I find it ironic that so many of you interpret Jesus' command to love others as a license to use the government to seize other people's property and use it to fund government bureaucracy. Government bureaucracy does not love; it cannot, for it is an impersonal system. If you love the sick so much, do what Christians of past ages have done: care for them yourself. Devote your own personal resources to the compassion you value so highly; only then will you have grounds to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Somehow, I missed this reply earlier. Look again at Church history, Roger. The moment Christians had a political majority they began to pressure the government to take care of the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Though they may have founded the hospitals, etc., they quickly went to the government for additional funding. Look at the warnings that Patriarch Athanasius III gave to the Emperor on what would happen if the Empire continued to ignore the poor, widos, and orphans.
What is interesting is that so many American Christians take post-industrial capitalism, a phenomenon less than 200 years old as the "Christian" default, without questioning how the Industrial Revolution might have changed the rules of the game. This isn't a capitalism of a man making two chairs, sitting in one, and selling the other. The Industrial Revolution concentrated the very means of production into the hands of a few, thereby robbing many of the ability to enjoy the direct fruits of their labor. It's a lot more complicated than "capitalism good, socialism bad." Thank you again for this cartoon, Fr. Ernesto.
Jesus would never force people to take care of others at the point of a gun…like government does.
Conservative states give far more to chrity than do liberal states (IRS statistics).
When one believes that government ought to (and is) taking care of people, one is apt to be less giving themselves.
Jesus would also not be in favor of ruining the good healthcare that millions have to cover a relative few that do not have insurance (even though everyone has access to healthcare, whether insured or not)
Jesus would not be in favor of proven failed schemes.
Well, the Roman Catholic Church certainly disagrees with you. The below is quoted from Terry Mattingly’s column. Mr. Mattingly is a known Orthodox journalist.
Consider, for example, this reference to health care in its chapter on the biblical instruction, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
“Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God,” notes the catechism. “Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment and social assistance.”
The implication is that governments — as a matter of social justice — should help citizens obtain basic health care, according to a letter sent to Congress and the White House by the Domestic Justice and Human Development Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Health care is a human right, not a privilege, argued Bishop William F. Murphy.
“They want to take the world’s best system and make it over into a system that is cumbersome and sub par (just like in France, England and Canada).”
Well, one you are assuming that it is the world’s best system. But, uhm, check the polls, most people do not believe that anymore. In fact, part of the problem is precisely that it is clear that the healthcare system in the USA is not fully functional.
Second, uhm, yes I can see that you cited systems with problems. But, uhm, what about Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Germany. Of course, a plan could be written that would be bad. But, a plan could be written that works quite well. To only cite system with problems would be no different than my citing only systems that work, uhm, like I just did.
What is accurate is that we have 50,000,000 uninsured. What is accurate is that all of us who are insured are paying premiums that increased faster than inflation, as did hospital costs. What is accurate is that both Pope and Patriarch have rejected the laissez fair approach to healthcare.
What is accurate is that 14 million of the 47 million are illegally in this country. That a large segment of that number are young people who feel no need to have healthcare insurance,and another large segment of that number are temporarily without it.
Even so, all of those people receive healthcare.
People in this country live longer than do Europeans and Canadians. Our cancer survival rates are much better.
We have a much higher death rate due to traffic accidents and violent crime, but that has nothing to do with healthcare.
The Popes and Patriarchs ought stick to matters of faith and leave economic and healthcare decisions to experts in the field.
By the way, government officials are not expert in the field. The two biggest problem areas in our current system are Medicare and Medicaid. Both government mandated and both are basket cases.
And we want to let the government ruin that rest of the system that works pretty well?
We already have test cases, Mass. and Hawaii. Their govt. run programs are going broke, and the people have to wait much longer for services.
But no…we have to rush headlong into it, and fast. Why fast?
because the more people find out about a government run system, the more reservations they have.
And besides…where will the Canadians go when they need good heathcare? They come across the border in droves paying for it out of pocket trying to save themselves from an inferior system back home.
1. President Barack Obama repeatedly tells us that one reason national health care is needed is that we can no longer afford to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. But if Medicare and Medicaid are fiscally insolvent and gradually bankrupting our society, why is a government takeover of medical care for the rest of society a good idea? What large-scale government program has not eventually spiraled out of control, let alone stayed within its projected budget? Why should anyone believe that nationalizing health care would create the first major government program to “pay for itself,” let alone get smaller rather than larger over time? Why not simply see how the Democrats can reform Medicare and Medicaid before nationalizing much of the rest of health care?
2. President Obama reiterated this past week that “no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.” This is an oft-repeated goal of the president’s and the Democrats’ health care plan. But if any individual can buy health insurance at any time, why would anyone buy health insurance while healthy? Why would I not simply wait until I got sick or injured to buy the insurance? If auto insurance were purchasable once one got into an accident, why would anyone purchase auto insurance before an accident? Will the Democrats next demand that life insurance companies sell life insurance to the terminally ill? The whole point of insurance is that the healthy buy it and thereby provide the funds to pay for the sick. Demanding that insurance companies provide insurance to everyone at any time spells the end of the concept of insurance. And if the answer is that the government will now make it illegal not to buy insurance, how will that be enforced? How will the government check on 300 million people?
3. Why do supporters of nationalized medicine so often substitute the word “care” for the word “insurance?” it is patently untrue that millions of Americans do not receive health care. Millions of Americans do not have health insurance but virtually every American (and non-American on American soil) receives health care.
4. No one denies that in order to come close to staying within its budget health care will be rationed. But what is the moral justification of having the state decide what medical care to ration?
5. According to Dr. David Gratzer, health care specialist at the Manhattan Institute, “While 20 years ago pharmaceuticals were largely developed in Europe, European price controls made drug development an American enterprise. Fifteen of the 20 top-selling drugs worldwide this year were birthed in the United States.” Given how many lives — in America and throughout the world – American pharmaceutical companies save, and given how expensive it is to develop any new drug, will the price controls on drugs envisaged in the Democrats’ bill improve or impair Americans’ health?
6. Do you really believe that private insurance could survive a “public option”? Or is this really a cover for the ideal of single-payer medical care? How could a private insurance company survive a “public option” given that private companies have to show a profit and government agencies do not have to – and given that a private enterprise must raise its own money to be solvent and a government option has access to others’ money — i.e., taxes?
7. Why will hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies do nearly as superb a job as they now do if their reimbursement from the government will be severely cut? Haven’t the laws of human behavior and common sense been repealed here in arguing that while doctors, hospitals and drug companies will make significantly less money they will continue to provide the same level of uniquely excellent care?
8. Given how many needless procedures are ordered to avoid medical lawsuits and how much money doctors spend on medical malpractice insurance, shouldn’t any meaningful “reform” of health care provide some remedy for frivolous malpractice lawsuits?
9. Given how weak the U.S. economy is, given how weak the U.S. dollar is, and given how much in debt the U.S. is in, why would anyone seek to have the U.S. spend another trillion dollars? Even if all the other questions here had legitimate answers, wouldn’t the state of the U.S. economy alone argue against national health care at this time?
10. Contrary to the assertion of President Obama — “we spend much more on health care than any other nation but aren’t any healthier for it” — we are healthier. We wait far less time for procedures and surgeries. Our life expectancy with virtually any major disease is longer. And if you do not count deaths from violent crime and automobile accidents, we also have the longest life expectancy. Do you think a government takeover of American medicine will enable this medical excellence to continue?
I do promise to answer. I have been somewhat busy lately, and you have raised quite a few issues. I may deal with them as a separate blog post in the near future. Right now, I am limited to easy to write blogs because I am having to do a lot of traveling.
“society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment and social assistance.””
I think the term “society” has a wider application than “government.” It is societies that establish governments, after all, and not the other way around. A government is not a society, but a product of a society’s need to order the its life in a way that is in accordance with peace and order. Government is there to ensure peace and order, at the bidding of society. Society includes, I think, is ordered on three pillars: family, church, and school. It is within this framework, I think, that we need to think about healthcare. Is it society’s responsibility that those within it have access to good, affordable healthcare? I would say yes. But then again, how are you, Father, defining “society”?
Steve, wouldn’t you say from your earlier arguments that no one has a right to eat or housing that no one has a right to life? Arguing against universal health care because it is inefficient or ineffective is one thing, claiming that no one has a right to the things that allow for life is another. If people don’t have a right to food and shelter you might as well say they don’t have a right to live. Roman society saw things the same way and killed children that were not considered promising. You’ve presented two sorts of arguments and the conservative argument that the universal program is going to be built spending money we don’t really have is better than the other argument, which might as well have been promoted by an advocate of eugenics and planned parenthood.
:Society includes, I think, is ordered on three pillars: family, church, and school. It is within this framework, I think, that we need to think about healthcare. Is it society’s responsibility that those within it have access to good, affordable healthcare? I would say yes. But then again, how are you, Father, defining “society”?”
Wow! I should double-check my posts before I send them out. Let’s try that again: Society is ordered on three pillars: family, church, and school. It is within this framework that we need to think about healtcare.
Go to Congress and talk to any congressman for a preview of what a properly run, properly funded, government healthcare program can do. Their plan allows for private choice of doctors, etc. The problem with the VA is not that it is government run, since the congressional plan is also a government run program.
And, Steve, in all your citations you assume what is NOT in the current proposal. There is NO proposal by the government to run the hospitals, etc. Neither is there any proposal to make the government program the only insurance program. One of your points above, which I do promise to answer, is a scare tactic. The claim is made that if the government provides some insurance that private companies will fail, and then the government will have full control. That argument is next to the black helicopter argument as being a fully speculative argument.
Our founders new all about the nature of man and of man with power. That is why they opossed large government.
It becomes corrupt, wasteful, inefficient, and works against the interest of man. Big government, small people. Small government, big people.
Medicare is broken, Medicaid is broken. This is the government side of healthcare.
Fix those first. Then you have a case.
Why must we always destroy the good in our quest for the perfect?
Look at Cuba. A perfect example.
And now, there is a website where the White House wants you to report to them people that disagree with the President and Congress about healthcare? (it’s true)
Again, I do promise a longer answer, but have been quite busy lately. But, uhm, equating a request to forward chain emails so that they can be answered to making a Joseph McCarthy-like enemies list is a bit far-fetched.
Finally, the idea that “it is the natural propensity for the Left…to have no dissent” seems rather contradicted by Joseph McCarthy himself, a Republican Senator, whose blacklists drove people from jobs without proof or defense and ruined reputations without the opportunity for full answers. I would argue that both full-blown Communism and right-wing ideologues attempt to silence enemies. The attempt to silence “enemies” is a tendency of any extreme movement.
But, there are many right wing commentators and analysts, many moderates, and many left wing commentators and analysts who support free speech quite strongly. What you fail to give is evidence of the type of extremism from the Obama government that would lead to “tyranny” or “no dissent.”
To actually believe that the government system will just be an ‘option’ is really naive, in my opinion.
There is no way that private insurance companies can compete with the government (which does not have to make a profit). Not only that, it will be law that when (for whatever reason) you leave your private carrier, you will have to go to the government. (per an Business Investors Daily article citing these provisions)
These government programs always start out small with promises to keep the programs that way. The income tax was promised at it’s inception to only be 1%. Look at Social Security. These programs baloon, become inefficient and wasteful and eventually go broke unless artificially kept alive.
Because McCarthy did it does it make it right for Obama to do it?
The evidence is mounting. The White House and Dems are calling the dissenters “Mobs”. They are saying that these are “contrived demomstrations where the people are dress alike and carry swastikas”
In all the demonstrations against G. Bush in eight years. The Republicans never acted like this.
That the White House would ask people to send them e-mails and “casual conversations” that “seem fishy”, is ridiculous.
They know the arguments against (from the little bit of debate they do allow in Congress).
Do Republicans want to know about your “casual conversations”?
No.
Could you imagine the outcry if the Nixon Admin. made such a request?
But the lapdog/leftist media is silent, other than Fox nNews and talk radio, the only voices of dissent in the media dominated by statists.
I think this discussion is devolving into a set of “tu quoque ad hominem” in terms of which party is the “boogeyman.” For my part, I say a plague to both their houses. Democrats and Republicans both depend on central banking, which fuels the crony capitalism that depends on a strong central government to sustain it. Big government and big business are really two sides of the same coin, and not only that, but they feed off of each other.
Now that that’s off my chest, let me reintroduce the question I posed earlier. I would agree that “society” has an obligation to make sure everyone has access to all those things that bring health and basic comfort to one’s life, but then how are we defining “society”? If by “society” you mean government, then I cannot disagree more. The function of government, by its very nature, is negative. A society forms a government in order to order its life in such a way that its citizens can engage in their business freely, lawfully and peacefully. It is government’s job to prevent anarchy and maintain order. That is it.
Now if by society we mean what I consider the three pillars of civilization-family, faith and community-then I can be a little more sympathetic to the notion that it is society’s responsibility to provide access to affordable healthcare to its citizens. The family is the most basic unit of a society, and what is society but a collection of families? And by family, I do mean a mother and a father, and besides that, granny and grandpa, uncles, and cousins. By community, I mean one’s neighbors, hometown, city. It is at this level that I seek a solution to access to affordable healthcare, through private initiatives and faith-based charities (with no need the kind of Bush-era government funding, of course).
Poignat. If you haven't already seen it, I think you'll appreciate "Supply Side Jesus."http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/09/17_franken.html
I find it ironic that so many of you interpret Jesus' command to love others as a license to use the government to seize other people's property and use it to fund government bureaucracy. Government bureaucracy does not love; it cannot, for it is an impersonal system. If you love the sick so much, do what Christians of past ages have done: care for them yourself. Devote your own personal resources to the compassion you value so highly; only then will you have grounds to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Somehow, I missed this reply earlier. Look again at Church history, Roger. The moment Christians had a political majority they began to pressure the government to take care of the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Though they may have founded the hospitals, etc., they quickly went to the government for additional funding. Look at the warnings that Patriarch Athanasius III gave to the Emperor on what would happen if the Empire continued to ignore the poor, widos, and orphans.
What is interesting is that so many American Christians take post-industrial capitalism, a phenomenon less than 200 years old as the "Christian" default, without questioning how the Industrial Revolution might have changed the rules of the game. This isn't a capitalism of a man making two chairs, sitting in one, and selling the other. The Industrial Revolution concentrated the very means of production into the hands of a few, thereby robbing many of the ability to enjoy the direct fruits of their labor. It's a lot more complicated than "capitalism good, socialism bad." Thank you again for this cartoon, Fr. Ernesto.
Jesus would never force people to take care of others at the point of a gun…like government does.
Conservative states give far more to chrity than do liberal states (IRS statistics).
When one believes that government ought to (and is) taking care of people, one is apt to be less giving themselves.
Jesus would also not be in favor of ruining the good healthcare that millions have to cover a relative few that do not have insurance (even though everyone has access to healthcare, whether insured or not)
Jesus would not be in favor of proven failed schemes.
Well, the Roman Catholic Church certainly disagrees with you. The below is quoted from Terry Mattingly’s column. Mr. Mattingly is a known Orthodox journalist.
Consider, for example, this reference to health care in its chapter on the biblical instruction, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
“Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God,” notes the catechism. “Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment and social assistance.”
The implication is that governments — as a matter of social justice — should help citizens obtain basic health care, according to a letter sent to Congress and the White House by the Domestic Justice and Human Development Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Health care is a human right, not a privilege, argued Bishop William F. Murphy.
Heathcare is not a right anymore than eating or housing is a right.
Everyone in this country has access to healthcare. No one is turned out. Illegal immigrants included.
Big government types want to control our choices. They no longer want citizens to have choice when it comes to healthcare.
They want to take the world’s best system and make it over into a system that is cumbersome and sub par (just like in France, England and Canada).
Is it a right to lower the standard of care (that will certainly happen) to INSURE a small percentage of people?
Hardly.
“They want to take the world’s best system and make it over into a system that is cumbersome and sub par (just like in France, England and Canada).”
Well, one you are assuming that it is the world’s best system. But, uhm, check the polls, most people do not believe that anymore. In fact, part of the problem is precisely that it is clear that the healthcare system in the USA is not fully functional.
Second, uhm, yes I can see that you cited systems with problems. But, uhm, what about Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Germany. Of course, a plan could be written that would be bad. But, a plan could be written that works quite well. To only cite system with problems would be no different than my citing only systems that work, uhm, like I just did.
What is accurate is that we have 50,000,000 uninsured. What is accurate is that all of us who are insured are paying premiums that increased faster than inflation, as did hospital costs. What is accurate is that both Pope and Patriarch have rejected the laissez fair approach to healthcare.
….may i suggest you view the movie “Sicko” by Michael Moore
GRIN, I have to admit that I do not think of Michael Moore as an exactly neutral balanced commentator.
What is accurate is that 14 million of the 47 million are illegally in this country. That a large segment of that number are young people who feel no need to have healthcare insurance,and another large segment of that number are temporarily without it.
Even so, all of those people receive healthcare.
People in this country live longer than do Europeans and Canadians. Our cancer survival rates are much better.
We have a much higher death rate due to traffic accidents and violent crime, but that has nothing to do with healthcare.
The Popes and Patriarchs ought stick to matters of faith and leave economic and healthcare decisions to experts in the field.
By the way, government officials are not expert in the field. The two biggest problem areas in our current system are Medicare and Medicaid. Both government mandated and both are basket cases.
And we want to let the government ruin that rest of the system that works pretty well?
We already have test cases, Mass. and Hawaii. Their govt. run programs are going broke, and the people have to wait much longer for services.
But no…we have to rush headlong into it, and fast. Why fast?
because the more people find out about a government run system, the more reservations they have.
And besides…where will the Canadians go when they need good heathcare? They come across the border in droves paying for it out of pocket trying to save themselves from an inferior system back home.
10 questions of supporters of Obamacare
by Dennis Prager
1. President Barack Obama repeatedly tells us that one reason national health care is needed is that we can no longer afford to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. But if Medicare and Medicaid are fiscally insolvent and gradually bankrupting our society, why is a government takeover of medical care for the rest of society a good idea? What large-scale government program has not eventually spiraled out of control, let alone stayed within its projected budget? Why should anyone believe that nationalizing health care would create the first major government program to “pay for itself,” let alone get smaller rather than larger over time? Why not simply see how the Democrats can reform Medicare and Medicaid before nationalizing much of the rest of health care?
2. President Obama reiterated this past week that “no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.” This is an oft-repeated goal of the president’s and the Democrats’ health care plan. But if any individual can buy health insurance at any time, why would anyone buy health insurance while healthy? Why would I not simply wait until I got sick or injured to buy the insurance? If auto insurance were purchasable once one got into an accident, why would anyone purchase auto insurance before an accident? Will the Democrats next demand that life insurance companies sell life insurance to the terminally ill? The whole point of insurance is that the healthy buy it and thereby provide the funds to pay for the sick. Demanding that insurance companies provide insurance to everyone at any time spells the end of the concept of insurance. And if the answer is that the government will now make it illegal not to buy insurance, how will that be enforced? How will the government check on 300 million people?
3. Why do supporters of nationalized medicine so often substitute the word “care” for the word “insurance?” it is patently untrue that millions of Americans do not receive health care. Millions of Americans do not have health insurance but virtually every American (and non-American on American soil) receives health care.
4. No one denies that in order to come close to staying within its budget health care will be rationed. But what is the moral justification of having the state decide what medical care to ration?
5. According to Dr. David Gratzer, health care specialist at the Manhattan Institute, “While 20 years ago pharmaceuticals were largely developed in Europe, European price controls made drug development an American enterprise. Fifteen of the 20 top-selling drugs worldwide this year were birthed in the United States.” Given how many lives — in America and throughout the world – American pharmaceutical companies save, and given how expensive it is to develop any new drug, will the price controls on drugs envisaged in the Democrats’ bill improve or impair Americans’ health?
6. Do you really believe that private insurance could survive a “public option”? Or is this really a cover for the ideal of single-payer medical care? How could a private insurance company survive a “public option” given that private companies have to show a profit and government agencies do not have to – and given that a private enterprise must raise its own money to be solvent and a government option has access to others’ money — i.e., taxes?
7. Why will hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies do nearly as superb a job as they now do if their reimbursement from the government will be severely cut? Haven’t the laws of human behavior and common sense been repealed here in arguing that while doctors, hospitals and drug companies will make significantly less money they will continue to provide the same level of uniquely excellent care?
8. Given how many needless procedures are ordered to avoid medical lawsuits and how much money doctors spend on medical malpractice insurance, shouldn’t any meaningful “reform” of health care provide some remedy for frivolous malpractice lawsuits?
9. Given how weak the U.S. economy is, given how weak the U.S. dollar is, and given how much in debt the U.S. is in, why would anyone seek to have the U.S. spend another trillion dollars? Even if all the other questions here had legitimate answers, wouldn’t the state of the U.S. economy alone argue against national health care at this time?
10. Contrary to the assertion of President Obama — “we spend much more on health care than any other nation but aren’t any healthier for it” — we are healthier. We wait far less time for procedures and surgeries. Our life expectancy with virtually any major disease is longer. And if you do not count deaths from violent crime and automobile accidents, we also have the longest life expectancy. Do you think a government takeover of American medicine will enable this medical excellence to continue?
I do promise to answer. I have been somewhat busy lately, and you have raised quite a few issues. I may deal with them as a separate blog post in the near future. Right now, I am limited to easy to write blogs because I am having to do a lot of traveling.
“society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment and social assistance.””
I think the term “society” has a wider application than “government.” It is societies that establish governments, after all, and not the other way around. A government is not a society, but a product of a society’s need to order the its life in a way that is in accordance with peace and order. Government is there to ensure peace and order, at the bidding of society. Society includes, I think, is ordered on three pillars: family, church, and school. It is within this framework, I think, that we need to think about healthcare. Is it society’s responsibility that those within it have access to good, affordable healthcare? I would say yes. But then again, how are you, Father, defining “society”?
Steve, wouldn’t you say from your earlier arguments that no one has a right to eat or housing that no one has a right to life? Arguing against universal health care because it is inefficient or ineffective is one thing, claiming that no one has a right to the things that allow for life is another. If people don’t have a right to food and shelter you might as well say they don’t have a right to live. Roman society saw things the same way and killed children that were not considered promising. You’ve presented two sorts of arguments and the conservative argument that the universal program is going to be built spending money we don’t really have is better than the other argument, which might as well have been promoted by an advocate of eugenics and planned parenthood.
As to whether we have the best healthcare system in the world, or not…I’d let the feet of the rich Arab princes and heads of state do the talking.
The royalty and dignitaries of these rich nations regularly come to the states for their healthcare needs.
Not to Canada. Not to Europe. Not to Asia. Not even to Cuba.
They come here when they get sick.
:Society includes, I think, is ordered on three pillars: family, church, and school. It is within this framework, I think, that we need to think about healthcare. Is it society’s responsibility that those within it have access to good, affordable healthcare? I would say yes. But then again, how are you, Father, defining “society”?”
Wow! I should double-check my posts before I send them out. Let’s try that again: Society is ordered on three pillars: family, church, and school. It is within this framework that we need to think about healtcare.
There. I hope that is a little more clear.
We have a right to life. But we don’t have a right to force somebody else to pay for it.
We have to eat to live. Should I put a gun to head in order that you feed me?
Charity is good. We ought give. But why force others and why take away from them choices in healthcare?
It’s like having government take over food distributiion. You’d get less choice, less quality, at a much higher price.
It is not smart. It is not moral.
Rights and liberties aren’t the same thing. You’re consistently arguing against rights but arguing for liberties.
…i love the cartoon….i came to accept socialism several years ago..it seems the closer i get to God the more i embrace its ideals ..
Go to any V.A. hospital (or talk to people who go there) for a preview of what happens to healthcare when the government runs it.
Go to Congress and talk to any congressman for a preview of what a properly run, properly funded, government healthcare program can do. Their plan allows for private choice of doctors, etc. The problem with the VA is not that it is government run, since the congressional plan is also a government run program.
And, Steve, in all your citations you assume what is NOT in the current proposal. There is NO proposal by the government to run the hospitals, etc. Neither is there any proposal to make the government program the only insurance program. One of your points above, which I do promise to answer, is a scare tactic. The claim is made that if the government provides some insurance that private companies will fail, and then the government will have full control. That argument is next to the black helicopter argument as being a fully speculative argument.
Our founders new all about the nature of man and of man with power. That is why they opossed large government.
It becomes corrupt, wasteful, inefficient, and works against the interest of man. Big government, small people. Small government, big people.
Medicare is broken, Medicaid is broken. This is the government side of healthcare.
Fix those first. Then you have a case.
Why must we always destroy the good in our quest for the perfect?
Look at Cuba. A perfect example.
And now, there is a website where the White House wants you to report to them people that disagree with the President and Congress about healthcare? (it’s true)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/
How dangerous is that? Maybe your black helicopters do exist.
They certainly exist in totalitarian governments, and that is the natural propensity for the Left…to have no dissent and to control everything.
Again, I do promise a longer answer, but have been quite busy lately. But, uhm, equating a request to forward chain emails so that they can be answered to making a Joseph McCarthy-like enemies list is a bit far-fetched.
Finally, the idea that “it is the natural propensity for the Left…to have no dissent” seems rather contradicted by Joseph McCarthy himself, a Republican Senator, whose blacklists drove people from jobs without proof or defense and ruined reputations without the opportunity for full answers. I would argue that both full-blown Communism and right-wing ideologues attempt to silence enemies. The attempt to silence “enemies” is a tendency of any extreme movement.
But, there are many right wing commentators and analysts, many moderates, and many left wing commentators and analysts who support free speech quite strongly. What you fail to give is evidence of the type of extremism from the Obama government that would lead to “tyranny” or “no dissent.”
To actually believe that the government system will just be an ‘option’ is really naive, in my opinion.
There is no way that private insurance companies can compete with the government (which does not have to make a profit). Not only that, it will be law that when (for whatever reason) you leave your private carrier, you will have to go to the government. (per an Business Investors Daily article citing these provisions)
These government programs always start out small with promises to keep the programs that way. The income tax was promised at it’s inception to only be 1%. Look at Social Security. These programs baloon, become inefficient and wasteful and eventually go broke unless artificially kept alive.
Because McCarthy did it does it make it right for Obama to do it?
The evidence is mounting. The White House and Dems are calling the dissenters “Mobs”. They are saying that these are “contrived demomstrations where the people are dress alike and carry swastikas”
In all the demonstrations against G. Bush in eight years. The Republicans never acted like this.
That the White House would ask people to send them e-mails and “casual conversations” that “seem fishy”, is ridiculous.
They know the arguments against (from the little bit of debate they do allow in Congress).
Do Republicans want to know about your “casual conversations”?
No.
Could you imagine the outcry if the Nixon Admin. made such a request?
But the lapdog/leftist media is silent, other than Fox nNews and talk radio, the only voices of dissent in the media dominated by statists.
I think this discussion is devolving into a set of “tu quoque ad hominem” in terms of which party is the “boogeyman.” For my part, I say a plague to both their houses. Democrats and Republicans both depend on central banking, which fuels the crony capitalism that depends on a strong central government to sustain it. Big government and big business are really two sides of the same coin, and not only that, but they feed off of each other.
Now that that’s off my chest, let me reintroduce the question I posed earlier. I would agree that “society” has an obligation to make sure everyone has access to all those things that bring health and basic comfort to one’s life, but then how are we defining “society”? If by “society” you mean government, then I cannot disagree more. The function of government, by its very nature, is negative. A society forms a government in order to order its life in such a way that its citizens can engage in their business freely, lawfully and peacefully. It is government’s job to prevent anarchy and maintain order. That is it.
Now if by society we mean what I consider the three pillars of civilization-family, faith and community-then I can be a little more sympathetic to the notion that it is society’s responsibility to provide access to affordable healthcare to its citizens. The family is the most basic unit of a society, and what is society but a collection of families? And by family, I do mean a mother and a father, and besides that, granny and grandpa, uncles, and cousins. By community, I mean one’s neighbors, hometown, city. It is at this level that I seek a solution to access to affordable healthcare, through private initiatives and faith-based charities (with no need the kind of Bush-era government funding, of course).