A Moral Question on UHC

[Bern80]

Glad to see some answered even if I disagree with the reasoning.

The question is a moral question, not sure how many here have ever read Derek Parfit but it falls into the area of how we should live and how we want our world to be. If it were our child in need, we would willingly pay much more than 5% percent for good healthcare. Well most of us would.

I think the golden rule answer would be 'yes' as I would expect the same treatment as any American would get. Karen Armstrong: Let's revive the Golden Rule | Video on TED.com Would the modern American libertarian answer be 'no?' And please emergency room service is not healthcare, we need to be honest here. Any answers?


"It is not enough to ask, ‘Will my act harm other people?’ Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, ‘Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people?’ The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great." Derek Parfit


"Acts are not made right or wrong simply by people believing that they are right or wrong. ... Relativists think that moral absolutism is a bad view, encouraging intolerance and so on. But I ask them: Is absolutism only bad in a relative way -- only wrong for them and not necessarily for others? If so, then it might not be wrong for me. I can believe in it and act on it. On the other hand, if it is wrong for everybody, then it is absolutely wrong, which contradicts the relativist’s [own] position. So moral relativism is either self-refuting or it has no claim on my moral beliefs." Colin McGinn

Instead of putting yourself in the shoes of the savior by 'generously' offering other people's money (a hallmark of socialism), perhaps you should put yourself in the postion of the person who needs saving.

Is it moral of you to obligate that someone else give their money to fix your problems?

 

[rikules]

This is a simple thought experiment. The basic assumptions are fact.

If universal healthcare is passed, your taxes will go up 5%. If UHC is not passed 35 million Americans will die each year because they will not have access to healthcare.

What is your vote and why? Please yes or no, why, and no BS.

not sure if I accept your numbers (i'd have to see charts and graphs and figures from AUTHORITATIVE sources)

however
suffice to say that taxes would go up by some %
and that without health care millions of Americans would suffer or die

my vote:

no healthcare

why?

a. I beleve the government will make a mess of it the way it has with so many other things

b. somehow...some people will find a way to take advantage of it...there-by ruining it for others

c. i think that every person who WILLINGLY WANTS to pay taxes to support healthcare for the underpriviledged should, instead, take that money and donate it to hospital charities for the same purpose. They could even raise enough cash to create their own free clinics. I just don't believe in FORCED PAYMENT to healthcare and I am COMPLETELY OPPOSED to MANDATORY INSURANCE!

d. should you start a chain of free clinics across the country it would be my pleasure to donate WILLINGLY to your cause. Just to MAKE me give you money.

 

[hboats]

Seems to me that the real question here ought to be why we are paying so much more for our health care, and not covering all of our citizens. We pay more per capita for health care than any nation on earth, yet many of our citizens have no access to health care. And hundreds of thousands of families go bankrupt every year because of medical bills. And none do in other industrial nations like Canada, Germany, France, or Japan.

And, in spite of paying far more than other nations, our life spans are shorter, and our infant mortality closer to a third world nation than a modern industrial nation.

This is just not true. "....yet many of our citizens have no access to health care." I don't know where you're living, but here in the United States EVERYONE has access to health care. That's the point, even if they don't have insurance and/or can't pay, there are options for EVERYONE right now as our current health care system stands. You can go into ANY County Hospital and they CAN NOT refuse you health care no matter what your financial circumstances.

Rick

 

[Foxfyre]

Instead of putting yourself in the shoes of the savior by 'generously' offering other people's money (a hallmark of socialism), perhaps you should put yourself in the postion of the person who needs saving.

Is it moral of you to obligate that someone else give their money to fix your problems?

If the OP is a fair question, so is Bern's question here.

What is our moral responsibility to avoid being among those 30 million who need to be saved?

 

[Some Guy]

If the OP is a fair question, so is Bern's question here.

If the OP is a fair question, then surely this one is as well.

What would be your choice? ...passing universal health care and thus bankrupting the nation in 10 years, or not passing universal health care?

It's basically wildly overestimating the effect of your opposing viewpoint coming to fruition in order to try to make a point. Plus, it's not nearly specific enough. What's only relevant to the question is how many people would die without Obamacare opposed to with it. Millions of people die every year in the U.S. because, *gasp*, people die!

 

[Foxfyre]

If the OP is a fair question, so is Bern's question here.

If the OP is a fair question, then surely this one is as well.

What would be your choice? ...passing universal health care and thus bankrupting the nation in 10 years, or not passing universal health care?

It's basically wildly overestimating the effect of your opposing viewpoint coming to fruition in order to try to make a point. Plus, it's not nearly specific enough. What's only relevant to the question is how many people would die without Obamacare opposed to with it. Millions of people die every year in the U.S. because, *gasp*, people die!

Yup, just look how many people died in 2009 alone that we knew in politics, on television, in the movies, or otherwise in the public eye. I bet every single one of them had excellent healthcare insurance and access to the finest medical personnel and facilities available anywhere. Yet they died. I lost two loved ones in 2009 and both died young and both had very good healthcare insurance.

And what percentage of the presumed 30 million people died who didn't have healthcare insurance in 2009 either by their own choice or because they couldn't afford it or couldn't get it? And how many of those who died did so BECAUSE they didn't have health insurance? Those are the questions that have to be answered. I'm going to make a wild guess and suggest that a far smaller percentage died because they didn't have health insurance than the 5% tax increase suggested in the OP to get them health insurance.

Again, what is my responsibility to avoid being in the 30 million who don't have health insurance?

 

[saveliberty]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

 

[Foxfyre]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

But.....but......

Isn't it a fair question?

 

[Bern80]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

But.....but......

Isn't it a fair question?

Responsibility and personal accountability are like kryptonite to liberals. You can't even get them to talk about the subject. It's like they don't acknowledge the existence of the concept. It is truly amzaing to watch a group of people be so obstinate to the one solution that is the easiest to implement and has the highest likelihood of success.

 

[Foxfyre]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

But.....but......

Isn't it a fair question?

Responsibility and personal accountability are like kryptonite to liberals. You can't even get them to talk about the subject. It's like they don't acknowledge the existence of the concept.

That's probably true in the case of some. I am often frustrated in getting liberals to articulate a rationale for ANYTHING of a specific nature. And even fewer will defend their rationale if they provide one while resenting that their argument is challenged. I don't know whether they CANNOT defend their point of view, but most really won't.

I thoroughly enjoy those who can and do.

But honestly people. Isn't there room in this debate to discuss whether anybody who doesn't have healthcare insurance should be provided it by others? And isn't there room to explore how many of those 30 million who don't have health insurance don't have it by choice?

And if you eliminate those who don't have it by choice, and we whittle down the number to say 10 or 12 million who honestly cannot afford insurance or can't get it for whatever reason, why not focus on helping those 10 or 12 million instead of saddling the entire country with a huge bill that we won't ever be able to pay and rules and mandates that take away so many of our liberties?

 

[boedicca]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

But.....but......

Isn't it a fair question?

Not to them. Fair is an outcome to be guaranteed by the government.

 

[saveliberty]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

But.....but......

Isn't it a fair question?

This is going downhill in a hurry. First you swear with responsibility. Now we get fair (clearly a four-letter swear word for Libs) AND question in the same sentence. How dare you question the Democratic leadership. Your going to get all of us conservatives censured.

 

[Foxfyre]

Foxfyre,

Please stop swearing at liberals with words like responsibility. You're going to offend them.

But.....but......

Isn't it a fair question?

This is going downhill in a hurry. First you swear with responsibility. Now we get fair (clearly a four-letter swear word for Libs) AND question in the same sentence. How dare you question the Democratic leadership. Your going to get all of us conservatives censured.

Well I've always wondered how it would feel to be banned for something.

 

[AmericanFirst]

Glad to see some answered even if I disagree with the reasoning.

The question is a moral question, not sure how many here have ever read Derek Parfit but it falls into the area of how we should live and how we want our world to be. If it were our child in need, we would willingly pay much more than 5% percent for good healthcare. Well most of us would.

I think the golden rule answer would be 'yes' as I would expect the same treatment as any American would get. Karen Armstrong: Let's revive the Golden Rule | Video on TED.com Would the modern American libertarian answer be 'no?' And please emergency room service is not healthcare, we need to be honest here. Any answers?


"It is not enough to ask, ‘Will my act harm other people?’ Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, ‘Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people?’ The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great." Derek Parfit


"Acts are not made right or wrong simply by people believing that they are right or wrong. ... Relativists think that moral absolutism is a bad view, encouraging intolerance and so on. But I ask them: Is absolutism only bad in a relative way -- only wrong for them and not necessarily for others? If so, then it might not be wrong for me. I can believe in it and act on it. On the other hand, if it is wrong for everybody, then it is absolutely wrong, which contradicts the relativist’s [own] position. So moral relativism is either self-refuting or it has no claim on my moral beliefs." Colin McGinn

First off you assume the bill is about health care, it is not, it is about gov't. control. Why else would the gov't. mandate be there? This admin is socialist, plain and simple, the gov't. mandate is purely socialist.

 

[sparky]

so.......... it's mandate HC, or...................?

~S~

 

[Bern80]

so.......... it's mandate HC, or...................?

~S~

or a ton of much more realistic options that have a far better chance of actually reducing the cost of care and making it more affordable. Libs need top stop pretending there aren't viable alternatives to government running health care.

 

[boedicca]

Their goal is not to fix health care - it's to control people.

 

[Bern80]

Their goal is not to fix health care - it's to control people.

You know I will usually give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they aren't evil incarnate. When it comes to libs and dems they basically go into two groups. 1)The well intended but ignorant and/or naive. Or 2) the elitists that simply 'know' best. I haven't decided which this president is. His smooth talking dupes me into thinking he is a well intentioned idiot, but recently I'm thinking he's really the later.

 

[del]

so.......... it's mandate HC, or...................?

~S~

buy the damn magazine

 

[Avatar4321]

Ah, once again kissing the asses that are shitting on you.

Oh, we really saw what a depression it caused in 1993 when President Clinton raised the taxes on the wealthy. Such a terrible period between 1993 and 2001.

Recession started in 1998. Clinton was lucky and has the consequences slightly delayed by the dot.com bubble.

And when Bush gave the very wealthy a massive tax cut, the economy just soared, right? I mean, didn't the Dow hit 20,000 in 2008 on Bush's great economic policy? Didn't we see numerous articles on how we have too few workers for the good paying jobs available?

It did. Until Democrats took over the Congress and then businesses tanked because of all the poor legislation and regulations they were passing.

You sleaze jobs let 3000 people get killed in spite of over 50 explicit warnings prior to 9-11. You lied us into a war that cost another 4500 American lives, and a debt of three trillion. You deregulated the banking industry, and damned near created another world wide depression. In fact, we are not out of the woods yet, and your obstructionist tactics may yet lead to the Second Great Republican Depression.

Except the Depression has been caused by Progressive policies. By overregulation, overtaxation, and over speading. Not to mention through Democrat tactics of bully banks into lending money to people who couldnt pay it back

After eight years of total incompetance and abject failure, you want us to believe you have the answers to anything?

Yeah. It's called look to what's worked. What got us out of the Depression of 1920?