Change of heart on socialized medicine

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I have never asked anyone to justify their existence period. Why are you asking me to justify what I am doing with the resources that have been entrusted to me?
What you do with the money that doesnt go to taxes, I could care less what you do with it. Heck I’d prefer you do with it what you want. It’s good for the overall econemy.
 
That was their choice, You are putting money over her health. while legally you have a right to do, morally and ethically you dont.
I don’t have the moral right to put my money ahead of my health? are you saying that I am moraly obligated to get the biggest safest car regardless of cost? I hope not.

You seem to be completely missing the third factor. There is health, money and integrity. I have no proplem giving needy money for their health (up to the point it endagers my families health) but that doesn’t mean I am going to rob a bank to get money to pay someones health care costs.

My arguement has never been against helping others, it has ony been against using sinful methods to attain that money.

Do you believe that postponing a earthly death is worth committing a mortal sin and experiencing eternal death?
 
No just more willing and pragmatic.
Yeah, there is a history there of “pragmatic” solutions. but if they use moral and ethical means to achieve results, more power to them. but ui have yet to hear of ways they actually reduced costs.
 
What you do with the money that doesnt go to taxes, I could care less what you do with it. Heck I’d prefer you do with it what you want. It’s good for the overall econemy.
Just as long as you get your %50 percent cut up front right?
 
I don’t have the moral right to put my money ahead of my health? are you saying that I am moraly obligated to get the biggest safest car regardless of cost? I hope not.

You seem to be completely missing the third factor. There is health, money and integrity. I have no proplem giving needy money for their health (up to the point it endagers my families health) but that doesn’t mean I am going to rob a bank to get money to pay someones health care costs.

My arguement has never been against helping others, it has ony been against using sinful methods to attain that money.

Do you believe that postponing a earthly death is worth committing a mortal sin and experiencing eternal death?
Ofcourse I don’t and it isn’t happeneing in Pathia’s case either. By that logic heart transplants would be morally wrong. By that logic the poor shouldn’t get flu immunization then.
 
Hmm if National health care goes through you will be getting your 50% cut also.
No if it goes through 65% of my income will go to the government then to the free loaders and I will still have to pay my own bills.
 
Ofcourse I don’t and it isn’t happeneing in Pathia’s case either. By that logic heart transplants would be morally wrong. By that logic the poor shouldn’t get flu immunization then.
What??

aside from the canibalization aspects, there is nothing morraly wrong with getting a heart transplant as long as you do not try to fund it with immoral means. If the poor can aford shots, or their employers pay for them (reduction of lost work days more than pays for the shots) or if a charity want s to pay for themor if a buisness funds them as a marketing ploy or a variety of other moral methods is used then those shots are moral. If someone robs a liquor store to get the money to pay for a shot it is wrong.
 
What??

aside from the canibalization aspects, there is nothing morraly wrong with getting a heart transplant as long as you do not try to fund it with immoral means. If the poor can aford shots, or their employers pay for them (reduction of lost work days more than pays for the shots) or if a charity want s to pay for themor if a buisness funds them as a marketing ploy or a variety of other moral methods is used then those shots are moral. If someone robs a liquor store to get the money to pay for a shot it is wrong.
Are you the final authority on whats moral?
 
I’m all ears on ways to reduce actual costs. I’m just not a fan of the big shell game.

It would be nice to see some apple to apple comparisons. For instance a patient with a broken leg (not a compound fracture) what is the cost to X-ray spint/cast, follow up,cast removal. If it cost $1000 here in the US but $700 in germany then we may be able learn something. If it costs $1000 but $900 in germany but they don’t do follow up xrays then it isn’t an apple to apple comparison but we may still learn something. If it costs $1000 for a human but $200 for a dog in the US we may also learn something. (Lets say the vet reads the xray himself but the doctor sends it off to a specialist to verify the crack before setting the cast. Maybe we allow the doctors more leaway in reading the Xray and only bring in the specialist as required.)
In Germany there are standard prices for everything. This saves tons in administrative costs. Private hospitals and doctors. Private insurers - called ‘sickness funds’. Employers pay part of it, just like here. There are co-pays. But if you lose your job, you do not lose your insurance. It’s scaled on income. I know that’s going to be your sticking point. But we scale coverage costs here based on how sick you are - vs. your ability to pay. And the income scale costs less per capita than the sickness scale we are using.
It’s not perfect- of course - one problem they are having is that German doctors make less money than U.S. doctors.
We can learn from the health care systems of other countries and devise the best possible plan.
 
No, My priority is at a level higher than money or health. It is a matter of integrity. We should not harm others in the pusuit of our personal interests regarless of how emotionally stiring our intersts may be.

During the Revolution, some of our soldiers were marching barefoot in the snow to go to battle. The main driver was that they also saw things that were more important than money or health. I am sorry if you can’t comprehend that.
Hmmm, so now you’re saying the un-insurable should buck up and suffer because it’s a ‘personal interest’. And that by doing so they are comparable to the Revolutionary war soldiers marching barefoot in the snow. And if they want coverage they should leave the United States. Or start their own charities.

Royal Archer, I am just curious - do you work in the insurance industry? :rolleyes:
 
Hmmm, so now you’re saying the un-insurable should buck up and suffer because it’s a ‘personal interest’. And that by doing so they are comparable to the Revolutionary war soldiers marching barefoot in the snow. And if they want coverage they should leave the United States. Or start their own charities.

Royal Archer, I am just curious - do you work in the insurance industry? :rolleyes:
Too bad my grandmother who is a retired nurse , now has Altzheimers. She would rip into him just like she did with the quacks that sometime practiced medicie on the hospital floor she worked on. She was trained by the nuns during WWII. If he lost his insurance and had 6 painful kidneysones in him like I once did I’d bet be would be seeing a big opinion shift on healthcare.
 
Remember that book I recommended, “Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis” by Jonathan Cohn? It tells the history of health insurance in the U.S. Very interesting reading.

Blue Cross plans were the first community coverage plans in the U.S.
Originally Blue Cross plans were non-profit, and guaranteed issue. If you were in the plan, and got sick, you were covered. The premiums of the group covered the costs of the sick.
The reason this worked is because the groups were large. With enough members paying in, the costs of the few sick were coverable.
Then the for-profit insurance companies, like Prudential, which prior to this considered health care too unprofitable to cover, saw the success of the Blue Cross plans and got involved in covering health care. They started offering cheaper premiums based on a person’s health status - a process called experience rating.
Blue Cross plans couldn’t compete - the for-profit companies were undercutting their premiums. So they had to take up the same experience rating system to stay afloat.

“…the insurance industry made no excuses for its general approach of basing insurance availability and prices on risk. On the contrary, its leaders and allies explicitly rejected the egalitarian ethos that was the foundation of Europe’s national health care plans and the early Blue Cross programs, saying the purpose of insurance was merely to spread the costs of expected medical care over time- and only within groups of people with a relatively similar likelihood of needing it.” pg 34-35.
 
Too bad my grandmother who is a retired nurse , now has Altzheimers. She would rip into him just like she did with the quacks that sometime practiced medicie on the hospital floor she worked on. She was trained by the nuns during WWII. If he lost his insurance and had 6 painful kidneysones in him like I once did I’d bet be would be seeing a big opinion shift on healthcare.
Are you sure your grandmother with Alzheimer’s is unable to work? Because she might be one of those free-loaders that is making our system so unmanagable…:rolleyes:

OK OK I’ll stop. Antagonizing each other is no way to discuss something, and I do think that this can be a discussion.
 
Well she is 87, and a couple years ago when she was at my sister’s wedding she didn’t know why she was there. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm . She was forced against her will to retire from nursing at 70, becuase of rules. Part of what she missed was putting young whipper snapper doctors in their place.
 
The two following posts ignored Catholic Social Teaching on size of Government. Catholics are to resist large government.
No, there is no such teaching. The Catholic Church does not teach in such vague terms. There is no absolute thing called “large government” to be resisted. The Catholic Church teaches that governmental functions should be carried out on as local a basis as possible, and I agree with this teaching enthusiastically. I wish the Catholic Church applied it more thoroughly in its own polity.
But since youre not Catholic let me ask you, dont you understand that governments have the authority to forcefully control human activity? This is exactly why we should be careful when giving more authority to it…
I agree.
Business however does not physically enforce human control… Business can only bite into your wallet. And money is only material.
I think this is naive. There are all kinds of ways in which large corporations control us through marketing, through controlling the economic conditions under which we live, etc. And of course big business has often had a huge influence on government.
No, a standing army is wrong. I agree with you.
OK. I withdraw my objections. You are consistent.

I think that Obama is preferable to Bush except for the issue of abortion largely because he uses government in less coercive ways, by and large. But I have no problems saying that both of them–and indeed the modern U.S. government generally–engages in a level of centralized control that is very unhealthy, and that any health care reform passed is likely to suffer from that sickness.
Weapons of mass destruction is a totally different subject. Are you trying to side-track me… 😊 😃
Not in the least. You said that Catholics should resist “large government.” Any government with nuclear weapons is pretty darn large.

Edwin
 
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