Suck it, hippies and nationalized healthcare nerds.
I’m about to make Whole Foods my exclusive grocery store even though I can’t stand organic foods.
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America
Hells yeah, John. Whole greatness (see how I did that?) here.
Also:
…the only reliable technique humanity has ever discovered for lowering the costs of products or services over time is market competition. That will be true for health care too.
UPDATE: Best comment of the day is from Lakewooder:
This guy’s got a lot of nerve expressing his opinion. What does he know about providing health care benefits to large numbers of people? [oh, I need a do-over]
UPDATE 2: Other best comment of the day from PeterK
but they key is that the politicians and the press are pushing for reforming what 80% of the public is satisfied with to provide coverage for less than 15% of the country. sorry we don’t need to be rushing headlong into overturning an entire industry
Daniel
Wow, you had me at “a 38 in my waistband”.
If you have a big pistol, I don’t care if your walking a poodle or a ferret.
A ferret would be too small to fit into a blouse. A standard poodle would be about right, although I suspect Trey was referring to toy poodles, favorite dogs of middle-aged women who are either patrician in bearing or are putting on airs of being so.
Standard poodles pull perfectly masculine sentry duty, could rip the flesh off you nothing doing and are the smartest domestic breed, but they’re pretty damned funny-looking; hence the blouse.
Look folks we don’t have the worst healthcare in the industrialized world, not by a long shot. Using average death rates hides a lot of things like murders and drug overdoses. Our murder rate is among the highest in the world. There are also discrepancies in the death rates for different ethnic groups. Not all of these are healthcare related either. These differences skew the average.
I recommend this article by a physician from the UK. It’s funny, but it also has some solid information. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334282143887974.html
Note, the UK has the highest rate of antibiotic resistant staph of any European country. It also has the worst death rates for cancer and cardiovascular disease in the world – worse even than that of America’s worst off. And England had the most egalitarian healthcare in Europe. (We can all be equal. The question is: “At what level can we all be equal?”)
Making healthcare a basic right also means forcing those who go into medicine to work for whatever the government chooses to pay them. I know that this does not sadden some of you who revel in class envy, but it is worth some thought. Once medical professionals begin to get compensated like government bureaucrats, or teachers, they will have only one recourse for increasing compensation – organize. Think of the wonders organizing has done for service levels of government bureaucrats and education.
Just speaking as happily transplanted ex-pat Canadian, the thing that I ended up resenting was the g@ddamn noblesse oblige of the defenders of a single payer health care system: all you ever hear is, “Shut up and quit whining about the high taxes, and be grateful that you have free medical care little man.”
Or heaven forbid that som private competition might be introduced into the system, and then the political game becomes one of I’ll-bite-my-nose-to-spite-my-face-ism rather than liberalism, and descends into a pretty open game of class warfare. No user fees or private competition can be allowed, because there will be two systems, one for the rich, and one for the poor.
When I quit drinking this logic became especially frustrating, as I realized that despite my modest means, my disposable income could (in theory, if I was allowed to use it in such a manner) enable me to jump a queue and enjoy the private option, if such an option were on the table.
“Not that a blouse-wearing poodle walker like yourself will have any effect ”
’cause yer tea cup chihuahuas are manly critters?
One day a poor pregnant woman came to A conservative republican.
“Oh, wise one” cried the woman. “My husband was killed in an auto accident. I cannot support this child in my belly. I want to have an abortion. ”
The Conservative gazed upon the poor woman and replied “No. Woman. All human beings have a right to life. Go and have your baby and forget about an abortion”
So the woman had her baby.
The baby was born gravely sick.
It needed a doctor and expensive medical care.
So the woman returned to the Conservative Republican
“Oh wise one. My baby is sick. My child needs expensive medical care. Can you help me.”
The Conservative lectured the woman sternly:
“Heath care is not a right. It is no ones fault but your own if you can’t afford the pay”
The newborn child died after much suffering
@ Norris Hall
Ain’t nobody here but us libertarians.
“The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.” – Lord Byron
@ Norris Hall
I was raised in a single parent household and that single parent just happened to be my mother. She was on her own when i was only six months old and yet i got everything i needed, including health care. If you think suggesting women aren’t capable of taking care of themselves will win support for Obama’s government takeover of healthcare, you’re probably in for a rude awakening.
Why didn’t they have free health care in early America? Doctors still treated patients, so it’s illogical to assume there could be no such thing. Hmm, I would think the founders would have thought up such a wonderful idea, no?
Does anyone question the financial implications of national health care? Our country is currently over $10 trillion dollars in debt, and it looks like we’ll be at a MINIMUM doubling that over the next 10 years. Unfortunately they don’t require basic financial courses in school anymore, but here’s a thought: debt must be paid back.
National health care will just be another nail in the coffin for the inevitable bankruptcy of our nation. It pisses me off that every month I pay for social security and Medicare and will get NONE of it once I reach an age that it should be paid back. The last thing I want is a government providing the health services I need or want – they have no clue how to do anything properly.
And for those who use public schools, roads, etc. as an argument FOR health care, my question to them – are you kidding me? That’s the exact reason we have state and local governments. They are MUCH better at determining the aggregate needs of their societies than the federal government.
As others have stated, should food and shelter be provided by the government as well as a “right”? If not, why not? No one has answered this question, and both are more important to health than health care.
@ other John
“Unfortunately they don’t require basic financial courses in school anymore, but here’s a thought: debt must be paid back.” Pffff! Obviously you are not a real American. Ever heard the words “Stimulus Package?” -and no giggles from you Jack E. Jett.