Health care is NOT A COMMODITY! Only rich, very well to do moneyed people see health care as a profit making enterprise.
Stunning logic! I will never understand prioritizing health care BEHIND security via the Department of Defense which is always on FOREIGN soil.
Think about Socialism vs Capitalism / Democracy. The American Government is already subject to many socialist elements, so why is "Socialism" hated so much?
Think about Communism vs Capitalism? Note the American "capitalism" is far from pure, subject to many subsidies to entire industries and American businesses based on lobbyists efforts, and laws passed by Congress.
The powers that decide healthcare decided poor people are lazy, and they cheat, use drugs, and probably steal, so we ask Congress to cut back entitlements to protect "good" Americans.
There are writers and Congressional leaders who toe the line for the Military Industrial Complex, i.e., the cooperation of Government and the defense businesses in America to spend trillions of dollars on military equipment. The defense industry is very profitable so it "Trumps" health care.
Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the Military Industrial Complex, and I gave you his quite a few months ago in my Blog.
"In his farewell address to the nation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns the American people to keep a careful eye on what he calls the “military-industrial complex” that has developed in the post-World War II years."
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-of-military-industrial-complex
"The Real Point Of Eisenhower’s Warning About The Military-Industrial Complex"
By Angry Staff Officer
on January 15, 2016
"Eisenhower’s dual warning — against cutting our military force while also being wary of institutionalized militarization — holds as true today as it did in 1961."
OK, that's good. The "balance" needed however, is also among where we choose as Americans to spend our taxed dollars, the best military, or the best health care. It is an American RIGHT, by my assessment, IN BOTH CASES.
Let us not sacrifice local humanity for the sake of adventurism abroad.
"Healthcare Is Not a Human Right"
by Gabriel E. Vidal is the chief operating officer of a hospital system in the United States. He has a BA in politics, philosophy, and economics and an MBA in finance.
http://libertarianstandard.com/articles/gabriel-e-vidal/healthcare-is-not-a-human-right/
This logic and rationalization is intellectual gobble gook - it is idiotic. It is blather. Gabriel is steeped in an intellectual morass, and makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.
" . . . we have already concluded that rights cannot place a positive obligation on others to act, but only a constraint or a negative obligation to recognize, respect and restrain from causing harm to others; therefore, a right to healthcare cannot exist other than in a negative rights sense. The state’s claim that a positive right to health exists is only justified by the state’s use of violence or threat to use violence to force its subjects to comply with its demand that someone’s health needs be met."
Go look at pros and cons here as to healthcare as "right" vs "commodity."
"Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?"
http://healthcare.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001602
The cheaper and better argument is sued by the "Con" - I do not think it is a relevant argument considering what we spend on defense weapons that mostly do nothing for people in America. Think about it. Our military goes everywhere other than to defend our continent. Think about that fact.
Think about the idea that America has a trillion dollar DoD budget!
CON: "[M]edical care is a commodity, and treating it otherwise is foolhardy. To make a commodity cheaper and better, two elements are necessary: profit incentive and freedom of labor. The government destroys both of these elements in the health-care industry. It decides medical reimbursement rates for millions of Americans, particularly poor Americans; this, in turn, creates an incentive for doctors not to take government-sponsored health insurance..."
Health care is sold in America as a commodity in America. The richest people get the "best,' certainly most expensive, health care. People with lesser wealth get lesser health care; these people get what they can afford, but not the best health care. This whole sequence of facts is absurd, it conflicts with rational thought and humane treatment of mankind.
Dental hygiene and maintenance is also treated as a commodity, and it is even separated from health care. That is not logical, and it is actually quite ignorant. In fact, separating dental care from health care is absurd.
I am told that in a capitalist society, health care should be a commodity. A Tweety supporter told me that. To start, America doe snot have a pure capitalist economy. American "capitalism" is subsidized and rigged for the richest 1%. Tweety supporters seem to have forgotten that fact. Tweety is rich and our "capitalist" economy says the rich should get richer on the backs of the middle class and the poor. It is only right since the rich have "earned" their riches.
Want the truth about why rich people are richer than you? You have been exploited! You have been manipulated. You have been fooled.
So, here we go. Here is one conservative view. Health care is a "need," not a "right." Oh, boy, is that rich when matching healthcare to our "right" to security.
"Health Care is Not a Right"
Julie Borowski, 6/08/2012
http://www.freedomworks.org/content/health-care-not-right-0
"There is a big difference between a need and a right. Health care is a basic need that everyone is free to pursue. This means that the government cannot infringe on our right to pursue health care but no one owes us health care. Health care is a good just like food, clothing, and shelter."
Julie is clever with words, but misses the point. Is security a "need" or a "right," and I assure you, tax payers pay HUGE taxes for "security." So, Julie, you are off point when saying how expensive healthcare might be for the public.
"Positive rights contradict the very notion of rights. The so-called right to health care infringes on negative rights by imposing forceful obligations on taxpayers and health care providers. What about the right of the taxpayer to keep the fruit of his own labor? Should a doctor ultimately decide who he treats—or should he be forced to treat everyone whether he likes it or not? To say that we have the right to someone else’s time and services takes us back down a dark path in American history.
A right is not something someone gives you- it's something that no one can take away."
And next Julie says Government cannot handle healthcare, but the Government is just fine handling "security." Healthcare is too important for Government to provide. J
ulie, you never worked for the Department of Defense (DoD) did you? Julie, you never studied waste in spending tax dollars have you? Julie, DoD has "misplaced" BILLIONS!
It is Julie's ignorance that allows Government to provide hugely WASTEFUL BILLION DOLLAR defense weapons, while ignoring the right to healthcare.
It is "conservative" ignorance to see healthcare as a liberal fallacy, even liberals being cynical or disingenuous, as PEOPLE, i.e., AMERICAN HUMANs get sick or injured for many, many different reasons, as conservatives taut the critical importance of America's interfering in the world with our bullets and bombs to keep Americans from FUTURE HARM.
Americans who are sick today do not matter. Americans who are ijured today do not matter. We need security, more DoD weapons to avoid FUTURE HARM?
"Those who reject the idea that health care is a right are not dismissing the importance of health care. Quite the opposite is true. Health care is too important to be left to the incompetent federal government. Due to a lack of proper incentives, government generally destroys everything they touch. The government has never been able to run anything more efficiently than the for-profit private sector."
Next, Julie goes off-point again when criticizing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which, by the way, has shown America can do something about healthcare in Government. Even if the ACA is not the best solution, it says heathcare is a right and now we should fix the ACA.
Stop wasting time looking backwards. Write the healthcare law that covers all Americans, probably the single-payer law other Western nations have already committed to.
We can use the ACA as a starting point, but it certainly is useless to talk about how bad the ACA is when we are talking about "rights" and "Needs" as Julie puts it.
"Why isn't universal health care a basic right in the US?"
If we pay taxes to the police and fire departments to preserve our property rights, why can't the same argument be used for our health?
https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-universal-health-care-a-basic-right-in-the-US
There are eight answers at this link. Arguments about property rights, political acceptability, and expectations. Talk about Government involvement in our lives as politically unfeasible. and mistrust goes way over my head. But the fact the HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY is a big power hits home hardest.
It seems to me that the "right" vs "commodity" argument rests 99% on greed of businesses. In a hugely rigged economy, the "man" uses his financial power to keep and increase his richness.
In America the argument is not between "right" vs "commodity," and we do not have "capitalism" as the conservatives argue. In America the healthcare INDUSTRY says "No!" to in Government provided healthcare as an American right.
Here is a great idea; stop spending on security/defense AND never start on healthcare. Are you kidding me?! Cut both?! Blake, are you insane or maybe YOU ARE TE STUPID ONE.
"‘Stupid’ Spending on the Military and Health Care Is Leading to National Suicide"
By Blake Fleetwood
These are the elephants in the American economy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake-fleetwood/stupid-spending-on-the-mi_b_3423920.html
Of course we can manage defense spending better . . . and NOT BY INCREASING THE DoD BUDGET!
"Do we really need 234 military golf courses around the world, an $80 million military ski resort in the Bavarian Alps and a parade of unnecessary weapons, ships, and planes?
No, we do not need these golf courses to spend ~$80million. The countries these golf courses are in are likely to have local, national golf course for one thing.
"Why does a simple colonoscopy cost Americans nearly $7,000 when the same procedure costs $700 in the rest of the advanced nations?"
Well, it looks like capitalism and the profit motive are NOT MAKING HEALTH CARE CHEAPER - the idea of healthcare as a commodity is NOT making it less expensive.
"It has to do with the disfunctionality of the system—the crony capitalism of the military industrial complex and the health care industry. Much of this excess spending is promoted in the name of the free market... when nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a fixed and manipulated market all the way. "
The argument to leave it as is, or cut defense spending seems solid, and the points made in this article to make more efficient to cut costs are right on. The healthcare points do not go far enough though. We need the single payer system and need to knock down, and control the DEFENSE and HEALTHCARE industry that pushes Congress to bad choices for America.
I am not optimistic.
