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Wed 18 May, 2005 01:44 pm
Does anyone watch the PBS program, To the Contrary?
This is a forum of women from both ends of the political spectrum who discuss several social and political issues each week.
This past week, one of the participants said, "Health care is not a right. Health care is a service."
First of all, service and right are not equivalent things that can be substituted for each other in a statement in this way.
Second, what does she think will happen in a society in which there is no prenatal care? What will be done for less than healthy and whole children born because health care is left to the well-to-do? Is she aware that unhealthy labor force is not a productive labor force? Do we leave people with communicable diseases to infect the rest of the population?
So, I propose that we persuade doctors to not treat patients in the upper 25% of the financial stata for their community. We'll have all of our health care issues resolved in under three years!
Another way of asking the same question:
Does everyone deserve to prolong his/her life by standing on the shoulders of giants?
Re: Not a right, but a service???!!!
plainoldme wrote:This past week, one of the participants said, "Health care is not a right. Health care is a service."
First of all, service and right are not equivalent things that can be substituted for each other in a statement in this way.
Depending on the full context they could be.
Quote:Second, what does she think will happen in a society in which there is no prenatal care? What will be done for less than healthy and whole children born because health care is left to the well-to-do? Is she aware that unhealthy labor force is not a productive labor force? Do we leave people with communicable diseases to infect the rest of the population?
What does any of this have to do with whether healthcare is a right or a service??? I have never heard of anyone refer to auto repairs as a right yet the ability to get your auto repaired still exists. Just because something may not be a right it doesn't follow that it can't be obtained. Do you honestly believe that if it were somehow authoratively determined that health care wasn't a right that OB/GYNs would all stop practicing??? Would pre-natal care cease to exist???
We are talking about people who earn too little to pay for their own health insurance and about people in marginal jobs in which health care is not provided by their employers. Many people in marginal jobs use public transportation, making auto repairs a moot issue.
When you brought up auto repairs, you illustrated why right and service are not equivalent.
POM-And what about the rights of the physicians? Are they obliged to donate their labor against their will? Does the fact of being poor entitle persons the right to services that other people have to pay for?
No dear. Medical service to the poor is not an entitlement. It is charity, plain and simple. And people who avail themselves of these services should be grateful that other people are denying themselves, through taxes, in order that the poor may have the service.
plainoldme wrote:We are talking about people who earn too little to pay for their own health insurance and about people in marginal jobs in which health care is not provided by their employers. Many people in marginal jobs use public transportation, making auto repairs a moot issue.
And many people working marginal jobs are healthy making healthcare a moot point. *shrugs*
Do you deny that a healthcare system would still exist even if there was some definative decision that healthcare wasn't a right?
Just because something may be defined as a right there it doesn't mean that there is some automatic entitlement to go with it. You have the right of free speech but there is no entitlement to a government provided printing press or computer to enable you to exercise that right. Even if healthcare was a deliniated right there is nothing that says that there would be any entitlement to go with it so those same people working marginal jobs would still have to come up with their own money to exercise the right.
Phoenix -- you need to read my post again. I am not talking about forcing physicians to do anything. I'm talking about creating a demonstration.
There is a real disjuncture between a country that has given the anti-abortion movement such a strong voice in politics so that instead of rightfully being called, "anti-abortion," or "anti-choice," it is given the misnomer of "pro-life." Most of these people are not pro-life if the quality of life is considered. And, the quality of life is at the heart of my suggestion. Not only that, but upholding the quality of life should be in the heart of every physician.
Ultimately, in a country where the gap between the rich and the poor has become a chasm within our life time, we do need to force certain people to recognize that health care is a right for us as a nation that wishes to remain productive, humane, and, yes, even powerful.
fishin -- So, you posit that once healthy, always healthy? You think there are never accidents? That there is no need to permit pre-natal care (see above post) to low income women? I find your stance somewhat contradictory in light of the volumes you have written about your mentally handicapped sister. In her case, you expected a segment of the public, i.e., a social unit subsidized by the government, to provide for your sister and you have written at great length and with a great deal of passion about how the educational system failed her. So, you would allow an exception for members of your family and their needs, at least in terms of education, but you would not allow health care for the many?
Where does the good of public health start and end?
The government in the last 4 years alone has:
1. increased acceptable arsenic levels in our drinking water,
2. passed legislation allowing energy companies to pollute more and not be held accountble,
3. is working on (if it hasn't already passed without my hearing of it) decreased requirements for reporting of lead contamination levels,
4. is attempting to block suits for asbestos related illness (note that Haliburton purchased the asbestos company and its claims and is now not wanting to pay those harmed),
5. Recently passed/ or will be signed soon legislation allowing for expanded use of firing ranges / weapons test fields which include uranium enriched artillary.
6. Refused to clean up, help move or otherwise compensate people in a small town in the south (Al? MS? ) where a huge percentage of the population was being diagnosed with cancer, when it should have been cleaned up with Super fund money,
7. Allowed for the blowing off of mountain tops without requiring coal mining companies to then clean up the debris and make sure ground water and water sources were not affected.
Etc. (There's a ton more)
So, at what point is the health and well being of citizens not the responsibility of the government? Are we all supposed to be on our own for medical care even when our own government is responsible for the health problems it's creating or allowing?
Despite your ability to pay, if you show up at the emergancy room you will be treated. In that way, health care is a right. You just have to be very sick to excercize that right.
If we treated basic health care as more of a service - something available to everyone at a reasonable cost - we'd be way ahead as preventative care is so much cheaper than emergency care.
Who is going to bell the cat?
Who picks up the cost of the uninsured? Doctors? Hospitals? Taxpayers?
Taxpayers and insurance buyers pick up the tab for the uninsured.
As a taxpayer and an insurance buyer I'd rather pay for preventative care and a basic level of health care than emergency care. It might not save me any money but it would stretch my dollar further.
My older son told me that only 10% of all the moneys taken in by insurance companies are paid out in the form of claims.
plainoldme wrote:fishin -- So, you posit that once healthy, always healthy? You think there are never accidents? That there is no need to permit pre-natal care (see above post) to low income women? I find your stance somewhat contradictory in light of the volumes you have written about your mentally handicapped sister. In her case, you expected a segment of the public, i.e., a social unit subsidized by the government, to provide for your sister and you have written at great length and with a great deal of passion about how the educational system failed her. So, you would allow an exception for members of your family and their needs, at least in terms of education, but you would not allow health care for the many?
I don't see how you could possibly have gotten any of this from anything I've posted. You also once again, dodge the questions asked.
The point is, very simply, that no matter whether health care is a right or a service pre-natal and all other care will continue to exist just as it has all along. Your attempts to play this off as though healthcare will disappear if it isn't defined as a right is nonsense. I have NEVER said "once healthy, always healthy" or anything remotely like it. That's a lame attempt on your part to paint a non-issue as black or white. Whether or not low-income women get pre-natal care at a government subsidized rate (or fully paid for) is a decision for society to make as a whole. Doing so however, creates a benefit - it doesn't establish a right.
fishin -- You needn't state something overtly to have your statements imply things.
OK, let's approve state supported abortions on demand. Let's approve free birth control clinics. Nothing will improve schools and the economy more than a small population.
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