Is health care a responsibility of the government. or a personal responsibility?

You mean because they choose not to pay for insurance. I pay $1100/month for my family ‘s health insurance. I’d really like to keep that money that I work hard for but I am a responsible person.

 

Good for you. Not everyone is as lucky as you to be able to afford that.

 

Health care is the responsibility of the individual. I shouldn't have to pay for someone else's care.

Government's interest should be limited to protecting us from major outbreaks of Ebola, etc.

 

Something it seems the left doesn't think through. The term "general welfare" is a broad phrase, speaking to overall good conditions.

IF the government is responsible for your health care and gets enough control- then it becomes your health monitor, and can dictate how you live-
Including your diet, and activities it deems unhealthy (motorcycles, drinking, smoking, etc)... meaning you open a huge door for government to control you because you are unwilling to control yourself. Freedom to do things includes the freedom to not do things. When you start giving your freedom away, you open a bottomless can of worms. We already have too much of that. Be a responsible person- take care of yourself, be prepared and manage your own life.... or you may lose the power to do so. There are plenty of people who are sure they know what you should do, and would be happy to get the power to force you to do what they think you should do.

 

Does this happen in other countries that have public health care? I haven’t seen motorcycles banned in Canada, or smoking, or fast food.

Care to cite a few real world examples?

 

They wrote many things about a Standing Army and they tried to control it with the power of the purse by funding every two years. (Congress was not always in session every year) By not having a strong standing federal army we could not prevent the civil war as state militias fought each other. It wasn't until we brought our Armies, who were fighting the Indians, did the professionals bring order to the war. Congress has the power to raise an army and the President is the commander and chief. The House of Representatives control the purse strings. Who would you have make our weapons to defend our country?

I'm with you on the foreign aid not only to Israel but to any country. I am for food relief, sending people in the times of natural disasters but not military aid.

 

You call responsibility LUCK?? Don't think so. And if you have a hang up of taking care of irresponsible people, then you can give up all your assets for what you believe in, and I can keep mine because I am not my brothers keeper. You want to force your beliefs on me. That is NOT freedom.

 

To get welfare, you have to do this that and the other thing. YOU become the slave to the master.

 

and yet when you turn 65 you will no doubt take advantage of your Medicare benefit.

 

a healthier society means higher GDP, more productivity.

it means lower healthcare costs.

making sure all Americans have health insurance is a national public good and in the public interest

 

Common sense is trumped by selfishness. These folks are so short-sighted that they do indeed cut off their nose to spite their face.

 

This isn't about motorcycles or any specific thing, it's about the precedent of giving government justification to decide how your health should be managed.
While you don't see motorcycle control in Canada, there are a lot of limitations with great impact. I have a daughter-in-law living there with MS. When a new surgery became available with strong results for the kind she has, she couldn't get any cooperation at all, even though doctors asked for it. Wound up traveling out of the country and paying about 20K out of pocket to have it done. Just as they can deny a given treatment they don't think you need, they have by that precedent the authority to deny or require a great many other things- whether you agree or not. What you see today, anywhere- is not a guarantee of what will happen tomorrow, IF the legal power to do otherwise is available. Politicians have a way of insidiously gathering all the power they can, and doing what they think is right for you- for your own good, of course.

 

So no, no specific examples of what you claimed.
As for rationed healthcare our insurance companies already do that here as well. If something is not an approved treatment then they don’t pay. If it isn’t in network, they don’t pay. If you don’t have the correct policy, they don’t pay. Our faithful legislators are attempting to remove pre-existing protections that were only added a few years ago for the insurance companies to... you guessed it, not pay.

I have always thought a two system approach would work best, a minimum standard of care that the government negotiates with providers directly to reduce the cost of common treatments and prescriptions like all other countries do - except us - and then have private insurance to cover faster non-emergency care and scenarios like you mentioned above. The family I have in Canada and Switzerland have told me numerous times our system is a joke and they would not trade theirs for ours, not many people in many countries would besides the very wealthy.

Our system does not work
It is the most expensive by GDP - 50% more than the next highest nation
Our life expectancy is 22nd out of the 35 industrialized OECD countries
We rank 37th in overall performance out of 191 nations
72nd in overall level of health among 191 nations
Our infant mortality far exceeded the world average

A 2004 OECD report said: "With the exception of Mexico, Turkey, and the United States, all OECD countries had achieved universal or near-universal (at least 98.4% insured) coverage of their populations by 1990." The 2004 IOM report also observed that "lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States," while a 2009 Harvard study conducted by co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program, a pro-single payer advocacy group, estimated that 44,800 deaths occurred annually due to lack of health insurance.

I’m sure all the people that have died and their families feel great wrapped in their absolute freedom.
Maybe you will think about them the next time you are driving on our socialized roads, in a vehicle filled with subsidized fossil fuels to go pick up your children from our socalized education system.

 

Most of the right wingers on this forum claim to be Christian. According to their Bible, a nation that has faith in that god has no need of an army at all. Therefore, let's obey their Bible and have no standing army at all.

 

Thomas Paine was one of our Founders and he definitely advocated food relief. If he was around today he would be the # 1 defender of SNAP and agricultural subsidization for farmers.

But he would NOT approve of foreign wars or reliefs.

 

Delete

 

Not to mention the direct commandments to care for the poor and infirm

So many of them seem to be saying I’ve got mine - screw you.
I don’t really believe in the whole God thing but part of me hopes he is real - just so he can say wtf to these people violating every tenant in the Bible except the passages they use to hate others.

 

Definitely one to be remembered for POST OF THE YEAR.

 

As opposed to the free stuff your employer gives you? Ffs

 

There would be no need of welfare and associated slavery if only Christians would give sufficient charity
....given that we are both a Christian nation, and the richest nation in the world, right?

 

I worked my butt off and made many sacrifices and made a lot of "practical" decisions to get where I am. I avoided drugs and didn't make babies before I got married and could afford it. Luck had little to do with it.

 

It should be the responsibility of the individual.

 

Employers give that free stuff to keep you and me with them. They also pay a wage. Now if they instead wanted to increase wages and drop the "free stuff", then I have a choice (most liberals hate that word, you know "choice", because it make YOU responsible for the outcome of your life, not others) to stay or go.
I have been a contract engineer 20 of my professional life. I work all contracts 100% since 2004. I get no insurance, no 401K, no security of a job tomorrow, I get nothing but PAY. So I already live that way. I design a hotel, a road, a bridge, and when it is all done, I just say goodbye. I am not a child, I do not need government to "take care of me" other than the "general welfare" and responsibilities given power by the state to protect us with tranquility and peaceful endeavors.

 

Immaterial what Thomas thought, the constitution is what the group of founders thought, plus amendments made by other government legislatures thought.

How about a very basic tax of 10% for national defense, courts and national road systems, then if you want to support and SELF TAX yourself for a SNAP program WITH YOUR PERSONAL MONEY, then knock yourself out, give till you are homeless. However, don't RAPE the rest of us with your folly or "FEELINGS. The 10% tax would be fair, any more, then you have to tax yourself to pay for these folly of taking care of people who refuse to take care of themselves.

 

It's not an ideological but a practical, pragmatic matter.

Advanced nations have all found that maximizing the risk pool and streamlining the bureaucratic processes result in the most efficient, least costly approach by far - Trump's promised "something terrific!" that covers "everybody!" at "lower cost!"

Since Americans are not so depraved that they blithely abandon the uninsured to suffering and death, taxpayers assume liability for all who, lacking coverage and personal physicians, regularly seek care in hospital emergency rooms with their significantly-inflated costs.

That irrational approach results in medical expenses in the US being about twice as high as all first-world nations.

The United States does have an inclusive, single-payer system that, with 48,000,000 insured, is larger than those of several other nations. It is called Medicare and is extremely popular with Americans. Incrementally lowering the eligibility age to extend coverage to younger, less costly demographics would achieve success approaching that of advanced nations.

With health insurance premiums about to rise significantly and the president and the GOP Congress so focused on their commitment to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure, such an extension of Medicare would be the least onerous approach.