The Morality of a Single Payer Health Care System

[ShadowWolf514]

Healthcare is a human right, because we have a God given intrinsic value as human beings. It would be an error however to then assume, based on this truth, that the government should be the first responder for this right. The reason why the Catholic Church opposes socialism is because it does not respect the rule of subsidiarity. The first responder for a person’s individual positive rights are one’s family, then the Church, the community, and then the government (and even then the lowest level of government first.)

Socialism (even when it’s just in regards to healthcare) gives the government too much power. After all an individual can understand his or her needs and circumstances better than anyone in the federal government.

 

[qui_est_ce]

qui_est_ce:

“Entitlements produce donors without love and recipients without gratitude.” Antonin Scalia.

Sounds like social security and medicare to me.

Yup. We should be able to opt out of SS and Medicare. But the government won’t allow us. Also, I believe they force you to use medicare. Regular insurance won’t cover you after 65.

 

[qui_est_ce]

stinkcat_14:

qui_est_ce:

“Entitlements produce donors without love and recipients without gratitude.” Antonin Scalia.

Sounds like social security and medicare to me.

Yup. We should be able to opt out of SS and Medicare. But the government won’t allow us. Also, I believe they force you to use medicare. Regular insurance won’t cover you after 65.

Of course that makes me cold-hearted because people will say I don’t care about old people.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Healthcare is a human right, because we have a God given intrinsic value as human beings. It would be an error however to then assume, based on this truth, that the government should be the first responder for this right. The reason why the Catholic Church opposes socialism is because it does not respect the rule of subsidiarity. The first responder for a person’s individual positive rights are one’s family, then the Church, the community, and then the government (and even then the lowest level of government first.)

That is the way it is. Charity and family and Church and local community have all had their chance as first responder. And they have done a great job in many cases. But they have not done the whole job. Far from being the first responder, the government is being the last responder after everyone else has done what they can.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

It would be helpful to refer to those paragraphs of the Catechism that refer to free will and private ownership.

I’ll make it easier for you. This Catechism is every bit about morality, never ignoring divine and natural law, and doesn’t always reject civil laws that are moral. This paragraph gives your the moral teaching and the answer to this threads question, however and whatever way you want to call Single Payer HCS.

The image upload isn’t working for me. Can you just cite the paragraph number and then I can look it up online?

 

[Catholicos]

Paragraph 2431

Cat 2431

 

[phil19034]

The image upload isn’t working for me. Can you just cite the paragraph number and then I can look it up online?

Catechism paragraph 2431

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a7.htm#2431

 

[phil19034]

No. We have not provided an environment for the States to efficiently give it ago.

If the federal govt wants to give grants, etc; cool. I’m fine with that. But control of what gets covered needs to be local or state at the highest.

That way, if we you don’t like what the healthcare is in your state, you can move. But when the Federal Govt does it, and screws it up like they do everything else, where can you move to? If the United States ever becomes truly socialist, I might have to move to Africa.

Our health care system was not this broken before Obamacare, which made everything worse. My insurance premiums have sky rocketed since Obamacare. I have to tap into savings every month. So I know our system needs to change. But socialism isn’t the answer.

All we needed to do before Obamacare was simply increase medicare to more people, which would have been fine. But making everyone use the same healthcare plan is where I draw the line. I like to choose my own doctors, I like to choose my own coverage.

There is a reason why the rich in nations with socialized medicine come to the United States for health care. There is a reason why they come to the United States for cosmetic dental care, etc. Because we have the best care. Again, all we needed to do was provide coverage for those who didn’t have it… and that could have been done on the state level.

NYC has had public hospitals (“city hospitals”) for years. Chicago has Cook County hospital. We could have encouraged states and/or counties to build or fund public hospitals like NYC and Chicago have.

 

[phil19034]

(continued)

A big part of the federal Affordable Care Act’s implementation was designed to help hospitals reduce their spending on charity care, as well as bad debt, which are unpaid bills not eligible for charity care. They hoped to do this by reducing the number of people without insurance, freeing revenue to help them operate.
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/he...are-of-care-for-the-poor/stories/201605040198

Again, a far better option would be to provide tax incentives for non-profits, cities, counties, and states to provide charity coverage to the poor by operating public hospitals or subsidizing for the poor…

Heck - 44 states currently have medical schools, and three more states are in the process of creating medical schools. Why can’t medical schools, as part of their accreditation be dedicated to providing charity hospital coverage? And why can’t small states that don’t have a medical school (or in areas far from a school) designate a “public hospital”?

Charity, local and stated funded public hospitals would be a much better solution, than the mess we are getting ourselves into.

I don’t want the courts and the federal govt telling me that I can’t move my child to another hospital. I don’t want the govt telling me that I must remove life support. That’s NONE of their business.

Socialized medicine is wrong because it abused be controlled by bad people.

I look at what happened in the UK as a perfect example of why socialized medical is evil… the parents should have 100% control of what happened to that child. Not the hospital and not the govt. It doesn’t matter if the parents were right or wrong… they were the parents. The wishes of the family must always take precedence, but with socialized medicine the wishes of the govt take precedence - and that is evil.

God Bless.

 

[Vonsalza]

I look at what happened in the UK as a perfect example of why socialized medical is evil… the parents should have 100% control of what happened to that child. Not the hospital and not the govt.

If you’re talking about Charlie Gard, it would have been no different in the US. Major insurers simply do not approve experimental treatment.

You’re still free to GET the treatment, as you are in the NHS. It’s just that no one is going to pay for it besides you.

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

I look at what happened in the UK as a perfect example of why socialized medical is evil… the parents should have 100% control of what happened to that child. Not the hospital and not the govt.

If you’re talking about Charlie Gard, it would have been no different in the US. Major insurers simply do not approve experimental treatment.

You’re still free to GET the treatment, as you are in the NHS. It’s just that no one is going to pay for it besides you.

No… the Govt would not allow Charlie Gard to be moved. That is socialized medicine.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

phil19034:

I look at what happened in the UK as a perfect example of why socialized medical is evil… the parents should have 100% control of what happened to that child. Not the hospital and not the govt.

If you’re talking about Charlie Gard, it would have been no different in the US. Major insurers simply do not approve experimental treatment.

You’re still free to GET the treatment, as you are in the NHS. It’s just that no one is going to pay for it besides you.

No… the Govt would not allow Charlie Gard to be moved. That is socialized medicine.

More specifically, GOSH was not going to pay to have a hopeless case moved out of Britain.
If the parents came in with their own money (hundreds of thousands to be sure) and a team ready to move him, there’d have been no issue.

What you’re ignoring is that the parental requests also came with the assumption that the NHS would pay for all of it. Private money didn’t start speaking up until it was too late. For Charlie’s disease, really it was too late to begin with.

---

To the topic, you seem to think that a single-payer system is synonymous with socialized medicine. This simply isn’t true. The doctors and hospitals still work for themselves. The government replaces the insurance company. That’s it.

Saying that a single-payer system is socialized is like saying the multitudes of doctors and hospitals that accept Medicaid and Medicare are actually government institutions. That’s objectively not true.

 

[phil19034]

The government replaces the insurance company. That’s it.

I don’t want the government to replace the insurance company. That’s all. I don’t trust the govt. Period. Unless we become a Catholic Theocracy, there will be no changing my mind.

Today, if I don’t like my insurance company, I can always get a new one or try to find a new job. However, if I don’t like the govt, then I need to find a new country.

The single payer system spits in the face of subsidiarity. I’m sorry, but I don’t like and never will.

God Bless

 

[qui_est_ce]

phil19034:

Vonsalza:

phil19034:

I look at what happened in the UK as a perfect example of why socialized medical is evil… the parents should have 100% control of what happened to that child. Not the hospital and not the govt.

If you’re talking about Charlie Gard, it would have been no different in the US. Major insurers simply do not approve experimental treatment.

You’re still free to GET the treatment, as you are in the NHS. It’s just that no one is going to pay for it besides you.

No… the Govt would not allow Charlie Gard to be moved. That is socialized medicine.

More specifically, GOSH was not going to pay to have a hopeless case moved out of Britain.
If the parents came in with their own money (hundreds of thousands to be sure) and a team ready to move him, there’d have been no issue.

What you’re ignoring is that the parental requests also came with the assumption that the NHS would pay for all of it. Private money didn’t start speaking up until it was too late. For Charlie’s disease, really it was too late to begin with.

---

To the topic, you seem to think that a single-payer system is synonymous with socialized medicine. This simply isn’t true. The doctors and hospitals still work for themselves. The government replaces the insurance company. That’s it.

Saying that a single-payer system is socialized is like saying the multitudes of doctors and hospitals that accept Medicaid and Medicare are actually government institutions. That’s objectively not true.

This is not true. Charlie Gard’s parents had the money to move him - over 1 mil lbs. They had doctors and hospitals in the U.S. willing to donate their time to treat him.

 

[niceatheist]

Vonsalza:

phil19034:

I look at what happened in the UK as a perfect example of why socialized medical is evil… the parents should have 100% control of what happened to that child. Not the hospital and not the govt.

If you’re talking about Charlie Gard, it would have been no different in the US. Major insurers simply do not approve experimental treatment.

You’re still free to GET the treatment, as you are in the NHS. It’s just that no one is going to pay for it besides you.

No… the Govt would not allow Charlie Gard to be moved. That is socialized medicine.

That’s not socialized medicine, that is the courts in the UK following a well-trodden path that courts in other jurisdictions have done; that parents do not own their children, and there are limits to what a parent can force upon a child. Charlie Gard was never going to be cured, there was no fix, any intervention would have been unethical, and British courts sided with the doctors.

The same thing happens in the US. Jehovah’s Witnesses parents who try to prevent their minor children from getting blood transfusions will quickly find the hospital’s lawyers going to the courts to gain temporary guardianship to make sure treatments are done.

 

[Vonsalza]

The single payer system spits in the face of subsidiarity. I’m sorry, but I don’t like and never will.

God Bless

The principle of subsidiarity does inherently suggest that some things are best done at the highest level. You should just caution against adding things to that list. There are many Catholics like myself and many clergy that think this does not violate subsidiarity.

But with that said, if you’ve placed yourself beyond any rational discussion about the notion; that’s completely fine. But that is, by definition, an irrational response and you should avoid seeking rational discussions on the matter. We all know what the monolithic talking heads have to say about it already; on both sides.

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

The single payer system spits in the face of subsidiarity. I’m sorry, but I don’t like and never will.

God Bless

The principle of subsidiarity does inherently suggest that some things are best done at the highest level. You should just caution against adding things to that list. There are many Catholics like myself and many clergy that think this does not violate subsidiarity.

But with that said, if you’ve placed yourself beyond any rational discussion about the notion; that’s completely fine. But that is, by definition, an irrational response and you should avoid seeking rational discussions on the matter. We all know what the monolithic talking heads have to say about it already; on both sides.

Its not irrational to fear that one day socialists, communists, etc could win a major election and cause havoc because of socialized medicine.

Socialized medicine depends on a moral govt and competent govt. I believe our federal govt is becoming more and more corrupt and bureaucracy out of touch with families. Not to mention the federal govt has proven time and time again that they cannot balance the budget.

NOW, that said, I could accept some kind of single payer system at the state level, but not on the federal level. At least then, if my state was corrupt or provided horrible healthcare, I could move to another state.

God Bless.

 

[JonNC]

=“Vonsalza, post:631, topic:447347”]

Progressives makes no arguments based on the Church.

No argument here. Hence, the regular lack of morality from progressives.

A progressive would argue that your religious identity and political identity are two different things and one isn’t automatically beholden to the other.

They may be, but certainly one’s political identity is should be influenced by one’s religious identity.

Which is exactly the progressive sort of government we have, BTW.

But our political system is not intended to be progressive. It is intended to be liberal, and they are two entirely different things. Liberal means free. Progressives do not believe in freedom. Progressivism is statist, always has been.
The American form of governance, a constitutional representative republic, is contrary to that statist philosophy. The American system in based on individual rights and liberty, and limited government. Our legal and cultural foundation is Judeo-Christian. That doesn’t mean that the Church runs the state. That was part of the European statist model (divine right of kings, etc) that the American system is contrary to.
But Judeo-Christian religious principles, which is the basis of our western culture, do and should influence our governance.

 

[JonNC]

qui_est_ce:

“Entitlements produce donors without love and recipients without gratitude.” Antonin Scalia.

Sounds like social security and medicare to me.

Except that you intentionally misrepresent Social Security and Medicare as it was presented to the American people.
It presents the odd notion that government does things such as this poorly, so let’s have government do more.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Except that you intentionally misrepresent Social Security and Medicare as it was presented to the American people.

It presents the odd notion that government does things such as this poorly, so let’s have government do more.

I have not misrepresented social security and medicare. They are welfare programs pure and simple and the courts don’t dispute that. I never said that government should run healthcare, I have been pretty consistent that medicare and social security need to go. I believe in individual responsibility and markets, not big government welfare programs.