Posted on 07/27/2005 9:40:43 AM PDT by MarineBrat
First, please forgive the vanity. I have an opportunity to help form the thoughts of some present and future healthcare executives, and deemed it important enought to call on some FReepers for imput.
My wife is finishing up her masters in nursing. This morning over breakfast she mentioned to me that one of their assignments is to frame a debate regarding the following statement...
"Healthcare should be freely available to all, regardless of cost"
Out of the students in her class (I think about 12 of them), only she and one other person have come down on the "con" side. Each person has had to initially declare their position on the subject, and may now research and gather evidence to support their argument. When she mentioned it to me this morning she asked my opinion about reliable sources of information. So of course I thought that I'd look around FR for links to articles about the problems with healthcare services in socialist societies. But the stuff I've found seems to be lacking exact dates and numbers and references, and is mostly opinion in nature. Opinion is good too, but I'd like to give her a little more than what I've found by searching for "Healthcare" and "Canadian" and "Doctors".
For instance, I found a thread which said that the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that "Access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare", and has made it legal again to seek private health insurance in Canada. Is that true? Now that's a beautiful and powerful statement, and I'd love to give her that link, but I need to be able to back it up with more material from the origin. Is it now really legal to seek private healthcare in Canada?
Does anyone have any good links to a favorite thread or two where this subject has been thoroughly FReeped?
The research resource I'd suggest is the US Constitution. It's a prima facie argument that our constitution has no provision allowing for nationalized health care. That should be a part of your argument, as well as plenty of anecdotal stories, with the economics and value as the underlying basis for the thesis.
Take a look into the VA or Medicare programs
Cuba...such wonderfull universal health care...[/BARF
Canada is bad, but not that bad...My father can't win the Lottery there, but he always lucks out when it comes to not having to wait for medical treatment back in Canada...
There are lots of articles on FR. Here are just a few searches that brought up a lot of them. Everything from examples of what happens under socialized medicine (UK and Canada) and some other assessments. If you go through this, you will have ample material.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=hillarycare
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=socializedmedicine
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;s=healthcare%20
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?s=socialized+medicine&ok=Search&q=quick&m=all&o=time&SX=42e7dce9b407cf314153aa0177e52ca35f273cb9
Compare the wages of nurses working in socialist countries versus the wages of nurses working in capitalist countries.
I dated a Canadian nurse working in Texas years ago. She said nurses earn better wages working in the U.S. than in Canada.
Compare the wages of nurses working in socialist countries versus the wages of nurses working in capitalist countries.
I dated a Canadian nurse working in Texas years ago. She said nurses earn better wages working in the U.S. than in Canada.
"Healthcare should be freely available to all, regardless of cost"
There are two issues here, linked, but separate: the moral issue, and the practical experience.
First, there is the moral issue: the statement
"Everyone has a right to all the health care they 'need' regardless of their ability to pay" ...
is incomplete -- it doesn't say how these costs should be paid. The implication is that, if these costs are not paid for with donations from productive citizens, then force should be used to make up the difference.
So there must be an inevitable second part to the statement:
"...and difference should be extracted from all productive citizens, by force if necessary, without limit."
Socialists hate that part ... they don't want to admit that there is any force involved at all, or they try to obfuscate the use of force by saying ..."Taxes are the price we pay for civilization".
But, they are actually saying that the "need" of the poor unhealthy constitutes both a moral and legal claim on all productive citizens, without limit. If someone does not volunteer "their fair share", courts and policemen with guns should extort it from them. In other words, the productive must become slaves to the unproductive simply because of their need.
Placed that way, it doesn't pass the giggle test. If I don't have the right to go next door and steal money and assets from someone to pay for healthcare for myself or someone else, I can't authorize a govenment to do it for me. And don't tell me that religion authorizes this use of force -- in the parable of the "Good Samaratian", the "Good Samaratian" paid for the care of the victim himself -- he didn't go rob other travelers to get the funds.
Anyone who advocates the right to have govenment do this is a cowardly thug - a thug because they want someone with guns to extract the money, and a cowardly thug because they don't want to do it themselves, they want someone else to do the actual thuggery.
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