Is health care a right or a privelege?

Is there any limit to the number of arguments one can create when they want somebody else's stuff?

 

Because why?

 

I don't much understand the reasoning behind the is discussion...... but I did stay at a Holiday Express last night!

 

The "Laws of Contract" require that all contracts must be voluntary without any coercion. Without any coercion imposed by the Market no one would exchange their labor for a compensation package that didn't provide for the costs they incur to provide their labor to another person.

Anyone that believes in and understands the basic tenet of capitalism that requires that the "price" paid for a product/service must be equal to or greater than the "cost" imposed to provide for the product/service.

 

There's a minimum mandatory cost of living below which a person cannot survive.

The person's labor is in demand or else there would be no job offer.

The individual is incapable of overcoming the coercive force of the market that can drive the "price" paid for labor to below what it "costs" the person to provide the labor.

To succeed the laws must provide equality between the laborer and the employer to eliminate or mitigate against the coercion that always exits to benefit the employer.

A fair day's compensation is owed for a fair day's labor. If the employee provides a fair day's labor then the employer owes the employee a fair day's compensation.

Always remember that it's the employer that assigns the tasks (labor) to be performed by the employee and it's the employer's responsibility to ensure that the tasks provide the revenue to fund the compensation for the labor of the employee. The employee's only responsibility is to perform the tasks assigned by the employer.

 

Markets are an abstraction. They can coerce nothing.

Applying human qualities to a an abstract human construct. Clever, .....but fail

 

It is a voluntary exchange, services for money. Each is owed what the other agrees to exchange, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Bingo! Absolutely right!

"Health care" is a SERVICE to be bought and paid for by independent, free citizens of the United States, when, how, and if they want it, like any other service! Indeed, you won't find any of that socialistic "but it's a right" horsesh*t in the Constitution anywhere!

. "I'm ENTITLED to free peanuts, so move your ass and GET me some!"

 

Children think they have a right to anything they want

 

FACT: if we treat healthcare as a right and set up a national single-payer system, thereby doing away with the private health insurance industry, the nation as a whole will save around $300 billion a year.

 

Rights have nothing to do money and savings

 

You appear to have some personal mores in conflict here. Consistency would seem to demand that - if your bolded first statement is true (with which I agree) - your second statement would have to be amended to say something like "and if a person chooses to offer their labor, the person deciding to exchange it for currency or goods should have the right to decide for themselves the value of said labor".

If you don't have the right to someone's labor, why do you have the right to dictate what comes out of someone else's pocketbook in exchange for said labor?

 

i thought fiscal Conservatives were all about finding the cheapest solutions.

 

Oddly enough, a "single-payer" system could be very good. We'd make the insurance companies BID for our business, and we'd be the biggest customer-base in the world. The absolute key to making it work is that everybody in a single-payer system must PAY. Actually PAY their own damned premiums. No welfare! No "subsidies" (which is just another word for welfare)!

Those who don't or won't pay for their own health care could get on Medicaid, go to North Korea, or migrate to some other socialist "paradise" where they get everything for "free"....

 

so what? We could simply stop paying welfare payments and save more. Is that really the kind of conversation you're willing to have??

 

Which, I believe, has nothing to do with this topic, as there are nearly innumerable circumstances under which survival would be brought into question.

Again moot, as a person's labor would find no demand at all if the terms they are offering to engage it are unacceptable.

Beyond that, the converse is also true: jobs are also in demand, and are - arguably - more important to the individual who can fill it than the person who offers it. Reason: the person offering it has innumerable options to fill such a position; the person needing the job can only fill one, and - if they have positioned themselves adequately - can hopefully sell their services via negotiation to the highest bidder.

If they cannot, it is not the fault of the person offering a position.

That's demonstrably false. They can improve their marketability; add skills, etc. There are myriad ways in which the individual can determine their value.

No, it doesn't. The individual merely must be marketable. My daughter, for instance, works her tail off at UW-Madison to become an actuary, and has just completed her freshman year. She is about to take - today - the first of many tests necessary to do so.

How she does - how she has been doing - determines her value to employers even amongst others who are studying the same discipline.

Clearly, therefore, the individual has more influence over the market than any other individual, including 'a boss'. Why? Because 'bosses' lose employees to other suitors all the time.

And it is rarely for less compensation, isn't it?

This is a platitude, and not a law. There is universal definition of the word 'fair', so it is moot to attempt to use it. The only people in a position to determine that definition must be in the individual circumstance negotiating it, and that means people like you need to stay out of it. If I accept a position at an offered wage - whether I attempted to negotiate a higher level of compensation or not - then I have determined 'fair' for myself. If I offer a job and find no takers for that job, I may choose to increase my wage rate until I find a suitable candidate, or I may decide for myself the value of the position.

Those are the only determinants of 'fair'. Not your idyllic notion of it.

No, that's not true. It is also the employee's responsibility to find employment which compensates them adequately.

 

What does this have to do with squid's statement?

 

The market can't coerce anyone. It's not a person.

That's not a basic tenet of capitalism.

 

The market can't coerce. It's not a person.

If an employee feels that the wage offered isn't sufficient, then he is under no obligation to accept the offer. Nobody owes anyone a living.

 

thats easy to say when you have an employer that respects and appreciates your labor.

 

OK, then, Ronny... if somebody doesn't feel "appreciated" and is not paid enough -- THAT'S WHEN TO GO GET A DIFFERENT JOB! If a person falls out of 'love' with a job, that doesn't mean that it is time to go bitch and whine to the government for free stuff!

 

Is health care a right or a privelege?

Healthcare is a scam by big pharma, hospitals, doctors and insurance companies. They make Madoff look real small time.

 

When it's really easy to say is when you provide labor worth respecting. I'm going to explain why because it's clear you don't know.

It's because if your employer doesn't respect and appreciate your labor, your ability to provide labor worth appreciating and respecting is mobile.

You can find better circumstances.

This is obvious to smart people, and particularly obvious to smart people who provide worthwhile labor.

 

wants other people's stuff.

 

what does that have to do with rights ?