Miss USA "health care is a privilege"

[h_p]

Anything but put your hand in your pocket.
What a lot of Americans fail to understand about our universal healthcare system is that we don't mind paying for it in the least.
It is paid for through a national insurance system and hardly anyone objects to paying it, even if we don't use it. After all, that is how insurance works.

If Brits are so generous, why do you need a government to take this money by force? The fact that the majority of your country is OK with this does not make moral something that is immoral.

Insurance is people voluntarily joining together to pool resources and share a burden. This gives people the freedom to opt out and decide how they want the product of their own labors allocated. When you bring the government in, with its legal authority to jail and kill, it's no longer insurance, it's taxation and forced wealth redistribution.

[Robin Hood]

Anything but put your hand in your pocket.
What a lot of Americans fail to understand about our universal healthcare system is that we don't mind paying for it in the least.
It is paid for through a national insurance system and hardly anyone objects to paying it, even if we don't use it. After all, that is how insurance works.

If Brits are so generous, why do you need a government to take this money by force? The fact that the majority of your country is OK with this does not make moral something that is immoral.

Insurance is people voluntarily joining together to pool resources and share a burden. This gives people the freedom to opt out and decide how they want the product of their own labors allocated. When you bring the government in, with its legal authority to jail and kill, it's no longer insurance, it's taxation and forced wealth redistribution.

I don't know where to start with this!
The UK government does not have the right to kill me. Your government may have the right to kill you, but I live in a free country.
It can jail me, but not for choosing to pay for private health insurance, which, incidentally, I can do if I want to.
The British people demanded universal healthcare after WWII. They were fed up with money grabbing doctors, profit making hospitals, and children dying for having the sheer audacity to be born into a poor family.

On the wider point of generosity, I think Americans are very generous on the whole. Really I do. You are also a very hospitable people.
But I believe you are being hoodwinked and taken advantage of by the medical and insurance corporations, and by Big Pharma. They have thoroughly convinced you that they know best and have dressed it up as "freedom"; while scurrying off to the bank with your hard earned dollars.

[Gage]

Do you know how many millions of Americans went in to sign up for health care, thinking the whole time that they would have to pay at least something for it and willing to do so, yet found out that they would not owe a dime for it?

[h_p]

I don't know where to start with this!
The UK government does not have the right to kill me. Your government may have the right to kill you, but I live in a free country.
It can jail me, but not for choosing to pay for private health insurance, which, incidentally, I can do if I want to.

I agree with you: no government has the right to kill you. Governments don't have rights, they are granted authority to enact and enforce laws. It's the enforcement I'm talking about.

What happens if you decide not to obey a law? Doesn't the government initiate force to make you comply? A good government will start with minimal force, but no government in existence will escalate force only to a certain point, and then back off if the offender really, really doesn't want to comply. Eventually, the offender will need to resort to violence to assert his position, and the government will escalate force in kind until he either submits or is dead.

So any law in your country is backed up by the implied threat of violence against you. Even the misdemeanors. The fact that they don't start shooting at you from the get-go does not mean they won't at some point if you continue refusing to comply.

Back to your health insurance, I admit I don't know anything about how it works in the UK. But if you're saying there's voluntary compliance, that's not what this conversation is about. Here in the US, it's about whether everyone must be a participant in a nationalized insurance system, whether they want it or not. And that participation is unarguably backed up by the threat of violence.

[BTH&T]

I don't know where to start with this!
The UK government does not have the right to kill me. Your government may have the right to kill you, but I live in a free country.
It can jail me, but not for choosing to pay for private health insurance, which, incidentally, I can do if I want to.
The British people demanded universal healthcare after WWII. They were fed up with money grabbing doctors, profit making hospitals, and children dying for having the sheer audacity to be born into a poor family.

On the wider point of generosity, I think Americans are very generous on the whole. Really I do. You are also a very hospitable people.
But I believe you are being hoodwinked and taken advantage of by the medical and insurance corporations, and by Big Pharma. They have thoroughly convinced you that they know best and have dressed it up as "freedom"; while scurrying off to the bank with your hard earned dollars.

Life is tough and beautiful.
I don't know where to start, so I'll go back close to a hundred+ years ago.
People didn't live as long prior to many of the advances of knowledge and medicine.

So was that a good thing or a bad thing spiritually?
Did those peoples of 100-200 years ago lives matter less to the Lord?

My opinion and belief is that we all matter to the Lord and when we become so obsessed with doing everything possible to avoid death shows a lack of faith. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating cutting life short, but to the extent we fight the inevitable is weakness IMO.

I think there was a major change in the western civilization that began in the late 1800's early 1900's. A very cunning and devious plan.
We got soft, we stopped looking to God & Family for support and began looking to Government and industry/technology for our answers and support.
We really began to rely on the arm of the flesh!

We got Social Security to give us a safety net, welfare, medicaid. All the while our self reliance disappeared.
Families lived and stayed close, took care of their elderly, personally saw to the well being of their children.
The society that has evolved is the opposite of Gods way.
We want to be taken care of now. We look to government to take care of our needs, to protect us.

As was pointed out earlier, Healthcare is a commodity/service that we purchase as individuals. When Government got involved we created the nightmare we have now.
It wasn't the doctors, hospitals, drug makers that caused this mess, it was government that did it when we asked them to take care of us.

I'm in my late 50's and do not take any medications on a regular basis. I pay for what I "have " to have and move on. If I can't pay for it so be it, it's not someone else's responsibility to take care of me. I'll look to God and follow his ways.

And as the song goes "and should we die before our journey's through, Happy Day! All is Well!

I've witnessed loved ones struggle and Pass, Mother from Cancer, Father sever Alzheimers.
This life is not easy and I don't say these things lightly.
Physical suffering, death are hard to watch and go through. But we have hope of such a brighter day.
We need to stop acting as if this life is the end of it all.

[JohnnyL]

There are points that have been brought up about "universal healthcare".

1. Caps. Yup, doctors can't charge what they want--if the people are paying with insurance. If they are NOT paying with insurance, doctors can charge whatever they want.

2. There is no middleman. In the USA, doctors charge $$$, insurance companies pay $$$, and the insured pay $$$$. In general, there is much more savings. Yes, there is supplemental insurance, life insurance, etc. On the other hand, doctors make much less. But still good money. They aren't sued for billions every year, either. It's part of life knowing that doctors and dentists are going to mess up, as long as it's not too much.

3. You can go to any doctor, anywhere. If you go to a hospital, it costs a few dollars more.

4. Problems: people go to the doctor and dentist ALL. THE. TIME. Little cough? Go to the doctor! Doctor won't give you medicine? Go to another!
There are NO guidelines for going to the doctor.

[Serragon]

Miss USA was not talking about health care, even though those are the words she used. She was talking about paying for health care. This is a distinction with a difference. All people in the USA have always had access to health care. Obamacare was simply a way to shift the burden of paying for that health care to others.

One of the great evils of socializing payment for health care is that is essentially socializing poor decisions.

Most health issues occur because of decisions people have made. People engage in high-risk behavior yet expect others to pay for that risk. It is immoral and unjust to expect someone to subsidize the poor choices of someone else.

This is why the free market is superior. You get to decide who you will subsidize.

[JohnnyL]

I just really wish it were a free market...

Anyway, my relative got 3 teeth pulled for $300 cash (no insurance, negotiated with dentist). With my insurance, it would cost probably $1,000. Sometimes I wonder...

[jenny26]

Hello Gage,

I completely agree with Miss USA. It's an illiterate people who don't know about what is the actual meaning of the discussion. If this really hurts then you have to claim on them.
Thanks...

[Juliet]

I think insurance keeps medical prices high since the insurance garauntees something to be paid. Now that prices are so high, that is beginning to change because insurance companies are now shopping competitively for the cheapest prices. But the problem then becomes they don't care about quality care, only saving money.

To get a good product at a low prices, you need capitalism. Just ask your cell phone.

Do you think the price of those x Ray's is coming down any time soon? Not the way things are.

The government can't provide good healthcare any more than it can give everyone a loaf of bread. It is individual people who make the bread and resources for society to survive. What the government does is interfere and there is a direct link between government interference and loss of life. That is why the only true government is one that acknowledges it's lack of rights.

Since God gave us life, then God is in control over our health. The best thing that ever happened to me was to not have health insurance. I learned about herbs and plants.

I worked as a cna. The amount of and strength of the drugs they give these poor elderly is wrong. The withdrawal of missing a drug for them is absolutely truamatic. You might as well give them street drugs. Anyone with any sense would see that our medical system is dangerous and harmful but no one has sense when there is money to be made and research for healthcare funding comes from the government.

If we want healthcare quality to improve and prices to go down, give it to the free market to handle just like the free market has improved quality of life in every other area when the government is out of the picture. And we need to get rid of most types of health insurances. If you can't pay out of pocket for a cold without insurance then the price of healthcare is artificially too high. I can see subsidizing expensive equipment but every other factory is able to pay for expensive equipment and still keep prices low for their products. So like most things, insurance is not needed in healthcare. Insurance is used because of a fear of loss of life. If you ask me, that amounts to exploitation since it keeps prices high.

Government ought to protect against exploitation and monopolies. Maybe the U.K. does that with their healthcare. But the U.S. certainly does not. Maybe it is because of our corrupt lobbies. But the problem is, who makes sure the government does right by its people and not wrong? Well, we are back to square one.

If your government does right by you today then well done, congratulations. Who is to say it will be doing right for you tomorrow.

I have heard horror stories of U.K. nurses and how they care for the elderly, by government mandate. Not good stuff. Government should never have rights over someone's health because it gives them the right to murder.

[Michelle]

I think insurance keeps medical prices high since the insurance garauntees something to be paid. Now that prices are so high, that is beginning to change because insurance companies are now shopping competitively for the cheapest prices. But the problem then becomes they don't care about quality care, only saving money.

To get a good product at a low prices, you need capitalism. Just ask your cell phone.

Do you think the price of those x Ray's is coming down any time soon? Not the way things are.

The government can't provide good healthcare any more than it can give everyone a loaf of bread. It is individual people who make the bread and resources for society to survive. What the government does is interfere and there is a direct link between government interference and loss of life. That is why the only true government is one that acknowledges it's lack of rights.

Since God gave us life, then God is in control over our health. The best thing that ever happened to me was to not have health insurance. I learned about herbs and plants.

I worked as a cna. The amount of and strength of the drugs they give these poor elderly is wrong. The withdrawal of missing a drug for them is absolutely truamatic. You might as well give them street drugs. Anyone with any sense would see that our medical system is dangerous and harmful but no one has sense when there is money to be made and research for healthcare funding comes from the government.

If we want healthcare quality to improve and prices to go down, give it to the free market to handle just like the free market has improved quality of life in every other area when the government is out of the picture. And we need to get rid of most types of health insurances. If you can't pay out of pocket for a cold without insurance then the price of healthcare is artificially too high. I can see subsidizing expensive equipment but every other factory is able to pay for expensive equipment and still keep prices low for their products. So like most things, insurance is not needed in healthcare. Insurance is used because of a fear of loss of life. If you ask me, that amounts to exploitation since it keeps prices high.

Government ought to protect against exploitation and monopolies. Maybe the U.K. does that with their healthcare. But the U.S. certainly does not. Maybe it is because of our corrupt lobbies. But the problem is, who makes sure the government does right by its people and not wrong? Well, we are back to square one.

If your government does right by you today then well done, congratulations. Who is to say it will be doing right for you tomorrow.

I have heard horror stories of U.K. nurses and how they care for the elderly, by government mandate. Not good stuff. Government should never have rights over someone's health because it gives them the right to murder.

I had a friend who taught me something awesome regarding this same principle.

There are four ways to spend money:

You can spend someone else's money on someone else; you care less about cost and less about quality.
You can spend someone else's money on yourself; you care less about cost, you care more about quality.
You can spend your own money on someone else; you care more about the cost, you care less about the quality.
You can spend your own money on yourself; you care more about the cost and the quality.

[Michelle]

Interesting comments.
I can only assume most of you think the Levite and the priest were right to pass by on the other side, and the Samaritan's pity was misplaced.

I personally think as individuals we are to assist with all we can to ease the suffering of others.
It is a whole different thing to expect or demand institutions to care and provide for our needs.
This was demonstrated in your analogy, it wasn't gov't that cared for the man in need nor some outreach program, it was an individual.

I just knew someone would say that.
So, your neighbour has cancer and needs some very expensive treatment to save his life.
Are you going to sell your house to pay for it, or let him die?

Your assuming that this expensive treatment will save their life, be worth the cost and be worth the suffering.

All highly doubtful considering what we know about cancer treatments today.

Now if they needed their finger sewn back on, I think we could gather enough donations voluntarily, or they could do without.

[TheSnail]

Interesting comments.
I can only assume most of you think the Levite and the priest were right to pass by on the other side, and the Samaritan's pity was misplaced.

The Samaritan did not use violence to force others to do his good deeds, nor did he steal funds from others to pay for them.

There's an enormous difference between charity freely given and violent coercion.

Thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not covet come to mind.

[wargames83]

I agree, Gage.

Claiming that you have a right to a service = enslaving whoever is providing or paying for that service.
Claiming a right to property that you did not produce or purchase is theft.

So you don't have a right to police protection?

[The Airbender]

Government handout = stealing from your neighbor.

[Serragon]

I agree, Gage.

Claiming that you have a right to a service = enslaving whoever is providing or paying for that service.
Claiming a right to property that you did not produce or purchase is theft.

So you don't have a right to police protection?

How do you realize this right if no one wants to be a policeman? How do you realize this right if there are police but they choose not to protect you or your property?