If you aren't sure what they are trying to accomplish, this should clarify it...

[MechAg94]

Many years ago, my uncle nearly got his arm cut off in a tractor accident.  He had no insurance and he was self employed.  He wasn't denied care or given care for free.  He used what savings he had and the hospital let him pay off the debt as he could.  It took some years, but they got it paid off. 

How is that for a safety net?  You don't need some wasteful bloated govt program to have a system where people aren't left out in the cold. 

[mellestad]

Now, I think you can make a case for a 'libertarian' idea where the hospitals will take care of you, but you will be bankrupted by their service if you don't have the cash.

Personally, I would rather pay a tax up front and have people in that situation be able to go on with their lives and be productive, rather than have them living under a bridge because they lost their house and car due to an illness while they were uninsured.

But at least that level of Libertarianism is realistic, where as the total removal of all safety nets on health care simply isn't an idea most Americans would even consider.

[makattak]

Now, I think you can make a case for a 'libertarian' idea where the hospitals will take care of you, but you will be bankrupted by their service if you don't have the cash.

Personally, I would rather pay a tax up front and have people in that situation be able to go on with their lives and be productive, rather than have them living under a bridge because they lost their house and car due to an illness while they were uninsured.

But at least that level of Libertarianism is realistic, where as the total removal of all safety nets on health care simply isn't an idea most Americans would even consider.

I just wanted to point out the juxtaposition of the statement above with the statement immediately above it. (Reposted below just for clarity:)

Many years ago, my uncle nearly got his arm cut off in a tractor accident.  He had no insurance and he was self employed.  He wasn't denied care or given care for free.  He used what savings he had and the hospital let him pay off the debt as he could.  It took some years, but they got it paid off. 

How is that for a safety net?  You don't need some wasteful bloated govt program to have a system where people aren't left out in the cold. 

[alex_trebek]

^^^ I do.  And the faith-based healthcare system that I work for provides millions of dollars per year in charity care, much of it uncompensated by anyone, private or government payors.  

I am sure that you also donate your time and money to charitable causes too, correct?

not all that much, I pretty much wouldn't have a future if I gave away what small part of my pay is discretionary.

Then again I don't complain about the plight of the poor, and I don't handouts (when I did qualify). 

I also dont go to the doctor even now that I have insurance. I got sick of them trying to cram prescriptions down my throat, and not being able to provide even the most rudamentary care. Plus the staff still consistently had the compassion of a DMV employee.

Frankly, I don't see what the fuss is all about beyond the gov control/cost issues. I am willing to bet that insurance won't help people like me solve medical problems anyway, because I am not going to the doctor until I am near death or have blood spraying out.

[makattak]

Further:

I have no problem with a "social safety net." I would prefer to live in a place where it is administered by private charities so that the deserving may be gleaned from the undeserving.

More importantly, though, I want a "social safety net" not administered by a faceless Federal government that is hundreds or thousands of miles away. Our country was built in such a way that the localities and states should have the most power.

Using a massive federal bureaucracy as a "social safety net" creates perverse incentives, costs more money, is more inefficient, and leads to cruelty by petty bureaucrats simply because they have the power to be cruel.

If you want to screw up your state, put Romneycare in your own state.

But you can't do that because then you don't get the suck the lifeblood out of the productive states.

[RocketMan]

Keep in mind that true, effective health care reform would likely reduce the real cost of health care, not merely control increases.  Getting the .fedgov completely out of the picture would be the best solution.  (But we know that won't happen.)
Much of the increase in health care costs over the years can be directly attributed to the vast pool of money made available for health care by .gov.  If the supply of money for goods or services increases, the cost of those goods and services will increase to absorb that supply of money.
Health care insurance, since it first became available, has itself contributed to the increase in health care costs for the same reason.

[MillCreek]

There are at least some on this board who have stated they are willing to live in a society where there is no safety net at all, with the full understanding of what that means.  But most people do not, even though the push the ideology.

It is very easy to be the keyboard commando when you are young, healthy, single and you have memorized your dogeared books by Ayn Rand.  It may be a little more difficult when you are older, partnered or have children.  I wonder who here has sufficient courage of conviction to have their spouse or child die because of their opposition to any government safety net.  I know that I don't.

[makattak]

It is very easy to be the keyboard commando when you are young, healthy, single and you have memorized your dogeared books by Ayn Rand.  It may be a little more difficult when you are older, partnered or have children.  I wonder who here has sufficient courage of conviction to have their spouse or child die because of their opposition to any government safety net.  I know that I don't.

Prisoner's dilemma.

Your question is an unfair one. I'd prefer to live in a world where private charity is the solution to the problems you cite. Unfortunately, the government has crowded out private charity. As such, you have the choice of dying or using the broken system.

Calling someone a hypocrit for using a broken system because the broken system destroyed the means they would prefer to use is really unrealistic.

[alex_trebek]

It is very easy to be the keyboard commando when you are young, healthy, single and you have memorized your dogeared books by Ayn Rand.  It may be a little more difficult when you are older, partnered or have children.  I wonder who here has sufficient courage of conviction to have their spouse or child die because of their opposition to any government safety net.  I know that I don't.

I don't mean to side step your arguement, but I don't think many people my age can afford children. I know I can't. I have ran the numbers, and it will cost about a decades salary for each child. I can't afford to do that and save for retirement, since I know I won't see a penny of SS. Now I assumed that my average salary per year will be less than the 65-70k range. I think this is reasonable assuming that pay raises will be cancelled out by unemployment periods and inflation.  Notice that inflation is ignored on the cost, at least at realistic levels.

I don't think it is unreasonable for me to be more concerned with my future than people who don't have health insurance.

It is really hard for me to feel any kind of personal reaction to your arguement based on those reasons.

[MillCreek]

Prisoner's dilemma.

Your question is an unfair one. I'd prefer to live in a world where private charity is the solution to the problems you cite. Unfortunately, the government has crowded out private charity. As such, you have the choice of dying or using the broken system.

Calling someone a hypocrit for using a broken system because the broken system destroyed the means they would prefer to use is really unrealistic.

Don't you just hate it when reality gets in the way as opposed to the theoretical world of rugged individualism?

[MillCreek]

I don't mean to side step your arguement, but I don't think many people my age can afford children. I know I can't. I have ran the numbers, and it will cost about a decades salary for each child. I can't afford to do that and save for retirement, since I know I won't see a penny of SS. Now I assumed that my average salary per year will be less than the 65-70k range. I think this is reasonable assuming that pay raises will be cancelled out by unemployment periods and inflation.  Notice that inflation is ignored on the cost, at least at realistic levels.

I don't think it is unreasonable for me to be more concerned with my future than people who don't have health insurance.

It is really hard for me to feel any kind of personal reaction to your arguement based on those reasons.

Can you afford to not have kids? If your prediction comes to pass and there is no Social Security to at least partially fund your retirement, who will take care of you in your old age? Private charities? Your 401(k)?

For much of the world, their retirement system for the elderly is for them to live with their children. 

[Fjolnirsson]

It is very easy to be the keyboard commando when you are young, healthy, single and you have memorized your dogeared books by Ayn Rand.  It may be a little more difficult when you are older, partnered or have children.  I wonder who here has sufficient courage of conviction to have their spouse or child die because of their opposition to any government safety net.  I know that I don't.

I'm no longer what I consider "young"(I'm 34). I am married, own my home and have a 6 year old daughter. As I stated earlier, I have no job and no health insurance for my family. I am not opposed to a "social safety net", and I do believe emergency medicine may be in fact one of the constitutionally allowed functions of government. Perhaps not.

However, preventative care is not an emergency. Most things people visit the doctor for are not emergencies, and before the government got involved, people payed the doctor themselves. In addition, the knowledge is out there. There are books and guides one can buy which will allow you to treat your family in the case of most common illnesses.

Would it suck to lose your home due to lack of health insurance? Yeah, it would. I had to take a loan out on my home two years ago to pay a medical bill my daughter incurred when we took her to the emergency room(you know, one of those places where they can't turn you away?). She racked up a $12,000 bill faster than we could blink, in part due to the doctor giving her the wrong medicine, a fact we did not realize until far later.

I have sympathy, I have compassion. What I don't have is a belief that the government should make me purchase health insurance. Health care is not a right. It is a service, and someone has to provide it. That someone has to be paid.

It would be a great benefit to me personally, if Congress passed a bill mandating everyone to purchase belly dance lessons from my wife. Not constitutional, though.

There are better ways to solve the health care "problem", than by Congress acting as parents and decreeing that we'll eat our vegetables or go to our room(by "eat vegetables", I mean buy insurance, and by "go to our room", I mean pay a fine/tax).

[Balog]

It's a strawman argument to say "If you don't want fed.gov providing universal healthcare you must just be a single, child less, libertarian hypocrite."

[alex_trebek]

Can you afford to not have kids? If your prediction comes to pass and there is no Social Security to at least partially fund your retirement, who will take care of you in your old age? Private charities? Your 401(k)?

For much of the world, their retirement system for the elderly is for them to live with their children. 

I would have a problem with expecting my children to fund my retirement. I don't think people should have children as a means of income. Also, each generation seems to feel more entitled to other peoples money.

It is probably unreasonable to think mine would be immune. It would then be foolish to expect them to take care of me.

It's a strawman argument to say "If you don't want fed.gov providing universal healthcare you must just be a single, child less, libertarian hypocrite."

I didn't mean to state that, I was trying to say that I perceive bigger problems than a lack of social safety net.

[MillCreek]

It is a service, and someone has to provide it. That someone has to be paid.

Amen.  Lord knows that our census is down, and we could use some more paying patients!

[Tallpine]

Personally, I would rather pay a tax up front and have people in that situation be able to go on with their lives and be productive, rather than have them living under a bridge because they lost their house and car due to an illness while they were uninsured.

We have friends that lost their house and car, and they were insured. 

Turns out there was a maximum dollar amount on their coverage, and the hospital was not at all reasonable about the considerable excess.  It was all or nothing, so the hospital got close to nothing. 

I've been part-time or unemployed the past five years, and no health insurance in all that time.  But I'm still against having the feral guverment manage "health care" 

When we have had insurance, it was mostly worthless.  The last outfit would "pre-approve" something and then refuse to pay for it afterwards.   

[roo_ster]

Just out of curiosity, from your experience what percentage of the uninsured seeking treatment would you guess are illegal aliens? 5%? 10%? More?

At Parkland, Dallas County's public hospital, 16,000 children are born per year.  ~9,000 of them are anchor babies born to illegal alien mothers.

There are at least some on this board who have stated they are willing to live in a society where there is no safety net at all, with the full understanding of what that means.  But most people do not, even though the push the ideology.

This ^^^ is a thoroughly dishonest re-(mis)statement of folks' arguments.  I'd be ashamed to so blatantly "misrepresent" someone's argument in such a manner.  But, shame has been driven out of the public square by the self-esteem boosters, who think that everyone (no matter how worthless) has the right to feel good about themselves.

Even those who do not see a role for gov't here have not objected to private charity taking up the slack.  Especially since private charity did all the heavy lifting before bloated gov't bureaucrats, who are incentivised to keep people on the gov't teat, shoved them to the side.

Don't you just hate it when reality gets in the way as opposed to the theoretical world of rugged individualism?

Even before Obamacare was passed gov't already fouled the market by pumping in 40% of the dollars.  Even this is not enough "safety net" for you?

Pumping that much money into any market will grossly distort it (not to mention the uncounted regs).  Gov't dollars pumped into the market inflates the price to all and those who get it worst are those with no insurance.  We've seen the same pernicious effect of gov't largess in the higher education market.  It is no coincidence that higher ed & health care, two markets awash with gov't money & people who are oh-so-generous with other people's money, are two segments of the economy with rates of inflation that consistently outpace the mean for the economy. 

Gov't (taxpayer) money causes outsized inflation, costs rise, than calls for more gov't money ensue. 

[longeyes]

It is possible to have a second-tier health care system--clinics, new HMOs--designed to deal with the truly indigent (if they are citizens).  It wouldn't need to cost a trillion dollars, two trillion, and radically modify the entire working system.  What most Americans opposed to ObamaCare object to is the concept of EQUALIZED EVERYTHING, that people who have not contributed to the system are somehow entitled to the same care as those who have.  Obama is The Great Leveler, and it doesn't take a genius to see where all of this leading us on every level.  First health care, then mortgage forgiveness?  What else will be so charitably forgiven?

[longeyes]

What this all comes down to, for me, is the profanation of the concept of compassion.  It is going to kill us.

[Nitrogen]

..never mind

[BReilley]

That has been my opinion.  The social cost of not having a safety net seems greater than the monetary cost of having one.

What about the social cost of having "safety nets"?  What about the chronically dependent and shiftless, who WOULD NOT BE AROUND without such things?  There is an entire household in my extended family which affords a house(manufactured, but quite large and VERY nicely appointed) and a tall three-car garage/shop with a neato project car, on nearly an acre - on one modest income and *six* disability checks(all collectors are ambulatory, able people of at least average intelligence - the "disability" seems to be some sort of anxiety disorder which afflicts them all).  There's apparently even some money left over for illegal drugs(not marijuana).  All considered, they live better than my wife and I do, except for the drugs.
Are they the exception - or the rule?
Is it righteous to support their behavior(I should say "enable")?

It is very easy to be the keyboard commando when you are young, healthy, single and you have memorized your dogeared books by Ayn Rand.  It may be a little more difficult when you are older, partnered or have children.  I wonder who here has sufficient courage of conviction to have their spouse or child die because of their opposition to any government safety net.  I know that I don't.

What an arrogant, shitty thing to say.  That's roughly equivalent to the line that conservatives want poor people and minorities to die... except even more personally accusatory.  I am five years married, with a child due this September.  I think about these things, and conclude that my child would have a better life as my child than as society's ward.

And so what if I dog-ear my copy of Atlas Shrugged?  If I find Rand's philosophy or views to be agreeable, and I find they work when applied to my life, that's my business.  I don't see anybody minimalizing what you believe in.

Can you afford to not have kids? If your prediction comes to pass and there is no Social Security to at least partially fund your retirement, who will take care of you in your old age? Private charities? Your 401(k)?  For much of the world, their retirement system for the elderly is for them to live with their children.

Are we to infer that you do plan on Social Security being around later?  Seriously asking.
To answer your question, though, I'd call it terrifically irresponsible to hope that your children will be able to pay for your retirement and old age, although at this point it looks as if they're a better bet than the government would be.  You're not supposed to spend all your money then freak out when you can't work anymore and the checks stop coming; you save some, invest some, etc. so that you don't have to wash dishes to pay for old-people meds :p  401(k) and all that is great, but it's in no way enough for the average person.

What most Americans opposed to ObamaCare object to is the concept of EQUALIZED EVERYTHING, that people who have not contributed to the system are somehow entitled to the same care as those who have.  Obama is The Great Leveler, and it doesn't take a genius to see where all of this leading us on every level.

I have to disagree.  The largest reason I'm distrustful of the healthcare bill - and I'm sure I'm not alone in this - is that it has been drafted by people who prove again and again that they are not worthy of trust.  Report after report has come out about this state, that company, this union, getting a special deal.  Costs keep changing.  It was passed with zero approval from one party(even the pretenders, RINOs if you like) and dissent within another(the party in majority!).  Everything points to one conclusion: nobody knows what's written on the 2695 pages that do not contain his or her sweetheart deal.  I actually think more people would be OK with it if they could believe that it truly would provide equal care to everyone.

[BridgeRunner]

What an arrogant, shitty thing to say.  That's roughly equivalent to the line that conservatives want poor people and minorities to die... except even more personally accusatory.  I am five years married, with a child due this September.  I think about these things, and conclude that my child would have a better life as my child than as society's ward.

Do you seriously think that wanting your kid to be happily raised by you somehow guarantees that that is what will happen?  Do you really think that people who end up using the government funded safety net simply didn't want safety and security badly enough?

What an arrogant, <expletive avoided> thing to say.

[BReilley]

Do you seriously think that wanting your kid to be happily raised by you somehow guarantees that that is what will happen?

No, I don't think *wanting* anything guarantees it will happen.  I think I, being the person most interested in my own child's success, am more likely to make wise choices for his health and upbringing than a bureaucrat who is wholly uninterested in his life or death.  I think the present system is not a good solution because it is wasteful, overly bureaucratic and encourages expensive CYA practices - but I know a universal-coverage system is not a good solution because it will be wasteful and overly bureaucratic, and being a government program it just will not work as advertised.

Do you really think that people who end up using the government funded safety net simply didn't want safety and security badly enough?

Nope.  I think that people who use the government funded safety net either made bad choices or had bad luck.  We learn from making bad choices.  As for bad luck... well, it happens.  That's what family and friends are for; nobody wants to see an every-man-for-himself anarchy, but the faceless government is not an efficient solution - cashing a check from DES kind of makes you forget that the money came from your neighbors.

I do think that private charity, either individual or organized, would be more effective simply because it would not allow the huge amount of graft and abuse that our present system invites.  I seriously doubt that the situation I described would be permitted to continue if the safety net were administered by a local church or charity, or family members.  Just as stockholders are interested in their investments, those who donate or volunteer would certainly prefer to see their money and efforts go to those who truly need, rather those who simply prefer not to work.  On the other hand, when it's somebody else's money to begin with, who cares?

What an arrogant, <expletive avoided> thing to say.

How?  Am I arrogant in trusting myself over others?  More arrogant than those who would tell me they know better than I do?  More arrogant than someone who says you can either see things his way or be a hypocrite?

Look, what I'm trying to get to is that our society is moving toward the abolition of accountability.  If you remove consequences of bad choices, you remove the incentive to make good choices.  I don't believe I'm arrogant for saying that - I have made stupid choices and squandered great opportunities in my life.  Once I grew up, I learned that I have to do things for myself if I want to succeed.

And if I want to succeed in life, I need to get some sleep so I can be productive at work

[MillCreek]

BReilly:

What about the social cost of having "safety nets"?  What about the chronically dependent and shiftless, who WOULD NOT BE AROUND without such things?

That's roughly equivalent to the line that conservatives want poor people and minorities to die... except even more personally accusatory.

Huh.  It does kind of sound like you want the chronically dependent and shiftless to die. 

[BReilley]

BReilly:

Huh.  It does kind of sound like you want the chronically dependent and shiftless to die.

"Would not be around" does not mean "would perish from the earth", and I think that was pretty clear.  You make it sound like government handouts are the only possible solution, without which some people will simply wither away and die.

I want the chronically dependent and shiftless to be forced to pay their own way.  The truly needy will be taken care of by private and church charity, and I have no prejudice against them.  Americans already donate more of their own money than any other nation anyway.