Quick post on this part of the debate I found amazing, but not surprising coming from a Socialist:
Obama thinks that merely existing entitles you to the labor and technology of health care. So if merely existing entitles you to a need then where does it stop? We need food. So now because we exist the government should provide you with food free of cost? We need clothing. Government now provides you with clothing in a Obama world.
How about shelter?
That’s a need….so now the government will give you a home to live in free of cost (free to those in need, but quite expensive for those who pay taxes).
Because those needs are now a right.
See author page
We are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights and among these are the right to live. Life is a right.
HOWEVER!!!!!
If life is a right, then it is unconstitutional to deny that right of a child in the womb.
No one’s gonna call him on that one though.
Hey, O-Man! I need some new wheels to get to work. That’s in the Constitution. Somewhere.
HOWEVER…
…the converse is not “true” by their standards. Being in need doesn’t necessarily entitle you to exist.
Obama and Infanticide
OOOPS
I just rushed to post without seeng that Scott already had picked up on that.
Not shelter per se, just government subsidized mortgages right?
Hmmmm, lemme check the Bill of Rights on shelter.
😉
hehehehe
Tax Shelter?
Hey, why was Obama NOT at the hospital at his mom’s deathbed, helping her, as a lawyer to fight the insurance company? Too busy organizing the community, writing books about himself, and preparing to run for office….too busy for a dying mother who needed him. What a guy!
@wooooomannnn:
It’s worse than that.
Obama didn’t even attend his own mother’s funeral.
What kind of person does something like that?
So how ’bout the newborn who just dodged an abotion? I guess the Obamessiah figures he doesn’t exist quite yet, huh?
It’s an argument for enslavement of your countrymen. You exist, therefore, you are entitled to be supported by taxes placed on them to support you. It’s reverse imperialism. In the Ancient World, conquerors taxed the conquered. They’re reversing it. Collectivism is always enslavement.
Nothing new in Hussein’s proposal. Blacks have had that ‘right’ since 1865 according to them. Over 90% of them have made it work, it’s called the Democrats Slavery (welfare) System.
This is going to probably be the final nail in the coffin. Health care is a “right” (properly contextualized), and in this economy, he has the perfect opportunity to make the case for it:
http://allbleedingstops.blogspot.com/2008/10/healthcare-is-not-right.html
Rights, properly understood, are limitations on governmental power, and thus, are fundamental freedoms. These are freedoms, which are ours, are not responsibilities that you are due from somebody else, they aren’t earned. There is no ‘self evident’ right to an education, nor is there a right to quality retirement after working for 40 years.
When you have a right where and when you are free from something (a political intrusion), as they are ‘self-evident,’ then you must ask yourself, ultimately:
What about rights that are not defined by freedom alone, freedom from something (self-determination, religion, speech)? In other words, what about ‘education’? What do we do with education? Isn’t it less important than health, in that moment of pain?
So what makes education so valuable and health assistance less so?
This, of course, is where it gets murky and the bearings for any real charted course here lose their significance from one to another. So let us start with: Is education an entitlement, or a right? If we were to remove ‘universal education’ would that be unhelpful, or immoral?
Some no doubt would say, unhelpful, as education has a ‘society benefit’, it aids the country and communities to educate its citizenry, it has utilitarian good of usefulness; it’s not that we are doing just things, we are being useful to the nation’s final interests. True, no doubt. But is there not a moral dimension to ‘universal education’ as well?
We don’t simply teach the smart, the clever, those to be leaders. We don’t use utilitarian metrics in our educational system. We strive for ‘equality’, justice. Even the dunces and disabled are given an education. They are even given a ‘special education’ in many instances. Why? No doubt there is a case that can be made they will have no utility, little benefit for society. We have no utilitarian duty to them, it’s not like many will be socially ‘helpful’. Yet we do it.
Universal education has much in common to universal health assistance: both are not rights, both promote benefits, both arise out of moral argumentation, justice.
What we are discovering is people, all people, deserve in this technologically advanced day and age, not to be in pain. No one likes it. This is the humanitarian impulse that is growing in society in the modern age.
But even outside of this “religious” empathetic impulse to lessen or remove pain, there is an argument to be made for the societal benefit of universal health care:
If people are not healthy, they cannot be productive, have utility.
And there is an argument for cost-efficiency:
If we don’t treat patients in a timely fashion, they become sicker, and more expensive to treat over time.
Stating that even if we are talking about a person’s utility, their benefit, to the economic wealth of the nation, there is always going to be those individuals, who on no fault of their own, a Downs’ syndrome child, disabled persons, should be entitled to health care simply because humanitarian reasons weigh heavy on us in this day and age of comfort.
Obama is now calling health care a “moral obligation”, yet I don’t see it as him as permitting the poor the ability to extort us—or even as an obligation that the poor impose upon us. Rather, he is enlisting us as members of a civilized society to recognize that all humans are vulnerable to disease, bad luck —this is something we all have in common— and so willingly pooling one’s resources ensures one’s own protection against fate.
In this economy, this time, where baby boomers are retiring, some losing their savings, coming off of Bush’s privatization goading and practices, contrasted with McCain’s health care program– or lack there of — unemployment rising, you will probably find Obama’s message on health care solidify his lead.
I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for McCain-Palin to reveal what Obama’s (& Hillary as well) “Universal Healthcare” truely is; Socialized Medicine. That’s what he wants much of his new spending and bigger government to be. Folks socialized medicine does not work when it falls under a government beauracracy. One has only to review how poorly it worked under the USSR and Red China to see how horrible a system socialized medicine is.
Under socialized medicine, your medical treatment would be sub-standard because the health-care professionals are paid not by insurance, but by set fees approved by the government (Very similar to how medicare works in nursing homes). It removes competition even more dramatically than current HMO systems. Like the horror stories that have arisen concerning disreputable nursing home facilities, unless you are rich and can afford better service, the treatment you would receive would be the same given to the homeless and illegal aliens in free clinics. At least, when first initiated. Then it would degrade from there.
Obama is correct that under socialized medicine the citizenry has “a right” to medical treatment. What he doesn’t tell us is government & medical entity beauracracies would define that right as minimal in quality and effectiveness. Taking capitalism out of the medical profession would reduce the incentive for furture generations to seek employment in the medical fields. It would continue to become increasingly more difficult to get appointments and would reach the point where many will die before they are ever seen by a physician.
Universal Healthcare is a plan that would ensure all Americans received the same quality of healthcare as your average third world nation.
Obama is a complete asshole. He talks about baby boomers retiring… but the idiot is for abortion and letting babies died after an unsuccesful abortion. Who does he think will replace the baby boomers if it is not the new born babies? Please do not elect that bum communist jerk with no brain.
Scrapiron,
I’m not sure if you are aware are not. But there are more poor white people on welfare than black’s or hispanic’s combined. Not everyone is born into the best situations. Some fight their way out but some just are to lazy to change what their use to. I think that white, black, and hispanics have all become slaves to the welfare system. When you don’t want much in life and you’re given the little that you need. I believe you loose your desire for better.
Obama’s ” white ” mother was on welfare. Obviously he fought his way out of the system. Biden was not born into a wealthy family. Unfortunately; there are not enough Obama’s or Bidens out there.
I don’t believe that there should be handouts given to everyone that thinks our goverment owes them or think they are entitled to something. But my question is this. If we don’t do something to help people in our own country that are suffering, why spend so much money helping other countries?
I have another question:
What do you think McCain can or will do to help our economy?
Oh look!
Johnny is back with another bright, shiny, new screen name.
I guess “Johnny”, and “jg” just weren’t workin’ for him.
You told me here that you wouldn’t “hide behind anything” even though you had already done it here.
Now, you’re doing it again.
I guess what I said about you here was correct after all.
I knew it would be.
By the way, you still have multiple cleanups to do here and here and here.
Best get busy.
You don’t want to run out of time.
@RIGHT TO BE LEFT: so are you suggesting that mccain and palin were born with a silver spoon in their mouths? they have both worked for what they have and mccain has given up more than most of us can imagine. i don’t know how to fix healthcare, but i think more needs to be done. i guess if you take away the drug and insurace lobbyists then you can get down to the brass tacks of it. you have lawyers running the health insurance company policy makers, that doesn’t make sense. how to fix it i don’t know, i can tell you i don’t want socialized healthcare.
“One has only to review how poorly it worked under the USSR and Red China to see how horrible a system socialized medicine is. ” (Rocky_B)
You don’t need to go that far… just look at Quebec.
SOCIALIZED MEDECINE: THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE
http://www.theadvocates.org/freeman/8903lemi.html
… The first thing to realize is that free public medicine isn’t really free. What the consumer doesn’t pay, the taxpayer does, and with a vengeance. Public health expenditures in Quebec amount to 51 per cent of the provincial government budget. (I reajusted the figure here for 2007)
… The average two-child family pays close to $5,000 per year in public health insurance. This is much more expensive than the most comprehensive private health insurance plan. (And those figures are for 1980 years, I don’t know the real figures for 2007-2008)
… Aside from the problems inherent in all monopolies, the fact that health services are free leads to familiar economic consequences. Basic economics tells us that if a commodity is offered at zero price, demand will increase, supply will drop, and a shortage will develop.
… As demand rises and expensive technology is introduced, health costs soar. But with taxes already at a breaking point, government has little recourse but to try to hold down costs. In Quebec, hospitals have been facing budget cuts both in operating expenses and in capital expenditures. Hospital equipment is often outdated, and the number of general hospital beds dropped by 21 per cent from 1972 to 1980.
… Nationalization of the health industry also has led to increased centralization and politicization. Work stoppages by nurses and hospital workers have occurred half a dozen times over the last 20 years, and this does not include a few one-day strikes by doctors. Ambulance services and dispatching have been centralized under government control. As this article was being written, ambulance drivers and paramedics were working in jeans, they had covered their vehicles with protest stickers, and they were dangerously disrupting operations.
… The most visible consequence of socialized medicine in Canada is in the poor quality of services. Health care has become more and more impersonal. Patients often feel they are on an assembly line. Doctors and hospitals already have more patients than they can handle and no financial incentive to provide good service. Their customers are not the ones who write the checks anyway.
Myth: People living in countries with universal health care do not go bankrupt paying for their medical treatment
Fact: Not only do fewer people go bankrupt in the U.S. than critics claim, but people in other health care systems also incur high medical costs.
The claim that half of all American bankruptcies are associated with health care costs originates from a deeply-flawed 2005 study that artificially inflates the number of medically-linked bankruptcy through sloppy definitions and overly-broad categories.
In tax-funded systems like the U.K. and Canada, it is virtually impossible to declare medical bankruptcy. British and Canadian citizens do, however, incur large debts by seeking treatment out of the country or by paying for-life saving medications out of their own pockets. In both Canada and Europe, it is much more difficult and costly to declare bankruptcy than in the U.S. so fewer people are likely to do so. However, bankruptcy rates are rising.
In the Netherlands, many people struggle with health care costs. In 2007, 240,000 people failed to pay their premiums for at least half a year. Those who default on premiums lose coverage – but must be accepted by other insurers, creating a “merry-go-round” of debt.
In Switzerland, the process of declaring bankruptcy is complex and often debts are restructured in lieu of bankruptcy. But bankruptcies are also going up, rising 8.2 percent in the first half of 2007 over the previous year. In 2006, 150,000 people lost health services because they had not fully paid their premiums. The cost of unpaid premiums is currently estimated between 300 and 400 million Swiss francs.
(Costs of Health Care)
http://www.biggovhealth.org/
Craig and jcheney: Thanks for the links. I think these links will be able to change the minds of some independent friends of mine who are leaning toward the right but still unsure due to the issue of health care.
I can’t help but think that it would only be natural for a man who got everything he ever wanted, up through college and beyond, without having to scrabble and scrape for it to think everybody else is entitled to the same treatment.
I have some serious reservations about his mother having to argue about preexisting conditions with an insurance company, that would mean that she changed insurance when she came to Hawaii. I see nowhere in his mother’s career where she was in a situation that would have insurance as a benefit. One could easily believe that his mother was then on her mother’s insurance because she had none.
I see the statement about health insurance as a blatant resort to his feeling of entitlement, which he somehow has projected to the world at large. This would also be influenced by the the socialist teachings his mother learned in her college years, what his childhood mentors instilled in him and the Hyde Park liberals he associates with now. I don’t know which is sadder, that this man has had it all handed to him and now believes everybody should live that way, or the the influence of his past and his rich liberal friends has made it an imperative to him that he espouse socialism.
While researching this response I spent about an hour on the story of Obama and his family, primarily his mother, and I am sickened. His mother never really got her self esteem in shape well enough to accept being white, she apparently fantasized about black men, even according to Barack Obama himself. And he really has no basis for knowing who he is beyond the vague notion of a black African father who may or may not have seduced an underage girl while married to another woman, a father who had less contact with him than most people have with the salesman who sold them their last house. I am not at all encouraged about his story.
If I had an acquaintance with Obama’s background I would keep that person at arm’s length. Someone who relies on a chameleon past so completely cannot ever be known for consistency in behavior going forward.
Now I’m wondering – and this isn’t a criticism of Obama or another account of trying to make him look bad; just an honest question – just how much did Obama contribute to his mother’s health care?