I don't see any overall benefits to socialized medicine that cannot be achieved in other, better, ways.
Ok, what other ways?
I've discussed some of them in other comments.
I don't care about the system, I care about the results.
Not to be overly dramatic, but that attitude has given us the worst crimes of the history of the world. The system is what protects our rights, and if we ignore the system to get "results," that's a very bad thing. That's why so many people are angry at the perceived affront to Fourth Amendment rights represented by various Bush administration policies.
OK, fine. MOST people are not so willing.
That is because they are selfish.
Riiiiiight. It is "selfish" for me to not want reduced health care quality. How does that make any sense?
I hope that will change one day. Call me an idealist if you must.
Idealism is useless if it is not grounded in realism. Feel free to dream about what may be possible, but there's no point if you don't work toward what IS possible.
Do you have kids? I doubt it, judging from that statement.
You are right, I do not have children yet. Hopefully, when I do, I will not lose my humanity, nor think my children are more deserving than those of a poor family.
It's not about thinking your kids are "more deserving." It is about the fact that you, and you alone, are responsible for their well-being; while you wouldn't actively cause harm to someone innocent for the benefit of your children (and neither would I), you almost surely would do whatever you could to provide them with the best health care and education, and wouldn't find it remotely acceptable to reduce their level of care to the level of everyone else.
That IS a major part of what it means to be human: having kids, and providing for their needs. How this could be described as "losing humanity" is entirely beyond my comprehension.
This is a commonly expressed fallacy. Christ never said the agent of charity should be the government, and indeed, strongly implied the opposite, for of what benefit to your own soul is "sacrifice" if it is involuntary, taken you by force from the government? Yes, we should sacrifice of ourselves, which is why Christians (and other religious people) generally give more to private charities than other groups do.
I am very inept at explaining logical fallacies, but I trust that if you look at this previous statement within the argument I presented, the fallacy should be quite self evident.
I made no logical fallacy. Sorry.
Well, you've changed the subject here.
No, I didn't.
I'm not saying that Christ would necessarily be in favor of socialized medicine. What I am saying is that Christ taught self-sacrifice, and your original argument was that people aren't willing to accept worse care just so others can receive better care.
Yes, and? What did I say that you think Christ would disagree with? Christ didn't say, "sacrifice your health care so others may have health care." There are other things I can sacrifice for the health care of others besides my own health care, such as money and time.
Also, if I vote for a single payer system, that's pretty damn voluntary if you ask me.
Fine, then I won't ask you, I guess. Your vote is voluntary, of course, but your vote is to involuntarily force ME to participate in that system. In this country, we have a republic instead of a democracy BECAUSE we want to guard against such tyrannies of the majority, taking away the rights of minorities.
Christians want everyone to sacrifice for those in need, but as a Christian, I want people to do it of their own free will.
Hell, you could fertilize an entire farm with all the crap you're shoveling
A delay IS a difference in the end result, quite clearly. Maybe it is not an important difference to you.
OK, the above really seems to be our disagreement. I grant that a delay may certainly cause hardship or extended discomfort (physical and/or emotional). However, I still don't see how interm "feelings" effect the end result.
I don't understand how they are not PART of the end result. I lost the better part of the use of my wrist for a few months while going through the process for surgery (damaged cartilage); in Canada, it would have likely been significantly longer. Less time holding and playing with my children, less work getting done (I could still do my job, but not other things around the house, and hobbies, and playing the guitar, and so on). You may think those experiences lost are irrelevant, but if so, then how is ANY end result relevant?
And again, this only gets far worse with children.
I do however think there should be a federal social health care system and each state can choose to either opt-in or opt-out.
Ability to opt out is good, though it is still blatantly unconstitutional for it to exist in the first place.
Now to the slight disagreement in constitutional grounds. I've seen you in other posts talking about how Medicare and Medicaid, etc is unconstitutional based on the 10th amendment. To simply read the amendment, that seems a true statement. However, at least the way I took your writing it seems it was stated as a legal fact and that is where I guess I have my problem.
It IS a legal fact.
The constitution itself as a whole does allow a system of interpretation and judgements and it clearly defines whos responsibility to make that legal judgement. Thus far the judical system has NOT rules such programs/laws unconstitutional and so according to the constituion itself they are therefore NOT unconstitutional (at least yet).
No, that is a common misunderstanding; it's not how it actually works. What is "constitutional" is not what the court says. They get to say how the law should be interpreted (for now), but that doesn't mean their ruling is constitutional.
Let's take the example of Brown. v Board of Education. Before that decision, the legal precedent from the Supreme Court was that separate but equal WAS Constitutional. Was it wrong for people to criticize it as unconstitutional, until the precedent was overturned? Of course not. As Justice Felix Frankfurter once said, "The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it." Nor, I'd add, what the court has NOT said about it.
In general I think we probably actually agree on most of this accept perhaps if social medicine is good or not. However, this is where I probably differ a bit from your view. I consider myself a constitutionalist, but not perhaps a "strict" constitutionalist. I do belive in the "living document" theory. It should not be static and must evolve.
Then we do not at all agree.
For example, for roughly the first 100 years after the bill or rights was passed the courts took the strict reading of those 10 (or 9 depending how you look at it) amendments and routinly rules they didn't apply to state or local goverments. So while the federal goverment couldn't restrict your right to freedom or religion, press, to bear arms, etc any state or local government could. Strictly speaking the consitution is a federal document and restricts what the federal government can do so the courts using a strict reading decided this meant it didn't apply to other lower governments and thus allowed them to restrict these things. Now over time that reading became more liberal and it was decided that in fact it did apply to all government and this "evolution" is something I'm very happy about.
Well, no, you're actually making my case for me: we did not have those rights
There's been a few sites mentioning 3 people (GOP members) being present in the meeting where Bush was supposed to have said that. Here's one where the fellow said he spoke to them link Right. Just like Judith Miller's sources who assured us that Iraq had WMD.
I categorically reject anonymous sources. Maybe they are telling the truth, but why on earth would ANYONE ever believe it, when we have so many examples of them lying, and we are incapable of checking it out for ourselves? The only time most people ever believe anonymous sources is if the so-called sources are saying something they WANT to believe. It's a sham.
Regardless, I don't see any actual denials of him saying it. Perhaps my google skillz need work... I've seen them, but it doesn't matter enough to find them again; since there is no positive reason to actually believe the story, I don't need to provide reasons to disbelieve it: the fact that there is not a shred of evidence backing it up is reason enough.
Taking away my liberty would be the government preventing me from crossing the border to spend my money on elective surgery. Yes, and taking away your liberty is ALSO the government preventing you and your doctor from contracting for care in your own country, outside of the government system. This is, quite obviously, true.
It rarely happens here: only when you need to see a specific specialist who is in high demand. Of course, you don't count anyone who can't afford care as 'waiting', and the price for care is set based on supply and demand. That sort of conspires to keep the lines short for these 'counting purposes' don't you think? Straw man. Again, I've said several times that we can and should improve the care of others; my point here is that we should not decrease the care of a few in order to do it. Unless your argument is that it is not POSSIBLE to increase the care of others without decreasing the care of a few, then you have no point here.
The bottom line is that Canada provides better overall care to more of its citizens at a lower total cost. And some people get WORSE care. You care more about "overall," but to most Americans, it is not acceptable to harm the few for the sake of the many, if there are other alternatives.
So you won't accept actual evidence of my claim as evidence of my claim. Of course I will. You said you wouldn't. Please make up your mind.
Your claim was "for many people, it has significantly worse results". A result is the end state or consequence of a series of actions. So unless you can show proof of a case where the end result was different because a delay in reaching the final result, then any delay in reaching the result is a non-issue to your original claim. A delay IS a difference in the end result, quite clearly. Maybe it is not an important difference to you. I asked someone else who made a similar claim, saying he wouldn't mind the delays and so on: do you have kids? Because maybe I can personally wait weeks or months to get in to see a doctor because of some digestive issue, but I will not wait to get in to see a doctor for my child's same issues.
I could give anecdotal evidence of where delays HAVE caused specific problems; I've seen it before, and it's obviously true. But the delay itself is, to me, a problem by itself, and certainly is a "difference" in result.
But if someone decided it wasn't an emergency, and I wasn't OK... that's a problem. Of course it is. Bad medicine can be practiced in any system and it always has been and sadly always will be a problem. Sure, but you claimed "social health care DOESN'T have long waiting times for emergency procedures." I didn't disagree with that flatly; I said "not quite true," because, of course, it depends on who is defining "emergency." I realize you were just dismissing the myth that all procedures in Canada are delayed (a myth I never expressed), but I don't want a new myth, that if it is an emergency there's never long waiting times, gets spread, either.
YOU don't [understand freedom]. Huh. Do you have a single example of me not understanding freedom?
In a free country, nothing would prevent, say, me from becoming a doctor WITHOUT AMA approval and open up a cheaper clinic. Sure. But what's that got to do with me?
That is, how could you possibly get, from anything I have ever said, that I support what you are decrying? Indeed, I mentioned that one of my ideas to reduce costs is patent reform; another is more deregulation of WHO can offer health services, so we can have more competition and therefore lower costs. You're attacking the wrong person here...
And while we're at it, let's reform the patent system for drugs. Maybe if the taxpayers pay for it, don't give a patent, or give it for shorter terms, and certainly don't EXTEND the patent beyond the original terms (even if the taxpayers didn't pay for it, because then the taxpayers pay for it). The problem is that the taxpayers don't generally pay for drug R&D. They certainly pay for very early blue-sky research, but most of the costs come in at a much later stage. It depends on the drug. And yes, I didn't get into this in-depth, but my basic idea is that patent terms should be decreased proportionate to how much the taxpayers paid for it (which, yes, means the government retains the right to audit you if you accept any money). And there should NEVER be ANY extensions of patent terms (whether or not the taxpayers picked up part of the bill).
I don't understand is why the issue of universal/socialized health care is rarely suggested at the state level. Well I'd imagine that would be because you don't understand what "universal" means. If you did you'd understand why it's not being suggested for a small subset of the population rather than the population at large. Sorry, but it is YOU who don't understand what it means. A state's population, in regards to domestic issues, is not a subset at all. The Constitution says quite clearly I'm not talking about what constitutions say. I'm talking about the reality, the population of one state is not independant from the population of the next state over, movement between states is free and people do move from one to another. And... ? How does that mean we are all one population and not distinct ones, for the purpose of government health care? You could say the same thing about the European Union, yet they don't have a single health care plan for the entire union there, either.
If you only have some states with free healthcare, people will live where taxes are cheaper until they get sick, and then move to leech off the system when they get sick. Only if the states allow that. No reason why they have to.
That's why it has to at the federal level. No, it isn't, and no, it doesn't. It is illegal and cannot be allowed unless the Constitution is modified first, and the Constitution should not be modified because there is no reason this can, or should, be at the federal level.
Some of us actually believe in liberty. Yes, the rich are a minority. Our republican form of government and the Bill of Rights exists to PROTECT minorities from the tyranny of the majority. And some of us believe in standing up for that principle, because if one minority's rights are trampled on, then eventuall no minority rights will be respected. And the majority also has the right to be protected from minorities, too. Everyone's rights are protected by the Constitution.
When a minority uses it's economic clout to gut the majority's access to healthcare, it is the **DUTY** of the government to step-in and protect the people. Be sure to let me know when that happens so I can support the government doing something about it.
Indeed, for many people, it has significantly worse results, especially those in the upper and upper middle class Care to backup that statement with facts? OK, I'll make it easy how about you just supply a single verifiable case where this is true. Don't even bother with "significantly" or "many people". Just ONE single case where some one has "worse results" in Canada because it uses social health care. BTW, I will not accept having to wait 4 weeks insteads of one day to have a mole removed as proof of "worse results". The results are the same, just requires a little patients. So you won't accept actual evidence of my claim as evidence of my claim.
BTW, social health care DOESN'T have long waiting times for emergency procedures. Its the elective procedures which have wait times. Not quite true. First, not all emergencies have short wait times, though most do. There are, as anyone who's spent much time in medicine knows, different notions of what an emergency is. I had a nasty sudden headache last year that knocked me off my feet, literally. Worst pain in my life. Obviously, I thought it might have been a burst blood vessel in my brain. I wasn't symptomatic of that, but not all cases are. Since I was showing no symptoms, was it an emergency, even though it was possible I might have had an aneurysm? I had an MRI and catscan done at the emergency room, and they found nothing, so I was OK. But if someone decided it wasn't an emergency, and I wasn't OK... that's a problem.
Also, no, it is not "elective" procedures that have wait times, it is most "non-emergency" procedures. Those are completely different things.
Indeed, for many people, it has significantly worse results, especially those in the upper and upper middle class, and that's the point: no one is willing to have their freedom taken away, and their taxes increased, in order to be significantly worse off, even if it benefits others. There's better solutions out there that don't harm a lot of people for the sake of improving the care of a lot of other people. Not true. I am one of those people who would receive worse care in Canada and I am totally for it. OK, fine. MOST people are not so willing.
The fact is that the worse care is not bad care. Do you have kids? I doubt it, judging from that statement.
Your comment also fails to bring attention to the social benefits of socialized medicine. I don't see any overall benefits to socialized medicine that cannot be achieved in other, better, ways.
One other thing. I find it odd that the republicans (read: Christian Right) are the ones who are generally opposed to socialized medicine. Wasn't it Christ who taught the perfect example of self-less sacrifice for the betterment of society. This is a commonly expressed fallacy. Christ never said the agent of charity should be the government, and indeed, strongly implied the opposite, for of what benefit to your own soul is "sacrifice" if it is involuntary, taken you by force from the government? Yes, we should sacrifice of ourselves, which is why Christians (and other religious people) generally give more to private charities than other groups do. Christians want everyone to sacrifice for those in need, but as a Christian, I want people to do it of their own free will.
Do you have any way to statistically describe these "many people" or are you just basing this on the premise that you could eventually find some individuals if you searched long enough? It's simple fact. When compared to the Canadian system, many of us who currently get pretty much any health care we need within days or weeks would often have to wait much longer for many of those treatments.
Because you have things like infant mortality rate (worse in US), life expectancy (worse in US) but you might be able to find "many people" that died young in Canada! Shrug. I never said the U.S. system could not, or should not, be improved, and in fact I said precisely the opposite. But you can improve mortality rates and life expectancy without making MY health care worse (which it absoultely would be under a Canadian-style system).
I hate to burst your bubble, but at least here in Finland just about everyone agrees higher taxes are justified on the basis of great public healthcare and education for everyone. No, I have no idea what you are talking about "worse results in upper and upper middle class". I don't know about Finland. The comparison was to the Canadian system, where not only are the wait times for many treatments DRASTICALLY increased (by orders of magnitude, talking months instead of days or weeks), but options for treatments are scaled back as well.
Oh yeah, we don't need guns either. Shrug. Do you need hammers? A gun is just a tool. If I want to kill a bad person, a gun is the most effective tool for the job. I don't NEED a gun, I could kill him in other ways. I also could hammer a nail with a screwdriver if I had to.
Listen, kid, if you don't know anything about law, don't try to act as if you do. publicly funded is not unconstitutional. Heh. Um, I do understand a great deal about law, and that you think I said "publicly funded is unconstitutional" shows that you don't. At least, you are ignorant in this area. What I said is that FEDERAL funding of something that is not an ENUMERATED (or implied) power of the federal government is unconstitutional. Which is, of course, what the Constitution says.
How do you explain social security or medicare? Simple: they are, quite clearly, unconstitutional.
Why are these federal programs legal, even if you count the Tenth Amendmendt? Because progressivism in the early part of last century, borne out of attitudes shaped by reconstruction, the advance of science, and a newfound resurgence in social activism, set us down a path of basically ignoring the Constitution.
Unfortunately, they are so ingrained into the fabric of our nation that not even this conservative Supreme Court would undo it. As Judge Robert Bork said, "No judge of whatever disposition would, pace Senator Kennedy, plunge the nation into chaos by dismantling government as it exists today." The job of the court is not merely to uphold the law, but also to keep our nation stable (which is why it took so long to outlaw certain forms of segregation), so we won't see any dismantling of these clearly unconstitutional programs any time soon.
Suffice to say that you are so wrong, it's not even fun. Shrug. The Constitution is quite clear, and so are the words of the people who wrote it. Try on this speech from James Madison:
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may a point teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.... I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America...
As for your other points, why the hell aren't you raising up a stink about the fire department? Why would I? What argument did I make that would apply to the fire department? (Hint: none at all!)
Why aren't you angry that YOUR tax-dollars are being used to put out OTHER peoples fires! They should have bought insurance so they could pay the firefighters, dammit! They're taking away your freedoms, man! The only freedom I mentioned was the Tenth Amendment, and since I pay for my fire department from my local property taxes, it's got nothing to do with the Tenth Amendment.
You should have read and understood a lot more before you entered into this discussion.
I don't understand is why the issue of universal/socialized health care is rarely suggested at the state level. Well I'd imagine that would be because you don't understand what "universal" means. If you did you'd understand why it's not being suggested for a small subset of the population rather than the population at large.
That is all. You may now resume your "state's rights" constitutional conversation:) Sorry, but it is YOU who don't understand what it means. A state's population, in regards to domestic issues, is not a subset at all. The Constitution says quite clearly -- according to the people who wrote it -- that this is so, and that it is the state who will be concerned with... well, I'll let Madison say it, in Federalist 45:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
The reasons for this are varied, but the most important reason is obvious, and anyone concerned not just with individual liberty but democracy should care about this deeply: the more local a decision is made, the more power the voters have to affect that decision. Any state can have universal health care if it wants it. Any state that doesn't shouldn't be forced to. What could possibly make more sense?
Sure, if you believe it's a natural or Constitutional right to have health care, then every state should be forced to have it. But there's no evidence that this right has ever existed, and it violates our right to democracy to have it forced on us except through democratic means.
Get over it. A constitution is a freaking book. Actually Bush said It's just a goddamned piece of paper!":) Actually, no, he didn't. That's a myth. There is no source who backs that up, and several who were there who say it never happened. Sorry.
federalized health care is blatantly unconstitutional Get over it. A constitution is a freaking book. It's not some sort of divinity. It's just law, and as such, it's good for trials and judges, not for arguments between people. False. The Constitution is the law of the land, a contract between the people and its government, and it is the only means by which our rights can be protected. Sure, you can amend it, but until you do, advocating for ignoring the Constitution in ANY respect is advocating for the dissolution of ALL my rights.
Absolutely, and it's shocking to me that a gladly almost union-free country as the US (apart from teachers and public transport, the two US things that are probably worst off in the Western world) allows doctors to artificially keeps their earnings high. So you don't understand freedom? Well, we've got more work to do!
Riiiiiiight. It is "justice" to take away someone's liberty and force them to have a reduced standard of health care. That makes perfect sense! I will never stop at wondering why little people (surely you're not a zillionaire) will keep at protecting the filthy rich... I will never stop at wondering why any people think it is OK to take someone else's rights away, just because it doesn't hurt themselves.
Some of us actually believe in liberty. Yes, the rich are a minority. Our republican form of government and the Bill of Rights exists to PROTECT minorities from the tyranny of the majority. And some of us believe in standing up for that principle, because if one minority's rights are trampled on, then eventuall no minority rights will be respected.
Reality 101: the big filthy rich will keep insuring that you, the little guy, will **NEVER** be able to get richer. Stop dreaming about "hard work", it's all about connections. Heh. The history of this country quite clearly proves that to be wrong. I'd wager that many people in this discussion have improved their wealth through hard work, or have parents who have. You're the one dreaming, here.
Riiiiiiight. It is "justice" to take away someone's liberty and force them to have a reduced standard of health care. That makes perfect sense! My "liberty" has never been in question. If I want an operation any faster and it's not an emergency I can always head to the US and pay the same price as any American. Yes, and? How is that not taking away your liberty, since you can't get it done in your own country? That is precisely what's happening. You might think that's acceptable; surely, we do not and cannot have perfect liberty. We have to have a balance; the problem is, it is important to balance it in favor of individual liberty as much as possible, and this isn't that.
A friend of the family went to the hospital with chest pains about 4 years ago. He was in bypass surgery that night as most of his coronary arteries were nearly blocked. They didn't put him in a queue, which seems to be the big myth I hear from down south. No, we don't think everyone has to wait in line for months, but it does happen an awful lot. It rarely happens here: only when you need to see a specific specialist who is in high demand.
With the release of Sicko, be prepared to be deluged by propaganda against public health care. Good. It's a bad idea that should be fought against.
First of all, let's just note the fact that federalized health care is blatantly unconstitutional. No, I won't explain that in detail, because I am tired of explaining about enumerated rights and the Tenth Amendment.
Second, it takes away freedom (apart from Tenth Amendment rights). And yes, that matters. A lot.
Third, there's no evidence it is necessary. Yes, you can say the U.S. system has problems, but no one is saying it doesn't. It's a logical fallacy to point at the problems of the U.S. system and say it proves we need government controlled health care. The fact is that there are a lot of reforms that can drastically improve the system without government taking control of it, and given the second point above, we should ALWAYS attempt to solve problems without disturbing freedom FIRST.
Slashdot Mirror
Enjoy. I am going to go see Ratatouille.
I don't see any overall benefits to socialized medicine that cannot be achieved in other, better, ways.
Ok, what other ways?
I've discussed some of them in other comments.
I don't care about the system, I care about the results.
Not to be overly dramatic, but that attitude has given us the worst crimes of the history of the world. The system is what protects our rights, and if we ignore the system to get "results," that's a very bad thing. That's why so many people are angry at the perceived affront to Fourth Amendment rights represented by various Bush administration policies.
OK, fine. MOST people are not so willing.
That is because they are selfish.
Riiiiiight. It is "selfish" for me to not want reduced health care quality. How does that make any sense?
I hope that will change one day. Call me an idealist if you must.
Idealism is useless if it is not grounded in realism. Feel free to dream about what may be possible, but there's no point if you don't work toward what IS possible.
Do you have kids? I doubt it, judging from that statement.
You are right, I do not have children yet. Hopefully, when I do, I will not lose my humanity, nor think my children are more deserving than those of a poor family.
It's not about thinking your kids are "more deserving." It is about the fact that you, and you alone, are responsible for their well-being; while you wouldn't actively cause harm to someone innocent for the benefit of your children (and neither would I), you almost surely would do whatever you could to provide them with the best health care and education, and wouldn't find it remotely acceptable to reduce their level of care to the level of everyone else.
That IS a major part of what it means to be human: having kids, and providing for their needs. How this could be described as "losing humanity" is entirely beyond my comprehension.
This is a commonly expressed fallacy. Christ never said the agent of charity should be the government, and indeed, strongly implied the opposite, for of what benefit to your own soul is "sacrifice" if it is involuntary, taken you by force from the government? Yes, we should sacrifice of ourselves, which is why Christians (and other religious people) generally give more to private charities than other groups do.
I am very inept at explaining logical fallacies, but I trust that if you look at this previous statement within the argument I presented, the fallacy should be quite self evident.
I made no logical fallacy. Sorry.
Well, you've changed the subject here.
No, I didn't.
I'm not saying that Christ would necessarily be in favor of socialized medicine. What I am saying is that Christ taught self-sacrifice, and your original argument was that people aren't willing to accept worse care just so others can receive better care.
Yes, and? What did I say that you think Christ would disagree with? Christ didn't say, "sacrifice your health care so others may have health care." There are other things I can sacrifice for the health care of others besides my own health care, such as money and time.
Also, if I vote for a single payer system, that's pretty damn voluntary if you ask me.
Fine, then I won't ask you, I guess. Your vote is voluntary, of course, but your vote is to involuntarily force ME to participate in that system. In this country, we have a republic instead of a democracy BECAUSE we want to guard against such tyrannies of the majority, taking away the rights of minorities.
Christians want everyone to sacrifice for those in need, but as a Christian, I want people to do it of their own free will.
Hell, you could fertilize an entire farm with all the crap you're shoveling
A delay IS a difference in the end result, quite clearly. Maybe it is not an important difference to you.
OK, the above really seems to be our disagreement. I grant that a delay may certainly cause hardship or extended discomfort (physical and/or emotional). However, I still don't see how interm "feelings" effect the end result.
I don't understand how they are not PART of the end result. I lost the better part of the use of my wrist for a few months while going through the process for surgery (damaged cartilage); in Canada, it would have likely been significantly longer. Less time holding and playing with my children, less work getting done (I could still do my job, but not other things around the house, and hobbies, and playing the guitar, and so on). You may think those experiences lost are irrelevant, but if so, then how is ANY end result relevant?
And again, this only gets far worse with children.
I do however think there should be a federal social health care system and each state can choose to either opt-in or opt-out.
Ability to opt out is good, though it is still blatantly unconstitutional for it to exist in the first place.
Now to the slight disagreement in constitutional grounds. I've seen you in other posts talking about how Medicare and Medicaid, etc is unconstitutional based on the 10th amendment. To simply read the amendment, that seems a true statement. However, at least the way I took your writing it seems it was stated as a legal fact and that is where I guess I have my problem.
It IS a legal fact.
The constitution itself as a whole does allow a system of interpretation and judgements and it clearly defines whos responsibility to make that legal judgement. Thus far the judical system has NOT rules such programs/laws unconstitutional and so according to the constituion itself they are therefore NOT unconstitutional (at least yet).
No, that is a common misunderstanding; it's not how it actually works. What is "constitutional" is not what the court says. They get to say how the law should be interpreted (for now), but that doesn't mean their ruling is constitutional.
Let's take the example of Brown. v Board of Education. Before that decision, the legal precedent from the Supreme Court was that separate but equal WAS Constitutional. Was it wrong for people to criticize it as unconstitutional, until the precedent was overturned? Of course not. As Justice Felix Frankfurter once said, "The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it." Nor, I'd add, what the court has NOT said about it.
In general I think we probably actually agree on most of this accept perhaps if social medicine is good or not. However, this is where I probably differ a bit from your view. I consider myself a constitutionalist, but not perhaps a "strict" constitutionalist. I do belive in the "living document" theory. It should not be static and must evolve.
Then we do not at all agree.
For example, for roughly the first 100 years after the bill or rights was passed the courts took the strict reading of those 10 (or 9 depending how you look at it) amendments and routinly rules they didn't apply to state or local goverments. So while the federal goverment couldn't restrict your right to freedom or religion, press, to bear arms, etc any state or local government could. Strictly speaking the consitution is a federal document and restricts what the federal government can do so the courts using a strict reading decided this meant it didn't apply to other lower governments and thus allowed them to restrict these things. Now over time that reading became more liberal and it was decided that in fact it did apply to all government and this "evolution" is something I'm very happy about.
Well, no, you're actually making my case for me: we did not have those rights
Here's one where the fellow said he spoke to them
link Right. Just like Judith Miller's sources who assured us that Iraq had WMD.
I categorically reject anonymous sources. Maybe they are telling the truth, but why on earth would ANYONE ever believe it, when we have so many examples of them lying, and we are incapable of checking it out for ourselves? The only time most people ever believe anonymous sources is if the so-called sources are saying something they WANT to believe. It's a sham. Regardless, I don't see any actual denials of him saying it. Perhaps my google skillz need work... I've seen them, but it doesn't matter enough to find them again; since there is no positive reason to actually believe the story, I don't need to provide reasons to disbelieve it: the fact that there is not a shred of evidence backing it up is reason enough.
I could give anecdotal evidence of where delays HAVE caused specific problems; I've seen it before, and it's obviously true. But the delay itself is, to me, a problem by itself, and certainly is a "difference" in result. But if someone decided it wasn't an emergency, and I wasn't OK
That is, how could you possibly get, from anything I have ever said, that I support what you are decrying? Indeed, I mentioned that one of my ideas to reduce costs is patent reform; another is more deregulation of WHO can offer health services, so we can have more competition and therefore lower costs. You're attacking the wrong person here
Also, no, it is not "elective" procedures that have wait times, it is most "non-emergency" procedures. Those are completely different things.
Unfortunately, they are so ingrained into the fabric of our nation that not even this conservative Supreme Court would undo it. As Judge Robert Bork said, "No judge of whatever disposition would, pace Senator Kennedy, plunge the nation into chaos by dismantling government as it exists today." The job of the court is not merely to uphold the law, but also to keep our nation stable (which is why it took so long to outlaw certain forms of segregation), so we won't see any dismantling of these clearly unconstitutional programs any time soon. Suffice to say that you are so wrong, it's not even fun. Shrug. The Constitution is quite clear, and so are the words of the people who wrote it. Try on this speech from James Madison:As for your other points, why the hell aren't you raising up a stink about the fire department? Why would I? What argument did I make that would apply to the fire department? (Hint: none at all!) Why aren't you angry that YOUR tax-dollars are being used to put out OTHER peoples fires! They should have bought insurance so they could pay the firefighters, dammit! They're taking away your freedoms, man! The only freedom I mentioned was the Tenth Amendment, and since I pay for my fire department from my local property taxes, it's got nothing to do with the Tenth Amendment.
You should have read and understood a lot more before you entered into this discussion.
That is all. You may now resume your "state's rights" constitutional conversation
The reasons for this are varied, but the most important reason is obvious, and anyone concerned not just with individual liberty but democracy should care about this deeply: the more local a decision is made, the more power the voters have to affect that decision. Any state can have universal health care if it wants it. Any state that doesn't shouldn't be forced to. What could possibly make more sense?
Sure, if you believe it's a natural or Constitutional right to have health care, then every state should be forced to have it. But there's no evidence that this right has ever existed, and it violates our right to democracy to have it forced on us except through democratic means.
Oregon also tried, and many other states are thinking about it.
Some of us actually believe in liberty. Yes, the rich are a minority. Our republican form of government and the Bill of Rights exists to PROTECT minorities from the tyranny of the majority. And some of us believe in standing up for that principle, because if one minority's rights are trampled on, then eventuall no minority rights will be respected. Reality 101: the big filthy rich will keep insuring that you, the little guy, will **NEVER** be able to get richer. Stop dreaming about "hard work", it's all about connections. Heh. The history of this country quite clearly proves that to be wrong. I'd wager that many people in this discussion have improved their wealth through hard work, or have parents who have. You're the one dreaming, here.
I was going to respond to you, but you are attacking me for things I never even said or intended, so I am not going to bother. Cheers.
First of all, let's just note the fact that federalized health care is blatantly unconstitutional. No, I won't explain that in detail, because I am tired of explaining about enumerated rights and the Tenth Amendment.
Second, it takes away freedom (apart from Tenth Amendment rights). And yes, that matters. A lot.
Third, there's no evidence it is necessary. Yes, you can say the U.S. system has problems, but no one is saying it doesn't. It's a logical fallacy to point at the problems of the U.S. system and say it proves we need government controlled health care. The fact is that there are a lot of reforms that can drastically improve the system without government taking control of it, and given the second point above, we should ALWAYS attempt to solve problems without disturbing freedom FIRST.