Is it fair that only the wealthy can afford proper health care
It seems that unless you are upper middle class or wealthy you can't afford proper health care. It just doesn't seem fair. I am happy so far that I have been healthy, but just a simple cold or flu to get penecilin you have to pay a Dr. almost $200.00 just to get a prescription. I am very thankful for planned parenthood for all my female needs but If I ever needed major surgery I simply couldn't afford it. It just doesn't seem fair somehow. What are your thoughts on this subject?
I think it's unfair that only the wealthy can afford a yacht. Or a mansion with servants.
I also think it's unfair that the wealthy are being required to provide health care for strangers they don't even know. Not being given an opportunity to give as they choose, mind you, but required under threat of jail to surrender their earnings to benefit a stranger across the country.
We seem to have decided that we will demand ever more sharing of the wealth - forcing somebody else to pay for your health care is but the latest in an ever growing list. Will we stop, or continue voting ourselves whatever we want at the expense of others until all incentive to earn is removed and we drop below third world status as a result?Well our health care system is almost equal to third world right now. Unless you are wealthy or 100% healthy you will be left to die or die trying to pay all the exobanant medical bills. Some people have resorted to flying over to India for hip surgeries or knee surgeries as they can't afford state side prices. It's just very sad. There must be something that can be done for more reasonable health care. We have Dr.'s without borders etc... for foreigners but what about us that live here?
Hardly the same. I don't think anyone ever died from not being able to afford a yacht.
There are to facets to my opinion of Obamacare
1) You believe that if you are dying (as opposed to, say, wanting a free cell phone) you have the right to take whatever you think it is you need by force. I disagree - dying or not you do not have the right to steal from anyone else. And yes, I would absolutely steal to feed my hungry child. I would give up my ethics and morals and become a common thief. I would also accept that I had done so and not rationalize it into being OK.
2) I do not believe that this country has enough money to maintain anything near it's current standard of living and provide the health care for everyone that they are expecting from the plan. Without large change the result of Obamacare will be financial bankruptcy for the nation, a return to the depression days of the 30's. Others disagree, and I fully recognize that it is only an opinion.No, I believe that it's right for wealthy people, who have themselves benefited (whether they believe it or not) from a society where people pay taxes, to contribute their fair share of taxes also, so that others may benefit in the same way. And I believe it is right for society to elect representatives to form a government charged with the responsibility of making collective decisions that benefit society. One such decision being where those taxes are spent. And I believe that if someone like yourself does not agree with where those taxes are being spent, they have the absolute right to say so, and try to convince as many other people as possible that they are right, and try to change how those taxes are spent.
Nothing is perfect and nothing is set in stone. In five years time, depending on the figures, there is no reason President Clinton can't amend it, repeal it, or leave it as it is.Except for a differing concept of "fair" I pretty much agree. I believe that some charity is to the benefit of all, not just the recipient, and that taxes should be used for that purpose. The biggest problem I have here is the quantity and use of that charity; when we begin buying luxuries, we've crossed any reasonable line. And we most definitely have crossed that line; rather than forcing a few to cough up ever more, back off from some of our current give-away programs.
That's a part of the problem. People are going to find out that their fine insurance they've been either forced to buy or, in rare cases, given free of charge, isn't worth the paper it's written on. Co-pays and deductibles will still be beyond their reach and large medical emergencies will still bankrupt them. They'll still have to stay home for simple things because they don't have the co-pay.
Whereupon they'll go to (shudder) Clinton and get the law changed so that strangers will be forced to give even more. Better that this boondoggle just die a natural death now, before more people are hurt.
Thank you Don W: Health care is most certainly not a luxury.
I loved your comment about the yacht,
it has nothing what so ever to do with health care nor does a maid or a mansion??? I don't know where wilderness was going with that response???It doesn't even remotely have anything to do with the question at hand( basic health care for all not just the elite)
Thank you for your opinions.Wilderness is trying to make the point that you do not have the innate right to demand that others give up what they have to supply you with anything. Not free food, not a free car or housing and not "free" medical care.
That you or anyone else has the ability (might makes right, you know) to do so at the business end of the IRS "gun" does not make it right.There is no innate right that you should take and keep more than more than you NEED.
This is greed. this is unfair.
This is wrong.
Until you materialists GET THAT, you will never evolve spiritually, and this world will remain the shit hole it is.Do you have a home? Sorry - you don't need it as a tent will do the trick. Sell it and give to the poor.
Do you have a car? Sorry - a bicycle will work fine (and feet even better). Better give the car away and improve your spirituality by becoming less materialistic.
Do you have a computer? Better sell it and give the money to the poor.
You materialists really need to GET THAT - that you don't need all the "stuff" you have. You will never develop spiritually until you get with the program. It is pure greed and very unfair that you can have such things while others do not.
Funny how you get to decide what is NEEDED by everyone else, isn't it? It's also kind of funny how you can declare that because you think someone has more than you think they NEED, you have the ethical right to take it away from them. Guess two wrongs always make a right?Right on Wilderness, and lets stop all those free loaders breathing the clean air paid for by the wealthy, stop them drinking water and . . .
Of course having universal health care in the UK we can't put those scum bags in their place (a hole in the ground?).And then you have places like Japan, where universal healthcare causes them to have the highest 65+ population in the world! Now they've got old people everywhere leeching their resources! Clearly universal healthcare is evil!
Careful there - are you sure that the longevity isn't due to drinking sake? Or eating whale meat? Consuming sushii or simply large quantities of fish? The home life of the elderly, happy living with kids rather than rotting in a rest home? Maybe lifestyle prior to 65? Using nuclear power instead of burning coal?
Now, if you could show that Japan's health care costs for the 65+ group is considerably higher than the US costs (per capita) I might believe that. I doubt that you can, though - medicare is fairly expensive and it is still only a portion of what we spend health care for the 65+ group.
Not, of course, that that has anything to do with forcibly taking resources from the owner and giving them to someone else.
Well, I didn't expect you to agree. Not when your whole attitude is to redistribute the wealth and earnings of everyone so that everybody gets the same thing.
I do notice, however, that your post had nothing to do with taking those resources or even defining "need". Just a nasty comment signifying that anyone believing in private ownership is evil.Who said anything about redistributing wealth and earning so that everybody gets the same?
That certainly isn't the position in the UK where there is still a huge gap between richest and poorest, it's just that we all pay for our health care, rich and poor alike, but we pay according to ability. Amongst all the anti NHS arguments I've heard, I've never heard it argued that it is unfair because some pay more than others.
And where was the nasty comment "that anyone believing in private ownership is evil"?Well, you can twist and squirm, spin for all you're worth, but requiring the rich to pay for something the poor wants but cannot afford is wealth redistribution by definition. The wealth of the rich is taken from them and given to the poor - it has been redistributed from the one that has to the one that has not. Or at least used to have not - now they both have as a direct result of that redistribution.
Apologies for the "evil" thing - I was reading your and Zelkiiro's posts at the same time. Senility setting in, do doubt.But we don't see it as the rich paying for something the poor want. The health of the nation affects everybody, would the rich be quite so rich if their workforce was constantly off work through illness?
If you can read two different posts at the same time you can't be that senile!If the poor don't want it, why are the rich required to provide it for them?
I realize, though, that it is all to easy to rationalize a reason for those bad, bad rich people to pay for everything. You may not see it that way, but that is exactly what is being done - forcing the rich to foot the bill whether they want to or not and rationalizing a reason for it. For their own good, no doubt, but that has to be the most common rationalization ever.Up until fairly recently there was a cap on national insurance, something like 9% of your earning up to a certain point when you became exempt from any further NI, so you could argue that the poor were paying for the rich.
As it is, the rich still don't pay for everything.Since the NHS became funded out of general taxation everybody pays something, even the child spending his few pennies pocket money on sweets contributes.
As for forcing the rich to foot the bill, if only! Many of the rich in the UK chose to buy private health insurance and are treated by National Health trained doctors and nurses, often in NHS provided facilities! Specialists on contract to the NHS are required to work very few hours for the NHS, the rest being free to provide private health care. So rather than the rich providing for the poor, it's more a case of the poor providing for the rich!You could make the claim, yes, but it would be a pretty silly claim. The rich man earning $1,000,000 per year will pay $90,000 for insurance. Pretty expensive insurance, don't you think? Maybe part of it (the bigger part) is being used to pay for someone else's insurance? While there are rich people that have very little income they are rare and usually don't stay rich for long.
Yes, of course everyone pays something, at least anyone that earns. There are certainly a lot that don't pay the costs of their own insurance, though. That's left to someone else to cover.
The poor provide for the rich because doctors are not required to spend all their time providing for the poor? Or because they work in a facility that the rich have paid for with their "insurance" taxes? Not sure I'm following this one...
I do agree that it won't be the very rich that are paying for everything though - rich people have the means, ability and power to protect what they have. As always it will be primarily the middle class that is footing most of the bill - the poor demand that someone pay the cost, after all, and the middle class is the only place to find all that money that isn't well protected. And we wonder why the middle class is disappearing - it is being drug down to the "poor" level with all the forced "sharing" that the rich decline to participate in, and decline by using their power to enforce their ownership of what they have.You'll have to explain to me where you get these figures from.
Apologies - the 100,000 should have been one million. I edited the post to change that.
The 90,000 comes from you - 9% of income as a cap. 9% of one million is 90,000.No, not 9% as a cap, a cap on earning above which you pay no more.
The figures have changed somewhat (though they no longer include payments to the NHS, they are still interesting) Above £149 per week and up to £797 a week NI contribution is 12%. Any earnings over £797 are taxed at 2%. Thus the less well off pay proportionately more than the well off.
Hey, Wilderness, hang on there! In the Uk, the poor pay for their healthcare, they have paid for years and years! The rich, however, as in private providers, are requiring that the funds we pay for OUR healthcare, and that of our families, suddenly lands in their pockets. You can twist and squirm all you like, if you are happy to get screwed over then that's your problem. But we don't want to go down the road of "insurance" and "disclaimers" and "pre-conditions".
That's a mugs game. Perhaps you think that is good enough for your family, but it certainly isn't good enough for mine!I do realize that the UK system is different than the US - I'm just going on John's indication that the rich are footing (the majority of) the bill through taxation. Just as they will be in the US. At least the rich and the middle class that considers themselves healthy enough to go without insurance - they are forced to buy it anyway, thus covering the cost of care for those that are not so healthy.
No one is healthy enough to go without insurance.
You simply don't know what' waiting around the corner for you or your loved ones.
Pneumonia, appendicitis, heart attack, broken leg.
Any one of those could costs tens of thousands of dollars.
The problem is not as simple as the rich are paying for the poor.
We are all paying.
Taxpayers pay for the government programs for the poor (Medicaid) and elderly (Medicare).
Medicaid also pays for the nursing homes when elderly have no more assets.
Don't get me started on that atrocious scam.
Meanwhile, if you do have insurance -- either through your employer (as most Americans
do) or self-pay, you are paying inflated rates to cover those who get uncompensated
care because hospitals/doctors are ethically obligated to treat people.
So basically, you're paying for other people twice. Once as a taxpayer and once as an insured. How's that for messed up?"No one is healthy enough to go without insurance."
Yes they are - IF they are a multi-millionaire and can afford a million dollar medical bill. Other than that, they are just willing to take the risk of a large bill that will break them to pay. Larger companies self insure for their employee medical care; no reason a rich individual can't do the same.
But the point of that little bit was to remind us that those healthy people are going to be picking up a large piece of Obamacare. We'll still have medicare, and to some degree medicaid. What we lose in medicaid will be transferred to private insurance companies (health cost + company costs + company profit) but still paid for via taxes. But then we pick up and insure all the previously uninsurable, whether for cost or health reasons.
Never forget that insurance costs are considerably higher than the medical costs; insured people, as a group, not only pay for their health care but also for the insurance company costs plus their profit. So now we have healthy people being grouped in with unhealthy ones and poverty stricken ones - both of whom have high care costs and neither of whom can afford their own costs for health care. The healthy bunch now picks up part of the care for the unhealthy ones plus all the insurance costs. Very much a losing proposition for them.Obamacare is an abomination in that it attempts to provide universal cover but still has the fell hand of the private insurance companies weighing it down. As you so rightly say, they will still expect their company costs and company profit.
If I gave the impression that the rich foot the bill for the poor in the UK then I apologise, I didn't intend that.
The problem is when you get healthy people who don't consider themselves in need of health care then the whole system breaks down.
Imagine if people only bought car insurance when they were about to make a claim! It wouldn't work would it?
For most of my adult life I've been fit and healthy, going for years without ever using any medical services and the few times I have as a result of broken bones. In the last few years my health has deteriorated and now I'm a drain on the NHS, but that's OK, for many years I've paid in more than I've taken out. Imagine if I'd put nothing into the system until I need to take out of the system - my expenditure would be astronomical and if I could get insurance cover at all the premiums would be rather high.Would you the allow the young and healthy to purchase a plan with, say, a $10,000 deductible? With, of course, payments appropriate for that huge deductible? Payments that are very low?
Because most young workers can survive a year or two of that kind of cost. It would be difficult of course, but they could do it with time payments. Their risk then goes from bankruptcy with the public still picking up the majority of a huge medical bill to having a tough time for a few years. Something most young people would be fine with.
The problem is that they then aren't picking up the costs of medical treatment for unhealthy people, just for themselves. The system fails without the healthy picking up that cost. Keep in mind here that I'm speaking of health care cost, NOT insurance cost. Health care costs for healthy people are very low, while insurance costs must remain higher in order to cover the costs of care for unhealthy people. When the system is designed to ignore individual history and health the result is that healthy people in general pay for unhealthy people in general.But doesn't almost everybody start off healthy and develop poor health as life takes its toll?
And even the fabulously healthy get run down by vehicles, trip and fall down stairs, eat things that disagree with them?
In short, who can guarantee that they will never need health care?If they live long enough. You are now almost suggesting that everyone be forced to gamble by buying life insurance. In a way.
That's the point; buy health insurance that covers massive bills for those very few healthy people that need it, while the rest are effectively paying for their own care through a high deductible. The insurance is only good for rare but huge bills. The group of healthy people thus pay their own costs, but no more.
But that leaves unhealthy people with insurance (and health care) costs that are unaffordable.
While health insurance (when designed properly) is a gamble - a group of similar risk people pool together to cover the large bills of the unfortunate few of the group that need it - when required equally of everyone it becomes primarily a method of shifting care costs from those expected to have high care costs to those expected to have low costs. Only by assigning insurance costs to be appropriate for the relative risk between individuals can insurance costs be considered "fair" at all. Unless, of course, you find the idea of wealth redistribution to be "fair".But who knows their risk?
I fully expected to be hail and hearty and livean active life into my eighties. If I'd gambled on that I would have lost big time. As it was when I was fit and healthy I paid into the system, now I'm reaping the benefits of my investment.Risk is based on statistics for age, history, etc.
But you're not reaping the benefits of paying into insurance all those years; that money is long gone, used to pay for those unexpectedly large costs that can (and do) happen to a few. Now, you are paying for your own costs, or should be. I haven't the faintest how the UK sets up their "insurance" fees - if they don't charge more for those that can reasonably expect to see higher costs then someone else is now paying your costs.
Health insurance is NOT (or should not be) merely a means to share the wealth - just another welfare program where the costs are moved from one person to another. It is a gamble where you agree to share the costs for those few with unexpectedly high health costs in return for having the group pay for you if your own costs suddenly skyrocket. As such the "group" must be composed of people with similar risk factors, not the population as a whole.So you are arguing that rather than spread the cost of my health care over my whole working life I should have waited until I needed that care and paid the full cost!
No, as always I'm arguing that you do NOT have some god given, innate right to demand that someone else pay for your care. That they do so may be the morally correct thing for them to do, but that doesn't give you the right to force it of them. Those are two separate issues, not one.
However, you could have paid double insurance payments all your life, putting half of it into a savings account drawing interest. Now you have enough to pay for your expected normal health costs as you age. Or, alternatively, you have enough to join the group of high risk people and collectively agree to share the health needs of the group - should you have an exceptionally bad year the group will pick up the cost.But I don't demand that somebody else pay for my care, just as nobody has ever demanded that I pay for theirs.
And why should I pay double what everybody else pays? I could have died at forty!Again, I can't speak for the UK, but Obamacare does just that. Force someone else to pay for my care because I can't afford it.
Is the "payment" in the UK, whether through taxes of premium, calculated based on statistical estimates of expected costs? Or do those earning more pay more regardless of expected or actual costs? Because if it's the latter then the rich are forced to pay for the care of the poor whether they want to or not.
Using that thinking (you might die early and never use your savings) I should never have saved what I'm now living on in retirement. Thanks but no thanks; I'll provide for the future if possible rather than force my neighbor to support me in my old age.
I fail to see the connection between life-saving antibiotics and a yacht. All people should have taxpayer-funded access to basis healthcare like pre-natal, preventative and emergency care. It is in the interested f the country to have a healthy workforce.
So yes, I should pay for the care of others who are in poverty, children or disabled (including our veterans). What is the other option, saying: "so you got ahead injury in Afghanistan and can't work, sucks to be you."? Your child was born with a hole in the heart and you don't have $500,000, guess she's gonna die"?Exactly!!!Thank you psycheskinner for understanding what I am trying to point out, that is all I am asking for is basic health care for all not just the elite. But I guess the elite don't give a sh**. Just like you said above if someone needs a $500,000 surgery and can't afford it I guess they are not meant to live and it's their problem. I guess only the wealthy matter and the rest of us don't deserve to live according to wilderness's description above.
Wow this post has gone off the deep end.....Wow..... I am not asking the rich to pay for the poor . I am just asking for more reasonable healthcare for all....Something we can all afford not just the rich. I wasn't asking anyone for hand outs just better healthcare for all not just the select few. Thank you for all your responses.... many varied diverse opinions. Thanks for sharing.... Didn't really get an answer to the question at hand but you all continue on .....I'm off this particular post.
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