Catholics VS Health Care in America: Morally Embarrassing

[levinas12]

Good grief.

I like your “idem non idem”. Nietzsche, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida would approve.

 

[levinas12]

Why can’t a single-payer government-run system work?

Because the Zeitgeist has moved on from modernism to postmodernism.

A single-payer system is a classic “modern” structure operated from an all-powerful center. Like Bentham’s panopticon.

It’s time to decentralize.

We need to celebrate difference by letting everyone choose their own plan. And I mean their own plan - not something imposed by the almighty State hierarchy.

Modernism is dead.

Viva la differance, as Derrida might say.

Or idem non idem, as Gaber might say.

 

[levinas12]

If you think there are problems with Medicare and Medicaid (see postings #725, #726), imagine what would happen with a universal single payer?

The lawyers and politicians are already salivating.

 

[Gaber]

I like your “idem non idem”. Nietzsche, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida would approve.

Yes, but where are they when you might enjoy their personal approval?

 

[Viki63]

Can we imagine, for a few minutes, that all of us conceded to a universal health care system. Then, let’s concede that the funding for the system was ordered by law to be unrestricted. Then, let’s say that at some future time, the country simply ran out of money because the health care system took it all. That all businesses were drained because purchasing went down to nearly nothing, that government coffers were drained because there existed no more revenue base that had money they could wrest away, and that only hospitals and health care practitioners found themselves flush with cash, but there was nothing - outside of the hospital - for them to buy, as those businesses were effectively and actually out of business. I think everyone would agree that this would not be a good scenario, right?

Questions: is it a possible scenario? Have similar scenarios ever happened before on this planet? How would the ruler of the world prevent this from happening?

God bless,
jd

Imagine, for a few minutes, that we continue with the health care system we have. That health insurance companies continue to rake in huge profits and spend large sums on advertising, and doctors continue to pay staff just to sort out the hundreds of insurance company claims and varying regulations. That people with “insurance” continue to have to pay large co-pays just to keep their insurance, which doesn’t even cover their medication, that people continue to do without basic healthcare because they can’t afford to see their doctors, and continue to either get sicker and die or use the ER as their primary care provider.
That the US no longer can compete with other countries because employers have to pay so much to insurance companies, that infant mortality continues to rise, and our health to decrease, and that we become a 3rd world country,. This is what’s happening.

 

[Gaber]

Consider Medicare. This is a program that many people think is self-financing, e.g., through dedicated payroll taxes and premiums. Not true. Much of Medicare is paid for through general revenues, i.e., income taxes and other unassigned taxes. Even drawdowns on the Part A Medicare “trust fund” are, for the most part, transfers of general revenues from other accounts in the Treasury.

As these general revenues are sucked up to pay for Medicare, in order to finance essential activities like defense, the government has to borrow colossal amounts of money, e.g., from China.

I should add, it doesn’t help that Medicare is run by politicians who can’t bring themselves to limit spending.

Defense is essential? From what and by what means? OK, we need defense. So what we have now is a defense buget that is tan the next 17 largest countries defense budgets put together, Seventeen! And many of those are our allies. One fortieth of the “defense” budget would take care of Social Security, Medicare, and education concerns we now have in crisis condition. But, hey, since by the stats of our own Nationa institutes we have slipped in ourquality of education from first to abut 20th, yes,* twentieth* amomg developed nations, who notices? Do you think the six companies tha own what used to be hundreds of indipendent news agencies will tell us? We’re #1? We might have been in some areas at one time, but look again.

And the problem is spending in the sense we usually think of it in. It is circulation. Fpr example, again, the bail out money intended to re-start the economy went back into papaer instruments that yield interest. That is a far better investment for money in excess of survival needs than spending it on the programs Adam Smith recommended to have in place to keep all the money from getting syphoned into the paper economy from the labor economy.

If people who labor,have money, do they invest or spend? Usually they spend. They are at the bottom, so life water and minerals to a plant, the money goes upwards. If those who already have money get more, they don’t as a rule spend it, they invest it in paper. So the money does’t circulate. “bailout” money isn’t even but grudgingly given as the loans it was intended to be. Even the autot industry, if you lsten to some of the people in it, came back on other than bailut basis.

So please, it is not so much a matter of not having money. Money is a created fiction, in case you don’t know how banks make loans with fiat money on a fractional reserve far far less than what they have “in stock.” Their “loan” is a bet on your ability to create value by your labor. Labor is a value added economy. The paper economy which has you paying three times the sticker price of your home, if you have one any more, is an extractive economy past the point where you pay for added labor value.* Where do you think inflation comes from??? So the difficulty is more how we have let money work for those who are lobbying for their paper interests and evading taxes by law while we are at our jobs so we can pay the portion of taxes they don’t. Don’t you look at any USGAO stats? Or reliable peer analysis of money flow? Or which adminstrations made actual work for the labor market and which put us in a deficie in tat department?? Wake up, people!

*Even God only wants 10%, What does one pay for a full blown “credt” card? When a friend of mine asked a top executive of one of the largest banks in Canada about fractional reserve, he just laughed and said it was the biggest hoax on the public ever invented. I[m guessing that if you all ever did some looking into how money, banking, many corporations, and insurance actually “work,” that is to say “extract” and outcost to you, beyond any reasonable profit, you might be whistling a different tune.

 

[Ubenedictus]

The government cannot provide Jobs, since it is the market, supply and demand, which generates the need for workers. It is clear that not all human needs,especially in respect of health, can be left to the changing nature of the market place. Not all employers are going to be happy to pay somebody’s medical bills by freewill.

Tax is necessary since not all people can get what you call “good jobs”

the government cant provide jobs and shouldn’t but it is her job to provided free healthcare and abortion? This is very ironic.
I cant even understand the last statement, did i tell u that im against tax? So you dont think the tax can be used to improve the private sector?
Ubenedictus

 

[levinas12]

Yes, but where are they when you might enjoy their personal approval?

Well, let’s us hope they made it, at least, to Purgatory.

 

[levinas12]

One fortieth of the “defense” budget would take care of Social Security, Medicare, and education concerns we now have in crisis condition.

I would like to see the math behind this.
GABER; 9296262:

Money is a created fiction …

What about the gold standard or even a partial pegging to gold (as a first step)?

 

[levinas12]

Imagine, for a few minutes, that we continue with the health care system we have. That health insurance companies continue to rake in huge profits and spend large sums on advertising, and doctors continue to pay staff just to sort out the hundreds of insurance company claims and varying regulations. That people with “insurance” continue to have to pay large co-pays just to keep their insurance, which doesn’t even cover their medication, that people continue to do without basic healthcare because they can’t afford to see their doctors, and continue to either get sicker and die or use the ER as their primary care provider.
That the US no longer can compete with other countries because employers have to pay so much to insurance companies, that infant mortality continues to rise, and our health to decrease, and that we become a 3rd world country,. This is what’s happening.

The profit margin of the health insurance industry is actually quite modest compared with many other sectors of the economy.

The copays are there to prevent unnecessary utilization. This is a much better approach than top-down rationing arbitrarily enforced by unaccountable and anonymous bureaucrats.

With competition and health savings accounts, coupled with flexibility in coverage among plans, people will be able to exercise more choice and save money.

Comparing health statistics (e.g., infant mortality) is a tricky business. It’s often apples and oranges. Demographics, quality and comparability of data reported, etc vary considerably.

The vast majority of people in the US are happy with their health care. Especially when they find out about the wait times (for surgeries, diagnostics like MRI scans, etc) and lacunae in coverage for necessary services (e.g., dialysis, expensive drugs, etc) in other health care systems.

We do not need an all-powerful Leviathan imposing its will on us.

As I mentioned in a previous posting, we need to decentralize. The Fordist model of modernism is no longer working. The empire of the **Same **has become shaky. Difference is coming up over the horizon. Postmodernity is here; and its name is the Tea Party.

My apologies for waxing philosophical but this is a philosophy subforum.

P.S. I forgot to mention that we are already spending at least half a trillion dollars on health care for the poor not covered by Medicare. Adding in Medicare provides an additional safety net of hundreds of billions of dollars for the disabled and elderly.

 

[Gaber]

The profit margin of the health insurance industry is actually quite modest compared with many other sectors of the economy.

Perhaps you mean such things as the pharmaceutical industry or the home loan industry in which one pays for three houses to live in one? Or the mega corps that pay no taxes? Certainly those are exemplary.

The copays are there to prevent unnecessary utilization. This is a much better approach than top-down rationing arbitrarily enforced by unaccountable and anonymous bureaucrats.

Yes, there are many hypochondriacs amongst us, and the way to treat them is to charge co-pays.

With competition and health savings accounts, coupled with flexibility in coverage among plans, people will be able to exercise more choice and save money.

Yes, the kind of competition that has one insurance exec making 5K/hr and bonuses with similar situations in other companies. Competition raises prices, as does speculation. We’ve seen that with practically every de-regulation as greed took the feild. And if it wasn’t for specualtion in oil, eg, by people who never touch the stuff save in thier autos, we’d be paying a dollar less/g at the pump.

Comparing health statistics (e.g., infant mortality) is a tricky business. It’s often apples and oranges. Demographics, quality and comparability of data reported, etc vary considerably.

Likewaise with stats supporting your view.

The vast majority of people in the US are happy with their health care.

Yes, the rest of the sentence from FOX news, which we usually watch on the comedy channel and has been demonstrated repetedly to misinfom, even make people “more stupid,” goes in a slightly different direction. It is quoted in context below, with its unfortunate source.

Especially when they find out about the wait times (for surgeries, diagnostics like MRI scans, etc) and lacunae in coverage for necessary services (e.g., dialysis, expensive drugs, etc) in other health care systems.

That is a problem distinct from the nature of coverage itself, though currently occuring with it. Speaking of MRIs. what do you think of the MRI study that suggests that conservatives tend to operate from the fear section of their brai while liberals are more comprehensive in their considerations? Is that were the former where the next one came from?

We do not need an all-powerful Leviathan imposing its will on us.

Sounds like God. Is this emotionalized rhetoric? When you don’t like something we all tend to exaggerate. sometimes in the extreme. But yes, there are studies that FOX “news” is suspect. Some places one doesn’t need even those to know that. All you have to do is listen to foreign stations that aren’t backed by Republicans such as whom have the major interest in FAUX and the six giants that have pretty much squelched differing viewpoints in the US. One prof I know has to send students to freign news, even Al Jazeera to get op eds of any useful significance, our "nes is so homogenized and sanitized.

As I mentioned in a previous posting, we need to decentralize. The Fordist model of modernism is no longer working. The empire of the **Same **has become shaky. Difference is coming up over the horizon. Postmodernity is here; and its name is the Tea Party.

Yes, in many ways we do. We are working for exactly that in our County and City in areas such as food and energy. But your tea party, which btw is sponsred by the Koch brothers for their own Leviathan interests, is so disorganized and unfocused locally, and as we see from poor performance Nationally, we have to ask some serious questions about their “stance.”

My apologies for waxing philosophical but this is a philosophy subforum.

No need; it is why we’re here, lol!

P.S. I forgot to mention that we are already spending at least half a trillion dollars on health care for the poor not covered by Medicare. Adding in Medicare provides an additional safety net of hundreds of billions of dollars for the disabled and elderly.

And how is that pertinent; how do you see that relating? It is just an amount with no qualifications connecting it one way or another to your argument.

As the Obama administration pushes for a national health care plan, studies show that most Americans are overwhelmingly happy with their own health care – but they are dissatisfied with the country’s overall system, because most Americans who have insurance believe that those who don’t have it are not receiving care.

Those same studies, however, show that a surprisingly large 70 percent of the estimated 46 million Americans who don’t have insurance say they do, in fact, receive health care, and that a vast majority of them are satisfied with it.

A survey conducted jointly by the Kaiser Family Foundation, ABC News and USA Today, released in October 2006, found that 89 percent of Americans were satisfied with their own personal medical care, but only 44 percent were satisfied with the overall quality of the American medical system. The survey is the only recent poll for which data is publicly available that allows for a comparison of the satisfaction of insured and uninsured Americans. (The data from a just-completed New York Times/CBS poll won’t be publicly available for several months; the results that have been reported so far don’t make the comparisons discussed in this article.)

Read more: foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/24/obama-pushes-national-health-care-americans-happy-coverage/#ixzz1uwSDcTpx

 

[levinas12]

And how is that pertinent; how do you see that relating? It is just an amount with no qualifications connecting it one way or another to your argument.

I mentioned Medicare, Medicaid, etc to show that the US is already spending trillions of dollars (over the 5 year budget window) on health care for low-income populations.

You seemed to be concerned that the poor were getting short shrift.

I don’t have a problem with a safety net.

But a vast, universal, single payer government program is unnecessary. A decentralized, private sector approach is the best way to finance health care for most Americans. It gives people the flexibility they need to craft their own plans. And, by promoting competition in the marketplace, it will enhance quality and bend the cost curve.

N.B. Usually we discuss metaphysics, epistemology, sometimes phenomenology and cognitive science, even theology, on this subforum. That’s why I may have caviled a bit about discussing health care systems. But, on second thought, the topic has profound philosophical resonance.

 

[Gaber]

I mentioned Medicare, Medicaid, etc to show that the US is already spending trillions of dollars (over the 5 year budget window) on health care for low-income populations.

You seemed to be concerned that the poor were getting short shrift.

I don’t have a problem with a safety net.

But a vast, universal, single payer government program is unnecessary. A decentralized, private sector approach is the best way to finance health care for most Americans. It gives people the flexibility they need to craft their own plans. And, by promoting competition in the marketplace, it will enhance quality and bend the cost curve.

N.B. Usually we discuss metaphysics, epistemology, sometimes phenomenology and cognitive science, even theology, on this subforum. That’s why I may have caviled a bit about discussing health care systems. But, on second thought, the topic has profound philosophical resonance.

Thanks for the clarification.

I’m only concerned in that the way our current brand of capitalism works, it is aimed, it would seem, at bottom line ethics as distinct from Golden Rule ethics as prime directive. I have no doubt that if we wanted to, both could be accomodated rather than have what seems to be an either/or situation. I’m a both/and kind of guy who is convinced that our state of emotional and other maturities, especially the critical thinking one, is kind of low. I’m being kind, to protect the innocent. But we don’t for the most part even have the tools to see what the problems fundamentally are, or where they are. So we are engaged in a practical teleology that has all the earmarks of how we, unless we are highly trained, respond to disasters. First and formost in that mode of reactivity, we have denial. After that, we have denial. Thirdly, at about a time it may be too late, what do we have? More denial. Even commentary on the recent shipwreck of that cruise liner pointed that out, as it asked “what makes some disasters so bad?” It usually boils down to the fantasised reality we put ourselves into. We shape Reality into our preferences of comfort as distinct from simply seeing what is and not arguing with that. From that position yoou can act clearly, humanely, and competently.

The “fair witness” idea of RS Heinlein is not a bad model of how we might usefully approach our thinking process. neither is Byron Katie’s four question approach toa ssement of internal dynamics. In fact the idea of General Semanitcs, yt another dynamo view, though it is by no means a save-all, has been usefully applied in many areas, even religious studies. One book is devoted to exactly that and I’ve heard it is used in some Catholic classes on comparative religion. At least one friend of mine who was studying to be a Jeusit used it in his.

All I’m saying is that whille we seem to have a lot of opiniionized “data” at our disposal, we rarely examine the very instrument which uses it, namely our brain, and how the “GIGO” principle unwittingly applies to most of what we think our lives to be. And we think, therefore, our lives into being according to a lot of unsound information and prochialized principles.

So I heartily agree with you about the idea that such a discussion as this is extremlly revelatory of who we think we are and what we think and what we don’t think about. It’s like that line from the WJ Bryan character in the Scoppes trial movie finally bursting out after pressure about things he ignored with “I don’t think about the things I don’t think about!” Great. And thus we have our world the way it is. Good luck.

 

[ZRight]

Actually there is no such act called “Obama Care”, what was passed in 2010 was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Act provides far more benefit to public health than could ever be discussed in this thread, but there are parts of the act which are not good. What is not good in this legislation would be corrected by reversing Roe v. Wade, and then a law that would prevent the use of birth control.

How about legislation that would make lust, fortification, adultery, or lying criminal offences? Would wana’ be president Gingrich promote such laws? Until morality changes for the better, laws will not stop abortion, any more than laws eradicate sin.

Many people have never taken the time to find out how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will benefit Americans. All they know is that their political team doesn’t like it, so it must be bad. There has been many millions spent in promoting hatred of Obama, and this hatred can then be transferred to anything, just by name association, in this case “Obama Care”. There is nothing new in this propaganda technique.

Your assertion that, “Obama argued in front of the IL senate that if the original intent was to
abort that it should be ok to withhold medical care from a born healthy baby and allow it to die”, is not true. There has never been a day that Obama, in front of the IL senate, or anywhere else, made such an absurd argument. Even in Illinois murder is illegal. This false claim originated on Fox News with right-wing activist Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity and Jerome Corsi. If untruth is repeated often enough, it is believed.

“All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.” Hitler, Mein Kampf

US Office of Strategic Services report (p.51) on Hitler’s psychological profile-
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never
concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives
(compromise); never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for
everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you
repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

I’m certain, that at the root of the political opposition to national health care, there is no concern for the unborn, but rather greed and total lack of empathy for humanity.

Where in the Constitution does it give the Federal Government the power to propose the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? Article 1, Section 8 says nothing about the Federal Government having any power to regulate health care in anyway.

 

[Mary_Fleurdelis]

Why would any Catholic be Against Free Health Care?

Am i the only Catholic that finds this idea Morally Embarrassing?

No. Not only that, but people are replacing God and the Church with the government. For instance, do you know what some of the members of Catholics for Choice try to proclaim? That the Church will not take care of them if they have lots of kids so it is perfectly moral for them to take birth control. Not a good mentality.

No wonder we see so much cognitive dissonance concerning voting and following the Church. Capitalism can be greedy and unethical, but socialism and reckless spending are never good.

 

[LumenGent]

In Australia, universal healthcare is available to all citizens regardless of socioeconomic status. That is funded by a 1.5% medicare levy that every worker must pay to fund the scheme. There is also the option of purchasing private healthcare if one chooses to do so (and can afford it). The fact is that nobody is denied any access to healthcare, neither is any person enslaved to the government for their reception of healthcare (unless you think that a1.5% levy is slavery). The scheme has been in place for over 40 years and the country is yet to suffer any economic setbacks.

 

[Gaber]

In Australia, universal healthcare is available to all citizens regardless of socioeconomic status. That is funded by a 1.5% medicare levy that every worker must pay to fund the scheme. There is also the option of purchasing private healthcare if one chooses to do so (and can afford it). The fact is that nobody is denied any access to healthcare, neither is any person enslaved to the government for their reception of healthcare (unless you think that a1.5% levy is slavery). The scheme has been in place for over 40 years and the country is yet to suffer any economic setbacks.

Yes, and perhaps because of its absence, you didn’t mention that there are no economic casualties, such as lost retirements, homes, time, etc, as is sometimes the case here. And as you might know, we pay on average, according to Nat Geo and other sources, about twice the next nearest country. In the mean time, we are dying sooner and have an increasing infant mortality rate. And while the stats of our own National institutes show we have gone from first to about 20th by many measures in the industrialized world, especially education, we doggedly claim to be first in the world. We even claim to be the richest country. That part might be true, but if we plot household income on a graph like a football field, (American) in $100 bills, it goes from abut 0 at on end, to close to four feet of 100’s at the other. Then it shoots up suddenly to a stack about 20 miles high for the ultra rich.* So you can see why, averaged out, we seem to be rich while our economy is sapped. We are not, overall, a very good advertisement for ourselves. Our policy of “rugged individualism” has been taken from us ans used as a bludgeon by those who own the government, which is used as buffer against discovery by the many of the actual problem.

*lcurve.org/LCurveVideo.htm

and

howtoboilafrog.com/ Do go to the fun page and look around

 

[SCRAM]

In Australia, universal healthcare is available to all citizens regardless of socioeconomic status. That is funded by a 1.5% medicare levy that every worker must pay to fund the scheme. There is also the option of purchasing private healthcare if one chooses to do so (and can afford it). The fact is that nobody is denied any access to healthcare, neither is any person enslaved to the government for their reception of healthcare (unless you think that a1.5% levy is slavery). The scheme has been in place for over 40 years and the country is yet to suffer any economic setbacks.

LumenGent - I am quite sure you are mistaken. There is no way a 1.5% payroll tax is funding healthcare for everyone in Australia. Healthcare is 17% of GDP in the US. I bet it is lower in Australia but it would have to be more that 10 times lower for a 1.5% payroll tax to fund it. Why would there be the option for private insurance if they have universal healthcare? Something is not adding up here.

 

[Jacob18]

In the US, some hold the view that the government should not be in the health care business,

Just a thought,

Today I heard some people talking about how the government wants to regulate how large our sodas can be.

You know the government has gone to far when…

 

[pgnat1]

I wish not to pay for the sins of others.

God Bless!