Socialized Healthcare: Whats the big deal?

[Dakatsu]

Can someone please tell me what the big deal is about socialized healthcare?

We have socialized police, fire protection, many services in this country, I believe it is a good idea. If you were to look at the Canadian system, the Japanese system, you get quality healthcare, that you pay for through taxes. Over here, we have to pay insurance for many medicines just to afford them. Without insurance, the prices, you can't even afford them. Some of these uncovered medicines are important medicines too. Some that could be the difference between life or death.

If you are an opponent of this, you will probaly say something similar to \"We would have to pay higher taxes!\". Well, we wouldn't be paying insurance or paying for the medicine in the first place.

We are the 1st in highest profit from medicines, but 37th in our quality. I honestly think that is a sad number for the greatest country on the face of this planet.

(Oh, and if you honestly wanted to, you could buy private healthcare, it isn't mandatory)

[Duper]

do you want to pay the taxes to do that? SS already takes a huge chunk.

Prepare to pay something like 60% of your paycheck in taxes.

Incidently, Japan is bankrupt...which doesn't have anything to do with their health care program (I assume).

[Gooberman]

We are the 1st in highest profit from medicines, but 37th in our quality.

From your sentence, are you talking in quality of the medicine, or health care in general? If I Assume the latter, then you have to be tailoring your definition of \"quality\" to fit your argument.

This is an issue I have personally changed sides on a few times. Money drives science, competition drives success.

I agree that those who are unable to afford good healthcare in the U.S. are probably worse off then other countries, but I don't think there is much question that those who can afford the health care here, recieve the best in the world.

[TIGERassault]

Short answer: the US leaders are not populists.

We are the 1st in highest profit from medicines, but 37th in our quality. I honestly think that is a sad number for the greatest country on the face of this planet.

Canada is only 37th in quality for their medicine?

[Lothar]

If you were to look at the Canadian system, the Japanese system, you get quality healthcare, that you pay for through taxes.

From what I understand, in those countries and many others, healthcare has its quality points and its sucky points. Some might argue that it's "equally bad for everyone" -- everyone is guaranteed health care, but that doesn't mean the system provides good, timely health care. It just means the system provides health care.

What rating, exactly, puts the US at #37? What exactly are they counting? What would that study consider "ideal"? That's always something to think about -- I hear people say health care is "better" in other countries, and I talk to people in those countries, and health care is "better"... in a few ways. And it's worse in other ways.

My main opposition is that I don't want the government to have more power. Honestly, the government is the last entity I want in charge of my health care, retirement, etc. If the government wants to provide limited welfare for the very poorest, I guess that's OK, but I really don't want the government doing any more than that.

[Jeff250]

Forgive my ignorance of this issue, but, if the government provided everyone healthcare, then couldn't healthcare still be provided in the private sector as well? I doubt that everyone would want the government-paid healthcare and many people would be willing to pay for healthcare a second time (first time being in their taxes) to get it elsewhere.

[TIGERassault]

Forgive my ignorance of this issue, but, if the government provided everyone healthcare, then couldn't healthcare still be provided in the private sector as well? I doubt that everyone would want the government-paid healthcare and many people would be willing to pay for healthcare a second time (first time being in their taxes) to get it elsewhere.

Correct. And that was nicely summed up in the last line of the opening post.

[Dedman]

Forgive my ignorance of this issue, but, if the government provided everyone healthcare, then couldn't healthcare still be provided in the private sector as well? I doubt that everyone would want the government-paid healthcare and many people would be willing to pay for healthcare a second time (first time being in their taxes) to get it elsewhere.

So I would pay for the substandard government healthcare and THEN pay for private healthcare? No thanks! I am not into paying for things twice; especially if I am not going to be using one of them.

I am with Lothar on this one. My main opposition is to the Government being in charge of my healthcare. It couldn’t even provide trailers to Katrina victims in an efficient manner. What makes you think it can handle something as complex as health care?

[Jeff250]

I wonder if there couldn't be some sort of voucher system so that a person who didn't want free government healthcare could get money from the government back, with the requirement that it is put toward another healthcare plan, so that people would be more economically free to get non-government healthcare if they so desire.

[Top Wop]

Everything the government takes over, they make it worse. Do you honestly want to trust your government with healthcare? Is there anything else you'd trust your government with? Anything?

[Firewheel]

Japanese health care isn't all it's cracked up to be, I've read a few stories of Americans living in Japan who hated the healthcare.

I'm skeptical of government health care because like others have said, competition drives quality. I like Jeff250's idea of only people who want government healthcare having to pay for it, but that just seems way too easy. That has to be a catch.

[Ford Prefect]

Most developed countries have socialized medicine. Some, like Britain, have what is called a \"Two Tier\" system where as an option healthcare can be paid for out of pocket or through add on insurance policies. Some, like Canada, will not allow a doctor to receive money from the government system if they take money from a private system or directly from a patient.
The down side of \"Two Tier\" is that the doctors tend to put pressure on patients to pay direct by delaying services provided through the government system. They do this because the unregulated private system usually pays them more.
All socialized systems struggle to maintain services while keeping a lid on costs. That is the nature of the system and if there was no effort to control costs there would be an enormous revolt from the taxpayer. The U.S. healthcare corporations love to point to these struggles as an example of how poorly socialized medicine serves their customers but in reality the over all health and longevity of the population in countries with socialized medicine is not worse that that of the U.S.
One often quoted statistic here in Canada is that 17% of our GDP goes to healthcare while in the U.S. that figure is 21% yet in the U.S. there is a huge disparity between the quality of care for those that have money or rich insurance schemes and those that must depend on what healthcare they can get through charity or government funded care. So even with medicine in the hands of private industry the U.S. pays more for less.
Healthcare for profit has obvious moral issues. Why should those with money live while those without die from treatable causes?
The other side of the coin is that healthcare for profit in the U.S. has generated enormous investments in technology and treatments with the hope of selling them to those wishing to avoid pain, disability and death. (That's most of us.)
It has to be said that the rest of the world piggybacks on those developments to improve their own health care. Without the U.S. for-profit system there would be a less able medical system in the rest of the world.
The U.S. fixation on Rugged Individualism and fear of \"Big Government\" probably precludes them ever joining the rest of the developed world and instituting a compassionate care system that removes or reduces the power of money from the healthcare equation. The healthcare corporations make sure that those fears and prejudices are kept firmly in place.

[Lothar]

even with medicine in the hands of private industry the U.S. pays more for less.

US healthcare isn't entirely in the hands of private industry. The government mucks with it a fair bit.

I'd be curious to see how much of our \"health care\" spending actually goes to malpractice insurance, and what we'd be spending without it.

[Ford Prefect]

Well at least according to this report malpractice insurance costs you less than 1% of your total healthcare costs.
http://www.insurance-reform.org/pr/AIRhealthcosts.pdf
I make no claims as to it's accuracy.

[Kilarin]

socialized police, fire protection, many services in this country

Police services are socialized because they HAVE to be. Part of the legitimate function of government is to protect it's citizens from each other.

Fire protection is socialized because it HAS to be. Privatized fire services that protected only those who had paid up would mean vast tracts of the city would end up unprotected, which would result in fires getting out of control and endangering everyone else. Again you see the "protecting citizens from each other" principle here.

Health care only fits this description in that we must have a socialized system to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. In the USA, we do, it's called the Center For Disease Control and it is NOT a socialized medicine system.

Now I'm going to draw a lot of flack, but I'm going to state this very bluntly:

Health care is not a right.

I'm very willing to give a portion of my income to help those less fortunate than me to obtain health care. But that is a voluntary decision. It's wrong to force people at gunpoint to contribute to others health care costs. And tax dollars ARE taken at gunpoint. If you do not pay, they will come and arrest you. If you resist being arrested, they WILL shoot you. You should NEVER use tax dollars for any project unless you believe that it would be ethical for the police to shoot your grandmother if she refused to contribute to that project.

[Jeff250]

Police services are socialized because they HAVE to be. Part of the legitimate function of government is to protect it's citizens from each other.

Part of this topic is to discuss what is or is not a legitimate function of the government.

Now I'm going to draw a lot of flack, but I'm going to state this very bluntly:

Health care is not a right.

What is your process for determining what is a real right or not?

It's wrong to force people at gunpoint to contribute to others health care costs. And tax dollars ARE taken at gunpoint. If you do not pay, they will come and arrest you. If you resist being arrested, they WILL shoot you. You should NEVER use tax dollars for any project unless you believe that it would be ethical for the police to shoot your grandmother if she refused to contribute to that project.

Is this what they're putting in libertarian pamphlets these days? It's nonsense libertarian propaganda. I suppose any crime is a capital crime then since, if you violently resist arrest to it, the police will shoot you, right? You're overlooking that resisting arrest is the crime in and of itself that killed your hypothetical grandmother, especially when she does it in a way that endangers police officers. If she intended to participate in acknowledged forms of passive resistance, like civil disobedience, then she should have already accepted that she would be arrested for it and she should have allowed herself to be arrested in the most hospitable and nonviolent way possible. Resisting arrest is never cool.

[Kilarin]

What is your process for determining what is a real right or not?

The simplest definition to use here would be that "rights" are granted to you by law. I would, of course, go much further than that, but we would NEVER get much agreement about innate rights.

Within the constitution of the USA there is not the slightest hint of a right to healthcare. Other countries will grant different rights, of course.

And tax dollars ARE taken at gunpoint. If you do not pay, they will come and arrest you. If you resist being arrested, they WILL shoot you. You should NEVER use tax dollars for any project unless you believe that it would be ethical for the police to shoot your grandmother if she refused to contribute to that project.

Is this what they're putting in libertarian pamphlets these days?

Oh, for a LONG time now, nothing new here.

It's nonsense libertarian propaganda. I suppose any crime is a capital crime then since, if you violently resist arrest to it, the police will shoot you, right? You're overlooking that resisting arrest is the crime in and of itself that killed your hypothetical grandmother, especially when she does it in a way that endangers police officers.

No, it's far from nonsense, but yes, I would agree that all crimes are actually capital crimes. They are enforced by the threat of force, lethal force if necessary. That is why we should be so careful about making laws. Laws should be few and far between and only for absolutely necessary things.

Tax dollars are taken by force. You do NOT have the option to "opt out" if you disagree. So you should ONLY take tax dollars for issues that are so serious that taking money at gunpoint is justified. Funding the military, the police, fire departments, and judicial system are certainly systems that necessitate funding by tax dollars. The arts are not. Neither is the healthcare system. If it CAN be done in the private sector, it SHOULD be done in the private sector.

[Krom]

I'd like to see your impression of the private sector if you walked up to the multi-billion dollar corporate headquarters of the average health insurance company. Insurance agencies and for profit medical institutions only care about your life to the extent that they can bill you for it. If they can't make money, they would prefer if you just hurry up and die to minimize the cost to them.

By saying tax dollars are taken by force at gunpoint, you are implying that insurance premiums and medical expenses somehow are not? They say anyone who needs medical care in the US will get it, even if they can't pay for it. But it is also quite likely that anyone who can't afford to pay for medical expenses in the US doesn't live as long or get anywhere near the same level of care as someone who can cough up the money.

You already have to pay for your life from the government, socialized healthcare would only mean you would no longer have to pay for your life to the government AND the private sector at the same time. Otherwise you would likely still get much the same (lack of) quality and service.

Don't mind my ranting, I only had to take a second job to pay for medical insurance... >_>

Also, ask people from countries with socialized healthcare (like Ferno for instance) and they will probably tell you they much prefer what they have, too the freedom to get screwed by every insurance agency you come across that we here in the US enjoy so much.

[Ford Prefect]

Like Ferno I am a Canadian.
I note that the objection here to socialized healthcare is, as usual based on greed.
Sorry to be blunt but that is what it boils down to in comment after comment.
Healthcare is not a right. Healthcare is a need.
Withholding treatment from the sick because they do not have money is despicable. Basing your objections to socialized healthcare on what it would cost you in taxes means your objections are simply that you don't want to pay for healthcare you might not personally need.
Socialized healthcare is a government organized health insurance scheme. You pay premiums if you can and those who cannot have their premiums paid by the state. All citizens receive the same coverage regardless of income.
Those countries that have instituted universal healthcare insurance schemes have done so because they have felt they have the resources as a country to fund healthcare for all. Sadly the richest country in the world will not take the same steps.
Money rules all in the U.S. it seems and anything that threatens the ability of those that have money to keep it is a non-starter.

As the ultimate irony the U.S. private/charity/government system is more expensive than that of socialized countries.

[Kilarin]

I'd like to see your impression of the private sector if you walked up to the multi-billion dollar corporate headquarters of the average health insurance company.

Health insurance is one of the major problems in our health system. It encourages corruption on both sides. Health Savings Account Plans are a much better solution.

By saying tax dollars are taken by force at gunpoint, you are implying that insurance premiums and medical expenses somehow are not?

Correct, they are not. You have the option of not paying them and taking your risks. If you get sick, you lose. But it is your choice.

Withholding treatment from the sick because they do not have money is despicable.

As I said before, I give of my own money to help people who can't afford health care. That's my choice. What I disapprove of is taking someone ELSE's money to do the same.

[Jeff250]

No, it's far from nonsense, but yes, I would agree that all crimes are actually capital crimes. They are enforced by the threat of force, lethal force if necessary. That is why we should be so careful about making laws. Laws should be few and far between and only for absolutely necessary things.

No, it's not fair at all to say that all laws are enforced by lethal force. Consider tax evasion. If tax evasion was lethally enforced, then surely we could expect that committing some huge amount of tax evasion would ultimately end in lethal enforcement. But this is not the case. You might be arrested and thrown in jail. You could be released, and then get right back to tax evasion. But no matter how much tax evasion you commit, you'll never be killed for it.

What you seem to be adding to the story is that somebody is committing tax evasion and then, when the police come to arrest her, she pulls out a gun and starts waving it wildly at the police officers or performs some other action that warrants deadly force. What you need to demonstrate is why we should cobble together the consequences for waving the gun around at police officers, which is a crime in and of itself, with the act of tax evasion.

[CDN_Merlin]

Living in Canada I can give you 1st insight into out health care.

1) It's paid for by our taxes.
2) If you want, you can pay out of your pocket to get \"faster\" health care. This is the problem with our system. It can take months or even over 1 year to get an MRI scan, unless you are young and have a serious condition.
3) We still need medical insurance to pay for medicine. Some aren't covered also.
4) We do have some of the best medical teams in the world. McGill University in Montreal has a huge research facility and so does one in the Toronto area.

To me, I'd rather have this type of health care than having to worry about buying insurance. This way, if an accident happens, I don't have to worry about having enough cash or an insurance plan. It gets taken out of your paycheck and you deal with it.

How many people who have the option of not buying insurance to pay bills or whatnot would opt out of having insurance thinking they don't need it now??

If it's taken out of your pay, then you force yourself to live with what you have left but know that you can goto any hospital/clinic and get medical attention for free.

[fliptw]

this is more properly a debate about centrally controlled health care system than one that is subsidized in some manner.

Alot of the issues raised stem from the fact the buck doesn't stop with the doctors and nurses.

[CDN_Merlin]

Doctor's here can only claim the amount of patients seen in a day and they are only allowed so many. I'm not sure of the entire process but this part I am sure of.

They have forms to fill out out for the Gov't so they can't over charge the Gov't.

[fliptw]

I meant in a more practical sense, as in if or when you actually get the treatment. Both are ultimately decided by some bureaucrat you'll never meet in both the American and Canadian systems, either declaring you can't have it or you can have it at some point in the future. If you can pay more, both systems will gladly let you have it tomorrow.

[Ford Prefect]

Both are ultimately decided by some bureaucrat you'll never meet in both the American and Canadian systems, either declaring you can't have it or you can have it at some point in the future.

Actually that is not the way it works in Canada. You are free to make an appointment with the physician of your choice and request a referral to any specialist you prefer. There is a website in for British Columbia where all the specialists and their waiting lists are posted so you can decide to use one with a shorter list or wait for one you may particularly want. The amount paid to each physician by the B.C. healthcare system is also posted although usually the data is a year or more out of date.
Physician must choose to be paid either by the government health insurance totally or by private payment totally. They cannot receive payment from the government system if they take private payment.

[Kilarin]

What you need to demonstrate is why we should cobble together the consequences for waving the gun around at police officers, which is a crime in and of itself, with the act of tax evasion.

The fact remains, if you do not pay your taxes, they will come and arrest you. If you don't think you should be locked up, they WILL shoot you. These issues ARE related. And I don't disapprove of their being related. I only disapprove of using tax dollars to fund anything non-essential.

Note that the same thing applies to parking tickets, Jay walking, and throwing your gum on the sidewalk. The country has laws. You can NOT choose to disobey those laws and NOT pay the fine/go to prison for it. The government will defend with lethal force it's right to punish you. Which is as it should be.

Taxes ARE taken at gunpoint. You must pay, or if you refuse to pay, you must submit to punishment, or be shot. That is why we should be VERY careful before deciding to spend tax dollars on anything.

If it's taken out of your pay, then you force yourself to live with what you have left but know that you can goto any hospital/clinic and get medical attention for free.

Which is a clear case of the government telling you that you aren't smart enough to make decisions for yourself, they should make the decisions for you. Now that may be very true in some cases, but it's still a VERY bad idea.

Let's put it back into a perspective of rights. As long as you are paying for your own healthcare, I have no "right" attempting to force you to live a more healthy lifestyle (assuming your lifestyle isn't threatening others with contagious diseases). BUT, if we the public are footing the bill for all of your health care needs, then suddenly we have a definite interest in, and a RIGHT to regulate your lifestyle. When the public is paying for your healthcare, the public has every right to make smoking a crime.

Actually, they would have every right to punish people for not doing enough exercises. YOU being a couch potato would be taking money directly out of my pockets, since the odds of you costing the healthcare system (and therefore ME), more money goes up dramatically.

Keep the government out of everyone's business as much as possible, because that gives us all as much freedom as possible.

[TIGERassault]

The fact remains, if you do not pay your taxes, they will come and arrest you. If you don't think you should be locked up, they WILL shoot you. These issues ARE related.

That doen't make not paying your taxes a lethal crime, it only makes resisting to go to jail a lethal crime.

That argument is about as flawed as that one on this forum where someone suggested that Health Insurance companies should pay for an abortion for his girlfriend, because otherwise he could go home and severely injure the girlfriend, and causing the baby to die, making the Health Insurance company lose thousands in hospital bills...

[Jeff250]

The fact remains, if you do not pay your taxes, they will come and arrest you. If you don't think you should be locked up, they WILL shoot you. These issues ARE related.

That doen't make not paying your taxes a lethal crime, it only makes resisting to go to jail a lethal crime.

Exactly. The tradition of civil disobedience teaches us that one shouldn't resist arrest and should be more than hospitable during the arrest. This isn't some radical idea either. When you intentionally break a law you think is bad, you are challenging that law. But when you are resisting arrest, the only thing you're challenging is the authority of law enforcement. Bad law, good law, maybe you didn't even break a law, but the police still have the authority to arrest you when certain conditions are met. So it's unclear to me why the libertarians would even think resisting arrest to be necessary or prudent.

Keep the government out of everyone's business as much as possible, because that gives us all as much freedom as possible.

It maximizes a certain kind of freedom, namely negative freedom, e.g. the ability to amass property free from government intervention. But this is largely at the expense of positive freedom, e.g. the freedom to get enough food to eat or obtain necessary healthcare or acquire an education. Positive freedoms can be intimately connected with human flourishing and morality.

[Ford Prefect]

Well said Jeff. Freedom is different things to different people. Losing your savings, car, home, all your assets until at last you have less than $2000 so you qualify for Medicare leaves you less free than you might think. Especially if this delays your treatment so that it comes too late to save you.
It is a red herring to claim that publicly funded healthcare is telling you you aren't smart enough to pay for health insurance. Many people just can't afford it or get screwed by insurance companies that do things like cancel the coverage of a small company when one employee gets cancer. Publicly funded healthcare is just spreading the cost around so everyone is covered.
Kilarin is quite right though. Publicly funded healthcare is used as justification for things like seat belt laws and motorcycle helmet laws. But then since those laws exist in many states as well I guess that is hardly a major difference in our countries. And Canadian smoking laws are no different than most places in the U.S. Don't forget healthcare consumers also vote so you can't pee them off entirely.

[CORD]

In Massachusetts, there is a now a law on the books that says everyone must have health insurance by July 1, 2008. If not you are penalized on your income tax return the $2000.00 personal deduction. The law is complicated in the fact that there are exceptions based on income levels and availability of employer provided health insurance. But the bottom line is, everyone must have some sort of healthcare coverage, wether it's from the state or private sector. It's supposed to aleviate or attempt to eliminate the state mandated tax(it comes out of our income tax) that provides healthcare to uninsured persons who need hospital care but can't pay for it.

[Kilarin]

That doen't make not paying your taxes a lethal crime, it only makes resisting to go to jail a lethal crime.

When you intentionally break a law you think is bad, you are challenging that law. But when you are resisting arrest, the only thing you're challenging is the authority of law enforcement.

I seem to be communicating poorly. YES, the entire point is that if you challenge a law, they will try to enforce the law by punishing you. IF you say, "The law is unjust so you have no right to punish me", then they will use stronger force, up to and including lethal force. These concepts ARE related.

So it's unclear to me why the libertarians would even think resisting arrest to be necessary or prudent.

I'm communicating VERY poorly. At no time have I suggested that resisting arrest is a good idea. I don't even approve of not paying your taxes. The point is that taxes are taken by FORCE. We don't even need to go to lethal force to prove this point. If you don't pay your taxes, they WILL lock you in jail. FORCE. That's why you should never vote to spend tax dollars on anything except for those issues where you feel it is actually justified to take money from other people by FORCE to pay for the project.

namely negative freedom, e.g. the ability to amass property free from government intervention.

<sigh> What of the freedom to just be left alone? Not that I disapprove of amassing property, that's all fine and dandy, but the most important freedoms are all related to the concept that, unless I'm hurting someone else, the government, and everyone else, should keep their noses out of my business. That's WHY the American revolution was fought. It's what the Bill of Rights is all about. Let me make my OWN decisions about my religion, about what I choose to say, and about what I choose to do. If I don't interfere with anyone else's rights, they shouldn't interfere with ME.

It is a red herring to claim that publicly funded healthcare is telling you you aren't smart enough to pay for health insurance.

Publicly funded healthcare IS a way of saying that the government does not believe we can make our own decisions about health CARE. Including the decision to help those less fortunante than ourselves through VOLUNTARY donations.

Granted, there absolutely will be people who simply can not afford the health care they need. This will be true regardless of your income level. That's because as science advances, the possible kinds of health care are becoming unbelievably advanced and expensive. This will only get worse over time.

It used to be true that when you got to a certain level of illness, you died. Round the clock nursing care was about as expensive as it got. Today, a hospital can spend MILLIONS of dollars caring for a patient, in a very short period of time.

Freedom is different things to different people. Losing your savings, car, home, all your assets until at last you have less than $2000 so you qualify for Medicare leaves you less free than you might think.

Yes, loosing your income IS a tragedy, the question is, do we actually FIX that by taking money from other people by force, in order to give it to the person who is suffering?

I STRONGLY APPROVE and participate in charitable giving. Giving by CHOICE. For one thing, it's a WHOLE lot more efficient then letting the government take my money and blow 90% of it on red tape before anything gets to the people in need. So I am NOT saying we don't have a duty to help people. I believe we do.

If you believe in universal health care, then get together and form a fund. Ask everyone who believes in the same cause to donate, and use the money to provide healthcare for everyone. If you can get over half of the people in a country to vote for socialized medicine, surely you could get more than half of the people in that same country to donate to the cause voluntarily? The money would be used MUCH more efficiently through a private non-profit organization. The government NEVER does anything efficiently.

It seems a shame to me that people are willing to vote to take tax dollars by force, but they wouldn't be willing to donate the same percentage of their income voluntarily. I BELIEVE in voluntary charitable giving. I just don't believe we have a duty to play Robin Hood here. Although Robin Hood is a really bad example because taxes generally take a lot more from the poor than they take from the rich.

Government money almost never fixes ANYTHING. And all attempts to "Level the playing field" almost always result in just making things worse.

----------------------
"It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged
the eternal inequality of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried
aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially held up in high places,
and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving
hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every
man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very
decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, 'Let the
best man win, whoever he is.' Let the best man win! That is America's word.
That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and
the same thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight."
--Owen Wister in "The Virginian,"

[TIGERassault]

Kilarin, that would be nice, but what organisations get from charity alone isn't enough! Mainly because people are naturally greedy and think that they're individual help would do squat all, so why bother.
For example, did you or did you not already sign up to donate part of your income to a healthcare charity? No you didn't, did you?
That's why the country leaders have to discipline people into giving away a little more of their money.

"It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged
the eternal inequality of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried
aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially held up in high places,
and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving
hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every
man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very
decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, 'Let the
best man win, whoever he is.' Let the best man win! That is America's word.
That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and
the same thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight."
--Owen Wister in "The Virginian,"

I've seen this before, and it is horribly flawed! Firstly, it gives the impression that the little man is held above the great man, which is quite misleading. Secondly, it wouldn't be 'the best man' who would win, it would be 'the greediest man who got the best childhood-upbringing' who would win. Thirdly, it pretty much encourages selfishness and discourages sharing with the needy.

[Testiculese]

In Massachusetts, there is a now a law on the books that says everyone must have health insurance by July 1, 2008. If not you are penalized on your income tax return the $2000.00 personal deduction. The law is complicated in the fact that there are exceptions based on income levels and availability of employer provided health insurance. But the bottom line is, everyone must have some sort of healthcare coverage, wether it's from the state or private sector. It's supposed to aleviate or attempt to eliminate the state mandated tax(it comes out of our income tax) that provides healthcare to uninsured persons who need hospital care but can't pay for it.

You should take a look at who's actually sponsoring that bill, and who's funding that person to sponsor it. It's not about the health of the people, that's for sure. Let's see who can figure it out. (Hint, where's the profit go?)

[Kilarin]

did you or did you not already sign up to donate part of your income to a healthcare charity? No you didn't, did you?

Yes, I donate a part of my income to organizations that help provide healthcare to those who can not afford it.

I've seen this before, and it is horribly flawed! Firstly, it gives the impression that the little man is held above the great man, which is quite misleading. Secondly, it wouldn't be 'the best man' who would win, it would be 'the greediest man who got the best childhood-upbringing' who would win. Thirdly, it pretty much encourages selfishness and discourages sharing with the needy.

It is what Capitalism is all about. The idea that a poor man with a poor education can not succeed is false. He has a harder time succeeding, certainly, but we too many examples of people who started with every disadvantage but managed to overcome them. In a capitalist system that is. We also have plenty of examples of people who started with every advantage, and managed to waste them all away.

The very concept of capitalism is based on the ideas outlined in that quote. That each person will find his or her own level. It does NOT promise a level playing field, it does NOT promise that everything will be fair, it only promises that you will not be artificially held down from succeeding or failing on your own.

Socialism is the opposite. It says that no matter how hard you work, the government will come in and take what you make and give it to someone who didn't work as hard. So why work? Socialisim is just Communisim light.

people are naturally greedy

A good friend of mine once told me:

Communism assumes that mankind is generous and has the best interest of his neighbor at heart. It builds an entire system around that assumption, and it is an utter failure.

Capitalism assumes that mankind is greedy and selfish, and they won't work unless you MAKE them work. It builds an entire system around that assumption, and it is a roaring success.

It doesn't say much about mankind, but it does tell us which system we ought to be supporting.

[Ford Prefect]

Fred Reed in his interned column Fred On Everything http://fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm this week has review of a book called Deer Hunting With Jesus:Dispatches From America's Class War by Joe Bageant. Fred is not a fan of government in any form but he makes this point that is serendipitously relevant to this discussion.

But the people Bageant writes about don’t fit this story. They are folk who worked all their lives, worked hard for ★■◆● wages at stultifying jobs and always showed up. And now, at the ends of their lives, they’ve got nothing. Well, they've got diabetes, which I guess is something. And maybe congestive heart failure and a pittance of social security. Know what pharmaceuticals cost? The choice comes to pills or heating oil.

There a lot of working class poor in the U.S. Contract truckers, non-union factory workers, gas station attendants without whom the living standard of the nation would be much lower since they supply cheap labour to produce cheap goods for the middle class.
Fred again:

You don’t see that these guys work as “independent contractors,” meaning no retirement or benefits, at sorry wages, and live a paycheck or two away from nothing, in crumbling fifth-rate modular homes or trailers that lose value instead of gaining it. When they’re thirty and healthy, it’s not bad. It’s at the end that things get rough, or when someone gets sick.

The need has existed for years and in the richest country in the world no charity has yet met the need.

[Lothar]

They are folk who worked all their lives, worked hard for ***** wages at stultifying jobs and always showed up. And now, at the ends of their lives, they’ve got nothing.

And I have a problem with that. I just don't think the government should be dealing with it. If the government can't regulate behavior (smoking, etc.), the government shouldn't pay for the consequences of that behavior (via health care). Alternatively stated, if the government provides health care, it's the government's responsibility to regulate people's behavior -- and I don't think that's right.

Responsibility should fall to family and community. And, despite assertions to the contrary, in large part it does. Not that 100% of everyone just magically has a charity appear out of nowhere to meet their needs... but most poor people in this country who need help and actually look for it get it. (While I haven't been poor myself, I've been involved with an awful lot of people who are or have been. I speak from experience here; help is out there.)

[Kilarin]

There a lot of working class poor in the U.S. Contract truckers, non-union factory workers, gas station attendants without whom the living standard of the nation would be much lower since they supply cheap labour to produce cheap goods for the middle class.

Yes, absolutely true and a darn shame. But as I said, the system is NOT fair, and any attempt to make it perfectly fair usually makes it worse, that is the nature of government intervention.

A much better solution is to try and fix the problems that have made healthcare so expensive. The root of most of this is insurance. As long as we have a middle man standing between the consumer and the medical providers, both sides will have a tendency towards waste and fraud.

And I have a problem with that. I just don't think the government should be dealing with it.

Exactly.

For example, look at the wonderful welfare system. It is horribly inefficient, and tend to cause more problems than it solves.

For a bigger example, look at foreign aid. and check out these <interesting comments> about it from Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati:
Excerpt:

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good.

*SPIEGEL:*

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

*Shikwati:* ... for God's sake, please just stop.

*SPIEGEL:* Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

*Shikwati:* Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

*SPIEGEL:* Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

*Shikwati:* Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

Government aid almost ALWAYS does more harm than good. Governments are inherently inefficient, and frequently corrupt. Keep them small and on a tight choke chain and everyone will be better off.

[Ford Prefect]

Kilarnin you are a Utopian. You feel that people freed from the shackles of government will achieve great things.
Before representative government became popular there was very little in the way of government regulation and most people lived as serfs. Forced to swear allegiance to some one that could afford a horse, an iron sword and armour.
Lack of government in failed states such as Sudan results in rule by warlord. The man with the biggest stash of weapons and the least scruples about using them ends up in charge except where he is forced to yield to a bigger nastier warlord.
Government funded healthcare insurance is just that insurance funded by government so that all individuals are covered regardless of income.
You guys make it sound like jackbooted enforcers stomp around us living in socialist hells and force us to live regulated lives. Come here and live for a few years. Your eyes will be opened.

[Jeff250]

I seem to be communicating poorly. YES, the entire point is that if you challenge a law, they will try to enforce the law by punishing you. IF you say, "The law is unjust so you have no right to punish me", then they will use stronger force, up to and including lethal force. These concepts ARE related.

Demonstrating that they are somehow related isn't enough. You need to demonstrate a strong enough relation to justify statements like, "Speeding is a capital crime," or like, "Littering laws are lethally enforced," which is something you haven't done yet. You have to keep slipping into the end of the story something like, "And then you violently resist arrest." You yourself have admitted that not only is resisting arrest unnecessary but that it's also unwise, even when being arrested for breaking a bad law. Yet we are supposed to still see it as the natural or logical outcome of doing so? That's pretty weak.

Socialism is the opposite. It says that no matter how hard you work, the government will come in and take what you make and give it to someone who didn't work as hard. So why work? Socialisim is just Communisim light.

Right, socialism is undesirable because it neglects negative freedom. But a free market neglects positive freedom, allowing evils and injustices to go uncorrected. The task here is to find the proper mean between the two (which is likely going to be a mixed market).

Libertarianism puts way too much emphasis on negative freedom and not nearly enough on positive freedom. Libertarianism suggests that whatever the market does is acceptable, and whatever the government does is unacceptable. I can't buy that.

That each person will find his or her own level. It does NOT promise a level playing field, it does NOT promise that everything will be fair...

I don't understand this rhetoric. What do you mean when you say that it allows every man to find "his own level?" Certainly it cannot be his own level insofar as it is his just level. It is as much his just level as the market is just.