Is healthcare a right or a responsibility?

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Actually, it’s not really “thank you France.”

The more appropriate expression might be, “thank you French taxpayers, who, by paying cradle-to-grave taxation so harsh that France essentially has no industrial base because it’s all left, you gave me de facto free health care.”

–As I keep advocating, most people are small-minded enough that their only concern with health care is, “is it free for me?” Hey, if you want all the things that come with free European health care - like astronomical taxes; rationed care; not enough specialists, etc., have at it. Me? I’ll pass.

–And besides…who says it’s so good anyway? Here’s a link to an article calling the French system as being on the brink of collapse:

 
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jeannetherese said:
Interesting. If you’re following the worldometer coronavirus statistics, you’ll see that, at present, the U.S. is situated in the center of a ranking of those countries by mortality per million. 273
The countries following it include the Netherlands 332; Sweden 365; France 423; and the U.K. 511.
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Oceans are a thing.
 
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VonDerTann said:
As I keep advocating, most people are small-minded enough that their only concern with health care is, “is it free for me?”
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Honestly, I really don’t think we are advocating for “free” except for the poorest citizens. We ARE advocating for affordable and that’s a big difference you seem to be ignoring.

I’m ok with leaving an insurance model into any revamping as long as it is reasonably affordable for each income bracket.

I’m going to do deeper dive into Japans system as it seems to deliver high quality and affordable pricing. I believe it is a mix of public and private…they have good outcomes and I know they manufacture some highly regarded chemistry equipment as I’ve used them. They beat the pants off of a German one and a US one! (Proves nothing, I know).

One problem with making affordable healthcare no matter what road we take is that some healthcare companies aren’t going to like it. It will either eliminate them or reduce their profits. Someone is going to have to make less money and I’d rather it not be the healthcare givers.
 
VonDerTann said:
–As I keep advocating, most people are small-minded enough that their only concern with health care is, “is it free for me?”
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You seem to think single-payer and socialized medicine advocates are selfish. This portrayal is not only a fallacious ad hominem attack, but it ignores the reality that it’s about health care for all, not just health care for me.
VonDerTann said:
–And besides…who says it’s so good anyway? Here’s a link to an article calling the French system as being on the brink of collapse:
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Did you read the article or just pull it up because it had a catchy title that supports your bias? It’s facing problems because of funding cuts. You have to fund these things in order for them to work.
Pattylt said:
I believe it is a mix of public and private…they have good outcomes and I know they manufacture some highly regarded chemistry equipment as I’ve used them.
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This was attempted under the Obama administration - offering a public option. But even the word option had people screaming about soshulizm, so we’re far off from any model nearing Japan’s.
 
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The article is reliable or it’s not. I see no reason to conclude it is not reliable.

Essentially every health system wherein care is free or close to it - certainly every one held up as some sort of model here - appears to be broke. Certainly that’s the thrust of the article I linked to. Either that, or it’s funded by raiding some other necessary component of the budget. I see no reason to have the US be like, say, Sweden or Denmark (or Japan for that matter) and essentially spend nothing on national defense.

And THANK GOD we’re far from Japan’s system - as the article states, their system involves withholding care from the ill (and even then, their system is still broke).
 
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blackforest said:
You seem to think single-payer and socialized medicine advocates are selfish. This portrayal is not only a fallacious ad hominem attack, but it ignores the reality that it’s about health care for all, not just health care for me.
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I think that this argument misses those who are denied care for certain conditions. Healthcare in any system is not limitless. Some will be denied and, in some cases, delay becomes denial due to death.
As Catholics, I think it is difficult to justify paying into a single payer system which will be supporting the denial of treatment for the preborn via abortion, and denial of treatment for the elderly, the mentally ill, and potentially for the mentally incompetent with euthenasia. All health care systems ration care and defining who receives what form of care, and under what conditions they will receive it, becomes a form of rationing.
Canada and the U.K. are both experiencing criticism over failure to prioritize those in senior homes during our recent covid outbreak, despite evidence that they were at higher risk.
 
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VonDerTann said:
–As I keep advocating, most people are small-minded enough that their only concern with health care is, “is it free for me?” Hey, if you want all the things that come with free European health care - like astronomical taxes; rationed care; not enough specialists, etc., have at it. Me? I’ll pass.
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And I think opposing comments can be read as I’m happy with what I have and don’t want to pay more taxes so the rest of you can fend for yourselves.
 
But here’s the difference: my (high) taxes already pay for all sorts of things I never benefit from, that are exclusively for the poor, needy, etc.

I know a business owner with a child in catholic school yet his taxes pays for the local public school. In fact, his business in another state pays huge taxes to support that town’s school, too. That other school (where he doesn’t even live) funds free breakfasts and lunches to town students even in the summer.

He asks - IMHO with justification - “sheesh, how many mouths am I expected to feed via taxes? Is it too much to ask that other parents feed their own kids? Do I have to feed them as well as educate them?”

Now, it seems, we’d like to saddle my pal with these kids’ health care costs, too.

–At some point we have to carry our own water in life and IMHO health care is one of them, particularly when every nation with free health care is broke and basically has such high taxes that they have no business base.
 
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To add a bit, my poor pal increasingly isn’t even welcome in the town where his business is located, via COVID: there’s a strong anti-out of state sentiment there. Apparently when he visited to check on his business, some local spotted his car license plate from my state and gave him grief over visiting. He gave it right back to this local, basically saying, “I already pay a fortune in taxes to this town, I guess you’d like my taxes without me, it doesn’t work that way.”

Bravo for him, and I for one would not like to stick him with any other costs, like others’ medical costs - lest his thin-margin business fail.
 
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I think I see what part of the problem is.
All health care has points where it is rationed. In Europe, they look at outcomes for extending life and the quality of life. So, they don’t do hip replacements on the elderly as one example. In our country, we will do hip replacements on anyone that can afford it…whether by their insurance or their wealth. The idea that grandma wouldn’t be given a hip replacement regardless of the grandson saying he’ll pay for it just seems to boggle the US mind…where money buys you whatever you want. The wealthy have a really hard time realizing that if you actually go by best practices, they couldn’t buy their around it and it’s unacceptable to the rich to have that happen.

We see this with organ transplants now. Dad, the alcoholic, won’t be placed on the waiting list for a liver, much less bumped up to the top of the list no matter how much he’s willing to pay. I think we are underestimating how much the wealthy are resistant to changing our system because their money would no longer be the influencing decision. They can’t imagine a scenario where money doesn’t talk.
 
For context, I was countering his “you-just-want-free-stuff” canard. But to address your concerns, you are currently paying into a pool that funds abortion and denies care continually. We need a more specific way to define “rationing.”
jeannetherese said:
Canada and the U.K. are both experiencing criticism over failure to prioritize those in senior homes during our recent covid outbreak, despite evidence that they were at higher risk.
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Gov. Cuomo is under the same criticism in NYS.

I don’t have all of the Answers. But what we are currently doing simply isn’t sustainable.
 
blackforest said:
I don’t have all of the Answers. But what we are currently doing simply isn’t sustainable.
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I don’t think anyone has all the answers and the problem may be, ultimately, unsolvable on this earth due to human constraints and human nature.
I do appreciate your commitment and share many of your concerns.
 
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Are you in the US, Walk-worthy?

If you are in the US, we already have a basic socialized medical system.
About 1/3 of the population is covered by Medicare and/or Medicaid.

The US also has a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ( EMTALA ) which gives the legal requirements under which hospitals must triage and treat individuals, regardless of ability (or even intent) to pay for those services rendered.

That said, I don’t know of any other businesses where a consumer can walk in and receive goods and services without some form of payment at the time of transaction. But hospital emergency departments are different, so I would say that healthcare is both a right and a responsibility.
 
Sorry to be rude, but let me make several points clear:

First, I find it laughable for a person (American I assume) who appears to have never lived in Japan or interacted with the locals acting like if he/she knows more about the that country than someone who ACTUALLY spent over two years living there, interacting with the locals and had numerous personal encounters with the Japanese healthcare system.

Secondly, trying to pull information off of a PERSONAL website with NO CREDIBILITY at all isn’t a professional way to support your argument. Also, NO COUNTRY in the world spends a quarter of its GDP on healthcare. I suggest you look at some sites that’s more credible, such as OECD. Even the USA, the #1 healthcare spender in the world, only spends 16.9% of its GDP on healthcare in 2018, with Switzerland being #2 spending 12.2%. Japan being #5, spending 10.9% of its GDP on healthcare (OECD 2019).
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA

Thirdly, after living in the USA for 10 years and spending over 3 years working in its healthcare sector, I noticed that a large portion of Americans have made the country into their new idol, replacing God. The only country where I witnessed stronger blind nationalism than America is China.

Less than two months ago, when the coronavirus was passed from China to Japan, American media was “prophesying” a tragic demise of Japan and its healthcare system. The American government also telling its citizens to leave Japan and and go back to the US because it’s “safe”. Two months later, the USA already had over 100,000 deaths due to this virus and the death toll is still climbing rapidly, Japan only had fewer than 900 deaths. And this is a country smaller than California but with almost 40% America’s population! WHAT AN IRONY.
 
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People like my parents who live outside of the city fire district. Pay a yearly fee to the rural fire district for services on top of paying taxes for the city fire district. Their have been numerous stories about people who did not receive assistance for lack of payment to rural fire districts.
 
new-kirishitan said:
Sorry to be rude, but let me make several points clear:
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You aren’t being rude. You are staying solid facts people can access and making a clear point on information bias Americans have been misled by.

Your constructive addition to this conversation is appreciated.
 
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