Writer.
Could you or your wife not get some kind of job with health insurance coverage through the employer?
I've done that in the past. Our family business is too small to offer health benefits.
You really cannot expect other taxpayers to subsidize your desire to be your own boss.
I don't. I expect medical care to be priced so that self-employed people can afford it.
We all know people who plod on in jobs they don’t like, jobs that don’t have much in the way of opportunity.
Seventeen years in the advertising business, working my way from copy boy to art director. Yes, I'm familiar with wage slavery.
Maybe you have to take one of those that provides health insurance.
I will, when COBRA runs out. It's a shame I have no other options.
Can’t you get a job at a Post Office? They have health insurance coverage and there are many Americans living on a Post Office salary.
I suppose so. If it comes down to it, I'll shovel shit in a stable. I'm used to being a disposable human resource, after all. Any self-respect or basic human dignity I once had was long ago beaten out of me by our wonderful capitalist economic system. For my wife and child, I'll do anything other than betray Christ.
The point is that I shouldn't have to. There is no logical reason that health care should be so expensive. Something, as I said, is wrong. I'm not smart enough to know what, exactly, but it's obvious that something's just not working.
And I'm healthy and skilled. What if I wasn't? What if I was crippled and couldn't get a Post Office job with health insurance benefits? The Post Office can't hire everyone, after all. Suppose a person can't work at all? Maybe they're alcoholic, or depressed, or just plain lazy. Are their sick kids supposed to just crawl off and die because Daddy's too drunk get on at the USPS?
As with Marxian socialism, ideological free-market capitalism does not track with reality as experienced by human beings in the real world. It works fine when one is discussing the relationship between the supply of and demand for pumpkins, pins, or some other disposable good or service without which people can live if they so choose; in reality, however, health care cannot be left to an unregulated free market to provide — for the very simple reason that people's lives are at stake. At the very least, sick children must be cared for, even if other people are "forced" to pay for that care at gunpoint by the cold hand of Government. Children's lives are not pumpkins. Joe Six-Pack is not going to squat next to his kid's bed while little Joey dies from fever and say "Oh, well, it's the Invisible Hand of the Free Market at work. Better luck next time, kid." What he will do, given no other options, is pick up a gun, join forces with other Joe Six-Packs, and overthrow the government. The system he and his fellow revolutionaries put into place is likely to be much worse than the one that preceded it.
The same goes for food and shelter. No country where people are allowed to starve in the streets or die coughing in the gutters for lack of money is going to survive very long. Fair or not, like it or not, there are certain things that everyone has to have — whether they deserve them or not — or else the fabric of society will be destroyed. That's reality.
(To a Christian, of course, there is no such thing as being "forced to" care for the sick. It is the proud duty of every Christian to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if the needy don't deserve it.)
I'm not a capitalist, but neither am I a socialist. I don't want government-paid health care, or government-paid anything else. Amtrak's service is lousy, and I don't think the Feds have any more business running a clinic than they have running a railroad. In the cases of both health care and railroads, however, government does have a legitimate function however: the function of providing infrastructure. The Feds pay for seaports, canals, highways, airports, and air traffic control infrastructure, which is then used by privately-owned businesses operating on a for-profit basis; so too should they provide infrastructure for railroads, not the rail passenger service itself. In like manner, the Feds should not be providing medical services directly; instead, they should provide infrastructure (in the form of vouchers) good for treatment at any participating privately-owned, for-profit medical care establishment. This would provide a guarantee of health care for all Americans while preserving the free-market system of choice that ensures quality care.
Yes, I can get a job somewhere that has health benefits — but not everyone is as capable as I am. For those who aren't, some way has to be found to keep them from dying in the streets, or else sooner or later we're going to end up with real socialized medicine. That's all I'm saying.
It's not even close to being an "unregulated free market". The government has it's sticky little fingers in every aspect of it which is a huge problem, not to mention the ambulance chasing trial lawyers who are more like buzzards.
If you can't afford to pay for a child, you should wait until you can or work more than one job if you really want a child that badly. We have worked two jobs (and sometimes three) in order to pay for things we needed or wanted (mostly wanted). When you think about it there aren't that many things in life that we really need.
. It is the proud duty of every Christian to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if the needy don't deserve it.
It should be the CHOICE of the Christian (or anyone else) to decide for themselves if they want to care for others, not the government stealing it from us and forcing us to pay for others.
That's a great line! Problem is, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market CAN'T work in the American health insurance industry, because that industry has been so heavily encumbered by socialism already. It's hardly recognizable as a "market" anymore.
You're trapped in a system where private costs have escalated beyond your means. Why? Because of cost-shifting from the socialized segment of the "market" (Medicare and Medicaid recipients).
Yes, I can get a job somewhere that has health benefits — but not everyone is as capable as I am.
You might be surprised what "less capable" people could do -- if they had to.
I'm sympathetic to you B-Chan, and I wish you luck with the baby. I also wish I could donate my many years of totally un-used health insurance to your family (you'd have to knock me unconscious to get me into a doctor's office or emergency room!). But alas, it doesn't work that way.
There are a lot of good reasons why modern high quality healthcare is expensive. I don’t see anyone dying in the streets because he/she can’t get medical care. In fact, just the opposite: I’ve seen modern medical practice keep people on expensive life support paid for by Medicare or Medicaid. Whether thats right or wrong is a whole other issue but it is certainly the fact of the matter in the US.
The Democrats really made a terrible mistake on this extending SCHIP. A whole lot of people - like me - never thought about this program and it could have gone on forever without being an issue to me. But here’s this family that is already on the program as it currently exists and I’m thinking this family is probably gaming the system and if I had all the facts, I would probably very much disapprove and now the Democrats want to extend it to millions more at higher incomes. From a non-issue, its become something I will probably decide that I’m against.
>(T)he Feds should not be providing medical services directly; instead, they should provide infrastructure (in the form of vouchers) good for treatment at any participating privately-owned, for-profit medical care establishment.
>This would provide a guarantee of health care for all Americans while preserving the free-market system of choice that ensures quality care.
I'm not a capitalist, but neither am I a socialist.
I call bravo sierra!
How is your infrastructure voucher idea not government-paid health care!? A socialist looks for protection from government. Your desire for government to "provide a guarantee of health care" means take from me at the point of a gun and give to you by the grace of your vote. You're sounding like a duck to me.
The high cost of Heath Insurance was caused by the government mandated and forced controls on health care that already exist, in addition to the exorbitantly excessive tort awards fomented by liberal judges and trial lawyers. When lawsuits are uncontrolled, insurers must increase costs and implement costly measures to protect against the most extreme Liability Risk. When Government forces Health care Personnel, Facilities and Institutions to provide services to various segments of society, the costs to all other groups and individuals must increase to absorb the unbridled excessive demand.
It is the proud duty of every Christian to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if the needy don't deserve it.
Is it your duty also to vote to force your fellow citizen to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — even if they don't deserve it?
As with Marxian socialism, ideological free-market capitalism does not track with reality as experienced by human beings in the real world.
You disparage Laissez-Faire Capitalism, but how can you hold your opinion when it has never been tried. Even in the United States, our government has had varying degrees of economic control throughout our history.
Although if you consider individual circumstances, the family doctor of my youth, Dr. Stephen D. Smith, functioned pretty much in a laissez-faire fashion through the Fifties and Sixties. My siblings and I survived just fine, in rural Georgia, without government intervention other then the Polio vaccine.