have charges for medical services that can only be described as extortion. Ten bucks for an OTC pill is the very tiny tip of the iceburg.

Interestingly, we pay enough in taxes to fund 10 healthcare systems. But that money is being used to build and maintain a global empire, support the Federal Reserve private banking system, prop up various countries/US contractors and is generally spent against a background of waste, fraud and abuse.

This system can't be reformed. It's too far gone.......

Originally posted by spaznational
Healthcare is not a right.

Someone please explain to me why you think I should pay for your healthcare.

Because if (god forbid) I contract TB or a similarly nasty illness, and have no access to universal healthcare and can't afford treatment because of extentuating circumstances, you may end up becoming infected as a result of my lack of treatment



[edit on 6-3-2009 by citizen smith]

Originally posted by mystiq
Health care is a right of every citizen in this world, and those that worked for a system of equality and true justice, would be greatly saddened that so many have allowed a small right-winged group representing the neo-con mindset to dismantle the long slow journey humanity has made in civilized caring approaches. Stop being such sheeps!

I am not sure if you know this or not, but if you get sick and go to an emergency room, you will not get turned down for treatment. So the idea that every person has a right to healthcare is already initiated. The issue people have with the new system is the fact that the people (like myself) that already are heavily taxed will just be further burdened with having to be "patriotic" and do our part and chip in.

The current system is not perfect; however, I pay monthly for my medical insurance and chip in my little peice to welfare and whatnot through my payroll taxes and thats enough for me. My belly is full and I cannot stomach being taxed any further.

We would all like to beleive that the money fairy will come wave her wand and make some dollars appear for all these programs, but the reality is that this will event in higher taxes for those that actually have to pay them. This is turning into a country where hard work and success is punished.

Originally posted by skeptic1
Why is this suddenly the be all, end all in this country?

Like I said earlier, it wasn't even a blip on the radar a little more than a decade ago. If it is so needed for a "civilized society" and such a "fundamental human right", why is it only that way now and not all along?

Its easy to say, "it wasn't even a blip on the radar a little more than a decade ago". You care to provide some proof of that? A link, anything?
I think you need to read nixie_nox post which he puts very clearly why universal healthcare is needed in a society.

Originally posted by citizen smith

Originally posted by spaznational
Healthcare is not a right.

Someone please explain to me why you think I should pay for your healthcare.

Because if (god forbid) I contract TB or a similarly nasty illness, and have no access to universal healthcare and can't afford treatment because of extentuating circumstances, you may end up becoming infected as a result of my lack of treatment

[edit on 6-3-2009 by citizen smith]

This is another post similar to the one I just responded to. Do not act like if you cannot afford treatment you have to just sit in your recliner and die. There are venues out there for people that cannot afford healthcare.

We are humans. We have intelligence. We do not live a survival of the fittest life out in the wilderness. There is no excuse for a person to not have healthcare. Everyone should have it. Everyone should have food to eat too, but we have to start somewhere. Healthcare isn't a bad start! And the rest of the world is ashamed of the US for our healthcare system... not exactly a good thing! It disgusts me when people value money over life! If we're going to stay primitive forever, then perhaps humanity really is doomed!

[edit on 6-3-2009 by GrayFox]

reply to post by GrayFox


This is the first I hear about the rest of the world being ashamed of us for our healthcare system. I think we have some of the best medical services in the world. Do you have any sources as to stories of people that cannot bare the thought of us due to the shame that our medical system has caused?

Originally posted by citizen smith

Originally posted by spaznational
Healthcare is not a right.

Someone please explain to me why you think I should pay for your healthcare.

Because if (god forbid) I contract TB or a similarly nasty illness, and have no access to universal healthcare and can't afford treatment because of extentuating circumstances, you may end up becoming infected as a result of my lack of treatment

and, remember....there's millions of evil terrorists working day and night to develope the perfect biological weapon so they can sneak it (heck, there wouldn't be any sneaking to it, there was a reporter that spent half a day riding a danged elephant back and forth the rio grande. no one even approached him to find out who he was or why he was just wandering aimlessly between mexico and the US!!)...but anyways...remember the terrorists...ya know the ones we spent much more money trying to destroy than providing everyone with healthcare would cost??....well, they might come in, and try to kill us all with some deadly bug!! which, well, to any sane person, would kind of make the US citizens having access to healthcare a security priority...
but of course, it became rather obvious that the threat was much less than the republicans made it out to be, since well, if there was really that much of a threat....certainly, they would have did something to control who comes into the country and who didn't...instead, the number of immigrants from questionable countries increased at a tremendous rate!! and they would have realized that hey, if a biological weapon was used, well, it would be to everyone's benefit if those who were first sickened by it sought treatment as soon as possible, instead of ignoring the symtoms and continuing on with life and spreading the bug further.

but na.....there's no reason whatsoever why that poor little rich man should have to part with that money to help the future victim of such an attack get medical attention!