Let's say we have emergency rooms ~ quite common aren't they ~ so we have them, and people come there who have insurance.
About 85% of emergency room users have health insurance, or are otherwise prepared to pay (like rich folks).
The folks who work there are doctors, nurses and medical technicians.
They are trained to work with the sick and injured, so what they naturally want to do is take care of the sick and injured who come into that emergency room.
Your suggestion is that they NOT take care of anyone who is not prepared to pay or who does not have medical insurance.
In short, you recommend that the doctors, nurses and medical technicians step back from the broken bodies and sick babies and do nothing.
Your only answer has to be that then the doctors, nurses and techies DO IT ON THEIR OWN TIME ~ hmm.
I doubt you can see the problem but if you put techies, doctors and nurses into their natural work environment and tell them to let some die (without any effort on their part to stop the bleeding for example), they might decide it's not a good place to work, so when you come in you will get second rate talent. Not only that they'll be second rate talent who are most likely sociopathic!
Now if you could get a sign put up that says "SharpRightTurn gets his emergency service here, so you are gonna' die unless you have insurance", ......
I am sure you get the idea.
I am still of the impression that the 13th amendment prohibits the imposition of slavery on doctors, techies and nurses. That means they gotta' get paid.
Now there are a lot of ways making sure they get paid for the work they do. We could even hire professional pickpockets to deftly cash in credit card credit limits for 50% of value. That sort of thing.
Or, rather than have an emergency room that lets in only those who pay, we could restrict it a little bit differently ~ let in only those who don't mind if they or someone else pays ~and if you don't agree with that, just keep you out so you don't make everybody else so fearful of dying on a gurney parked in the lobby!
We could even arrange a proportional TAX REBATE so that if you were an objector you'd get your share of any taxes spent on the operation ~
That way we would have emergency rooms for folks who are happy enough to have one, and folks who kvetched about the presumed ripoff artists who make the lines long could GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.
The point I'm making is you probably have your heart in your beliefs, but it's dollars to doughnuts the nurses, techies and doctors probably don't care to work for free on injured people ~ although they will ~ but we long ago decided that was an abuse and tapped into the tax revenues.
No doubt there's a better way, but even the insurance companies have figured out it's better to send their people to hospital emergency rooms than to just let them die in a gutter somewhere.
Just one darned thing after another.
“In short, you recommend that the doctors, nurses and medical technicians step back from the broken bodies and sick babies and do nothing.”
I don’t recommend it. That’s up to them. I would not dictate what they do. I don’t want to dictate. And I don’t want the federal behemoth to dictate, either.
They can refuse to treat them or they can treat them pro bono.
And generous Americans can contribute to charity hospitals.
And people can realize that if they want health coverage they should save for it, buy insurance, or take a chance they may not always be healthy and will not receive medical treatment if they haven’t planned for it.
If there are to be socialist healthcare programs, then it should be done at the state level, like RomneyCare. I would not want it but if the good citizens of Mass. decide they want socialized medicine and their state constitution doesn’t prohibit it, then by all means let them embrace it and any other big government program their hearts’ desire.
I prefer to live in a state that doesn’t take away health care freedom. Abiding by the constitution and leaving it to the states, both of us can win. muawiyah can move to a state with socialized medicine; I can reside in a state with more freedom. That’s the beauty of the constitution and why conservatives embrace a return to constitutional rule.