General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIF YOU BELIEVE UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT CHECK IN!
With the news of UPS cutting 15K folks from their health insurance plan, once again it hits me just how backward this nation is when it comes to health care. medicine and medical treatment should NEVER be a for profit endeavor. Once we decide to have our priorities correct in this issue, you will see a great reduction in bankruptcies and destitution. One should never have to choose between health, housing and or food!
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)gopiscrap
(23,725 posts)WHEN CRABS ROAR
(3,813 posts)Read the Universal declaration of Human Rights. Article 22 - 26
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
Now I know why right wingers hate the UN.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)It remains to be seen whether living in civilization is a "right." It would be nice though.
--imm
Bunnahabhain
(857 posts)I'm not a big fan of deeming this and that a "right." What I am a huge fan of is thinking about the type of civilization I want to live in and that I want my kids to live in. Universal healthcare would seem to me to be a prerequisite for the type of civilization I want to live in. It's like when people talk about taxes. I'm happy to pay my taxes as taxes are the cost of living in civilization...and I'm happy to be civilized.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)If something is designated as a "right," it's a disconnect to have it withheld. "Rights" as such, are always difficult to deal with, because they have to be insured by a third party -- and what do you do if the right is determined, and the outside party can't or won't provide it?
Some friends that I talk politics with have consciously avoided speaking about rights, deeming the notion meaningless. You and I needn't go that far, as long as we know the limitations.
--imm
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)Should we care for each other, absolutely. But, rights should not require force.
bowens43
(16,064 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)The declaration of independence, while inspirational-sounding, is wrong - there are no such things as inalienable rights; it is only possible to meaningfully talk about rights in the context of a source, usually a body of law.
At present, Americans do not have any kind of right to state-funded free-at-point-of-use health care.
It would probably be a good thing if they did, for two reasons - firstly, first world countries where the state pays for health care seem to get comparable outcomes for a much lower fraction of their GDP, and secondly, the burden of paying for health care is more equitably distributed in such countries.
But the fact that it would be a good thing if Americans had a right to state funded free-at-point-of-use health care does not mean that there is any sense in which they currently do.
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)being treated for injury or illness is a right, and that is why hospital ER's should not turn away a patient who is in need of medical care.
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)So yes. I think we have a right to health care. We just have to figure out how to pay for single payer.
The ER care is a band-aid.
And it is expensive.
Getting an elderly woman to physical therapy BEFORE SHE FALLS could save Medicare so much money and a lot of grandchildren would have their grandmother much longer. In this time when women are working so long, that simple thing -- physical therapy before a fall -- would save so much.
Also, people in their 40s and 50s need regular check-ups. High blood pressure sometimes starts to show up during those years. So does diabetes and so do a lot of other problems. In the long run, money can be saved and health improved with preventive care early on when people need it.
Free preventive health care for all people of all ages is an investment our country should be making.
Most important is making sure all mothers have really good prenatal care when pregnant. That should include some group psychological counseling on how to care for the new baby. When I was young, girls learned how to care for a very small baby from their mothers and friends and from babysitting. That is not the case for many women today.
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)1. Health care
2. Energy
3. Education
4. The environment
5. Defense
...and shouldn't be left in private hands.
OneGrassRoot
(22,920 posts)calimary
(81,085 posts)Consider: just how secure do YOU feel with the knowledge that you could lose the very roof over your head because of ONE illness or injury. How secure would YOU feel, knowing that everything you've worked for could be so easily wiped out - especially as you age and cycle out of the work force? (That's of course, assuming that you have a decent job to begin with - which a LOT of people don't have!) To me, that's a LOT more terrifying than any terrorist attack. A TRULY safe and secure population is one where the most essential needs for survival are taken care of. It has nothing to do with your freedom-freedoms - to gouge others in the marketplace, to act like an asshole, to be rude, to be greedy, to insist on your right to be a pig. Around our house, we sneer at the CONs and teabagger types who insist on a blanket freedom that basically boils down to their freedom to be a pig (of course, with apologies to the four-legged kind everywhere). We derisively call it their "freedom-freedoms." I think it came from a video clip from "The Newsroom" where the smug, pompous, doltish, wrong-winger ass seated onstage who's asked what the two best things about America are (or something like that) - and he says "freedom. And freedom (yuck-yuck-yuck)!"
Health care should be a public utility - a NOT-FOR-PROFIT essential. The damn profit motive should be taken out COMPLETELY. Seems just completely wrong, to me, to look at another person's suffering or illness as simply another way to make money.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)woodsprite
(11,902 posts)People should certainly be provided health care and public education (not vouchers)!
Lugnut
(9,791 posts)Medicare for all!
MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)caseymoz
(5,763 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)especially Republicans (it's just that they're not self-aware)
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...HR676 would do it, Medicare for all.
K&R
hack89
(39,171 posts)malthaussen
(17,175 posts)You could make an argument for it being an imperfect right. You could make a better argument for it being a derived right.
The best argument would be as a customary right. But that would require drawing precedents from other countries, as it is clearly not a customary right in the USA. Better to rephrase the question, in that case: Should Universal Single Payer Health Care be a customary right?
-- Mal
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)In a world where such a thing(Health Care and the means to provide it) did not exist or ceased to exist and thus could not be provided declaring it a right does not do very much.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)All the union wanted was to keep what they had.
Health Care should be a non-issue in the richest country in the world.
BTW: As long as our government policy is to promote Capitalism than our government will be run by Wall Street.
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)RevStPatrick
(2,208 posts)As I keep telling my few "conservative" friends... Not everything needs to be done for profit.
Healthcare, prisons, things like that.
This country has gone completely insane, and the disaster profiteers have taken over the place.
However, I don't think it will last much longer, as things are.
There will be a revolution soon enough, and chances are it will get MUCH worse after the people are crushed by the disaster-profiteering class.
I hope I'm wrong about that...
pnwmom
(108,955 posts)Maybe it needs to be amended, though it would probably easier to pass a single payer bill -- someday.
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)when in though about in a world where apes drove cars.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,129 posts)"care" industry.
Sickening.
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)but it's the most efficient and most equitable way for a society to pay for healthcare.
TDale313
(7,820 posts)From employer based, private insurance run health care.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)insurance with the money taken directly out of our paychecks.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)polichick
(37,152 posts)That's what I'd like to ask all the assholes in Congress - the assholes who enjoy great health care and still vote against it for the people.
hunter
(38,301 posts)I think a universal single payer health plan would cause a mass exodus of workers from the Dilbert world of stagnant corporations into innovative small businesses that would improve the lives of everyone.
This frightens the giant corporations. Employees who now stay on because they fear losing health benefits would leave and become direct competitors.
Should be a right for everyone, as in all those other countries less backwards than we are.
Consider me checked in.
get the red out
(13,460 posts)100% !
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)As I said when the ACA passed Congress, I think it will have to be revisited sooner rather than later.
This is why.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)But the corporate cartels that run Suckmerica will never allow it to happen, and the useful idiots OF the corporate cartels carry their water with much subservient love.
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)TexasTowelie
(111,910 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)We The People "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Section 8.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and PROVIDE FOR THE common defense and GENERAL WELFARE of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;..."
Twice in our Constitution it mentions "general welfare" What constitutes 'General Welfare'?
The old-age benefits provisions of the Social Security Act of 1935 is an example of providing for the 'general welfare'. Medicaid/Medicare are 2 more examples of providing for the 'general welfare'.
Government controlled, Single Payer, Universal health care for the people of the United States IS covered by the Constitution, because the relative health of our citizens does affect the general welfare of the Nation. 45,000 dead people a year are proof the profit driven, privately run systems we have in place now are not working to provide the necessary health care for our nation.
How can our present private health insurance system, with its many insurance companies (each with its own way of doing things), its own highly paid management, its own attention to the bottom line for its share holders, its own claims requirements, its own forms for submitting claims, each trying to maximize profits, etc., be more efficient than any government controlled single Payer system, with its single set of rules and forms?
Every other industrialized nation has a form of Universal Health Care. None of those other countries want to go back to what they had before. And for sure, absolutely none of them want what we have now for health care in this country.
So why is it so hard to go with the most obvious, the most humane course of action, which is what every other industrialized nation on the planet has already done? Single Payer, Universal Health Care. The hard work has already been done by these countries. All we have to do is cherry pick what works. What is so hard about that?
The United States pays twice as much for health care than any other country. See chart below
And yet 45,000 people a year are still dying for lack of access to basic health care. People are losing their homes, going deep into debt, going bankrupt for basic health care.
[center]How can we be the Greatest nation on earth,
if we can't/won't even take care of our own citizens?[/center]
How is it the same people that do not have a problem with however many wars we are engaged in at the moment, that are costing us, US, $16.5 trillion so far, have a problem with health care reform that will save us billions?
Health care in other countries is a social service. Here in the United States, it's big business. Your money or your life. No money? Die and get out of the way for someone with money.
leftstreet
(36,097 posts)colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)I see red when I see some health care company CEO making 15 million a year, why? Only in the US (at least among industrialized nations).
Auggie
(31,130 posts)NRaleighLiberal
(60,006 posts)and tomatoes!
SunSeeker
(51,504 posts)fjlovato
(29 posts)Obamacare should have been Medicare for everyone.
leftstreet
(36,097 posts)HappyMe
(20,277 posts)NoMoreWarNow
(1,259 posts)Quantess
(27,630 posts)Healthcare is what taxes are supposed to pay for. What else is there, if your society can't take of its own citizens health and well being? The USA can afford it.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)Mojo Electro
(362 posts)maindawg
(1,151 posts)I dont want Obama care, I want medicare. Why should we fund Obama care, lets fund medicare. The corporations will just send in a thousand lawyers to pick Obama care apart.
walkerbait41
(302 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)so you'd get people at the top more concerned about delivering care than withholding it to goose profits.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Of course, Rahm Emanuel and Liz Fowler had to have legislation passed that would further their interests.
While Obama, circa summer 2009, pretended that "Our Constitution dictates that there be a strict separation of power, so that I cannot even comment on the health reform efforts until congress finishes voting on the matter." Yada Yada Yada.
I am glad so many here on DU can see the same guys behind the curtain that I see.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)But it would cut into insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and health care services industry profits.
Funny how TPTB didn't mind sending whole manufacturing segments overseas, but they will protect these health care related industries to their death.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Rockyj
(538 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)... just what is it the defense budget is defending?
gopiscrap
(23,725 posts)LWolf
(46,179 posts)I believe National Health Care, funded by taxes and free at point of service, is a right.
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)regardless of their social status. Nothing degrades the human spirit worse than poor health.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Single-payer refers to the payment method.
It would be good compared to what we have now.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Checking in.
Wounded Bear
(58,584 posts)Zorra
(27,670 posts)jpak
(41,756 posts)Single payer rocks.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Brigid
(17,621 posts)I'be been saying it for 30 years now.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)sheshe2
(83,637 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Don't mistake the means for the end here.
pampango
(24,692 posts)some other mechanism, the goal should be universal health care.
Change has come
(2,372 posts)TBF
(32,000 posts)folks pay premiums, sliding scale based on income.
Small businesses won't have to worry about providing insurance. It won't matter if someone wants to work part-time - they'll still have health care.
It's way past time to do this.
eridani
(51,907 posts)If you want single payer, get your state legislature to pass it, and be prepared to defend it from the insurance bloodsuckers.
diabeticman
(3,121 posts)JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)DissidentVoice
(813 posts)...as long as health care remains a commodity to be bought and sold.
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)I would prefer that if we got UHCare that we should increase the sin taxes on alcohol and cigs and have sin taxes on junk foods as well. This would help pay for the program and aqlso reduce consumption of these killers which is one reason the US has an epidemic of diabetes and obeisty related chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer etc.
Canada's alcohol tax is twice as high as ours and they use it to pay for their Universal Health care system.
DissidentVoice
(813 posts)Living in a border city, there are a LOT of businesses here that cater to Canadians...selling them Canadian cigarettes and booze at U.S. prices, without the taxes that go to fund their national health care.
rury
(1,021 posts)A human right!!
Roland99
(53,342 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)Things will continue to get worse, and there will be more people without health insurance, not less, unless we fix the whole system. We have to get the for-profit insurance companies out of the mix.
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)Treatment starts after the next $750. One year in my whole life (51 years) I have had more than that.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)Obamacare=RENT EXTRACTION, not health care.
Rectangle
(667 posts)Squinch
(50,901 posts)on point
(2,506 posts)landolfi
(234 posts)AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,849 posts)Moe the Dog
(8 posts)I travel the world for my job; and the insanity that our health care system is truly evident. The "conservatives" small business chant is undermined by the lack of entrepreneurship due to the costs of health care. If you are lucky enough to have health care for your family why jeopardize it trying to chase a dream that may create more jobs? Also, US companies must budget the cost of health care into their products and try to compete with countries that don't have that expenditure.
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)of the civilized world...
Agony
(2,605 posts)cactusfractal
(494 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,122 posts)Sure it should be. But here where republicans (and their new-democrat friends) are trying to move America to third world status, it ain't gonna happen.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I live in South Korea and anyone interested should take a look at how insurance is handled here. We pay a premium that is fixed (5.8% I believe) if we are employed and if we are unemployed it depends on the circumstance, but I pay $70 a month which is still not bad (they take into account I own a car and a house). I can go to any clinic or hospital and pay a copay depending on what I have done. When I had a really bad allergic reaction (my face swelled up so bad I looked like a fucking balloon) a couple of months ago I had to go to the emergency room (it was a holiday). I was there for two hours and got a CT. In the end I was treated with what essentially is Benadryl and was there for two hours. It cost me $90.
xocet
(3,871 posts)murielm99
(30,712 posts)But I got jumped in the UPS thread when I dared to say so. What is happening to DU?
riverbendviewgal
(4,252 posts)Canadians do not have to stay at a job to get the basic health care. ALL canadians get this, those who work, kids, seniors. We pay through our taxes and our employers pay through taxes. Many employers have the extra benefits of prescription, visual, audio , therapy and dental. Seniors pay $100. Annual for prescriptions.
We are in better health because we have annual check ups and go see the doctor at the first sign of not feeling well. That often prevents things from getting worse.
The system works. My 25 year old son was always healthy until one day at work he had seizures. 3 days later he was getting a brain operation. One of the 3 he would get for his glioblastma multiform brain tumour. 2 months later his 53 year old dad found a lump that turned out to be non - Hodgkin's lymphoma. They both had chemo, radiation, therapist and palliative care in the hospital. . Our son was in intensive care unit for 4 weeks. There were no medical bills. Just parking at the hospital. They died, but nothing was denied. And I got $2300 for each of their funeral costs. No bankruptcy. Unheard of up here.
harper will be voted out because he wants to privatize our health care. Won't happen.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)brush
(53,735 posts)BillyRibs
(787 posts)mountain grammy
(26,598 posts)daleanime
(17,796 posts)and a great way to save this budget.
ChaoticTrilby
(211 posts)PotatoChip
(3,186 posts)I wish this had been done as soon as it became clear that the Rs were not going to work with us on health-care, (or any issue for that matter).
Since the POTUS and Dems in Congress have been getting all kinds of grief for Obamacare, in hindsight, they might just as well have gone all the way to pass Single Payer. Provided that there were enough votes for it (obviously).
area51
(11,893 posts)As mentioned upthread, health care is an implied right in the constitution under "general welfare".
Our govt. is too stupid to see the long term goal, in that if it keeps us alive with health care, and keeps us from going bankrupt in trying to pay for it, then more of us will be alive to pay our taxes toward the only thing govt. cares about -- wars of choice. The US is a dying empire. Nevermind health care is a civilized and humane thing to do.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)nxylas
(6,440 posts)Hopefully the RepubliKlan is right for once and Obamacare/Romneycare is just the first step towards a "socialist" single-payer system.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)but I do think the term is good for rhetorical reasons. Saying something is a right is a persuasive act, and can be very effective.
I very much support the concept of universal, single-payer health care.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)...why do you not believe in rights?
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)then communicated to others, and then either believed or rejected by the majority of people in an area. We don't prove that people have a right to this or that, we only convinced others that the rights exist. New rights are an act of persuasion, as opposed to an act of discovery.
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)What are you trying to communicate?
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)I trying to find out if your objection to "rights" is a semantic one. AFAIK (have inferred) from your replies in thread, you favor single payer but oppose calling it a "right". I'm trying to understand why. Please elaborate.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)I think rights are good as a persuasive device, but I don't believe rights exist outside of our imagination. I believe that anything that exists solely within our imagination is strictly imaginary, such as the world of Harry Potter.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)I don't want to hijack this thread but I have a sincere interest in pursuing this discussion. If you would be interested in such an exchange, perhaps we could begin this in the Philosophy group or maybe the Civil Liberties group.
Response to gopiscrap (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Fridays Child
(23,998 posts)Stevepol
(4,234 posts)onethatcares
(16,161 posts)yes
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)Ferretherder
(1,445 posts)I really do.
LeftishBrit
(41,202 posts)kick for creating universal healthcare in the USA, and preserving it in the UK
hwmnbn
(4,279 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Turbineguy
(37,285 posts)A healthy population is a national strength.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Number9Dream
(1,560 posts)The insurance agent for our company's Blue Cross plan just informed us that our premiums for next year would be going up another 22%. Soon, the majority of my paycheck will be going for health insurance. National one-payer NOW!
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)Dustlawyer
(10,494 posts)Even fairly well to do families have to worry about health care. Makes no sense to me, they are already paying for the health care of others, why not make it better and more cost effective?
Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)Oh wait....
madmax
(16,612 posts)kairos12
(12,841 posts)Hun Joro
(666 posts)Adrahil
(13,340 posts)I believe healthcare is a right. That doesn't necessarily mean single-payer, but everyone who has done any serious work on the matter will tell you single payer has the best chance of controlling costs.
ctsnowman
(1,903 posts)City Lights
(25,171 posts)maddiemom
(5,106 posts)HillWilliam
(3,310 posts)it's the sort of thing a decent society would afford. A culture, people, or nation is known by how it treats its most vulnerable.
We're not doing very well in that regard.
Little Star
(17,055 posts)gejohnston
(17,502 posts)DissidentVoice
(813 posts)Her "virtue of selfishness" is one thing that blocks true UHC.
The Green Manalishi
(1,054 posts)But anyone opposing it should be ostracized, made a pariah, hopefully audited byt the IRS every year of the rest of their life, and, ideally disenfranchised, deported and their name stricken from all records.
Bigredhunk
(1,348 posts)Caeser67
(156 posts)Joey Liberal
(5,526 posts)Vincardog
(20,234 posts)avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)K&R
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)LaPera
(6,486 posts)health care for the first time thanks to Obamacare (Affordable Health Care).....tens of millions of white Americans as well as people of color will now have health insurance.
Cheers to Obamacare - It's a start- hopefully to universal health care for ALL Americans (as every other country have for their citizens except for the poorest nations) health care is a right. As we see in every civilized nation in the world except the US simply because the the fucking slimy lying greedy selfish compassion-less corporate republicans.....
And do expect the republicans to sabotage Obamacare anyway they can, and in many different ways to point their ugly republican finger and say 'see Obamacare doesn't work" as they continue to sabotage it!!
ramapo
(4,587 posts)Single payer makes too much sense so I don't expect it to be implemented anytime soon. Probably the best scenario is that it is enacted in a forward-thinking state. Vermont is the closest. Once it works then it will spread. ObamaCare might actually speed things along.
The obstacle are the insurance lobbies. Obviously single-payer would seriously impact their business models. In other words, much of the inefficiency would get squeezed out of the system. Private insurance can still have a place in a single-payer world but the gravy train would be derailed.
Chisox08
(1,898 posts)Universal health care is a fundamental human right and not a product that can be exploited for billions in profits.
gopiscrap
(23,725 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)rather than killing people all over the world making us less safe.