A new argument for the individual mandate, biosecurity!, page

I have not had much interest in Obamacare related issues but bio terrorism is another matter entirely.

I consider the article in the link to be a valid argument for the mandate. I doubt if this argument has been presented to the Supreme Court.

So is it a total farce, valid serious concern or what?

www.bioprepwatch.com...

reply to post by oghamxx

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How would this help? If someone attacks with a biological weapon, how will having mandated health care solve or prevent it from happening?

reply to post by rangersdad

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The attack may not be cause instant symptoms nor be wide spread. 'Infect' just a few and it could spread to millions in a few weeks. Having insurance will encourage/facilitate one to seek medical attention when any odd symptoms show up. There are no guarantees they would seek it, nor that they would not without insurance.

IMO the constitutionality and who should pay are big issues to be considered..

Do I have a 'right' to be protected from your being more prone to a transmittable infection?

reply to post by oghamxx

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IF there was such an infection, the government would expect you to seek out a dr or a WHO specialist will be picking you up depending on the severity of the outbreak. But having mandated health care will not prevent such an attack. Like the thread I saw yesterday about a purported bird flu pandemic at the 2012 Olympics...what can we do about it? Having mandated health care will not magically make it go away or stop it in its tracks.

reply to post by rangersdad

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No insurance will prevent an attack, but insurance could keep it from becoming 'widespread'.

I think common sense would reveal that a person (disease carrier) would seek medical care much sooner if they had insurance than if they had no insurance. That would shorten their functioning as a carrier and limit the spread, hopefully to a manageable level.

I suppose their are diseases with a delayed onslaught, which you could carry and spread for some time with little or no symptoms and the next day be dead.

The DHS is building a billion dollar (double initial estimates) lab in Mattanhan Ks for bio and agro security/terrorism so they recognize them as serious threats. Identifying an attack is one thing, containment quite another.

reply to post by oghamxx

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Another thing you have to remember, IF insurance is mandated, people HAVE to PAY for the mandated insurance first and then get tax credits when they do their taxes. We currently have at least 24,000,000 unemployed in this country...so telling them to buy insurance when they cant even afford housing or food is ridiculous!

reply to post by sageofmonticello

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Good argument but again do I have a right to be protected by the likelihood that someone without insurance is more prone to becoming a prolonged carrier?

Analogy! Registered sex offenders. The public has a 'right' to know who they are and where they reside. Public safety!

If I have to pay the rent and put food on the table I will choose working over self quarantine.

reply to post by oghamxx

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Good argument but again do I have a right to be protected by the likelihood that someone without insurance is more prone to becoming a prolonged carrier?

In my opinion no. You have a right to protect yourself by wearing a mask, latex gloves in public, limiting your possible exposure by staying in etc... but you have no right to alter what other people would choose to do in the name of your personal safety.

Guaranteeing people will have an opportunity to visit a doctor cheaply certainly won't ensure your safety. Say no cure exist? In this case it will only spread the problem to a greater extent. There are so many variables to such an occurrence that the argument found in your linked article IMO is way to simplistic and honestly, I feel like it is just using the fear angle to get people to accept something they wouldn't otherwise.

Analogy! Registered sex offenders. The public has a 'right' to know who they are and where they reside. Public safety!

I get your analogy but I don't think it applies well because we are not talking about a list of names and addresses for those who contract an illness. Also sex offenders have committed a crime whereas it is no crime to be sick. I feel like I understand what you are trying to say, but to me it is clearly quite a different matter.

I am glad you put 'right' in quotes. Obviously it is not anybodies natural right to know the legal history of their neighbors.

Free Will on the other hand, clearly is natural law and a natural right as we are all born to this earth with the capacity to exercise that free will.

If I have to pay the rent and put food on the table I will choose working over self quarantine.

If I am facing the end of my life from some pandemic, paying the rent and buying food is probably the last thing I am worried about. I would be more worried about killing friends and family by infecting them. What good is a job and an apartment when you are dead?

Anyhow, even if I had no clue how severe my illness was, as in more of a start of a pandemic, I would probably either go to work or stay home. Most people I know don't go to a doctor unless they have been ill for quite sometime. So what good would it be if most people wouldn't visit the doctor right off the bat anyhow?

For this to be assumed a good thing it would also have to be assumed that doctors will have a cure ready and that people will actually go to the doctor to be diagnosed. I feel it is very unlikely that either of those criteria will be met in such a situation as a new, emerging and unknown pandemic. Just my thoughts.

reply to post by tothetenthpower

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Ever heard of the commerce clause? They have the POWER, not RIGHT, can and do make you do things you would rather not do and with the blessing of the courts. Sad indeed.

I do not see the commerce clause valid for Obamacare mandate.

Do you have the right to be protected from someone who may be a carrier due to their lack of insurance? Is that YOUR right?

THE ISSUE is not the mandate as much as the prevention/containment of an infectious disease.

reply to post by sageofmonticello

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If you do not know you are a carrier and I do not know you are a carrier should I still wear a mask and gloves?

Is a mandate ok for private enterprise? I do not have a checking account nor a charge/debit card so can't get sat TV without their automatic billing. Paper bill and a money order or in person payment is not accepted! Do I have a right to sat TV? Probably not but who knows until a court would rule.

reply to post by oghamxx

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That's still really silly. Making everybody pay for healthcare isn't going to make the chances of passing on disease any less likely.

If that's the case then for reasons of national security, the government should provide heatlhcare to every American, free of charge then right?

That's like sayin if everybody had car insurance there would be less accidents. It's entirely un-true and kind of bunk science if you ask me. This is just a way for the government to get gullible people to think there is a reason to allow them, to force you to buy something.

And no, that particular clause does not apply in this case I think.

~Tenth

reply to post by rangersdad

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Agreed, besides the fact, in order to bring their health insurance premiums down, many people/families have high deductibles $1,000-$5,000.00 a year, so on top of their new health insurance premiums, they will STILL have to pay out of pocket monies to see the doctor. In fact, many people's health insurance is for catastrophic siituations only, in order to save a buck on premiums.

reply to post by tothetenthpower

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FREE healthcare? Curses! That would be a REAL mandate!

Then you also think that making convicted sex offenders register is not going to reduce crime thru public awareness?

Most repliers in this thread support the bioterrorist effort to create a pandemic while I favor early detection to facilitate containment and avoid a pandemic.

I did not realize how popular eugenics was on ATS but then I only recently found out that Teddy Roosevelt endorsed eugenics.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your (where would you enjoy them?)

reply to post by oghamxx

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reply to post by tothetenthpower

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Very interesting. lol The precedents exist, and the logic is impeccable. As the man says, the national highway system was justified on the basis of national defense. By the same terms, disease monitoring and surveillance, if not treatment, is essential for biosecurity. Point being, you can't be bio-secure if you can't see it coming. .....I am frankly astounded that such a reporting system does not already exist in America the world's so-called "greatest nation."

Also, fyi - promoting "herd immunity" through various interventions isn't about protecting susceptible individuals - it's about protecting the "herd."

“A person who is deterred from seeking medical care because he does not have health insurance unwittingly jeopardizes other people; in the future, this jeopardy can have mass consequences.”

Congress, Bobbitt said, has determined that it is necessary to create a national network of disease reporting, and such a national network would be, in essence, an intangible successor to the national highway network, which was justified on the basis of national defense.

“To deny Congress the power to implement an essential part of this strategy–a strategy to preclude the consequences of biological attacks through reporting of presentments–would jeopardize such a monitoring and reporting system,” Bobbitt said, LawfareBlog.com reports.

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