http://youtu.be/lvLZ-M_HS-w

Lets see how many more people I can get to hate me.

/me giggles and giggles

I really don't think most conservatives have a general idea how our monetary system works in the first place.

Debt = bad is not a compatible view. But it scares people so they repeat repeat repeat it.

Medical care is a right. I stopped watching after idiot said it was not a right because it costs money.

he's absolutely right about health care oats, it is not a right. The simple fact that there exists a treatment for whatever medical condition a person has does not entitle that person to that treatment. There exist multimillion dollar houses, yet nobody (at least outside of the 1% protesting for the "99%") would say that entitles us to multimillion dollar houses.

The sooner people start to realize this that the sooner we can figure out how this health care thing should work...

you realize you just compared apples to shoestrings, right bobby? :P
*edit: disclaimer, i haven't watched/read/whatever the hell this link points to*

Entitlements...the real reason for Federal Systems. Allow California to entitle all they want, but, when the people meant to pay for those entitlements decide that they'd rather move to Tennessee, California won't be able to afford those entitlements.

Someone has to pay for all the "rights" of the left. If they attempt to implement those "rights" state by state, then the people they depend on to pay for those "rights" will simply move to states that don't make them pay for liberal America's "rights". Thus enter liberal America's attempt to stick the Federal Government's nose everywhere it doesn't belong. I can move states pretty easily, but moving to a new country would be rather more difficult.

Especially since the federal system greatly expanded since the cival war... which we all know was about states in the south being anti-entitlements.

You really believe that don't you? It was more about the north saying the south didn't have the right or shall i say they weren't entitled to own a human being. The south wanted the entitlement of free labor. I bet if we could ask a few of those salves all they wanted was the right to be free and create their own destiny not a free hand out. I guess though you can spin it anyway you want to justify it in your mind.

Civil war was over States' rights, not slavery.

Not many conservatives on this game ;)

The UN declaration of human rights does not apply in the US because it costs too much to provide medical care?\

So we emerged from the survival of the fittest society.
Became strong as a survival by sharing society.
Now we're racing each other to the bottom as we conform ourselves to a survival of the richest society.

Why keep pretending we value outdated rights, like medical treatment, and freedoms?

That's why people are so messed up. Everyone gives lip service to human rights and freedoms while denying it by their actions which are in service to the true determinant of values, the dollar.

You want FREE healthcare? MOVE TO CANADA, or CUBA!

This times a jillion.

UN declaration of what? i'm fine with you having the right to health care. just don't make me pay your bill. i have problems paying my own bills. plus i only follow medical advice from doctors who were born 3 generations before me. figure that they're the only ones who actually know anything about longevity.

Healthcare is not a right.
The idea that any individual has a right to the services of another is absolutely insane, its slavery. government mandated healthcare is not compatible in a free society with free markets.

There is no such thing as a free market in society. Not being allowed to murder someone to take what you want is slavery to government morality.

thought we just weren't allowed to get caught murdering someone to take what we want.

Doctor says to a dying patient, "Sorry but you are going to die within an hour because you can not pay for this surgery. The government would rather fight a war for no reason over seas and spend billions of dollars trying to kill people then save american lives,"

wars are in third place on the US budget. we spend more money on SS and medicaid.
Hickory fluffory Dock,
Take A Look At The US Debt Clock.
Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

Taking by means of killing has nothing to do with markets.
Detmer, by your logic any law slavery

I am applying your logic on health care as a societal value as being akin to slavery. I get the impression you consider a free market to be a very idealized supply and demand type of equation and you completely ignore all the socio-economic factors that go into markets. If those who don't have money can't get jobs and can't afford food, theft and murder come into the equation.

If you think living in a society that has elected to pay taxes to support the betterment of the society is slavery then you can go find somewhere else to live to enjoy your freedom. The civilized world has recognized the benefits of taking care of itself.

Health care not being a right is akin to saying that people don't have a right to live.

While that's always been true in human history, as governments or dictators or tribal chiefs can decide to take your life or leave you alone...

That said the US declaration of independence says something about life liberty and happiness; and if life is a right, it's not exactly a large extension to say that people should have the right to health.

Its the distortion of health care by the free market that has made your health care system so insane, because you do procedures that are ultimately futile as they will cost lots of money, and don't do simple procedures that will save lots of money in the long term, as people can't afford them at the time; and you don't do preventative measures in the interest of the quarterly or monthly (in the case of individuals) bottom line, and then there's a serious problem years down the road.


Same thing with corporate america; everything for this quarter! sacrifice your first born to get a 5% increase in shares by years end!

Why do people have the right to pollute and remove my right to clean air? I do like that right.

We DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY to keep paying for every single medical procedure possible. Society needs to figure this out and it needs to figure this out quick or we are all going down the crapper...Dollar and cent considerations need to be applied to all government spending, including that of health care.

I think we have certainly advanced far enough that we should be able to offer much basic and preventative care to everyone in society regardless of their ability to pay. I'm talking tylenol for a headache, dental check ups, etc. But again, just b/c a technology exists does not entitle everyone to use of that technology, be it a playstation 3 or a quadruple bypass kidneystone heart brain left arm transfusion or whatever it is that someone needs...

Thank you for this simplistic, condescending narrative.

Simplistic is it? Less so, I think, than "the free market will fix everything! let people die if they're poor!"

http://blogcritics.org/...iversal-health-care-save/

healthcare saves the government money

yes it is simplistic, I will show just one reason why.

"Preventative care saves money". This is based on the idea that, for example, oh look we caught this cancer before it got out of control and we had to spend all this money on chemo. Completely overlooking the fact that if a person didn't die of that cancer, they are going to die of something eventually. Perhaps they live much longer and develop a much more expensive disease.

For example, if someone has a heart attack and dies on the spot yes that is tragic. Otoh, that is about the cheapest way to go out. Should we prevent heart attacks with say diet, exercise, EKGs etc., of course. Will doing so always save money?...of course not.

I didn't say the free market would fix everything at all qz, (another quite simplistic characterization of "conservative" principles anyways). In fact I'm a fan of universal health care. I just think that difficult decisions will have to be made about what universal health care will cover and how payment will work and I just think we as a society are nowhere near mature enough to do that well yet...my only real point is YES people will sometimes die (they already do for cripes sake) simply because we choose not to pay for a treatment and they can't individually afford it. If we get a universal health care system mature enough to recognize this I think we'd be well on our way to a pretty solid health care system...

Sounds like the cheapest solution would be to shoot everybody at birth.

I'm sorry qz what you posted is not simplistic. What dustfp linked to is simplistic=) Jeeeeeeeeez, I really hope that is not the level of argument you find convincing dustfp

qz, i think i know somebody who agrees:
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

:D

Health care is paid for by taxes, just like infrastructure, police, military, education, etc. Whoever said it was free? In addition to not having the right to life, you also don't have the right to protection, easy travel, access to safe drinking water or electricity. Do you know the government provides most of those too?

Now the state certainly has to budget the level and size of care to provide, but it is not an onerous cost as some people seem to believe. Canada's government isn't going into massive debt because of health care, Australia has a 1.5% levy on income tax to pay for health care. Don't let your ignorance about healthcare determine your opinion. There are certainly entrenched interests that stand to lose a lot of money if health care was provided by the state, which is why a lot of talking heads oppose it. But for the average citizen, only having to pay $60-70 a month for complete coverage (what i used to pay in canada) is awesome. There are certain commodities that the private market will not supply efficiently, healthcare is one of them. Do you know that health care costs for employees is a massive expenses for most companies and cited as a reason for delays in hiring?

Health care and life are not the same thing.
Isn't abortion included in obamacare? How about infanticide?
Is it within the scope of power granted to the government, by the constitution, to force all people to purchase one service?

Wait what, so communism was only all about bringing free health care to everyone? Man, conservatism just blew my mind! It's like the world is suddenly vivid and clear, LET THEM SICK PEOPLE PAY!

I love how its always 'liberals' that have no fiscal responsibility when in fact republicans have been just as (and in Reagan and GWs case, more so) responsible for the debt as democrats. I also love the notion that anybody that does not think like Angel is a liberal. Keep drinking Ruperts Kool-aid.

bug03: Wrong. The US civil war was purely about slavery. It was cloaked in the aphorism of "states' rights" - as in, states have the right to declare slavery legal. This continued after the war, and didn't stop until Brown vs Board of Education, which was the USSC decision outlawing state-sponsored segregation.

Obamacare is NOT socialist health care, people.. FoxNews has lied to you again. It decreases the rate of increase using monopsony power. "death panels" already exist.. they're called insurance companies.

The main decision in government - and a better topic for this thread - is to have an adequate discussion about the need to tax enough to adequately cover everything that people claim they "deserve." It's hypocrisy [and impossible] to claim to "want" everything but not be willing to pay for it via raised taxes. Remember: It's easy to campaign on government waste, but it's next to impossible to find it once people get into office. As an example: You can't zero out the department of energy for two reasons: One, that's the place where the expenses for maintaining the ICBM arsenal of the US are, which runs about $15B annually. Two, nuclear power is the lowest-polluting [including Hiroshima] and most cost-effective power generation source the world has.. and this is the place where maintenance/research expenses are.

And this is especially difficult for small businesses stifling growth, innovation and competition in the market (or add any other good sounding word you like)...Getting rid of employer-based health care, whatever the alternative, will be a really helpful to the US economy I think. Too bad I don't see it happening anytime soon

Bobby: Instead of responding with a healthcare insurance company [aka Republican] talking point, please show an example where that's the ONLY reason.

The chief reason for not hiring is simple: Lack of demand for the product produced by every company, not the healthcare expense of any single added worker.

I didn't realize it was a repub talking point to support gov't sponsored health care to get rid of an employer based model b/c of basic discrimination against small businesses such a model introduces but ok...

Liberals are so dumb.

*I'd like to note that I am a stanch supporter of universal health care, and I think the idea of not providing universal is idiotic.*

However, health care provision is NOT a right. Rights cannot be given to you, they can only be taken away. This is because natural rights are intrinsic. You are born with them.

We don't have health care provision naturally, it isn't something we are born with. Life, liberty, the ability to think and speak freely etc... These are all things that we as humans are naturally capable of doing. Nobody grants us with these things, nor do we need to rely on others in order to utilize them. We simply have them.

Constitutions and enshrined human rights is merely the recognition that people naturally have these things, and that the government is not allowed to take them away from us.

Health care, as good as a societal provision as it may be, does not fall into this classification. Health-care needs to be provided to us by others. It isn't intrinsicly ours, thus possessing it cannot be a natural right.

ah the last two posts are talking some sense! TY crest and H4

http://www.psychologytoday.com/...ig-fear-brain-study-finds


I agree. I also characterize increased capacity to handle complexity as a sign of stupidity. An increased response to fear! Now that is the mark of true genius!

h4: The point is that people need to take care of their own life. America is fat, fat, fattyfatfat. People think there's a pill or a drug to fix "anything" - and that belief is flat-out wrong.

At present, millions of people don't see a doctor before the age of 40, at which point they have end-stage diabetes costing thousands of dollars until they die painfully. This could have been treated much cheaper if they saw a doctor sooner.. every time.

When that person's refusal to go to a doctor costs me more money later on.. no, that's simply not a freedom anyone should have. I don't care how "invasive" it seems to be told to go to a doctor - note that the politicians who are actually against this sit around and discuss which high-end sedan Geeves should bring from the garage that day.

How does someone else's diabetes cost me money? EMTALA is provided via taxation and higher cost of treatment. When someone walks into an ED, they by law MUST be fully treated.. and the burden of payment is cost-shifted onto the rest of us via raised prices.

Count me as a quite fearful conservative. I think there is a whole heck of a lot of stuff that we should be much more fearful of than we are. For one thing the fact that every day a new website is "hacked" and millions of credit card numbers or worse are leaked seems quite alarming to me. I'm no internet security guru (or even competent) but it sure seems to me like we are headed straight for at least one pretty catastropic event over say the next decade, based on way too much information/bank accts/financial markets/power grids/something being accessible via the internets...Actually I'd love to hear if someone can tell me I'm being crazy or not about this I'm sure there are some people really knowledgable on this type of stuff on here (not to derail the thread or anything...)

LMFAO @Detmer. I kind of find it pretty sad that you had that link so handy. Haven't read it, and probably won't, I'm just glad I gave you a reason to whip it out, lol. What a sad life you must live.

So perhaps a tax rebate for going to the doctor once yearly? Plus provide it free in the first place...

I also consider you to be pretty intelligent, which is rare for me and conservatives... I'll chalk your conservativeness up to fear ;)

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/...s-smart-equal-liberal.cfm

It is quite clear to me though, just anecdotally from my experiences with liberals and conservatives, that *as a whole*, liberals are smarter than conservatives and the little research done on the topic does support that notion.

In that case, qzjul, how does the general physician get paid? They didn't go through medical school and take out north of $200 grand in loans just to give you free stuff.

Of course, school should cost about 1/3 what it does right now for all majors and degrees, but that's a different discussion entirely.

How does the General in the army get paid?


...

By the government?

When you google "conservatives fear brain" it is the first thing to come up. I didn't have to have it handy...

I understand why you would find it sad though. You do seem to consider yourself to be conservative and I wouldn't like finding out that statistically I am less likely to be able to reason as well as the people I hold in disdain.

And I live a great life. I am not sure why you would think it is sad... probably a lack of capability to process complex problems... That might explain your comment regarding liberals and stupidity earlier... insults are an easy way to deal repond to things you can't create a rational response to...