(A libertarian fundie for a change)
A rejection of health care egalitarianism, namely a recognition that the wealthy will purchase more and better health care than the poor. Trying to equalize health care consumption hurts the poor, since most feasible policies to do this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence. We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. Some of you don’t like the sound of that, but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods — most importantly status — which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree.
72 comments
Yes, the general attitude seems to be that improving the country's healthcare and extending it to the poor is what will FUCKING DESTROY AMERICA.
Not the Civil War, or the Great Depression, or the World Wars, or nuclear annihilation. None of these things were powerful enough to destroy America.
Nor were Communist, Keynesian administrations such as FDR, Eisenhower and Reagan.
No, what will ultimately DESTROY AMERICA is giving healthcare to the poor by mandating that no one cheats the system. How could our country possibly survive such an onslaught?
How does getting everyone to pay tax to give everyone healthcare somehow make more poor people die from lack of healthcare? This is contradictory.
And how does status lengthen your life?
Ah yes, trickle-down healthcare...
Because the rich who have access to cleaner living conditions, better food, and clean drinking water would require so much more healthcare than the poor who do not.
Definitely a classic case of the libertarian "I've got mine, screw you!" mindset. Not all of us think that having the wealthy "enjoy all sorts of other goods" is right. I certainly don't when it comes to health care.
Typical libertarian douchebag.
"but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods most importantly status which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree."
So... ego ... and having one's ass kissed prolongs life? Fuck my low-fat diet! I'm going to act important from now on!
"but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods most importantly status which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree."
You say that like it's a good thing.
since most feasible policies to do this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence.
Uh, don’t medical bills and insurance premiums take cash away from the poor?
the idea of poor people dying in what is arguably the richest country in the world is to me obscene.
Spend part of the money wasted in pet projects of our politicians, and cut the military busget and there will be money for healthcare.
why pay millions for a jet fighter that will beat a russian plane that was never built ? and which crashes regularly.
@ karana
"And how does status lengthen your life? "
the wealthy can go get the best medical treatment when they want it, as well as lower stress and better nutrition. Used wisely they should live longer and better lives than the poor.
Argument 1: Rich people will purchase more and better health care than poor people
Argument 2: Offering affordable health care hurts the poor because now they HAVE to buy it
Argument 3: It's OK if poor people die from lack of health care because rich people live longer due to the benefits of being rich anyway
What are the words I'm looking for? OH! "Fuck you"...the words I'm looking for are "Fuck you"
I knew you folks thought this way, but I didn't expect to see of one of you have the nads to come out and admit it.
People like you absolutely boggle my mind. I don't at all understand how you people tick. I'm not sure if I really want to. I don't want to become a monster. I'd give a complete stranger the shirt off my back, the shoes on my feet, and even the glasses on my face without a second thought if he needed them more than me. The thought I'd look down on him with disgust and contempt makes me physically ill. It feels instinctively, viscerally wrong on a level I can't describe.
"
Not the Civil War, or the Great Depression, or the World Wars, or nuclear annihilation. None of these things were powerful enough to destroy America.
Nor were Communist, Keynesian administrations such as FDR, Eisenhower and Reagan.
No, what will ultimately DESTROY AMERICA is giving healthcare to the poor by mandating that no one cheats the system. How could our country possibly survive such an onslaught? "
J. James, I very much intend on quoting you here.
"this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence"
No, taxes will take away YOUR money. Booga booga booga! We're coming to get you!
"this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence"
No, taxes will take away YOUR money. Booga booga booga! We're coming to get you!
"We have to accept that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor."
Until you are poor and in need of health care, that is.
Optical Delusion, you flatter me.
It's true, though. They're whinging on about wanting to move to Canada and holding signs that say "grim reapers for obamacare" and inconsistent bullshit like that. It lacks even basic self-awareness, and don't even get me started on the apocalyptic rhetoric that blowhards like Beck and Limbaugh waffle on about.
The supreme irony of this is that it was THEIR idea to begin with. It's downright hysterical; when the president chose to implement the conservative plan straight from Romney and the Heritage Foundation, the Right was given the choice between touting their bipartisanship and taking all the credit for the popular reforms. They chose neither. They simply could not bear to swallow their pride or give the president an ounce of recognition, so they turned against their own plan, decrying it as Communism! It's amazing!
We've had years to soak in the GOP's self-destructive nonsense on this issue. But it still amazes me!
While there is some truth to the fact that the poor die more quickly than the rich, for a variety of reasons including insufficient health care, that does not, by any stretch of the imagination, make it right.
It's time we ended policies that blatantly contribute to this discrepancy and/or make it harder for the poor to improve their status. Obamacare is a start but there's a lot more we can do. Comprehensive sex education and wider access to birth control will do a lot too.
Poor people are certainly likely to die earlier than the rich, for a variety of reasons. But dying younger for indirect reasons like a less healthy lifestyle, poorer diet or bad choices is not the same thing as standing by and letting someone die because they can't pay for needed medical treatment.
Here in Canada we have publicly funded, universal, healthcare.
The same thing exists in Italy, France, Greece, Jordan, China, Japan, Norway, and dozens of other countrys.
Wow... from a libertarian, please allow me to invite you to fuck off and die. Being a libertarian doesn't mean you have to be a selfish, greedy, uncaring asshole.
Also, isn't it the anti-Obamacare nutbags who are always claiming that there are going to be death panels deciding who lives and dies? Why is it you care about the lives of people then, and not now?
Why are some Americans against a national health system? Because they have no idea what one is, they been convinced that it doesn't work and lied to about countries that have it.
Under a national program everyone gets treatment, supplimental plans get you private rooms and other perks sure, but treatment is what you need.
And no, we don't have to accept that the poor can just die in poverty, even America hasn't abandoned the needy until this recent group of GOPs and their Tea-Party (mostly on SS and Medicare)base.
Even Roman emporers knew that you need to provide some level of comfort to the proles every now and then. Because eventually, the poor will realise, - they're poor not stupid -, that they have you outnumbered by millions to one and if you won't provide, they'll just have to take. And there is nothing your wealth and 'status' can do to stop them.
@ J. James
I understand your outrage, and admire your prose, but I'm not sure your point is valid. I must point out that financial mismanagement has brought down more superpowers than war or plague ever did.
> Trying to equalize health care consumption hurts the poor, since most feasible policies to do this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence.
Hence the concept of progressive taxation. I would happily tax the rich until they fucking bleed.
"We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor."
Interesting cause of death on the death certificate. Lack of cash.
Personally I think that universal healthcare is a basic tenet of a civilised country. America doesn't have it. You do the math.
@John_In_Oz
I'm sorry, but you did miss my point. Completely. "Financial mismanagement" is important, yes(although it is a gross oversimplification that ignores external factors at best to attribute those empires' collapses to it), but that wasn't at all what I was referring to.
It was the inane concept that America is so fragile, even improving it will cause the country to collapse. I contrasted it with severe internal and external threats that we survived(such as the depression and civil war) to ridicule that notion.
Furthermore, "financial mismanagement"? Where did that come from? The ACA itself certainly isn't financial mismanagement, it's the solution to free riders making health care costs explode. In fact, the CBO estimates that over a decade it will actually reduce the deficit.
@Brendan Rizzo
As for this fundie, though...
What a wonderfully lazy intellectual position.
I don't think it's just about people swallowing the myth that the US is some fragile glass figurine that will explode into dust the minute we get national healthcare. A number of the people who whine and squawk, "OMG it's all over and we're all gonna DIE!!!eleventyone!!" tend to be the ones who can afford healthcare already. Privilege. Blind acceptance of authority and privilege ("at least I have insurance, not like them poor folks!")
If America is going to collapse, it will not be due to giving the poor medical care, it will be because people like Tyler Cowen hold too much power and influence.
Tyler Cowen isn't just some idiot with an internet connection, he is one of the most influential "economists" in the United States.
I'm not sure why Americans keep propping these assholes on pedestals, but the U.S. economy is unlikely to recover anytime soon if the likes of Tyler Cowen has any say in it.
The free market does indeed provide solutions for most social problems we encounter.
However, as the free market isn't human, those solutions will, by extension, also be inhuman.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: a libertarian is a fascist who wants to smoke pot.
To the 1%, libertarians are useful idiots, providing a (pseudo-)intellectual argument for a return to the age of the robber barons.
"We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. Some of you don’t like the sound of that, but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods most importantly status which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree."
Let's see how you like the sound of that too - when you've lost your job, home etc. Remember:
Anyone is just one paycheque away from homelessness. No Exceptions.
There's a good reason why Cuba spends as much on healthcare as defence. A healthy populace is the ultimate investment. Which results in a healthy infrastructure as a whole.
The chances of finding a Cuban with bad teeth is as likely as... well... finding hen's teeth. Good dental health is the basis of good bodily health as a whole. Resulting in a healthy Body Politic as a whole too. But hey, you want the likes of Cuba, China, the UK et al to be ahead of your country in terms of Gene Therapy research, you go right ahead. See you on the plane to Havana, Beijing or London, should you want said therapy to cure a previously incurable disease, Ty.
They do, at least, have a point. Life expectancy for the wealthy and higher status is longer than for the lower status, even when there is universal healthcare (see: the UK). Even when you control for things like diet and housing, simply belonging to a higher status group improves your life expectancy, for poorly understood reasons that probably involve stress and social benefits.
Some do find this outrageous, and some do try to do something about this, but mostly people give a shrug when the differences in life expectancy are brought up. Mostly people seem fine with living in a system that requires a certain percentage to live at the bottom with no status and little prospects, as long as they have basic access to food, shelter, and medicine. Sometimes not even that. And most people are even happy to blame these scapegoats for their position.
So I can see it being hard to convince people that they should care about access to healthcare, when the people campaigning for it are so unbothered by the rest of the unequal system.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.
