First of all, what is this supposed problem? Below I will respond to what I have heard from the socialists who don't realize that they are socialists and from the socialists who think socialism is great because they've never been stuck having to live with it.
But first, let me get some premises established so we all are clear on what we are truly saying:
- Health care isn't a thing that simply exists. Health care is a group of services and products (like doctors' knowledge, surgical skills, insurance coverage, dental skill, nursing skills, medications, medical devices, etc) which must be created and/or provided by people. Unlike rights like speech or movement, no one simply has them; they must be provided by other people; people who have rights too. You can get up and walk without anyone's help much as you can speak without help. Health care, however, is the result of the life's work of other people. So when you want to control health the health care industry, you are in reality saying that you want the government to control your neighbors.
- All health care services are the results of people who also have rights and this applies to all elements of health services. The doctor you see is a human being with a name and a life's story and a family, just like you and me. The imaging center you go to for an MRI or XRAY is owned by a person or a group of peope like you and me.
- Even the big, impersonal Health Insurance company or pharmaceutical company is owned by people like you and me, whether the company is owned by one person, a group of partners or is a corporation with twenty-thousand shareholders. When you say "The Greedy Insurance Company" you are really saying "That greedy bastard next door"; you are referring to people, many of whom you may know who are part owners of the big bad insurance company through stocks they own or through mutual funds that they own through their 401(k) which they depend on for their retirement.
- All of these people have invested in these things (whether through money that they spent to buy stocks in an insurance company, drug company or hospital, or business partners who invested in a hospital, or a nurse's aide or pharmacist who invested in her education) with the expectation of making a profit by selling their skills or services or products. In the case of doctors, the investment is in hundreds of thousands of dollars in eduction, startup business costs and up to 12 years of their lives amassing specialized, life saving knowledge. In the case of an insurance company, it can be a lifetime of savings earned by a low income worker who needs the company to profit to be able to eat. In the case of a pharmaceutical company, the pill you take is the result of billions of dollars of research and development costs, hundreds of thousands of man hours of work and sometimes over ten years of effort. No one works that hard for free!
- Government doesn't produce health care. Governments don't produce anything. The only thing a government does is use force on the people. Governments use force to either make people do things or they use force to prevent people from doing things. Behind every action a government takes is the threat of violence. If you disobey you will be fined. Fail to pay the fine, and you will be arrested. Fail to comply with the arresting officer and you will be beaten or tazered and, if your resistance is sufficient, you will be executed. Make no mistake about it, whenever you say "the government ought to do...." the sentence ends in "or arrest/execute anyone who doesn't comply" If you support welfare what you are saying is "the government should force working people to pay for non-working people and arrest/execute anyone who doesn't pay." This isn't an extreme example, its the truth. Ask yourself...."Why do I pay my taxes?" Because ultimately, you know you may go to prison if you don't.
- There is no right that includes the right to take away another person's rights. If there were, then we wouldn't have rights...only permissions.
- For the rest of this post, I will speak in the 1st person singular (me, I, my, etc) or the 1st person plural (us, we, our, etc) because I am speaking as if I were the doctor, the nurse, the pharmacist, the stockholder in the HMO or the pharmaceutical company.
Too many Americans can't afford health care and don't get the health care they need.
Pharmaceutical Stockholder: True. Its a shame. However, its not my obligation to fix it. If I can donate money to charity I will and I often do. But their need is not a mortgage on my life.Someone else's need doesn't give them the right to take over my life. Their need doesn't give anyone the right to force me to accept less money than I am willing to charge for the pill I manufactured in my pharmaceutical company. That pill cost me $3,000,000,000 to develop and 8 years. I want to make my money back and turn a profit, damnit. If you don't like me charging $50 per pill, then don't buy it. I don't force the money from their hands and no one should take the pill from my hand. If we agree on a price and you exchange money for product, its a sale. You may think the price is too high and I may think its too low but we voluntarily made the exchange. Once you bring the government regulators in, though, there is no choice, there is only a gun in my face. How would you like it if I hired you to work for me for $20 an hour then, after you did the work, I said I was only going to pay you $12 an hour and then had a cop put a gun in your face and tell you that you had to accept $12? Not fair huh? Well then don't do it to me, damnit! I didn't hurt you in any way; I've commited no crime. Why are you punishing me?
HMO Stockholder:It saddens me that some people can't afford health care. Truly it does. But I invested in this company with what little money I have so that I don't have to work until the day I die. I am an old woman so this money has to keep growing. If my insurance company doesn't turn away some patients and try to push back on some questionable claims, its bad business and I lose my life's savings. Besides, if the HMO doesn't stay profitable by making tough decisions then it goes out of business and then no one gets insurance so everyone loses. Just because you need insurance doesn't give you the right to point a gun at me and tell me how I have to run my business. How would you like it if I put a gun in your face and told you how you have to do things in your house? You wouldn't like it, would you. Well don't forget that I own the business so its my property and I can run it the way I choose to.
One of the reasons care costs are so high is because people can't afford insurance so they flood the hospital Emergency Rooms because they know the ER must provide them with medical care so the hospitals and care providers pass the cost to those who CAN pay which means bigger costs for the insurance companies to pay.
Hospital Owner: So let me get this straight...first you tell me that I can't turn people away, even if they show up without the ability to pay. Even though I invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build this place and pay millions to pay doctors, nurses, janitors, pharmacists, cooks, electric bills, water bills, you tell me that if someone can't pay I have to give all of that to him at a loss. Then, to try to stay in business, I pass that cost on to people who can pay but then I'm the bad guy? You put a gun in my head, command me to do business in a way that loses money and I'm the bad guy?
And now you idiots tell me that you want to solve the problem of people being forced to take on the medical costs of other people....by legally forcing people to take on the medical costs of other people? Are you dense or did you just eat lead paint chips as a child?
Here's a thought...just because they need medical care, doesn't give you the right to use government force to make me provide it. What if the same guy showed up at your door and said he needed food. Would you like it if a Federal agent told you that you HAD to feed him or you would be arrested? No? Then don't put me in that situation, stupid!
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What amazes me is that so many Americans have this muddled notion of what it means when we say that something is required by law or that the law mandates, this or that. No one realizes that it means "a government agency has dictated that you have no right in this matter and that you will be killed if you don't comply". And yet.....we treat it so lightly. We are so willing to send our own neighbors into slavery to solve a problem, like the NAZI (also socialists) gassing retarded people, autistics, and the mentally handicapped because they were technically a burden on the economy. This is why I say that this is not a pragmatic issue of how best to "solve a problem". Man's morals cannot depend on "what works". If that was our moral standard then we are on the same moral ground as NAZIs were for exterminating the mentally or physically disabled. Yes...the plan really did efficiently solve the problem of the cost those individuals imposed on the people. They used the justifaction of "what works".
But was it moral?
ANIMALS operate on the morality of pragmatism. Humanity cannot.
