Is healthcare a "right?"

if you intentionally pretend to not understand my point, I can't help you.

 

And yet they are rights open to every American

 

Are you implying that after an insured person has a heart attack, that they no longer have health insurance?

To what group of people does this scenario apply?

 

no

huh? anyone who has a heart attack. you don't get to choose where you are taken. you are going to the nearest ER. Cost is irrelevant.

 

NP.

 

My bad. I misunderstood your meaning.

 

Sure, in leftist heads it is.

 

You'll go to the nearest hospital to stabilize, and then you'll go to the best doctor you can find.

 

I am not pretending. You are attempting to make a flawed point

 

nope. you'll go to the nearest ER. If they don't have a cardiac unit, you'll be stabilized and then transported to the nearest hospital that has one. You have no choice where you are going.

 

of course you are.

My point is in no way flawed. It highlights why healthcare can not and does not operate under free market principles, and shows why single payer provides better care at a fraction of our cost.

 

Sure. That's why if they survive the heart attack they just go to whoever to stop it from happening again.

No one has ever sought out the best heart surgeons in the state or country. They don't even track that kind of stuff because you have no choice.

 

which isn't the expensive bankrupting part. The ER visit, transport and hospitalization is, and there is no choice in where that happens.

huh?

 

There's never a choice in an emergency.

If you survive the emergency, there is always choice.

 

which is my point, and why healthcare does not and can not operate in a free market.

no there isn't.

 

600 Dollars for an epipen 2 pack .. is extortion. 25 dollars for an aspirin is extortion. Paying 5x more for drugs .. same pill same company . than is paid by other first world nations with less purchasing power (such as Britain, Canada and so so) is extortion.

 

No, most healthcare does, only emergencies do not.

Even then, a lot of people set up LifeFlight or other types of "choices" in case there IS an emergency.

 

Yes, and yes. But government (taxpayers) doesn't have to provide you with a firearm.

I agree that there are difficult questions of ethics when it comes to the intellectual property with the invention of new drugs. Would you as an investor be willing to risk $1B developing a new drug if you knew the moment it is approved, you were required to share the formula with anyone who wants it? I wouldn't. It would consign that research to university labs. But a university does not have hundreds or thousands of chemists to do the work. It is not that profits are more important than life. But if you eliminate the possibility of profits, you lose the investments AND the lives of those who could be saved.

 

25 dollars for an aspirin is because, somebody takes one out of a bottle and notes it in inventory and places it in a cup along with the name and number for the patient. the medicine is then brought up to the nurses floor. a nurse then takes it into your room and stays while you take the pill, she then has to update the system that the pill was given how may milligrams and what time. It is not the 10 cent aspirin it is dosing it that is the cost. It probably takes 15 min of labor to give a person a pill.

 

It takes the same exact amount of time in single payer countries

 

I think you misunderstand "created equal." No one ever had any illusion that all people are born into equally affluent families, or are born with equal IQ or talent at sports or art. It simply means there are things like free speech that the government can not take away and that applies equally to all men & women.

 

no, most healthcare does not. You are restricted in where you can receive treatment by your health insurance carrier.

which does nothing to change the fact healthcare does not and can not operate in a free market, or that single payer provides better care at a fraction of the cost.

 

So you think a profit motive drives costs up?

Thought experiment. Close all gas stations in your town, except one. Do you think gas prices would "decrease dramatically?" How about if government takes over that gas station? You, know, the people who spend $1000 on a toilet seat and $100 on a hammer. Do those sound like people who would drive gas prices down?

 

of course.

I have no idea how you think this in any way addressed the proven reality that single payer provides better care at a fraction of our cost.

 

That's why you choose your health insurance carrier.

But sure, let's go with the "choices are bad, let government decide for you". That's always worked out so well.