Is healthcare a right? Anyone is welcome here.

[Salvador]

I suggest you look up your nation's military expenditure, then the estimated cost for providing national health care, and then get back to us about "prohibitive tax payer expense"

Annual U.S. Healthcare spending is somewhere around $3.4 trillion and military spending is a bit over $700 billion. We as a nation spend nearly 5 times as much on health care as we do on the military. There is already taxpayer assistance for healthcare insurance to the most needy, the elderly and poor. Medicare and medicaid costs taxpayer's twice as much as military spending.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Annual U.S. Healthcare spending is somewhere around $3.4 trillion and military spending is a bit over $700 billion. We as a nation spend nearly 5 times as much on health care as we do on the military. There is already taxpayer assistance for healthcare insurance to the most needy, the elderly and poor. Medicare and medicaid costs taxpayer's twice as much as military spending.

I didn't ask what you currently pay, I asked what the projected costs of a single payer system would be?

 

[pearl]

It's not even that. Improving the lot of new parents and their children is a great way to encourage pregnant people to continue the pregnancy. Making life as awful as possible for new parents pushes people toward abortion.

Yes. My point was that for persons who have no concern for life post uterus forfeit the right to be called pro lifers.
As far as what is a human right is concerned, Catholic church social justice, beginning with Pope Leo's 'The Condition of Labor', 1891, and the UN's 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights', 1948, have much in common. Unfortunately, for all to many, these 'declared rights' are pretty words collecting dust as an historical document never coming to fruition.

 

[Woberts]

I have what has been called a tyrannical view of human rights, i.e. my belief that they don't exist.
Accordingly, I don't believe that healthcare is a human right.
However, if a government has the ability to provide a healthcare system reminiscent of what we have here, then they better damn well do it. Not only is it superior to the garbage the U.S has, it's also cheaper. It's really a no-brainer.

 

[pearl]

Medicare and medicaid costs taxpayer's twice as much as military spending.

Military spending does not have to concern itself with paying first and foremost dividends to its shareholders.

 

[columbus]

concern itself with paying first and foremost dividends to its shareholders.

This kinda sums up the fundamental problem with the USA healthcare system. Healthy citizens aren't the primary goal. The primary goal is making money, good health is a side effect.
Tom

 

[Father Heathen]

The American fixation on "rights" can get a little tiresome. Does something need to be a "right" before we can acknowledge it is something any civilised society should provide?

You can't have a civilized society without rights and liberty. Our "fixation" is because it's dangerous to take something so essential for granted.

 

[Shad]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,

If you believe this, if this is the foundation of your nation, then you must believe that the proper role of government is to do what it can to protect the lives of their citizens. This should include healthcare.

Nope as you merely define life as you see it not what the framers thought. Ergo healthcare is not a right by the framers only people people taking it out of all context. Life in context is that government can not arbitrarily decide if X life is worth living while Y life is not. It has nothing to do with maintaining life nor healthcare.

Your view is that of an authoritarian trying to use government to dictate more than just healthcare but what items are health risk thus must be made illegal for the good of people's health. Kiss alcohol goodbye.

 

[YmirGF]

Being Canadian, I'm a fan of Universal HealthCare and do see it as a basic human right.

However.... I can't help but wonder. Is it right for this recovering ex-smoker to expect society to take care of him if he developed cancer or other delightful ailments which are the results of their own long term actions? I mean this ONLY in cases where you can draw a cause and effect straight line (ok, a wiggly line will do.)

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Being Canadian, I'm a fan of Universal HealthCare and do see it as a basic human right.

However.... I can't help but wonder. Is it right for this recovering ex-smoker to expect society to take care of him if he developed cancer or other delightful ailments which are the results of their own long term actions? I mean this ONLY in cases where you can draw a cause and effect straight line (ok, a wiggly line will do.)

A moral society would care for you. Addiction reduces culpability.

 

[Shad]

Being Canadian, I'm a fan of Universal HealthCare and do see it as a basic human right.

However.... I can't help but wonder. Is it right for this recovering ex-smoker to expect society to take care of him if he developed cancer or other delightful ailments which are the results of their own long term actions? I mean this ONLY in cases where you can draw a cause and effect straight line (ok, a wiggly line will do.)

This hits on one of my objections to healthcare as a right. If people do not practice smart healthcare themselves why should the taxpayer cover it? We banned people from owning weapons for misconduct but do nothing but shake our heads at people that willingly make their health worse then open our wallets to cover the costs of their poor choices.

Sorry if I am using you and your habit as a target. I just see your choices as a problem I should not need to pay for.

 

[Salvador]

I didn't ask what you currently pay, I asked what the projected costs of a single payer system would be?

The top line of the paper’s abstract (re: medicare for all proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders) says that the bill “would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by approximately $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation.” According to the paper, even doubling all “currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan.” ...

The Cost of 'Medicare-for-All' - FactCheck.org

 

[Rival]

It seems to me that forcing someone to pay for their own healthcare turns society into a nation of negligent murderers.

 

[Salvador]

Military spending does not have to concern itself with paying first and foremost dividends to its shareholders.

Wouldn't you rather have taxpayer funds go to a strong military rather than to paying health care for well-to-do citizens who could afford to self insure their health care costs?

 

[Shad]

It seems to me that forcing someone to pay for their own healthcare turns society into a nation of negligent murderers.

Nope as I have no control over what you do thus have zero responsibility nor influence over and for your choices. I am not your parent.

 

[Salvador]

Being Canadian, I'm a fan of Universal HealthCare and do see it as a basic human right.

However.... I can't help but wonder. Is it right for this recovering ex-smoker to expect society to take care of him if he developed cancer or other delightful ailments which are the results of their own long term actions? I mean this ONLY in cases where you can draw a cause and effect straight line (ok, a wiggly line will do.)

So you're a big fan of high taxes and having to wait in line for basic medical services...that might be okay for Canadians, but we Americans would prefer lower taxes and not having to wait in line when we visit the doctor.

 

[Rival]

Nope as I have no control over what you do thus have zero responsibility nor influence over and for your choices. I am not your parent.

I don't know anyone who chose to have pneumonia, cancer, congenital heart disease or eczema.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

So you're a big fan of high taxes and having to wait in line for basic medical services...that might be okay for Canadians, but we Americans would prefer lower taxes and not having to wait in line when we visit the doctor. Ay!

The uninsured poor just clog up the ER and don't pay the bill. That's more acceptable to you?

 

[Shad]

I don't know anyone who chose to have pneumonia, cancer, congenital heart disease or eczema.

Irrelevant. You are trying to attach responsibility on to complete strangers for not wanting to pay for other people's problems by government edict.

 

[Rival]

Irrelevant. You are trying to attach responsibility on to complete strangers for not wanting to pay for other people's problems by government edict.

You are trying to attach responsibility to a person for having a genetic disorder or random condition. I suppose if a person with epilepsy or congenital heart disease is a shop worker on minimum wage, they just don't deserve healthcare, because they just shouldn't have been born with a problem in the first place.