What principles guide your worldview?

[InfiniteMasterEx]

Or maybe the better thing would be to reduce the power and scope of the federal government and allow the 50 states to become what they were originally intended to be - 50 separate experiments in democracy. For example, California could enact universal health care, and then those who didn't agree with that approach could move to another state. I think a "free market" of population migration would sort out fairly quickly what would be successful and what wouldn't.

This easily sums up why I love the federal system. Rather than debate on evenly torn issues on a national level, why not just let the states experiment them? With the advent of rapid transportation and telecommunications, moving to a different home is easier than ever so people can migrate to another home where laws are more favorable to them.

However, that does not mean the government should not provide, at least, BASIC health care to the American people to where the point hospitals will not turn people in critical condition away due to lack of funds. That is plain morally wrong, religious or not, to not provide enough service so that people's lives can be protected. As stated in our friendly document:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

which is arguably as important as the Constitution. This is where I derive my reasons for federal health care. The individualistic rhetoric is not even applicable here. That is like saying people deserve protection from the police and others not because they are homeless.

However, I am against FULL universal health care though because I believe, while health care is a right, that better services are more deserving to the people who worked for it. Food stamps was created to end starvation but if one wanted higher-quality food, they needed to make a income, for example. I would not give a gastric bypass surgery to a fat lazy bum over the person who actually earned some money. Also, monopolies are more beneficial if broken up (not saying all monopolies are bad, like the postal service, but partially privatizing them would be better for the market IMO. Economics are another major issue I wish not to divulge in here...)

There are many sources that guide my principles as I am an open-minded person. Though, there are three concepts that I believe are my strongest guide to my principles: Moderation, taking action, and unselfish individualism. Confucius, Buddha, and Ghandi are among my biggest influences as well.

 

[Spotter]

However, that does not mean the government should not provide, at least, BASIC health care to the American people to where the point hospitals will not turn people in critical condition away due to lack of funds. That is plain morally wrong, religious or not, to not provide enough service so that people's lives can be protected. As stated in our friendly document:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I've been waiting for something to whip this one out. The Constitution does indeed that those Rights are unalienable, but they are NOT a guarantee for them. Does a grizzly bear care about your "Right to Life" when he's mauling you to death? Does a boulder care about your "Right to Liberty" when it pins you following a rockslide? What the Constitution does is guarantee that the State act to prevent (or provide recourse following) any MAN from depriving you of these Rights unjustly.

I realize some of you will squawk because this is hosted at the objectivistcenter.org website, but I first read this somewhere else and think it perfectly sums up Rights vs. entitlements, and ultimately where Universal Health Care (sounds much better than Socialized Health Care, doesn't it?) will lead. The best portion starts under the heading "Liberty vs. Welfare Rights".

However, I am against FULL universal health care though because I believe, while health care is a right, that better services are more deserving to the people who worked for it. Food stamps was created to end starvation but if one wanted higher-quality food, they needed to make a income, for example. I would not give a gastric bypass surgery to a fat lazy bum over the person who actually earned some money. Also, monopolies are more beneficial if broken up (not saying all monopolies are bad, like the postal service, but partially privatizing them would be better for the market IMO. Economics are another major issue I wish not to divulge in here...)

See, already you're drawing lines. The problem with that is, different people want the lines in different places. What seems reasonable to you is too restrictive to someone else, who will want the whole enchilada (to continue playing on your fat statement).

S.

 

[ryanvergel]

Let's face it, there was no idea of universal government-provided healthcare when the Constitution was written, so we should be arguing over whether it OUGHT to be in the Constitution. Should the government provide healthcare for those who cannot afford it? Is the government responsible? Should we make the government responsible? These are the questions I think fit better.

 

[jkwarrior]

You will know them by their love.

The early Christen church was known far and wide in the Roman Empire for its healing. More than any other feature the non-believers saw the miracles of healing, the care for the sick, and feeding of the hungry ... but especially the healing.

Every person I know personally who considers themselves a “staunch conservative” also considers themselves a devout Christian ... and yet fights against universal health care.

I cannot reconcile those two things in my own mind.

A government of loving Christians would feed the hungry, heal the sick, and care for the homeless by whatever means they had. It is irrational to think that government cannot do these things and do them well if lead by the right leaders, though I concede that it is not necessary to assume that a government solution is the only one that will work.

The United States no longer has the best health care in the World. We aren’t even in the top 25 anymore by many measures and things are getting worse.

One of the great things about our country is that laws can change. We can try thing, see how it works, and then change course should our first attempt be inadequate or misguided. In the case of health care, however, to do nothing is both rash and callous, causing untold needless suffering.

My own belief is that a form of universal health care is something that could potentially help our country and is a wonderfully Christian thing to try. I think that, done right, it would help businesses and individuals alike. I suspect that the cost would be high, but I also expect that there would be the potential for savings in a truly universal system. I also firmly think that a bad universal health care implementation would be a disaster for the entire country. I would rather see a different sort of change than a poor universal care plan put into effect.

(and please note that I do not refer to health care as being a constitutional right nor do I endorse or criticize either candidates plans)

I have to disagree with you. After Jesus' ascension to Heaven, there were very few healings. Jesus performed the healings to a. validate his ministry and b. prove his divinity. The apostles did perform miracles, including healings, but that was not what they were "known" for. They were known for relentlessly preaching and living the gospel.

Now, I would like for you to show me one scripture to back up your claim that the government should provide healthcare for everyone. I could not agree with you more that it is a Christian duty to serve the poor. The book of James makes it quite clear that "faith without works is dead". We are commanded to take care of the widows and the orphans...which can be interpreted to take care of pretty much anyone that needs helps. I can guarantee you that you will not find a single scripture that puts that responsibility on the government. That is not the government's job.

Really, to say that universal healthcare is a Christian thing can not be further from the truth. If the government is forcing its people to do something, then that is not Christian charity. That is not faith with works. That is the government telling you what to do with your money. That is socialism. It is the Christian's responsibility to serve, but it is not the government's job to tell them how to do it.

 

[PokemansForGeeks]

I propose a "fat tax" for those who are being supplied health care by the government.

In summary, if you are overweight you must pay the government a tax according to how much you are over a prescribed limit. Thus, if you weighed 300 lbs and you were 6 foot, you'd pay accordingly to how much an average 6 foot'er should weigh. This would tick off a lot of people but it would help us become a healthier nation in the long run.

I believe in health care as a right, but not if the illness is self-induced. The same should go for self-induced alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. I have no pity for those types of people.

 

[InfiniteMasterEx]

I've been waiting for something to whip this one out. The Constitution does indeed that those Rights are unalienable, but they are NOT a guarantee for them. Does a grizzly bear care about your "Right to Life" when he's mauling you to death? Does a boulder care about your "Right to Liberty" when it pins you following a rockslide? What the Constitution does is guarantee that the State act to prevent (or provide recourse following) any MAN from depriving you of these Rights unjustly.

In your stated scenarios, those are factors no one can control and prevent. On the other hand, providing health care is something within our human control. Big difference there.

See, already you're drawing lines. The problem with that is, different people want the lines in different places. What seems reasonable to you is too restrictive to someone else, who will want the whole enchilada (to continue playing on your fat statement).

As you said before, this where the states should be deciding what to do with their systems. Not disagreeing with you here.

 

[jkwarrior]

Has anyone heard of the tragedy of the commons? Free health care is not free.

It sounds great to say that you want health care for everyone. who doesn't? As honorable as it sounds, it does not work.

 

[PokemansForGeeks]

Has anyone heard of the tragedy of the commons? Free health care is not free.

It sounds great to say that you want health care for everyone. who doesn't? As honorable as it sounds, it does not work.

It works in Canada pretty well =\

 

[jkwarrior]

Tell that to the countless Canadians who travel cross the American border to avoid waiting months, if not years, to receive special treatments.

Someone would be ignorant to say that our health care system is fine as it is, but installing a socialist, big government programwill not solve any problems. If you truly think it is working like clock work in Canada, I suggest you do more research.

 

[ryanvergel]

It works well in some places. We don't have to entirely go to other country's models, but the government WILL have to make major changes about the situation.

 

[InfiniteMasterEx]

Speaking of health care and other country's systems, anyone checked out Singapore lately?

 

[Cyrus]

It works in Canada pretty well =\

My sister spoke to two Canadians at a party a few weeks ago. They both said their health care system sucks.

I spoke to a foreign student from France two weeks ago. he said his health care is the best thing since sliced bread.

Why don't you go do some research and enlighten us, Pokemans. ;x

 

[Boofu]

I agree with you, Ryan that the natural debate should rest on constitutionality first.

JKwarrior is absolutely right.

My mom owns a radiology and pain management clinic in Texas. We have family friends who live in Canada, and their daughter needed an MRI for her leg.

They had 3 choices:

1. Stay in Canada and way 6 weeks for a simple MRI.
2. Pay $10,000 and move to the front of the line in Canada.
3. Come to America and get it immediately with a payment of much less than option 2.

They chose option #3.

The problem with Canada's system??
Tragedy of the Commons, (n), a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared resource even where it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen(Wikipedia).

 

[Lucario EX]

You guys sit here and talk individual liberty, but if you were the one dying with no health insurance, what would you do?

I'd understand that it's my problem and not go begging for help from the government.

Part of freedom is being able to make choices for yourself, and to suffer for them or benefit from them yourself. The government shouldn't be handing you money every time you need it. You should get by as best you can and quit depending on others to always help you out.

I propose a "fat tax" for those who are being supplied health care by the government.

In summary, if you are overweight you must pay the government a tax according to how much you are over a prescribed limit. Thus, if you weighed 300 lbs and you were 6 foot, you'd pay accordingly to how much an average 6 foot'er should weigh. This would tick off a lot of people but it would help us become a healthier nation in the long run.

Being fat isn't just a matter of not eating right or not exercising. It can be genetic. I'll assume that you didn't know that.

 

[Articjedi]

I propose a "fat tax" for those who are being supplied health care by the government.

In summary, if you are overweight you must pay the government a tax according to how much you are over a prescribed limit. Thus, if you weighed 300 lbs and you were 6 foot, you'd pay accordingly to how much an average 6 foot'er should weigh. This would tick off a lot of people but it would help us become a healthier nation in the long run.

I believe in health care as a right, but not if the illness is self-induced. The same should go for self-induced alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. I have no pity for those types of people.

That's the first regressive tax I've ever heard out of this guy. Fat people in this country are usually poor =\

 

[PokemansForGeeks]

cyrus: I've talked to a lot more than two Canadians and the consensus up there is that they think Americans are all heartless devils. They also said how easy it is for them to get a doctor's appointment. I will do some research and I'm 99.9% sure that poor people in Canada are extremely ecstatic about their own healthcare. I can't speak for wealthy Canadians, however.

lucario ex: I think my argument spans farther than your individial liberty garbage. I'm all for paying for your own health care but when you can't afford it and it's life or death...hmmm, maybe you'd want some help? Let me just ask you a rhetorical question - If you had no money and needed cancer treatments but you're insurance wouldn't cover it because you had asthma when you were five, what would you do? Also, like I'm going to say, we need to prevent these stupid illnesses like obesity, high blood pressure, dialysis because of alcoholism, etc. No, I don't think it's right for tax money to be helping people who kill their own bodies, but maybe it's a little bit compassionate, no?

articjedi: Yea, unfortunately that is true, which is why need to focus on educating people to become healthier. How many overweight Japanese people do you see? Not a whole lot. That's because they spend a large amount of money on health awareness. (It's also because their diets are ridiculously low carb, but that's besides the point) The point is, so much money is spent on healthcare for ridiculous illnesses like high blood pressure or high cholesterol that stem from being unhealthy that we need to start treating the root of the cause rather than just prescribing medicine after medicine. A lot of this has to do with pharamaceutical paying off the doctors to prescribe said medicines =\

Oh, and just as a reminder, yes I do know being overwight/high blood press/high cholesterol can be hereditary but unfortunately for those who have it, that's only about 1% of the population =\
So next time you hear a fat woman say it's hereditary, don't believe her.

Keep it coming guys.

 

[Ardoptres]

Let's face it, there was no idea of universal government-provided healthcare when the Constitution was written, so we should be arguing over whether it OUGHT to be in the Constitution. Should the government provide healthcare for those who cannot afford it? Is the government responsible? Should we make the government responsible? These are the questions I think fit better.

If i lived in the US, I'd say yes, yes and yes.

JMO

 

[vanderbilt_grad]

My problem with this is even though the intention sounds great, what sounds great and what IS great are compleatly different. Things like this that are supposed to be good, seem to have a way of giving the government power in areas that they should NEVER interfere in.

See that's the thing. There are no areas where the government should never interfere in. As our tool we get to pick what the government has a hand in and what it doesn't. If we don't want it in healthcare then we make sure that it doesn’t do that. If we do want government health care then we can enable it to do so. Like many things in government it’s a messy process since few folks really seem to agree on what government should and should not do in our country.

Alazor, The arguments about faceless bureaucrats being bad for healthcare was made back in the 90s when the Clintons did their health care push ... but it’s pretty much exactly what we ended up with today, except instead of modestly paid well trained government bureaucrats we have near minimum wage call center operatives in private industry making those front line decisions on what to cover and what not to. My wife used to be one of those folks. She literally was one of three people in her whole department that had not served time in prison. The company she worked for had hired a bunch of ex-convicts, I can only assume in order to keep salaries low though who knows. Maybe it was for their “moral character” in the decision making process. We have got to be able to do better than this.

JKwarrior, I’ve spent a good deal of my spare time for the past 6 years trying to learn about scripture and the history of the early church. I’m not a theologian, pastor, or priest, but I’ve made an honest effort at learning. I’m at work and don’t have access to all my material right now but just do a google search on “early church healing” and you will see tons of stuff indicating just how important healing was in the early days of the church. It’s wasn’t just the apostles, healing in some form or another was practiced extensively. As for an exact scriptural reference, take your pick. It’s not that the bible says “and on the 4th day the Lord said ‘let there be universal health care for all.’ So it came to be and it was good.” But rather it’s the principles espoused in multiple passages, such as 1 Corinthians 12:25, John 12:34-35, Matthew 10:8, and more. I stand by what I said. If some tyrannical government stood in our way then obviously we would be reduced to individual and small collective efforts of churches as things were back in the day, but that’s not the case now.

Boofu, the “Tragedy of the Commons” only occurs in unregulated systems. Whoever said that universal health care would be unregulated? It’s only common sense that we can’t do everything for everyone. Any sort of “Universal” health care would be limited by the very nature of our finite resources.

I’ll also note that currently there are cases of Americans going overseas to get European health care that they can’t afford here. It works both ways.


Stepping away from the health care soapbox I would like to take an opportunity to express another thing I believe. It’s a bad idea to let any 1 party stay in power too long or for one party to control too many branches of government at one time.

Part of that’s the notion that power corrupts, but lots of it is due to the fact that I think that “in theory” it prevents abuses. For instance Republicans favor lack of government regulation for businesses. Democrats tend to favor it. Ideally with both sharing power only things that really need to be regulated are. It keeps things from being under or over regulated. In practice it’s messy but works better one side going hog wild about what they want.

 

[Ky00ber the III]

Speaking of health care and other country's systems, anyone checked out Singapore lately?

Wow, somebody mentioned my little country. Sniffles.

Yes, indeed, encouraging self-reliance together with government subsidies is the way to go.STAY HEALTHY OR PAY UP(whatever the government doesn't subsidise). However, the government must still provide for those in the lower income groups as they don't have a choice when it comes to selecting hospitals/services.

On topic, Biology and Altruism serves as my principles, they go hand in hand.

 

[Alazor]

"I’ll also note that currently there are cases of Americans going overseas to get European health care that they can’t afford here. It works both ways."

It depends which part of Europe though and it may also depend if you're a citizen of their country.

"My wife used to be one of those folks. She literally was one of three people in her whole department that had not served time in prison. The company she worked for had hired a bunch of ex-convicts, I can only assume in order to keep salaries low though who knows. Maybe it was for their “moral character” in the decision making process. We have got to be able to do better than this."

Okay, my question is where would the ex-convicts be working if they didn't have a job?
My other question is who would be "morally" able and well trained?
How would there ever be a "good" healthcare system for the whole country unless the standard of living
magically went up?


@ Ryan Vergel

"Let's face it, there was no idea of universal government-provided healthcare when the Constitution was written, so we should be arguing over whether it OUGHT to be in the Constitution. Should the government provide healthcare for those who cannot afford it? Is the government responsible? Should we make the government responsible? These are the questions I think fit better."

Yep, those are the questions to ask.