The Healthcare Crazy Has Begun

Someone should start asking the Repubs about complications at or before birth? Health care to support that?? Pshaw.

While I support cradle to grave health care (ah…it feels good to be Canadian), I would point out that many people seem to have a rather twisted understanding of what constitutes a “right”.Off the top of my head, a right is that which you may not be deprived without just cause.No right is absolute. Your right to life ends when you try to kill me, or when the state determines by fair trial that the death penalty be imposed, or if you are a soldier in combat in wartime.Your right to freedom ends upon conviction and sentence to a term of incarceration.Your right to freedom of speech ends when you incite violence or insurrection.Your right to swing your arms about ends at the tip of my nose.The idea that there is a “right to health care” is, frankly, a little silly. If such a thing were true, one would be able to demand treatment even when medical opinion were that there’s nothing to be done for you.Even if there were to be such a thing as a right to health care, it would immediately be subject to all sorts of restrictions (the aforementioned medical opinion not least).There are plenty of things wrong with the American model of health care delivery, but setting it up as a question of rights is, IMO, rushing down a foolish path that solves nothing and creates more problems.

@ Shasta:I would not wish anything I posted to be taken as an endorsement of the position espoused by that backward, inbred, brainless Republican FuckWamp.Quite clearly, he and I differ in very fundamental ways. The Republicans are opposed to universal health care – I support it.The Republicans see any attempt at the provision of basic medical services to all citizens as some sort of socialist plot to undermine their ability to hoard cash at the expense of labor. I see it as the proper responsibility of any government that controls the public purse.Anyone who needs a doctor ought to be able to walk into any hospital and see a doctor. Certain medications ought to be subsidized, if not paid for outright. I would support legislation that forces Big Pharma to disgorge a certain percentage of Viagra and Rogaine profits and channel them to the production of life saving / quality of life improving drugs that are too expensive simply because few patients require them.None of the foregoing, however, requires that health care be construed a “right”.

@ GIThe problem, and it’s a real one, with casting health care as a right (among others) is already becoming clear as wealthy baby boomers age and develop chronic health problems.Health care resources are finite. They must be allocated to provide the most benefit to the most people, WITHIN REASON.The last thing I want to see is some terminally ill 87-year-old hooked up to the dialysis machine because it’s his RIGHT (and his family is praying for a miracle).Under the current model, the octogenarian gets the treatment so long as he can afford it, while the poor teenager who might actually benefit from advanced treatment…well, tough luck kid.Neither the ability to pay, nor a “rights” based approach solves the problem.The first dual issue is funding a system in which basic health care is provided to all citizens.The other part of that first issue is determining what constitutes basic.The line ought to be drawn somewhere between kidney transplants and breast enlargement…but let’s leave that aside for the moment.It is a matter of rationing finite resources, and effectively directing those resources. Who can pay for it is just wrong. Making it, without limitation, a “right” just inverts the problem.

It is also interesting to look at Wamp’s background. Like most of the rest of the wingtards pissing and moaning about “socialized medicine,” he’s spent the majority of his life covered by Government health programs.It just amazes me, and I see it all the time; the hardest-core wingtards in this country tend to either be Government employees, Government retirees, or Government contractors. People who would probably have nothing if not for Government.

J – Sorry, but you lost me. Demand treatment that doctors know won’t work? Since when has the patient been in charge of the diagnosis and treatment? You can disagree with your doctor and get a second or third opinion (and in some cases it’s beneficial), but “demanding” radiation for the flu is not an option.

Adding… the “right” (semantics) to healthcare does not mean that the decision on the best type of treatment rests with the patient.

Instead of asking who should get health care/who needs the resources the most, I think an important question to ask is this:Who should be *denied* health care? How badly must you have screwed up your own financial situation that you should be allowed to die, live in horrible pain, and/or go into crippling debt for life because of an illness or injury? If someone needs a lung transplant, at what point can we say “sorry buddy, you really (were totally irresponsible with your spending/should have taken that third job/should have lived off of corn husks and rainwater so you could afford insurance)”?I don’t think we can ever say that. In terms of health care being a “right”, I’d say that it is, in that if someone needs medical care, their bank accounts should not determine whether or not they get it.

Well, if we’re going to talk about how it’s managed, how sensibly it should be administered in the case of, for example, our 87-year-old terminally ill dialysis patient, how about letting, I dunno, qualified medical personnel make that call? I sure don’t want any insurance company or even government health care agency overruling my doctor if he thinks I might pull through.My point is that this is a second-order question. How about we start with making sure that everyone who needs health care gets it, and THEN deal with potential abuses of the really, really badly-needed system?