Does everyone deserve the right to necessary medical treatment?
Is this a fundamental right of all people? When our forefathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, did they cite that inalienable rights included life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and health care? I should hope not. Much of what has made America great is threatened by this kind of thinking. America wasn't built by people who woke up and thought about how much more they deserved and how others should provide it.
Instead they realized that through hard work and wise living (spending and staying healthy), they could have more things, including health care. I agree that health care is very expensive, but that is because we entrust our health care to professionals who have gone to school and spent a lot of time and money to become properly trained.
Also, the government's role is to protect its citizens. This was the main reason democratic governments were formed. However, it is obvious that government has evolved and is taking on more and more roles. If Americans are willing to let the government fully take over their health care system, where are limits placed to keep the government from interfering further?
If I as a taxpayer am providing health care to others because of my "wealthier" status, I would be interested in having healthier citizens. Interestingly enough, firemen are required to restrain from use of any form of tobacco products because of the harmful effects on their health and, in turn, increased health costs. How long after a public health care system is enacted will it take for the government to start placing similar restrictions on the unhealthy habits of all Americans?
Also, there is already a system set up that guarantees treatment to patients regardless of their inability to pay. It was passed in 1986 by U.S. Congress and is called the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This is the current system used to treat any patient in dire need. Now, back to the "right to health care" and the heart-wrenching examples of people who lost their life savings to health care costs, they chose to spend their money on health care. Most people don't realize that without health, everything they have is worthless, so it makes sense to spend all of your resources trying to stay healthy.
To say that a doctor/country should provide you health care because otherwise you would have to spend your money on it is like saying that you should be provided food by restaurants/government for free. I have a much higher chance of dying without food for a month than I do without health care. In summary, if the government is going to take its role of protecting its citizens to the level of providing health care for them, at what point will we as citizens lose all responsibilities for ourselves?
Joseph T. Sexton IV
sophomore,
building construction
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Thank you. Well said. The only thing I have to disagree with is people spending their life savings on health care costs. Sometimes people have a child or a family member who is sick with a horrible disease or cancer and it is beyond them to pay even WITH healthcare. There is no reason someone should go broke while fighting cancer if they have healthcare coverage.
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The United States spends more tax money on health care per capita than any other country. If health care is expensive, most people will try their hardest to avoid hospital visits. And when they become old, all their health problems start to catch up with them and that drives the the governments medicare bills up. The reality is that social health care works, and I can vouch for that having lived in both the United States and Europe and experienced both systems.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at here, Chris - sounds like just as plausible solution would be one in which the government gets out of the business of funding health care in the first place. Personally, I would find a single-payer system to be an absolute sham whether it is 'socially beneficial' or not purely because it isn't something over which the government has any actual legal purview. The Federal Government was never designed to provide much of anything directly to the citizens; it was designed to act as a facilitator between the states.
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So, Chris, what happens when the government decides that it's not fiscally realistic to spend their limited healthcare funds on treating someone who only has a 5% chance of survival? Or when they decide certain rare diseases don't affect enough people to warrant limited research funds? Thanks, but the .gov has enough power over my life already.
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Chris, I liked some of your points. The following is an important one: "America wasn't built by people who woke up and thought about how much more they deserved and how others should provide it". I agree with your comment on hard work and wise living. If their was a little hard work and wise living from the average citizen in regard to taking responsibility to manage their own health & fitness the need for and dependence on healthcare would be reduced to a fraction. The healthcare industry is in bed the Big Brotha Pharma and the medical community in the objective of corporate fiscal health not the health of citizens. If public health announcements educating, informing, and motivating people to do their best to maintain nutrition, hydration, sleep, and exercise levels to support immune strength (health)with time equal to the air time that Big Brotha Pharma has on the TV airwaves, the dependence on being taken care of would not be the issue is is today. Since this is not going to happen as such an effort would create no direct revenue, it seems reasonable to have a system of socialized medicine to regulate healthcare and stop the greed and larceny.
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I think we are all missing the elephant in the room. Health care is not expensive because our Doctors spent so long in school, it is expensive due to defensive medicine practices. Defensive medicine is used because Doctors fear being sued. You've all seen the ambulance chaser commercials right? Until this problem is dealt with, no health care system will work effectively. Socialized systems can work (as we've seen in Europe) but only if the ambulance chasers are brought under control. Chances are in the US, if you control the ambulance chasers, you will ultimately bring down the costs in the private sector.
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