I know it’s a complex question to answer. So answer any which way you’d like. Just curious on what you all think on this.
No and it's not "free."
Absolutely not. It is not economically feasible. Even the outrageous numbers you seen thrown around are assuming doctors would accept lower rates of reimbursement from the government.
No. The government should not be providing "free" healthcare.
posted by like_thatNo and it's not "free."
This
posted by iclfan2Absolutely not. It is not economically feasible. Even the outrageous numbers you seen thrown around are assuming doctors would accept lower rates of reimbursement from the government.
And this.
Does anyone ever ask how the doctors feel about this?
I can see no valid reason why the answer should be anything but yes.
Free, no.
The ability to not be bankrupt or in ruin if you get a serious illness, yes. How to fix that is the million dollar question.
Everyone agrees we have the best healthcare, but everyone also agrees the system as it is now is a disaster.
I don't think it's a coincidence that government involvement has caused prices to skyrocket. See: healthcare, education, housing.
But, of course, the "obvious" solution is always: more government will fix it. Govt can barely handle roads and bridges.
I also don't want to think how bad the nanny state is going to get once they're fully in charge of healthcare.
No. Nothing in this world is free.
1. Other countries have "free" healthcare because we pay for our military to protect them. You cant have both.
2. Why would I pay for someone to be unhealthy? 60+% of the US population are way out of shape, fat and drive up the cost of health care for all from "preventable" health problems. The only way it becomes "free" is if we pass hard core legislation on health. Like banning fat people from McDonalds, mandatory health classes for overweight people, mandatory exercise classes ect.... to get their "free" health care.
3. Banning food companies from selling us shitty food. Make pop, alcohol, cigs, and everything else that makes us unhealthy.
4. Make a Fat tax to pay for it!!!!
Sure, why not; everything should be free.
Yes, I absolutely should have to pay for the health services of tens of the bone idle. Makes perfect sense.
I voted
posted by geeblockI can see no valid reason why the answer should be anything but yes.
“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”
― Thomas Sowell
posted by Verbal KintI voted
Wait.....was there a poll?
posted by QuakerOats
Sure, why not; everything should be free.
I see what you did there. ;)
posted by SportsAndLadyI know it’s a complex question to answer. So answer any which way you’d like. Just curious on what you all think on this.
There is no such thing as free health care. So I guess the answer is no, we shouldn't have something that is fictional.
You should be able to afford and have access to the care that is required for the illness or ailment you have without the outrageous costs and sometimes bankruptcy that go along with that for many people in the US today.
Right now, I don’t need free I just want people to have care that doesn’t make them go broke simply because they got sick. You should be able to get sick, pay a reasonable price, and get treatment.
Seems like many cancer patients in the US still end up shelling out thousands of dollars for treatment even when they have good insurance.
Free? No.
The only things which should be mandated as free should be human rights, and human rights necessarily exist as negatives and are without specific cultural or authoritative structures (they don't require funding or the existence of other people able to fulfill an act). Were it not so, then we wouldn't view an absence of a human right as an infringement.
We phrase things as positive rights sometimes, but they don't actually function that way. We say that humans have the right to life, but that doesn't mean that dying of old age is an infringement on my right to life. What we mean when we say that someone has a right to life is that someone has a right to not have their life taken from them by another. It's the right to be free from infringement that we express more succinctly as a "right to life."
If I were stranded on an island, I wouldn't have access to health care. But if health care is a human right, then I'm being denied my right on a deserted island. The problem is that there's no logical means by which I can say I'm being denied a right if there is nobody actually there to deny it.
A right might be the right to not have your property (body included) infringed on against your will. The same abstract principle that makes assault fundamentally wrong also makes theft, rape, kidnapping, imprisonment, vandalism, and destruction of property wrong. It's the infringement of the rights of someone else to choose how their own body and property is used. If I choose to have a tattoo, it's different than someone else forcing me into a chair and tattooing me. Might be the same result, but the one making the choice is different, and that's at the crux of whether or not it's morally acceptable.
It's the same way here. If someone were to insist on his property (time, resources, money, etc.) being used toward a given end without his consent, it violates the same moral framework cited above.
The only serious rebuttal to this is to insist that bodily ownership and property ownership are not equitable, but that gets tricky. Why would we delineate? Moreover, where does that line exist? If I have a prosthetic that I strap to my forearm every morning, it's not part of my body, but ought I be denied use of it for what someone else considers some greater good? I should hope not.
The only response I've heard to this is to insist on there being a difference between personal property and private property, but there's functionally no basis for this other than an effort to justify taking some non-bodily property without justifying taking other.
But even if you were to somehow create a moral justification for that dichotomy, the criteria for where the actual line would be would be subjective. People would cite examples that would be comfortably away from the line (ex. a CEO's third home or personal yacht vs. an employee's refrigerator), but the criteria would be culturally subjective (refrigerators are, for example, a luxury in some places) on where to actually place it.
And too, those with the resources would adapt to ensure that some of their property which would previously have been considered private property could, under the defined criteria, be considered personal property. If you don't believe me, see how those of means currently deal with tax laws.
All this is to say that if we're talking about an actually free healthcare, where even the most raw materials for medicine and equipment are given (not sold) and every person's time is donated on their own dime, then it's a great idea.
But if you mean arbitrarily decide that some have to pay for all, chalking it up to some nebulous and undefined concept of a "fair share," then no. Because as has been said, it isn't free, and it doesn't end up working anyway, because people will adapt to whatever is most advantageous to themselves.
