Why do some people think free healthcare is bad?

[Koganesaga]

I may not be an expert on the industry but denying free health care I reckon, Is denying poor peoples lives.

Well unfortunately that's just it, people don't want the free health care because of them. The system would boil down to everyone paying extra tax dollars for poor people's health care. Most people already hate their taxes as it is, and they don't want to shell out for people who are already taking from them (welfare). Sure there are some people out there who honestly could use this because they're doing all they can just to make it through, however there are too many people (I personally know two) who would abuse the system and have one less thing they would need to take care of and keep mooching off hard working people.

So a few bad apples means that a child should die from an easily curable disease?

Ask the people who truly feel on the subject.

P.S. Don't ask me for sympathy for humanity, I generally hate most people, plus we're kind of the dominate species on the planet, so we can afford a few losses, besides, it's not like they aren't thousands if not millions of people who dies each day.

 

[Dasmaster]

if it makes you feel good i also lack any empathy for you Koganesaga but i still think you should have public healthcare.

 

[Dasmaster]

*edit double post*

 

[Tilted_Logic]

Along with the whole 'it comes out of your taxes' thing, I'll point out something a great teacher told me once.

He had both a Canadian and American citizenship and said he'd always keep his American citizenship because regardless of how awesome free health care 'appears' to be, in Canada if you're severely ill you're treated first, people with lesser symptoms get pushed to the back of the line. So if you have the beginning stages of a cancer, they're not going to worry about you as much as someone with final stages of it.

With his American citizenship, it meant as long as he had money he could get treatment as soon as he needed.


So while I love free health care here in Canada, my teacher had a point. If you've got problems and you've got the cash, being able to pay your way through might be a better option.

Although perhaps even with free health care in America there would still be some privatized areas where you could pay for treatment. Give you both options.

 

[Adijia]

I know one of the big problems with the heathcare in Canada is the wait times, but answer me this:
How many people have died waiting for healthcare in Canada compared to the number of people who have died not being able to afford treatment in America?

I'm not totally sure my opinion is rational, as 14% tax is what I'm used to in Canada... but stil!

 

[PhiMed]

It's not bad. It's just not economically viable. Every country that has it (except Canada) is either re-examining its implementation or has a nonviable economy.

hmm maybe check some sources before you spout nonsense?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system Granted wikipedia isn't the best but it's better then a baseless remark.

I'm not sure what a link to a free source article on health care in general is supposed to mean. Did you want me to know what the definition of "health care system" is? You know that references are supposed to have a purpose, right?

scroll down mate. it has a list of all countries and their implementation of their health care. most countries have a viable economy and even those that make changes to the system certainly will not do away with it because for all intents and purposes it works. you'll hear plenty people moan about the NHS here but the one thing you will not hear is that they'd rather it wasn't there.

It's got a description of the economics of health care provision of every named nation in the world. That's like sending me a link on sexual reproduction as an argument against abortion.

Are you trolling here? did you not say "It's just not economically viable. Every country that has it (except Canada) is either re-examining its implementation or has a nonviable economy."
On which I send you as list of all countries that have national healthcare of which a large amount of countries are economically viable?

That's not a list of every country that has national healthcare. That's a list of every country in the world, with a description of how they deliver healthcare.

The United States is on there. Does the U.S. have "National Healthcare"? Did you read any portion of the article you sent?

 

[randomsix]

Dastardly: The EU has a larger population in a similer sized area and yet we manage to have a socilised Health Care system in each country.

He actually cited this as why it's easier to have socialized health care in the EU than in the US (I believe he mentioned England specifically).

 

[Dense_Electric]

I wouldn't be opposed to a public option, if it were really just an option. A government-run healthcare system SEPERATE from the current system of hospitals that would have no impact on each other is fine by me. But don't punish the people who can pay just becuase some people can't.

I'm seeing a lot of posts about how in the UK or Canada you can just walk into a hospital and have you life-threatening illness cured on the spot for free, and that in the US you have to pay X ammount of money for it. The second part of that may be true, but the first is not. It's more like you get put on a list and wait two years or whatever to be healed. Well guess what, your disease will kill you in six months. sux2bu You most certainly don't get treated on the spot.

So if you're poor you either die becuase you couldn't pay or you die because you couldn't get treated in time, take your pick. But tell me this, why should the people who *can* pay have to wait for treatment just because someone else couldn't?

Like I said, if there were two seperate entities - a government-run system and a freemarket system existing side-by-side - then I wouldn't have a problem with it. But forcing everyone into a public "option" is a load of BS.

 

[PhiMed]

No, it's not. Please give me one example of a nation on that list in the way-too-broad article you sent me that

a) Has had a single-payer ("free") health care system for more than 20 years
b) Is not currently attempting to conduct a major overhaul of its healthcare system due to financial considerations.
c) Has a per capita GDP in the top 50%.
d) Is not Canada.

All four of those criteria need to be met in order for my original post to be untrue, and for your rather rude assertion that it's "spouting nonsense" to hold any water whatsoever. As a health care worker with an M.D. and a Master's of Public Health, I probably know a hell of a lot more about the practicalities of the issue than you do.

Setting aside the fact that (c) and (d) are both irrelevant since GDP isn't solely affected by the country's healthcare system Didn't say it was. I was referring to the "economically viable" portion of the statement people have declared is nonsense. Whether GDP is determined by the health care sector is immaterial. The reason I excluded Canada is because they only nationalize finance, instead of the assets of care.

and that your usage of a reverse ad hominem only helps to diminish any creditability you may have and your invention of a new term only reveals your lack of knowledge. If you're accusing me of making an "appeal to authority", then I suppose I'll have to concede that you have a point, but there is no such thing as a "reverse ad hominem" anywhere outside of your imagination.

you're arguing an untenable position based on your own definition of "not economically viable". Healthcare was never meant to serve as a profiteering system, it was made to strengthen the health and social fabric of nations.

I thought the point of health care was to treat the sick. Oh, you mean nationalized health care. Those are some pretty abstract goals. Could you be a little more concrete (i.e. less "bullshitty") than phrases like "social fabric"?

Point (a) has many examples and point (b) is yet another one of your failures to see the difference between causation and correlation.Yet another? What was the first one?

Might it not be so that there's a subtle hint of a financial crisis around the globe right now? Also, an overhaul because of financial considerations doesn't automatically mean that all implementations of a public healthcare system are impossible to sustain.

I wasn't debating the morality of the issue. I was saying it's not economically feesible. Don't change topics in order to claim moral high ground when that's not what we're talking about.

Nice attempt at a straw man, but no cigar. I said 'principle' not 'morality', hoping this would make it obvious that I was referring to the 'principle' of the matter and not the 'morality'.

The principle is that it's better for society when we treat life with high respect. This is equal in nature to the principle of free speech, or all men are equal to the law etc. They're not matters of what is right or wrong (i.e. morality) but are accepted rules of conduct in the practice of creating healthy human societies.You're clearly talking about morality, or if you would prefer ethics. You can call the principles of respect for life, free speech, and equality under the law "accepted rules", but I'm not sure what group you think certified them. Nevermind the fact that most societies don't incorporate them into their structure.

And straw man? Do you know what that means? Generally speaking, a straw man argument consists of two parts:

1) the establishment of a proxy argument the opposition would ostensibly agree to, then
2) the refutation of that argument, claiming victory despite not addressing the argument.

I said you were arguing something that had nothing to do with my statement. I was talking about economics, and you started talking about "the principle of the thing." These two things may be interrelated, but they are not the same. There is no straw man here. You are just throwing around debate terms you heard from someone else now.

The more personal tangent was a clear indicator that a person's current status is a large determining factor in one's political views on the subject. You could have taken it for what it was instead of wetting yourself over it. For example, if you're a doctor making tons of money in private practice then you don't want that job to go away, right?

Horseshit. I'm a medical resident, I'm $150,000 in debt from all the education I had to go through in order to get my M.D., and I make less than $60,000/year. Single payer still wouldn't work here, and here's why: the medical industry is too heavily regulated in the U.S., the burden of licensure is too high, and the cost of equipment and supplies is uncontrolled.

If your assertion is that the reason health care in the U.S. is so expensive is because doctors are making too much, then you've officially won the "dumbest person in the forum" award.

 

[DontHassleTheHoff]

Firstly, I have no idea why people think that if you have a life-threatening illness, you get put on some kind of a 'waiting list' in Britain. Sure, if you have, say, a long-term but not very serious problem, such as chronic back pain, or something, then yes, you might get put on a waiting list. If you have cancer, you are instantly given chemotherapy, regardless of your age or nationality. If you have a heart attack, they will do everything in their power to stop you dying.

In the UK, the great thing about our system is that the private sector is still there. So if you can't be bothered to wait six months to have a chronic problem treated, or you just want that much nicer of an experience, then you can go private. There is no restriction on which service you can use, and private insurance is still very much alive. This is what the Democrats are trying to push through in the USA, but because some paranoid fuckwits think that they're being 'forced to use government services'- which they're categorically not, I've read the legislature- they oppose it. Or just because they hate helping people poorer than them, whichever.

But I do agree, being forced to use either is bad. You should have choice. But if you think that being 'forced' to use the public option is bad (which I agree with), then why do you think it's OK that people are 'forced' to use the private option? At the moment, in America, it's effectively a poll tax on good health. Which strikes me as a medieval, feudalistic attitude, which can only serve to drive wider and wider the poverty gaps in the society.

 

[PhiMed]

I may not be an expert on the industry but denying free health care I reckon, Is denying poor peoples lives.

Well unfortunately that's just it, people don't want the free health care because of them. The system would boil down to everyone paying extra tax dollars for poor people's health care. Most people already hate their taxes as it is, and they don't want to shell out for people who are already taking from them (welfare). Sure there are some people out there who honestly could use this because they're doing all they can just to make it through, however there are too many people (I personally know two) who would abuse the system and have one less thing they would need to take care of and keep mooching off hard working people.

So a few bad apples means that a child should die from an easily curable disease?

That pretty much never happens. Children are covered under medicaid. The only ones who ever go untreated are the ones who are actually insured. If your argument is "insurance companies are sonsofbitches", you won't hear any arguments. If your argument is "everyone in society deserves to be treated with the most sophisticated techniques available" that's where you run into problems.

 

[General Torg]

Nothing is free. Even in our current system, if you get into the emergency room you cannot be turned away even if you cannot pay.

 

[Sonicron]

It's not free, so there's something wrong with the term as it is... but hey, we have it here nonetheless, and we're not all living out on the street due to high taxes robbing us of our rent money.
Americans keep talking about how making sacrifices is important, and the more I hear of it the more difficult it gets to suppress my snickering.

 

[Fearzone]

To OP: what's wrong with paying for services received? If a medical intervention saves your life, why shouldn't you have to pay for the cost of it?

There will be cases where government assistance is warranted, but it shouldn't be for day-in day-out routine health care.

A couple doctor visits a year isn't that unaffordable and it costs way less than health insurance. Health insurance companies kick the expensive cases to the government anyway, so the present American insurance system which charges buckets of money to insure mostly healthy people has to be hugely profitable for them, and is an economic burden to the rest of society.

 

[Denamic]

People hates taxes.
But then they get hurt and have to pay a $100000 hospital bill or die.

 

[Rensenhito]

As several users have already said, it's not free. Healthcare is expensive, and as a taxpayer, I don't think I should be responsible for paying some one's medical bills. It sucks if they don't have the money, but that's not my responsibility.

Here's a thought: make healthcare LESS EXPENSIVE, then maybe we can make it everyone's responsibility. Here's a story to prove my point: My Japanese teacher got really sick while he was in Japan, and the doctor he went to ran this huge battery of tests and treatments over the course of 6 months or so. You know what it cost my teacher in US dollars? About $200. You know what the same tests and treatments would cost here? About $10,000, if not more.
Here's the kicker: Japan has socialized health care.
Cut the fat, and the whole system benefits.

 

[Fusioanomaly]

Nothing like this is really free.

 

[The Mapper]

It's all about the taxes, and doctors getting paid less.

...From what I understand, anyway.

not at all in the UK they get payed more most of the time.

but as for the tax thing its realy not that bad but it if funny that my brother (a doctor) pays tax that gose 2 his own pay