Medicare at 50 Act reintroduced

[DeusxMac]

Sarcany wrote:
[quote=DeusxMac]
[quote=Sarcany]
[quote=DeusxMac]
[quote=SteveO]
Health care is a human right.

I think this is an overstatement; hyperbole.

"Rights" are things you have inherently and which should not be diminished nor taken from you.
There's no such thing as a "right" at all then.

Name a "right" that you have inherently and not by the grace of society and family.
You trivialize the distinction. Of course another person could kill you and deny you all your “rights” no matter how anyone defines or categorizes them.

“To say that there is widespread acceptance of the principle of human rights is not to say that there is complete agreement about the nature and scope of such rights or, indeed, their definition.”
Exactly.

So, rights are what you and your society make of them in the moment.

Maybe a "right" for this purpose is an obligation of your government to perform or to forbear from performing an act.

We're an affluent nation with the capability of providing subsidized high quality health care to the population without much difficulty. In fact, most studies show that it would benefit most of the economy, eliminating the majority of bankruptcies, putting more money into free markets, saving overhead on hospital billing (which typically pads about 40% of a hospital bill), and promoting businesses large and small by taking the burden of healthcare off of their staff and budgets.

It's inhumane of us and wrongheaded to NOT have a single-payer system. Our government should implement a single-payer system because access to high quality health care should be a right. (And will be once implemented.)
As that quote explains, I respectfully disagree.

If "right" encompasses everything that is beneficial to an individual, there is literally no end to what could be then labeled a "right"; from food, clothing, housing, etc., to a car and fuel to drive it, a cell phone, high speed internet, 1-on-1 tutoring, ad infinitum.

So... either all are "rights" or they are not. We should provide what we can, but we cannot provide all.

Declaring something a "right" does not, de facto, make it a right. That would be facile.

[Sarcany]

DeusxMac wrote:
[quote=Sarcany]
[quote=DeusxMac]
[quote=Sarcany]
[quote=DeusxMac]
[quote=SteveO]
Health care is a human right.

I think this is an overstatement; hyperbole.

"Rights" are things you have inherently and which should not be diminished nor taken from you.
There's no such thing as a "right" at all then.

Name a "right" that you have inherently and not by the grace of society and family.
You trivialize the distinction. Of course another person could kill you and deny you all your “rights” no matter how anyone defines or categorizes them.

“To say that there is widespread acceptance of the principle of human rights is not to say that there is complete agreement about the nature and scope of such rights or, indeed, their definition.”
Exactly.

So, rights are what you and your society make of them in the moment.

Maybe a "right" for this purpose is an obligation of your government to perform or to forbear from performing an act.

We're an affluent nation with the capability of providing subsidized high quality health care to the population without much difficulty. In fact, most studies show that it would benefit most of the economy, eliminating the majority of bankruptcies, putting more money into free markets, saving overhead on hospital billing (which typically pads about 40% of a hospital bill), and promoting businesses large and small by taking the burden of healthcare off of their staff and budgets.

It's inhumane of us and wrongheaded to NOT have a single-payer system. Our government should implement a single-payer system because access to high quality health care should be a right. (And will be once implemented.)
...If "right" encompasses everything that is beneficial to an individual...
Who said that a right was "everything that is beneficial to an individual..." ...?

[$tevie]

I am on Medicare. You have to pay for everything except basic Medicare, and on top of that you have to pay for supplemental insurance because Medicare doesn't cover half of what you would want/need covered. So joy, rapture, now people as young as 50 can learn that Medicare ain't nearly the wunnerful thing that people who aren't on it imagine that it is.
PS: guess who sells the supplemental insurance? Private insurance companies, that's who. Guess they ain't going anywhere any time soon.

[DeusxMac]

Sarcany wrote: Who said that a right was "everything that is beneficial to an individual..." ...?

Sarcany wrote:
Name a "right" that you have inherently and not by the grace of society and family.

So, rights are what you and your society make of them in the moment.

Maybe a "right" for this purpose is an obligation of your government to perform or to forbear from performing an act.

We're an affluent nation with the capability of providing ...

If that's a valid argument for healthcare as a "right", it's as valid for food, clothing, housing, a car and fuel to drive it, a cell phone, high speed internet, etc.

[Robert M]

Hi everyone,

I’ve never understood why health insurance is affiliated with employment nor have I understood why it is so regional. It just doesn’t make sense. Right now, I’m facing the prospect of losing employment subsidized health insurance and the non-employment options are so prohibitively expensive that I may as well go without it entirely. That’s insane.

If an insurance provider in a different part of the country offers a package that is well-rounded and affordable, it’s not an option for me. Why? I live in NY and they are elsewhere and, for whatever reasons, can’t offer insurance to me. Doesn’t make sense in my mind.

Although health insurance in itself isn’t necessarily a right, affordable basic healthcare as a whole is one. Unfortunately, neither is available in the US. My solution is to have the US Government offer one level of health insurance for every citizen that covers the basics. If you want something more comprehensive, then you can obtain it elsewhere, i.e. via an employer, private insurance, union, membership organization, etc.

The closest thing to that is Medicare. The basic healthcare is covered under Medicare. You want more? Buy a supplimental package from a health insurance provider. This already exists. What I don’t understand is why it hasn’t been implemented for people of all ages.

Robert

[deckeda]

Insurance coupled to employment began in the ‘40s as a competitive measure to attract workers, but the entrenchment of the systems supporting that began with the formation of the AMA and subsequent mindset of politics through the decades. Short answer: once the pieces existed, power was used to secure them.

Here’s one graphical timeline: https://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

[Speedy]

Robert M wrote:
Hi everyone,

I’ve never understood why health insurance is affiliated with employment nor have I understood why it is so regional. It just doesn’t make sense. Right now, I’m facing the prospect of losing employment subsidized health insurance and the non-employment options are so prohibitively expensive that I may as well go without it entirely. That’s insane.

If an insurance provider in a different part of the country offers a package that is well-rounded and affordable, it’s not an option for me. Why? I live in NY and they are elsewhere and, for whatever reasons, can’t offer insurance to me. Doesn’t make sense in my mind.

If health insurance could be bought across state lines, it would be a race to the bottom. Unless you are talking about a federal public option like Medicare.

[Robert M]

Deckeda,

Thank you for the info. It reaffirms my belief that if insurance is offered to an employee (and his/her family) by an employer, it should be as a supplement to a level of insurance that covers the basics that is available to everyone for a reasonable price.

Robert

[Robert M]

Speedy,

Please explain what you mean "by a race to the bottom". It's an interesting statement. It just doesn't say anything.

Robert

[Speedy]

Robert M wrote:
Speedy,

Please explain what you mean "by a race to the bottom". It's an interesting statement. It just doesn't say anything.

Robert

The state that offers the worst allowable health insurance at the lowest price will get all the business. Every other state would end up following suit or see their current insurance providers go out of business.