Rush Limbaugh Says Poor Don't Deserve Healthcare
In a bizarre interview with William Shatner, on his show "Raw Nerve", Rush Limbaugh argued that there is no "morally superior aspect" to the question of the right to healthcare and suggested that it is entirely fair that if someone cannot afford healthcare, they should not have it.
Limbaugh unbelievably argued that poor people should have no more right to quality healthcare than they have to purchase "a house on the beach", arguing instead that they should have healthcare equivalent to the "bungalow" they would be able to afford.
For Limbaugh, the right to have one's health issues treated adequately, is a luxury and nothing more. If one is wealthy, then the luxury is within one's reach. If not, there's no moral reason whatsoever for society to provide any means to assist the underprivileged (or, middle class?) in affording quality health treatment.
The interview should once and for all seal Limbaugh's position as radical, callous and out of step with the 100% of the American population who believe they should have access to care when they need it. Limbaugh's view allows only for the wealthy to decide whether the poor should live or die.
The interview is shameful enough it should provoke responsible conservatives to disavow Limbaugh as a dangerous radical ideologue whose views seek nothing less than the eradication of the middle-class economy and the politics of fairness that are hallmarks of American democracy.
Whether or not they disavow Limbaugh will be a measure of their own humanity and commitment to the American people. It's time for us to cleanse our political discourse of the dismissive and hateful rhetoric of Mr. Limbaugh and the primitive urges he seeks to manipulate to his advantage.
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Comments
If you believe in a protestant god you are led into this line of chosen people who deserve more in this life and the next. Deterministic thinking is at the core of many problems we have in society and in finance.
It is superstition that favors the Rush's of the world, and as long as their are 20 million fools to be lead he will remain the most influential conservative on earth.
So where does that put conservative thinking?
I think this is precisely what we have to become more aware of regarding merchants of hate and division like Limbaugh: there is nothing ok about lusting for the suffering of others, whether you disagree with their politics, feel hurt by their criticism of a war, or just think they are lazy, poor and/or inferior.
Hate is hate, and it leads to and stirs up bloodlust. There's no reason for it, and it is fundamentally unjustifiable. What's more, Limbaugh directs his hate against innocents, people who are guilty of nothing other than not thinking like he does or not being part of his privileged lifestyle.
His listeners need to come to the understanding that they are not actually welcome in his life, only as contributors to his income. And people in public life need to disavow his extremist propaganda and his relentless slander of the majority of Americans who don't fit his narrow interpretation of reality.
The idea that there is no moral quality whatsoever to healthcare is radical and reprehensible, and we cannot credit Rush Limbaugh with being given to nuance of any kind.
Wait, I can think of a couple. But the airwaves don't deserve that asshole.
Capt. Kirk is a Canadian, fully versed in UHC. And probably well able to argue about it, especially with a blowhard like Rush.
I will never be able to understand how listeners buy in to his ilk.
Thanks for this post and duly forwarded.
Oh wait a minute - they've pretty much discarded their religion...
DoctorRick - These matters have been worked out to pretty much everyone's satisfaction in Canada. No reason they should be a problem in the U.S.
Which reminds me of something I mentioned on another blog last night - I know a (rich, of course) person in the U.S. who said that introducing a Canadian-style system would be disastrous...for heaven's sake, Canada doesn't even offer chemo because of cost. He said he knew someone in his field in Canada who was soliciting donations to pay for chemo. I tracked down the case to which he was referring, and found that the person in question was asking for help to pay for alternative treatments, a special diet, etc., that she wanted IN ORDER TO HELP COUNTERACT THE SIDE-EFFECTS OF THE CHEMO that she was, of course, getting thru our health system.
If we can do it, you can do it. But first, kill all the Limbaughs.
Of course that's not really the issue. There are a lot of people who aren't even getting the "bungalow," a lot of people walking around with cataracts, chronic pain, bad teeth, and many other easily correctable conditions simply because they can't afford treatment. Many others go for years without seeing a physician. Others can't afford the recommended medications. And hundreds of thousands of people go bankrupt from medical bills every year.
The only question is whether we want to have that kind of country. Since most of our politicians are in the pockets of the health, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies, and don't really represent us, I don't expect any change in the near future.
The conservatives of the Nineteenth and part of the Twentieth centuries knew that the Free Market was an anti-traditional and amoral mechanism, and that a world in which one might buy anything is one in which everything eventually ends up for sale, including health, freedom, and self-respect.
Love they neighbor, I am my brother's keeper...anyone?
Limbaugh's argument would play out thusly: If he had a heart attack today, he'd get Cadillac treatment. He'd check himself into Johns Hopkins and they'd tell him we're going to put 7 stents in your heart tomorrow, fairly routine, but we can't let you go home until we do this...that would be a certain death sentence given the state of your arteries.
But if tomorrow, when they ran his credit cards at Johns Hopkins and found it rejected, he'd totally accept them giving him an aspirin instead of the 7 stents he needs to open his fat-clogged arteries and say "enjoy your bungalow health care Mr. Limbaugh." And he'd agree - yes, this is all I deserve.
Without exception the people the people I talk to who are against any form of healthcare reform have insurance "tax free" from their employers or retirement.
I once saw a commercial where the doctor held the defibrillator paddles while a nurse swiped the patient's Visa card. Once approved, the paddles were applied and the patient revived. That commercial is very close to the truth!
I've had two sisters succumb to cancer. In both instances they weren't wealthy. They got enough treatment to make them comfortable or as much treatment as the hospital could bilk out of private insurance or Medicare and that's it!
My father went to the ER with chest discomfort. They sent him home because it was "indigestion". He died later from a heart attack. My mother was made comfortable while she died of a heart attack. Both parents were on social security and Medicare. Where were the heroics? The reality is, if the doctors and hospital can't make money off you, there is little interest keeping you around to run up a huge bill. This is life. It has been this way for a long time.
I also got a dose of reality when I was off work during the dot-com bubble burst in 2002. When my savings ran out and I could no longer afford my COBRA payments I turned to the state of Tennessee for assistance purchasing health insurance. I learned that for a person out of work whose only income is unemployment insurance - all those social services are not available because you have a few assets. Never mind it takes time to liquidate assets before you can eat...
Wake up America! The politicians are only interested in getting money out of your pocket and into theirs. There is no compassion for the huddled masses...
They're dragging the carcass down the garden path, the wheels of the handcart replaced by bones. And the American Public (A*P) for the most part seems enthralled.
I'm continually unsurprised.
[sigh]
Ah, but it does. Look at Africa or most of non-urban South America (North America, may as well too). Cholera, typhoid, HIV, and the list goes on. Little to no clean water, or sanitation leaves the poor far more at risk of disease. Not to mention the results of simple bone breaking accident; wouldn't want to be poor if that happens.
Of course money buys better health care. Otherwise, how do you determine who gets what? Should we draw straws? Roll the dice? Spin the wheel? Is everyone entitled to reconstructive knee surgery? Dental implants? Root canals? Erectile dysfunction medication?
Money is our method for dividing up scarce resources. It is not perfect but it's the best system we know of. What is your system? Everyone gets everything they want?
I'm pretty sure when faced with the choice of allegiance to an ideology of "money determines value" in all cases versus getting cancer treatment for one's family, we would all rather cancer treatment not be determined by wealth or station.
I never mentioned anything about BoTox. Why not address the actual scenarios I did mention?
How do you determine which procedures are a right and which procedures are a luxury? In a Utopian world (one that still had disease), everyone would get the very best cancer treatment available. Since we do not live in a Utopian world, we need a way to divide up limited resources such as chemotherapy.
The truth may be painful but it is still the truth nonetheless.
Second, we should determine who gets what resources based on who needs them the most. Gonna die in an hour without care? You get care before someone who's not gonna die until tomorrow. It's called 'triage'.
Yes, the truth is painful, but also avoidable.
Unsurprisingly, they all deem themselves "good Christians" who adhere to the dogma of the church while carefully cherry picking their way around the socialistic tenets of the man whom they claim to follow.
What Limbaugh expresses are the basics of American culture and that's what really stands in the way of our nation fulfilling its best potential.
You can't ethically justify giving reconstructive knee surgery to people who caused their own injury say, skiing, but have expensive insurance that will cover it, but offer no help at all to someone who needs to be on his or her feet for their job (a nurse, perhaps) was injured through no fault of their own, and cannot cover the costs of the same procedure.
There's a fundamental moral and ethical crisis involved there which is a tragic commentary on how we use our system of representative government to govern our society. We can do better.
And yes, there are nurses who cannot afford and do not have provided for them health insurance. As you say, this is not Utopia.
Dental implants are perhaps less a human right. A root canal certainly is, in that it is almost always an emergency intervention to deal with crippling pain and the possible spread of infection. Erectile dysfunction medication is probably, in strictly socio-ethical terms, more of a lifestyle choice, and something that is intended to deal with problems some people might be able to work out in counseling.
Still, is that something an insurance company's accountant should decide. I find that hard to justify.
On chemotherapy, I have cared for someone who died of cancer because sustained treatment was not affordable. I have seen what that does. And I can tell you as a student of ecology and economics, that chemotherapy is not a "scarce resource"; it is a commercially-determined synthetic process which is available as it is made available. It is an INACCESSIBLE resource for too many people, because pricing schemes are out of touch with reality and our insurance system is morally bankrupt.
How long have you thought about this system of yours? What if there are multiple people who are "gonna die" in an hour without health care? What if death is not even an issue? Does everyone get dental implants or do some people only get tooth extractions?
How would you dole out erectile dysfunction medicine? Do you assign a marriage counselor to determine which marriage is most in need of intimacy?
How do you determine who needs triple bypass surgery more? Do you judge by age or gender or the person's good looks. Would you say that a star athlete needs his heart more than an elderly person?
Thank you for addressing my points.
Your response is similar to Aric's in that who gets which treatment depends on that person's urgency. Who decides that urgency? Shall we have a national committee which evaluates everyone to see where they fit in the grand scheme of things? A nurse shall receive reconstructive knee surgery because she walks a lot; a computer programmer is bumped to the back of the line because he sits a lot.
A root canal is not necessary. It is performed to save the tooth. But, if pain and the risk of infection are the issue, why not perform a simple and cheap extraction? Or, do you also determine that some people need pretty smiles more than others?
Chemotherapy is most certainly a scarce resource; everything in this world is scarce.
The point here is that some kind of system is needed to dole out scarce resources. Our society has chosen the money system. You seem to advocate some kind of subjective committee based solution whereby people are arbitrarily ranked according to who deserves health care more.
It is disingenuous to argue that because we use money to organize our economic system and to distribute resources that this means money should work just as much as an obstacle for some people as it is a vehicle for others.
I do not argue that the nurse who is injured should have priority over anyone, but rather that less urgent cases should not be the sole recipients of treatment to the exclusion of others. Doctors take an oath to "do no harm" but are forced to turn people away whom they can easily help, not because resources are scarce, but because insurance is too expensive and insurers have too much sway over what doctors and hospitals decide.
On scarcity, scarcity is always relative, either to demand or to comparable resources. Chemotherapy may appear, from certain standpoints, to be "scarce", because it is inappropriately conditioned, not on demand (patient need), but on access (ability to pay exorbitant amounts).
Economies of scale allow for the further mass production of equipment and medication for chemotherapy, at ever decreasing costs, to a degree where overall average per treatment costs can be significantly reduced, the pool of patients treated greatly expanded, and the profit margins kept either the same or even higher.
The problem is not "scarcity" (as in, it takes millions of years to make a diamond, so diamonds are, compared to water vapor, very scarce), but rather how we determine availability... make more, charge less, and things can work more smoothly for everyone. Maybe the problem with the "money system" is that it has been so vastly distorted in the US healthcare equation that markets cannot properly set prices so that availability of treatment corresponds to patient need.
I guess he's talking about this:
Living in a Third World country (aka The United States)
As a Canadian, Shatner knows a thing or two about Universal health care.
go back to basics: is america a socialist democracy? nooo. is it even a socialist parliamentary monarchy, like sweden? noo. it's a land of "i've got mine," a land of greed and selfishness. you all are just complaining because rush-thing makes this so obvious.
I never mentioned anything about triage. You never mentioned anything about a committee. But you did say that someone like a nurse should receive reconstructive knee surgery because she walks a lot during her job. Who determines which jobs get which medical procedures?
"It is disingenuous to argue that because we use money to organize our economic system and to distribute resources that this means money should work just as much as an obstacle for some people as it is a vehicle for others." - J.E. Robertson
Well, obviously, I disagree that it is disingenuous. You still have not told me what kind of system replaces a money system for health care. You seem to be arguing that health care is unlimited and that is our money system which limits it. According to you, if we only removed money from the system health care would be readily available to everyone on demand.
"Economies of scale allow for the further mass production of equipment and medication for chemotherapy, at ever decreasing costs, to a degree where overall average per treatment costs can be significantly reduced, the pool of patients treated greatly expanded, and the profit margins kept either the same or even higher." - J.E. Robertson
I see. How do you make that happen? You keep telling me how things should be but you're not telling me how to make it so. Economies of scale and profit margins are measurements in a money based system. But, in your health care system, money doesn't matter. So who would run the chemo industry efficiently as you described yet without any of those pesky monetary incentives that normally produce the efficiencies you desire?
1. Triage means giving care first where it is most urgent, and you did suggest I was in favor of some sort of national standard for permitting or denying care. I am not. Doctors and patients should make these choices. Someone whose life will be degraded by an unfortunate health situation should have a right to treatment.
2. On "disingenuous": maybe your view of the money system is more ingenuous than disingenuous. I am not arguing for replacing the money system entirely, but I also do not think there is any reasonable way to say it is working properly with regard to healthcare. Compensation for goods and services, using money, makes sense, but for healthcare to work, it has to be based on actually helping people, not on how major firms can game the system to increase the bottom line. My suggestion (and it's not mine alone) is that reforms must help create incentives to base compensation on health outcomes and quality of patient care, not on barring access to those who are too sick and not on charging too much for too little in exchange.
3. Efficiencies vs. scarcity: it's not a question of creating an ideal and centralized totalitarian "chemo industry", but rather of letting it be better for those who make the products that allow for the delivery of chemotherapy to produce more, for less, by opening the system, granting sustained access over time to more people, and letting doctors make best-case decisions about outcomes, rather than about cost. This will restore the idea of "incentive" to the production of health treatment products in general, by gearing the actual market for health treatments to the actual demand (patient need), rather than to calculations about insurance companies' bottom lines under the current business model.
If you dig down into the currently proposed healthcare reforms, there are specific insurance regulatory reforms that are designed to help make this happen, like not allowing insurers to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or drop coverage due to illness.
I think it's important not to treat the "money system" like a monolithic and automatically virtuous universal... money is a tool, and like any tool, it can be leveraged effectively or ineffectively, for the good or for ill, and what we are dealing with in healthcare is a situation in which market forces have been broken by a system that does not accurately assess value and which does not reward service providers for quality of service.
That is the element of the equation we have to correct. It's not Utopian thinking; it's pragmatic: when healthcare providers are rewarded for doing a better job AS HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS, and we cease to refuse access to one-sixth of the population, we can restore some reason to the way incentives work.
Maybe Limbaugh is cool with the idea of untreated pandemics raging throughout America. At least, as long as he doesn't personally succumb to the next super flu or sexually-transmitted plague. After all, if you get sick, you're just a weak, wussy liberal.
"How long have you thought about this system of yours?" I thought that up in about 5 seconds. Given more time, I'm sure a more detailed system could be invented.
"What if there are multiple people who are "gonna die" in an hour without health care?" That's why we have more than one doctor in hospitals.
"What if death is not even an issue?" Then you use some other means of determining it. I was using an extreme case to make my point.
"Does everyone get dental implants or do some people only get tooth extractions?" Everyone gets the base procedure (tooth extraction in your exaple), and they can have the more advanced treatment (dental implants) if they can afford it. Dentures if not.
"How would you dole out erectile dysfunction medicine?" I wouldn't, because it's not health- or life-threatening.
"Do you assign a marriage counselor to determine which marriage is most in need of intimacy?" No, because, again, marriage counseling is not health- or life-threatening. It is not medically necessary. Weren't we talking about hospitals?
"How do you determine who needs triple bypass surgery more?" I imagine they use x-rays or MRIs or some such to determine that. Plaque in arteries is visible and measurable.
"Do you judge by age or gender or the person's good looks." None of the above. Base it ENTIRELY on what they need, not who they are.
"Would you say that a star athlete needs his heart more than an elderly person?" No. His occupation has nothing to do with it. Now, one can argue about life expectancy (the althete has 60 years ahead of him if treated, while the elderly person does not) and whether it's wise to give a heart to someone who's gonna die in 5 years anyway, but that's a different conversation (and not one that I am qualified to have).
It's a mistake to think we need to earn Rush Limbaugh's respect in that sense. But it's true that we do need to be stronger than him if we are to change the political discourse in this country. The definition of strength is the key element here. I think we need to stand together, and keep the pressure on, and relentlessly reveal the vile, inhuman character of Rush Limbaugh's rhetoric for what it is.
His rhetoric will never go away unless we make it morally and socially unacceptable to hold his views, and the only way to do that is to keep pointing out how morally bankrupt and socially dangerous they are. That's why we have free speech, to expose that kind of lie, to undermine propagandists, to lead by example and use the system of democratic society and open debate for something better.
Besides, he gets himself into enough trouble with his personal habits, and that hasn't exactly ended his career.
You don't even have to bet past the title of this blog to see that smoke is being blown. He did not say the poor do not deserve health care.
This country has always been about doing for yourself. If you want more then you need to do more. We share and take care of others because we want to and we think it's right. We own things and they are ours to do with as we please.
Now Rush steps in and says that everyone is not equal. We have never been a country of equals. We have equal chances, but nobody forces us to all be equal.
People see health care as something that you should have without tiers. Why? If health care is important to you, why not do more to get what you think is important? Do people have no responsibility in the area or health care? If they have responsibility what is it?
If we can't have tiered, beach home vs. bungalow, health care why are we debating what we are going to get? We should all be on the presidential health plan. Everybody is equal, including him.
Where do you get the right to take what is mine to pay for health care for someone else? You are going to take my money, my time, and my hard work. For what? To give to someone else so they don't have to have bungalow health care.
Where does it end? You think it's okay to take my stuff for health insurance. He thinks we should take your stuff for animal rights. What if you don't like animal rights. Are you going to be on the radio being the next Limbaugh? Are they going to take your stuff and call you names?
What about other things that are needed? We all need housing. I live in a dump not far from John Edwards. Why not take his stuff and put me in his guest house.
Rush was just pointing out what our mother thought. You're old enough that your wants wont hurt you. You take what you can get and forget those the stuff belong to.
I bet these Ayn Rand libertarians make up 20% of the population. They really don't care what happens to you. "You had your whole life to get it together and it's not my job to clean it up" mentality.
As a Canadian who sees the benefit of Universal Health Care and notices that the John Knights of the world shut up after a few years, I pity the Us.
I think these are the same guys who bray "usa, usa, usa," as joey chestnut wins the Nathan's hot dog eating contest.
If countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, can see fit to provide universal health care, how in the world can the moron brigade gather here and dispute that america should too?
Your argument does not make sense. If doctors are not factoring cost into their decisions that would suggest a system where money doesn't matter. If money doesn't matter, how do doctors get paid to cover their costs?
What you are arguing for is a fantasy system whereby we keep the efficiency of market-based industries without all that money stuff. Well, if that were possible why not apply that model to every industry?
Cost factors are essential to any industry in order to maintain effeciency. In your system, health care is free for all but paid for by only some people. In such a system, how can you maintain efficiency if cost doesn't matter? How do you ensure that supply always matches demand? How do you justify forcibly taking money from some people's paycheck to hand over to other people? How do you enforce treatment based on urgency rather than money?
You are not telling me how your system will work, only that it will work.
However, two observations. I don't know if it will become a trend, but I know of two couples who passed on COBRA payments because they figured that their insurance, at 80/20 coverage, did not protect them from bankruptcy, even in the case of "simple" surgery. Even if the 20% is "only" a few thousand, it is a few thousand that they don't have. So they are using that COBRA money to pay for doctor's visits, get prescriptions, and otherwise use it for preventative health care. As one person said, "I will have to declare bankruptcy either way, at least this way I have the filing fees sitting in the bank."
The other point is more a question than anything. Do you really want an underpaid, uninsured nurse tending to your Cadillac ass if you are helpless in a hospital bed? That's putting a little too much faith in the humanity and self-control of every person who passes through your hospital room.
I think point number one might actually get to be more of a problem for the rich than number 2. If insurance companies cannot attract any "cough" suckers to buy their insurance, that means insurance goes waaaaaaay up for the ones who can afford it.
Personally, I would love to see the middle class play the system the same way the rich have. Being rich used to mean that you had a certain amount of inventiveness, moxie, or organizational skill. No more. Being rich now mostly just means you are a "legal" crook.
Aric Dante says poor people don't deserve dental implants.
""What if death is not even an issue?" Then you use some other means of determining it. I was using an extreme case to make my point.
" - Aric
Yes, I'm aware of that. You used an extreme case to avoid addressing "other means of determining it". Basically, you are saying that you have no idea how to make your system work. You only know that you really want a system like that to work.
""How would you dole out erectile dysfunction medicine?" I wouldn't, because it's not health- or life-threatening.
" - Aric
A man's penis is not functionaing properly and you don't see that as a health issue? Basically, you are saying poor people do not need to have properly functioning sex organs.
So, in Aric's world, poor people are not entitled to dental implants and functioning penises.
You obviously have contempt for the alternative to your "money system", but you fail to consider two important things: 1) the system may have potential and fail to live up to it due to the specific way in which it is being implemented, and 2) there are possible solutions between the two extremes of the status quo or a perfectly, and to your mind unrealistically, just world. (I'm inferring.)
Another point I've noticed is that you seem to be arguing there should be a single catch-all system that dictates how everything is for everyone, and miraculously, works. I am not arguing that, and I think if you pay close attention, you'll find that no one who favors healthcare reform is suggesting that, except those who really are committed to a single universal health service.
You say "If doctors are not factoring cost into their decisions that would suggest a system where money doesn't matter. If money doesn't matter, how do doctors get paid to cover their costs?" This statement is a red herring. I have never suggested there are ZERO costs or that cost is irrelevant.
The problem is that the current system works in such a way that doctors, who have to decide on treatment options, are held hostage to cost by a system that demands irrational and unjustified mega-profits for insurers, who really are just middlemen. They are looting the system and undermining doctors' and hospitals' ability to meet the cost requirements of the marketplace.
Doctors could earn exactly the same amount they earn now, but if the focus for what healthcare costs were based on actual quality of care provided, and not on what insurers want to extract from the healthcare process, doctors, hospitals and patients would all be better off. So would the insurers who could figure out how to do business in that much more legitimate system, where successfully covering the costs of care (i.e. what they're paid for) was a sign of success and a source of monetary reward.
You say that "What you are arguing for is a fantasy system whereby we keep the efficiency of market-based industries without all that money stuff. Well, if that were possible why not apply that model to every industry?"
You are assuming that anything that calls itself a "market" is actually virtuous and efficient and morally necessary and right. You are making a blind-faith argument in apparent defense of specific interests who have manipulated the marketplace so that it now functions as an anti-market: the health insurance "market" does not lower costs and increase value for consumers, as markets are supposed to, but rather escalates costs, decreases value on the dollar, and rejects an increasing number of potential consumers. This is a failed market, in fact, an anti-market.
You suggest that "In your system, health care is free for all but paid for by only some people. In such a system, how can you maintain efficiency if cost doesn't matter? How do you ensure that supply always matches demand? How do you justify forcibly taking money from some people's paycheck to hand over to other people? How do you enforce treatment based on urgency rather than money?"
Creative. But I am not telling you we should have a universal health service. I am not telling you that everyone should have free healthcare. And I am not telling you costs don't matter. What I'm saying is costs matter, and it's necessary to understand why they are as they are, what's wrong with the current state of affairs, and take steps designed to make the cost-benefit (that's cost to consumer, benefit to consumer) equation work better.
1) No one should be denied needed health treatment. (Doctors can decide what is strictly needed, based on facts and experience. No bureaucrat, and no executive should EVER make those decisions.)
2) If someone cannot afford to spend one dime on healthcare, because they don't have enough money to feed their children, and/or because they had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for an uninsured spouse's emergency surgery, of course that person should have free healthcare when needed. It's in society's interest, and it's in all of our interest not to live in a society that just let's people deteriorate senselessly.
3) Treatment decisions are not about triage; triage is only for situations where there is a major emergency with many in need of immediate or near-immediate care. We are not talking about deciding care based on urgency, only about making sure treatment decisions are based on health considerations, not money considerations.
4) Why is that not an abolition of the money system? Because healthcare providers are still paid. Pharmaceutical firms are still paid. People earn salaries and hospitals hand out bills. But... a deliberate effort is made to reward better patient outcome and better quality of care. Low costs to consumers should also be rewarded. (The specifics of this are complicated, and could involve tax incentives, low-interest business credit, and other assistance.)
5) I am not talking about a non-money system, just a money system where what people pay for makes sense. It should also not be a rigged system, where specific interests can easily plan for large profits. That's not a market; that's totalitarianism. This may be why you can't find a strict "system" in what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting we do what we're doing, without putting profits before people, and that we do it well.
I'll put the ball back in your court: if you favor the current system, how do you propose to apply the current system in such a way so that no one ever dies as a result of being denied treatment due to non-coverage? How would you apply the current system to ensure that doctors are never forced to go against their own best treatment recommendation because a patient can't pay?
Irrespective of who pays, medical procedures are already divided into two categories: life sustaining and elective. In any subsidized program for those unable to afford health care insurance, elective procedures would either not be covered, or would be subject to some waiting list or other rational rationing standard.
Such standards already exist today in private insurance companies, who base their decisions on cost alone. In nations with some type of state regulated or subsidized health are, similar but less draconian standards have been developed with the input of medical professionals.
Right now, for people whose income and assets disentitle them for Medicaid yet who cannot afford insuurance or out of pocket costs for medical services, all care becomes elective and indfinitely postponed.
A man can live and work without the ability to have erections and even sexual intercourse. Nobody with erectile dysfunction died before Viagra was invented. Sexual frustration leads to unhappiness, not death.
It is my opinion that we should have a single-payer system like Medicare, supported by means-tested premiums. Those unable to afford the premums would have subsidized basic care like Medicaid.
Thanks for your thoughtful responses.
In the context of your headline, "Rush Limbaugh Says Poor Don't Deserve Healthcare", you lambaste him for suggesting that health care services be paid for by the patient. So, rather than debate this health care reform or that health care reform, I'd rather stick with your main argument that money should not determine health care treatment. Obviously, our current system is flawed and needs many adjustments. But the context here is much larger than reforming insurance companies.
You say that no one should be denied health care just because they can't pay for it. But the term "health care" is a very broad term; it covers many procedures, medicines, and treatments.
If someone was running with scissors, tripped, and stabbed himself with those scissors, I want him to be treated immediately regardless of his ability to pay. You, me, everyone here, every conservative including Rush agrees with that position.
But health care goes way beyond scenarios like that. Again, I come back to reconstrucive knee surgery. I use this example because I think it is amazing that this procedure is even possible. Doctors can actually recontruct someone's knee. I imagine that this procedure is one that takes a lot of training and skill. This means that doctors who can do this are probably much scarcer than general practitioners. This means that allowing anyone to have reconstructive knee surgery regardless of ability to pay would dramatically increase demand without an increase in supply.
A patient goes to a doctor and says, "Doc, I need my knee reconstructed but I can't pay you. Please schedule me in for this Thursday." The doctor in your system must do the expensive procedure free of charge. Why would a doctor choose to start a practice where many of his patients do not pay him? How does he cover his expenses which include malpractice insurance, rent, salaries, equipment, and student loans? At some point, less doctors would choose to go through the lengthy education process if the financial reward is significantly reduced. How do you deal with that?
"if you favor the current system, how do you propose to apply the current system in such a way so that no one ever dies as a result of being denied treatment due to non-coverage?" - J.E. Robertson
I do not propose such a system. Such a system is a Utopian dream. Neither one of us (or anyone here) has a plan to stop people from dying due to non-coverage. Perhaps, someday, if we develop robots who can perform surgery, we can mass produce those robots to ensure everyone receives the medical attention they need. Until then, there are only so many doctors to go around; supply is limited.
"How would you apply the current system to ensure that doctors are never forced to go against their own best treatment recommendation because a patient can't pay?" - J.E. Robertson
I wouldn't in most cases except those of imminent danger (see scissor example).
Hm. Sexual intercourse without an erection, huh? You're a better man than I, Peter Winkler.
Are you defining health care as something that only applies to life and death cases? If that is the case, I suppose if men can have intercourse without an erection, they can also survive just fine with bad knees, bad backs, broken bones, missing fingers, and hernias. I'm really not sure what to make of your premise here.
Are you saying a single-payer system would only apply to absolute life and death cases?
If we had a properly functioning system, the ability to pay the surgeon would be assured, so we're left with a supply of surgeons deficit. Of course, the rising demand will cause more surgeons to be trained, so let's not ignore half of the theory and supposed results.
There is no suggestion floating around that doctors work for free, so that assertion isn't relevant.
The problem with for-profit health insurance is it doesn't work well. It causes less efficiency and higher costs, all for no particularly good reason, unless one is an ideologue and wants to argue theories sans the context of the facts involved.
The whole theory thing works better if you show how it relates to known reality. That would mean to be objective, and at times reality makes a mess of some people's intent to be objective, and the desire to make the ideology prevail over facts controls.
Put simply, for profit health insurance doesn't work very well. It costs more, produces less, and is an inferior, bad business model for America.
As to your "rights" to "keep your money" so it isn't used "for somebody else," all I can say is welcome to America, and you don't have that right. The funny thing is you're already paying, you're only complaining about whom you're paying.
That ain't much of an argument.
They have the "right" to have health care, money, power, whatever - because they've been blessed with it. Sure, plenty of folks like to believe in the bootstrap Horatio Alger myth, but you can find just as many of the wealthy elite conservatives whose money and power date back more than a hundred years (GW Bush being one small but shining example).
As Myriad says, we're pushing towards a more medieval worldview, with folks like Rush and Beck leading the charge. It's sick and sad, but thanks to the propaganda machine, people not only eat this kind of tripe up, but they use it to justify why it's "natural" for have nots to fight with other have nots over scraps from the table.
"I hear the we're number one crowd raising their hackles over universal health care coverage.
I think these are the same guys who bray "usa, usa, usa," as joey chestnut wins the Nathan's hot dog eating contest.
If countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, can see fit to provide universal health care, how in the world can the moron brigade gather here and dispute that america should too?"
Here is a list of THIRTY-SIX countries who HAVE managed to implement universal coverage, many of whom we categorize as undeveloped and even terroristic countries, so the question is simple:
If they can find a way why can't america, yawn?
The bigger picture is always behind - hiding so we won't dig any further to find out what or who is designing the message. R*L couldn't come up with this stuff on his own, now, do ya think?
It bothers me to see so much energy spent on trying to educate someone like John Knight. Many other countries have done this, My. Knight, if you'd do some research you'd know we don't have to reinvent the wheel here. Good luck to you.
Thanks so much for turning me on to Raw Nerve - I'll check it out! Rated for getting my mind off the endless wars.
That would solve a big part of the problem.
But unfortunately since the 90% unemployment rate of that 20% of Americans' with disabilities is not even reported by the FEDERAL LABOR DEPARTMENT and the Obama administration isn't doing shit about the issue but I'm kickiing their assses as hard as I can to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, then Rush is basically saying that he is supporting euthenasia and what Hitler did to people with disabilities under the T-4 program....which was exterminate them along with the Jews. Oh, and Gay people...which is where the pink triangle comes from because that is what gay people had to wear in concentration camps like Jews had to wear yellow stars of David.
So if Rush thinks that the New HHS seal is like the Riechstaag flag, which in fact he is actually pretty accurate about visually (most of my paternal family WAS KILLED IN BUCHENWALD) but apart from that Rush is a racist, hateful fuck, then my only response is that it is Rush that is the real Nazi here.
In fact, the last medical experiments that have ever been done on hypothermia, were in fact conducted by the Nazis who did all sorts of really appalling medical experiments on people with disabilities, who, just like our government think that we are walking garbage and worthless. Mr. Obama seems to have that opinion too unfortunately. Nevertheless I think we need to take care of Mr. Rush first. So if anyone wants to call up his show, I would remind him of the t-4 program that the Nazi's ran and the hypothermia and other medical experiments that the Nazi's did on PWDs before they exterminated them, plus the 90% unemployment rate for PWDs in THIS country that the government perpetuates, keeping 1/5 of the population in poverty, and then ask him, by natural logical extension is he advocating genocide, just like the Nazis of all people with disabilities.
That should shut him up for awhile.
I would do it but I have a speech disability.
But it would be a wonderful FUCK YOU that would absolutely gut the son of a bitch. And if you would like some more ammunition, feel free to get in touch with me by email on open salon.
I am a treasure trove of information, and if anyone takes me up on this to go hook this MF of a whale, I have plenty of chum to throw in the water, plus the figurative gutting knife once you have him on the hook
LOL. He deserves it.
If you're interested in universal single-payer healthcare, I wrote a series a while back. It details the problems with our system, how to convert to single-payer UHC, how to control costs without denying quality care, and how to pay for it without increasing costs for the taxpayer.
http://open.salon.com/blog/sickofstupid
To those who don't want their money used to pay for someone else: it already is.
You pay homeowner's insurance, car insurance, health insurance. Insurance is based on risk pools. Companies basically gamble that most people will not make expensive claims or require expensive care, and those whose claims exceed what they have paid in are given reimbursement or treatment that is paid for by the money others have paid into the system. Of course, there's plenty of profit left over.
If you rarely or never use the amount of services equal to the money you have paid in, you were subsidizing the care of others who DID exceed the amounts they paid in. Your money was used on someone else.
Your money doesn't go into a separate, sterile account in a clean room at the insurance company and sit there, waiting for something bad to happen to you; it goes into a big, dirty mixed pool of money and mingles with funds from all kinds of people. The minute it leaves your hands, they are spending on someone else, maybe even someone who makes poor life choices. Big, fat, smelly smokers who eat a pound of bacon and mayonnaise at every meal, wash it down with a liter of liquor and finish the whole thing off with a pack or two of cigarettes and some recreational drugs. He's entitled to your money; after all, he paid in and used benefits equal to his premiums, so now he gets treatment on your dime.
Funny how some people don't really want to think of it that way. It seems to me that those who are against healthcare as a right may be afraid of or dislike those they view as inferior in some way. The disabled, the obese, the ugly, the sick, the uneducated, the poor. Maybe if we were all skinny, beautiful, well-educated, healthy and trust-fund endowed, they wouldn't mind the idea quite so much.
after all these years and all the unbelieveably foul, dispicable statements that have issued forth from Limbaugh, why oh why is anyone listening to him and the garbage he passes off as "philosophy"? besides, what has capitalism to do with democracy? or republicanism? capitalism is about as close to cannibalism as one can get. in it's simplest form, one could agree it's very pleasant to create a profitable business. but the truth is in order for a business to grow and prosper, ultimately it WILL come to money vs people, greed vs decency.
our country used to be about coming together as a nation in freedom of spirit, of choices, not in freedom to fuck over the next guy.
"Rush is right.
Of course money buys better health care. Otherwise, how do you determine who gets what? Should we draw straws? Roll the dice? Spin the wheel? Is everyone entitled to reconstructive knee surgery? Dental implants? Root canals? Erectile dysfunction medication?
Money is our method for dividing up scarce resources. It is not perfect but it's the best system we know of. What is your system? Everyone gets everything they want?"
---John Knight
In this comment John Knight says that in the absence of knowing what to do or how to do it, we must default to money as a means to determine. It has a logic to it, but it is simplistic and archaic. We can and have known what to do with this sort of service. This sort of thing is managed effectively in many places, and has been for quite a long time. It was managed in this country prior to making healthcare a profit model. It functioned quite nicely when health insurance companies were true mutuals rather than their current form.
The deterministic argument is one in which anyone seeks to determine who deserves what. The issue need not be conflated with some moral code. Receipt of healthcare is not an act with any moral bearing on it. Providing healthcare is the only act in this issue with morality attached. Those who seek to switch the moral aspect to those in need of healthcare are seeking to obscure their own moral deficiencies as they elevate avarice to a virtue.
It is noble, virtuous, and commendable for a person to contribute to a charity dedicated to providing health care for the needy.
It is parasitic and immoral for a person to compel another (via taxation) to provide such help.
Congratulations to those on this thread who have stood up to this raging tide of false moralism.
1. Do right wing Conservatives, the Founding Stock of America, have the "right" to say who immigrates to their country.
2. Should the founding stock have to give medical care to the entire world. Which raises the question of what people actually come to America for and what effect that will have on our system of government when whites become the minority.
3. Should Americans support Israel which is doing the same things to Palestinians that Jews claim Nazis did to them. Which raises the question of the merits of multi culturalism and who benefits and who "pays".
4. If this were still a white nation is it more likely that we would have leaders with a biological and psychological connection to us and therefore we would have Universal Health Care supported by Americans.
5. Since Rush Limbaugh has been determined to be the most influencial Conservative propagandist is it likely that the Liberal propagandists are out to get him with this article and they have as much respect for your intellects as Rush has for his dittoheads?
Reread the article. It does not offer rich detail and an abundance of Facts regarding America and the health care issue. It doesn't talk about how much money is going down a black hole in the Middle East where our Christian children's blood is being spilled and we are being bankrupted because of the power of AIPAC. Money that could be spent on health care rather than killing people.
It doesn't do this because it wishes to make Rush out to be Mr Evil and the Liberals out to be Humanists. The article treats YOU like Pavlov treated his dogs. First the correct bells are rung (the symbols you've already been indoctrinated with, the poor, minorities, Rights, Entitlements, Health care blah blah blah) and you don't disappoint.
The article appeals to your emotions rather than your brains. I would never trust anyone who doesn't want me to Think. But to think is to raise the questions I raised and they will no doubt cause people to be upset because you have so much vested in the dogma you have been indoctrinated with.
Does anyone believe that if all Americans get Universal Health care we will be all right. This government is attempting to bankrupt us. They are allowing hordes of people to flood into our country, waging continual eternal war, trashing the Constitution, corrupting Wall Street, Betraying America for foreign countries, selling out America for personal financial gain.
Health Care is the least of our concerns. I suggest you Think. Taking away the rights of the Founding Stock in order to give every other race Rights is destroying America. Period.
To champion homosexuals it to oppose Christianity.
To champion Palestinians to to oppose Jews.
To champion a False Universal Health Care is to oppose the Founding Stock and bankrupt them. Forcing us to invest in other races when the truth is we have as much interest in doing that as the antelope has in nurturing lion cubs.
To champion Zionism is to support Ethnic and Religious states like Aryan and Christian nations. So if you find fault with my comments about the Founding Stock please tell me where my rights end because they are no different than the rights of Jews' and their claim that Israel has a right to exist.
Western Civilization has a right to exist. Palestine has a right to exist.
This country built a system that is now bleeding us dry. Most communities build the hospitals to provide not only for those who could pay but also the poor. When you consider the non profit hospitals in this country receive tax exempt status and grants totalling over 60 billion dollars. As a group they had a surplus of over 4.3 billion dollars and as a group provided 4% non charged services to those who could not pay. This same system also has no problem putting leans on homes or retirement assets of those who find themselves stuck with thousands of dollars of hospital bills. This same group has no problem giving insurance companies huge discounts while charging full price to individuals without insurance. Keep in mind that after all the bills were paid they still had 4.3 billion dollars left. Not bad for a non profit.
If the government is going to get out of the insurance business then no more insurance for the retired, no more tax benefits for companies and employees, no more medical grants. Then it will be fair for everyone because everyone will be screwed together. Then maybe doctors who charge 70 dollars for a 3 minute office visit will have to start taking chickens again for payment because no one will be able to pay their prices.
The question is how we access pools of insurance coverage. How we get covered. Supply and demand is relevant to healthcare in that illness equates to "demand" and treatments/equipment/drugs/staff equate to "supply". When demand is increased by increasing access for those in need, supply will also increase, as the market for a given specialty expands. This is a slow process but it is more dynamic than you make out.
The patient would not go to his or her doctor and say "Doc, I need my knee reconstructed but I can't pay you. Please schedule me in for this Thursday", leavng "The doctor in your system must do the expensive procedure free of charge." Rather, the doctor would do the procedure and be paid, and the patient would not be denied treatment due to lack of personal wealth.
This is not Utopian. This is how every other industrialized democracy in the world administers healthcare. Nations like France, have a centralized insurance system but a private healthcare sector, so that everyone is covered no matter what, and doctors and hospitals need not turn anyone away or worry about not getting paid. There is also private supplemental insurance available. Spain is similar.
This is not "socialized medicine", but rather centralized insurance with a private healthcare sector, a system in which doctors' overhead is much lower due to never needing to contract expensive attorneys to sue insurers to pay what they are already contractually obliged to pay.
What we are trying to do in the US is a hybrid system, where private health insurance companies cover much but not all of the population. If the current reforms go through, private insurers might expand their total pool of coverage to 50% of the population (it's currently about 35%). Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs and SCHIP cover about 47% of the population.
Only the VA is really a socialized "government-run" system in that it has its own facilities, its own staff, etc. The others are just centralized insurance.
We need to take seriously the fact that if we don't fix the uninsurance problem, we will all face a dramatically increased risk of being dropped from coverage as soon as we become sick, or denied coverage if we change jobs or need experimental procedures; we will see a continuing escalation of the rate of personal and corporate bankruptcies, hospital failures and home foreclosures, and our public health and economic prosperity will be jeopardized for generations.
This is not a Utopian dream issue; this is pragmatic political workmanship. We need reforms that effectively and affordably extend coverage to everyone, so that doctors can stop worrying about being cheated by uncompetitive insurers and the dynamics of an anti-market.
2. Why are people arguing about the viability of a "Utopian" world where socialized health care works????? IT'S ALREADY AT WORK IN CANADA, DENMARK, SWEDEN, GREAT BRITAIN, ETC. I'm sick to death of the tired argument in America that universal care can't work - because it's a falacy. If people in this country could get their heads out of their "Dancing with the Stars" asses and pay attention to international news and policy for 10 minutes, it would be abundantly clear that we have a number of national health care models to investigate and cherry-pick ideas from! We don't have to reinvent the wheel... it's already rolling in other parts of the world.
3. I love William Shatner.
I truly appreciate your thoughful responses and also your refusal to delete my comments. In every other conversation I've had on this forum, my comments are magically removed from the public forum as if the conversation never took place. It really is quite bizarre.
In your comments to me, you never actually told me how doctors get paid. You only told me that insurance needs to be reformed and health care should be free to those cannot pay.
Only now, from your latest comment, do I get the information I've been asking for: doctors should be reimbursed by the government.
This long awaited revelation on your part brings us back to the heart of the discussion. How do you balance demand and supply? Reconstructive knee surgery is not critical, it is not a life-saving procedure. But you would say that anyone who wants it shall receive it. And, if the patient cannot afford to pay for it, someone other than the patient will pick up the cost.
Well, who determines the true cost? The government? Who pays for the cost? The government? Where does the government get the funds to pay for it? You said earlier you do not favor a single-payer program. But now you are arguing that the government should pick up every single health care procedure a patient requests who cannot afford the procedure on his own.
Who decides what the price of a procedure should be? The government? This creates a situation whereby, as with MediCare, the government underpays doctors. Except, in your case, instead of underpaying only for elderly care, the government would underpay for anyone who cannot pay on their own.
What you would have is a system where doctors are inundated with lower paying patients. Patients who have the ability to pay are now standing in line waiting for attention. Businesses are taxed higher to subsidize patients; taxpayers are taxed higher to subsidize patients; unemployment rises; per capita income falls; productivity falls.
Money, despite Obama's economic policy, is finite. Resources are finite. The best way to manage finite resources and finite money supply is to let the people acquire money through hard work and diligence. That money is then used to purchase whatever services they can afford.
Your system is much more random. It provides no incentive to work hard or smarter. In both of our systems there will be people who die from lack of coverage. But your system is so subjective that it depends on the whim of politicians instead of an organic money-based system.
Again, the money-based system is far from perfect. People will fall through the cracks as they will with your system. And there are plenty of improvements we can make to the current system.
But, to say that money does not matter in the realm of health care defies logic. Why not apply that logic to food products? Or vitamins? Why do we have so much food available in this country? The food industry is a profit-driven industry. Yet, anyone can afford a 1000 calorie hamburger for only $1.99.
To say that every other major country has a universal health care system is meaningless unless we acknowledge other very relevant measurements such as unemployment, per capita income, productivity, freedom, and quality. The US is in what is considered to be the worst recession since the great depression yet our unemployment rate of 10% is equal to what France's has been for the past 15 years. Our per capita income is much higher than any other major nation. We have more freedom than other major nation. Actually, many of our health problems stem from the fact that we are so rich we can gorge ourselves with unhealthy food and drink. But that is an entirely different subject.
I'm always so surprised that so few, even Republicans, know that conservatives and Republicans have said for decades that FDR ruined the country and they wanted to take it back to pre-FDR days. And guess what?! They're succeeding! And what was life like back then? No middle class, no home ownership, only rich kids attended college, no minimum wage, child labor, no sick days or vacation or benefits, no job scurity, no lunch breaks, on and on....
And don't forget William F. Buckley, lover of the Reagans and the father of modern conservitism, according to Henry Kissinger's eulogy at his funeral. And you know what the basis of Buckley's belief system actually was?!!!
I'm always so surprised that so few, even Republicans, know that conservatives and Republicans have said for decades that FDR ruined the country and they wanted to take it back to pre-FDR days. And guess what?! They're succeeding! And what was life like back then? No middle class, no home ownership, only rich kids attended college, no minimum wage, child labor, no sick days or vacation or benefits, no job scurity, no lunch breaks, on and on....
And don't forget William F. Buckley, lover of the Reagans and the father of modern conservitism, according to Henry Kissinger's eulogy at his funeral. And you know what the basis of Buckley's belief system actually was?!!!
I'm always so surprised that so few, even Republicans, know that conservatives and Republicans have said for decades that FDR ruined the country and they wanted to take it back to pre-FDR days. And guess what?! They're succeeding! And what was life like back then? No middle class, no home ownership, only rich kids attended college, no minimum wage, child labor, no sick days or vacation or benefits, no job scurity, no lunch breaks, on and on....
And don't forget William F. Buckley, lover of the Reagans and the father of modern conservitism, according to Henry Kissinger's eulogy at his funeral. And you know what the basis of Buckley's belief system actually was?!!!
I'm always so surprised that so few, even Republicans, know that conservatives and Republicans have said for decades that FDR ruined the country and they wanted to take it back to pre-FDR days. And guess what?! They're succeeding! And what was life like back then? No middle class, no home ownership, only rich kids attended college, no minimum wage, child labor, no sick days or vacation or benefits, no job scurity, no lunch breaks, on and on....
And don't forget William F. Buckley, lover of the Reagans and the father of modern conservitism, according to Henry Kissinger's eulogy at his funeral. And you know what the basis of Buckley's belief system actually was?!!!
I'm always so surprised that so few, even Republicans, know that conservatives and Republicans have said for decades that FDR ruined the country and they wanted to take it back to pre-FDR days. And guess what?! They're succeeding! And what was life like back then? No middle class, no home ownership, only rich kids attended college, no minimum wage, child labor, no sick days or vacation or benefits, no job scurity, no lunch breaks, on and on....
And don't forget William F. Buckley, lover of the Reagans and the father of modern conservitism, according to Henry Kissinger's eulogy at his funeral. And you know what the basis of Buckley's belief system actually was?!!!
I'm always so surprised that so few, even Republicans, know that conservatives and Republicans have said for decades that FDR ruined the country and they wanted to take it back to pre-FDR days. And guess what?! They're succeeding! And what was life like back then? No middle class, no home ownership, only rich kids attended college, no minimum wage, child labor, no sick days or vacation or benefits, no job scurity, no lunch breaks, on and on....
And don't forget William F. Buckley, lover of the Reagans and the father of modern conservitism, according to Henry Kissinger's eulogy at his funeral. And you know what the basis of Buckley's belief system actually was?!!!
William F. Buckley was the "father of modern conservatism" as proclaimed by Henry Kissinger during his eulogy at Buckley's funeral. And you know what Buckley's most basic belief actually was?!! THE RICH ARE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.....yeah, what a shock to learn that the supposed great mind and intellect of William F. Buckley (although many have doubts as to his intellect!) reduced all social issues and all politics to : the rich should continue to have all the power and all the money, just as they have throughout human history, or as Tom Paine put it, "the wealthy have had their boot on the necks of everyone else for thousands of years"!!!!
Think Americans will ever do anything about all this? I doubt it....What a country!!!!
The problem is precisely that Mr. Limbaugh does not see difference. With all due respect, I think you might also fail to see the difference because you don't find yourself in desperate need of medical attention and uninsured, facing the question of do you get the treatment, incur tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash debt that no insurer would ever pay in full but which you have to, bankrupt your family, or do you just suffer and possibly lose your life to the situation.
There are millions of people who live with that dilemma every day, and most of them are hard-working people, many of whom earn significantly more than people who have free healthcare through Medicaid. Many have to choose between covering themselves partially or covering their children, because their incomes are too high for SCHIP and Medicaid but not enough to get sufficient health insurance.
You suggest: "If you cant afford amazing health care then either do something about it or purchase the health care you can afford." The problem is health insurance is structured like home loans: the only cost-effective way to secure it is to be wealthy to begin with, otherwise you incur serious risks.
Low-cost private health insurance at present tends to require a very high deductible, so that someone could spend 20 years paying for insurance and if they never have a health "event" requiring more than $5,000 in treatment, their insurance will literally never pay a dime to them. The other risk is that you buy insurance that does not have a high deductible, but severely restricts your freedom to choose doctors, specialists, points of access to care, and treatment options, and though it is "affordable", it could result in you paying for insurance that will not do anything to save your life if you need it.
The difference between housing and healthcare is: you don't need a mansion to keep you safe from the cold of winter or animals on the prowl; you just need an enclosed space that is relatively well insulated and big enough to live in, but with healthcare, you might have no money but require a very expensive treatment in order to save your life. The argument that mansions and full health coverage are comparable and that people with less money should have inferior care is ultimately an argument that the wealthy are more entitled to life than the poor.
That is undemocratic in the extreme and that logic has turned our healthcare system into a failed market that is imposing catastrophic inefficiencies on our whole economy.
I've got mine, so screw you.
If we could only untangle the desperate attempts of people who think like this from their Christian value-imposing legislation, I might not care. Because I've got mine, so screw you.
So morality hinges on first having more than others and second making sure that those who have less are never allowed to seek a fair outcome for themselves? It sounds like you are calling democracy itself "the filth of collectivist parasitism"... or do you refuse to pay any taxes? Did you believe it was a filthy, immoral, evil act when the United States government decided to use your tax dollars to fund overseas wars? In 2001? In 2003? Have you taken up the banner of civil disobedience and put your personal freedom on the line to protest against the "collectivist parasitism", as you call it, that is the great American experiment in democracy?
You are pronouncing a view that is so untenably radical that its only possible political expression is total anarchy. By what means do you propose to ensure that "those who resent your having more than they do" never be allowed to interfere with your absolute right to do as you please with no obligations to anyone? Laws and order? The defense of property rights? By what means?
How can you establish a civil order without some degree of collective responsibility? How can you hold people to account for acts of unrepentant violence, if there are no laws, and no law-enforcement, and no courts of law, and no process of voting for and choosing representatives to lead that system?
Or are you really just arguing that you believe democracy should only work for those who have what they need and refuse to honor any collective responsibility?
You become you brother's keeper, in a sense, the first time you use a dollar bill, the first time you eat mass-produced food that has been delivered from far away so you can eat it, the first time you do anything that requires other human beings to do for you, you enter into an ethical bond that you must honor. You call it parasitism to require that society ensure human beings have the dignity of decent healthcare; I call it parasitism to think you can use the system to your advantage alone, owing nothing to anyone else and playing no constructive role for the rest of humanity.
It is a voluntary bond. Neither side is forced to bond with the other. The bond happens because each side is looking to benefit himself. That strive for self benefit causes the farmer to sell his food for money and the consumer to sell his money for food. Neither side is looking to be anyone's "keeper".
"I call it parasitism to think you can use the system to your advantage alone, owing nothing to anyone else and playing no constructive role for the rest of humanity." - J.E. Robertson
Wow. Gordon never hinted at anything like that. There's a big difference between voluntarily offering your help to someone and being forced by others to give up your time and wages.
I don't understand the liberal mindset that says if you don't agree with their government program you are a heartless, immoral, un-Christian, selfish person.
Is it possible for a person to be "constructive" to humanity yet oppose your health care plan? Is it possible that private charity could help people better than government charity?
Current reforms are aimed at correcting that distortion, not at setting up a massive government charity. That point has been obsessively belabored by ideological opponents of social spending in any area where that spending would compete directly with inefficient private-sector dollars, but that part of the current reforms is relatively minor.
And yes, by endorsing the Consuelos comment, Gordon's postulation is that it is parasitic for anyone to receive anything due to need not matched by means. There is something wrong with that reasoning, and the very existence of complex human societies is evidence of how much we need that kind of collaborative framework on certain issues at certain times.
The idea that health treatment is not one of those areas of human existence is just not sustainable.
You reckon J. E. and John have run out of gas? I know John. When I was on the school board, I had this fellow jump my ass about school taxes, with the following absurdity: "I educated my kids, and now it's their turn, I don't see why I should have to pay for them!" His kids went to the school I was on the board of, which was built and staffed before he ever drew a breath, and was now serving his grandkids and would serve his great-grandkids. Can you believe that such a Rush Limbaugh SOB can sleep at night? It's called Libertarianism, and is as much a luxury of the current high state of self esteem as boob jobs. Stupid bastards think they created themselves.
And for those people who say they don't want their hard-earned cash to pay for big fat smokers who eat a pound of bacon every day - if you pay insurance premiums to a private health care company, guess what? You already do. Big fat smokers also have jobs which give them health insurance, and they might well work at your own company, which means you are both paying into a pooled fund, and if they have a heart attack or get lung cancer and you are nice and healthy and don't need medical care - your money is being used to pay for theirs. And god forbid you should break a leg while on your daily jog, because the big fat smoker who sits around on his barcalounger all day isn't risking his life by going outside and exercising and so shouldn't have to pay for your surgery.
Look, if you want to oppose health care go right ahead. But get it out of your head that the only people who don't have it are losers who don't take care of themselves. That's your way of pretending you don't lack common decency.
Also? My hard earned cash is paying for your public library which I don't use; for the fire department which has just rescued your house while mine has never burned down; for the public schools that are educating your children K-12, and possibly through college, which is totally and completely unfair because I don't have kids. I want all that money back, please.
It's important to remember that society organizes itself not to steer scarce resources to the few on top, but to make sure the fabric of human relationship doesn't come apart due to the stresses of too many people being denied rights, justice and/or opportunity.
- Hubert Humphrey
The best country possible. What a crock. You are a cynic bottom feeding on the addiction to self-righteous indignation that has infected this country. I hope your beach house is first to slide into the sea.
Or perhaps he simply knows how to adequately perform oral sex on a woman. Which you clearly you do not.
Are those Rusty's only options? Too bad he didn't get a degree that was worth anything.
BTW, he IS a pimp.
federal prisoners get these things, and military personnel, can't think why the principle doesn't apply to all. would the federal courts agree, do you think?
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Nitpickers can argue the specific words are not therein, but healthcare is certainly necessary to "promote the general welfare".
For some reason -- greed perhaps -- conservatives believe in citizens "birth rights" but not "birth responsibilities". Those who like Rush do not want to assume the responsibilities inherent in living in a country that makes success possible for talentless boobs like him is free to leave it for another -- tho I think he'd be hard pressed to find one he'd want to go to that didn't have universal healthcare.
SinceYOU have money can you buy some socks
I wonder what the point of having a "country" is to those who have such limited altruism. Why isn't a this country many tiny family fiefdoms instead of a such a diverse group of individuals? Honestly, I think the benefits of pulling together in large groups (like a country) eludes conservative thinking.
The man runs the Repub Party right now, he had the chairman growling before on the radio for daring to speak the truth about him.
"I interpret that as saying the need for health care is one of the most basic need that pulls a society together but that, when the citizens inevitably "begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other," it is the place of government to establish and control it. "-----Thomas Paine
I think the biggest problem with many of his stances is that they are divisive. It may make him money but it does not unite us in any way. Therefore, his short term gain hurts all of us.
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