On health care: Please explain this again

[LuckyTheDog]

How exactly does making people vulnerable to financial ruin if they get sick help to enhance their "freedom" and "liberty"?

:shrug:

[Oregone]

1. Well,

In Canada they not only are deprived of the ability to choose expensive shitty insurance for primary care, they don't get the option of going bankrupt. If thats not slavery I don't know what is.

[LuckyTheDog]

6. Sounds like Hell

I think we should demand that they tear down that wall!

[LynzM]

2. Well, ya see....

:popcorn:


Oh, wait. That's part of why I haven't changed jobs in 5 years, even though they're paying me something like 60% of market value, and why neither I nor my husband have started any of the small companies we've dreamed up.

Right. Because I'm a Type 1 diabetic, and I can't even buy insurance by myself if I wanted to. $1700/month in medical expenses. Sure, I got that covered.

:banghead:

[LuckyTheDog]

5. Bingo

How many small companies are NOT started simply because the would-be entrepreneur needs health insurance?

[HughMoran]

3. You need a good brainwashing

Then you'll get it ;)

[Wapsie B]

4. But other countries are not free like we are!

They're just slaves to the evil government!

:cry: Can't you see that? :cry:

[fadedrose]

7. Living under a bridge..

in a cardboard box is an existance free from mortgages, rent, utility bills, lawn care, washing windows, taxes, and a host of other advantages. Stop and think about it, not passing a health bill is actually doing people a favor.

[LuckyTheDog]

8. Indeed (nt)

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. You are free to get sick and then free to go bankrupt!

Duh! What don't you get you whiner? We have the best healthcare in the world!

[SteelPenguin]

10. Just to play devil's advocate here...

The difference between you, and your opposition, is that they don't care about 'the other guy'. To take on their voice, and please understand this IS NOT my personal position....

---

It's not MY responsibility to take care of YOU. Nor is it your responsibility to take care of me. It's up to me to determine what I want to do with my life, and how I want to live it, not the governments. If I want to save money by not spending it on health insurance, thereby exposing myself to financial risk that should be MY decision, not YOURS. You're taking away my freedom and liberty by imposing it on me. You are forcing me to pay money to purchase something I may not want, nor even need. Perhaps I don't mind getting ill and dying at age 60, if I've led a long full life. I don't want the medicines and hospitals. If I break my leg I'll pay the doctor in cash to set it.

Because I'm healthy and I'm still paying, which means MY money is going to help some other guy who is sick. I really don't care about that other guy. I'd rather give my money to my children, or my friends. I'll help a friend who is sick, but some guy on the other end of the state i've never met? Or on the other side of the country? Why should I work my ass off for what I have to provide for my family, and even provide protection for them, but also provide it for some schmuck who doesn't work and just does drugs out in California?

I don't care if those people are vulnerable. They're not my concern. I could give a shit about them. I don't care if they're a drug dealer or the governor of the state. They're not my concern. They're not my responsibility. Let them be vulnerable to financial ruin. If they're not willing to work to protect themselves and their family, why the hell should I do it?

The whole concept takes away my freedom and liberty. It enforces a system of the government on me and forces me to pay money to protect other people I don't know.

---

that's the mindset. It takes away their freedom and liberty to be forced to take care of everyone, not just themselves and their own family....because at the root of the problem they don't care about anyone but themselves, and are too short sighted to see that taking care of everyone helps themselves far more than going it alone, particularly when it comes to health care.

[LuckyTheDog]

11. They read Ayn Rand in college...

... and never got over it.

The problem is that there is no bright line of distinction between the "productive" and the "unproductive." I was a well-paid taxpayer for many years and hope to regain that status eventually. During that time, I could have chosen to resent the "slackers" who didn't pay into the system the way I did. But now that I have been out of work for nearly 9 months, I am one of "them" -- at least for now. Nobody knows when he/she will be next.

When I get back on my feet, part of my job will be to help maintain the meager safety net that I have fallen into.

[SteelPenguin]

12. Exactly

It's easy to be an Objectivist that would make Ayn Rand proud (not that she'd give a shit about you) as long as everything is going well.

It's harder to be one when the shit hits the fan, a tornado wrecks your house, you get kidney cancer, and you lose your job and health care coverage when the factory closes, and then lose your house as you can't pay the mortgage on the land with the wrecked house. All of a sudden you're living in a van, unable to pay for cancer treatments without health care, no job, no house...

It's funny how often the Objectivist in that situation will apply for Federal assistance.

Insurance at it's heart is there so that we pay a little bit every month, so that when shit does happen we're covered. It works best with more people in the system. The more people in the pool together to share risk, the more everyone is covered, and the cheaper that coverage is.

We already do it for so many other public safety things like the police, and fire fighters. You don't hear anyone calling to abolish the fire department, yet every month I pay taxes which go to pay for that fire department, so that should my house catch on fire, they'll come put it out. Wanting to go it alone as far as health care is as absurd as going it alone as far as fire safety. Then your 1 time bill if you get a fire would be tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even six figures. Your neighbor refuses to pay it and it burns to the ground, catching your house on fire in the process costing you tens of thousands of dollars, or more....

It's just absurd.