It’s all about the selfishness. The “I got mine — you fend for yourself to get yours.” The fear that someone might take “my stuff.” It’s the attitude of a four-year-old, and a poorly-raised one at that.
Vjack raises this interesting point:
Have you seen any of the clips from Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ (R-KS) July town hall? I was watching it the other night, and I think it contained a moment that perfectly sums up the Republican mind set when it comes to health care reform and most social programs. Jenkins received a great question from Elizabeth Smith, a constituent whose employer does not provide health insurance and cannot afford private insurance.
I want an option that I can pay for. I work. I pay my bills. I’m not a burden on the state. I pay my taxes. So why can’t I get an affordable option? Why are you against that?
It is a fair question at which Jenkins initially laughs and then responds in a condescending manner, suggesting that “people should…go be a grown-up and go buy the insurance.”
Right. “Grow up.” Belittle those who have fallen through the cracks. Assume it’s their moral failing, not our responsibility.
But none of this was what really got my attention.
No, even though Rep. Jenkins appeared to be saying something akin to “let them eat cake,” this was not the significant moment for me. That came when someone in the crowd could be heard shouting the following to Ms. Smith:
Why should we pay for your health care?
The horror! The idea that one might feel any obligation to care for another! That “I got mine” and that to help someone else get “theirs” would be tantamount to theft.
Isn’t it ironic that this is the sentiment of groups like Glenn Beck’s “9/12” organization, which ostensibly seeks to reinstill the spirit of pulling together like we did after the 9/11 attacks? Would it be right to say, “Hey, I didn’t get trapped in a building? Why should we pay for someone to dig you out?”
“Why should we pay for your health care?”
Maybe this story will be illustrative:
And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Decades of GOP rabble-rousing about “welfare queens” and “illegals stealing our jobs” and “deadbeats who won’t work” have turned the idea of a compassionate society (let alone a “compassionate conservatism”) into a joke. People are so angry, or so selfish, or so frightened, that they’d just as soon see others die, or be crippled, or be driven to bankruptcy, than lend a hand. They see nothing wrong with telling people to “let them buy insurance,” or to insist that anyone who wants care can get it by going to the Emergency Room.
“Why should we pay for your health care?”
As a literary character put it.
“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse me — I don’t know that.”
“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.
“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”
“Why should we pay for your health care?” Why should we mind others business? Why should we be our brother’s keeper?
Because morality — Christian, among many others — demands it. Because it is what we should want to do — to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, as someone once put it. Because a society cares for one another, holds a social contract to stand together, so that life is not, as Hobbes put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Because it’s the right thing to do.
Do I hate cheats? Sure. Do I get pissed off at deadbeats? Of course. Do I worry that some person who doesn’t “deserve it” will get something paid for with my taxes, earned by the “sweat of my brow”? Yeah, I do.
But my offended sense of fairness is trivial compared to the thought that people’s lives may be ruined, or lost if I don’t help. If once I have “mine,” my greatest imperative is to keep it at any costs, which means throwing anyone else off the sleigh, then I can hardly claim any moral high ground — unless it’s morality as defined by Ayn Rand.
So have we come to the point that John Galt wins? Where everything is a matter of who comes out at the top of the zero-sum game of “all against all”? Where all that matters is that, for this moment at least, “I’ve got mine, and if you try to take it, I’ll frackin’ kill you, man!”
Is that what your parents taught you? Is that what your church teaches you? Is that how you treat your neighbors? Is that the lesson you want to pass on to your children?
And if your children fall through the cracks, if despite working hard they (or their children) fall ill, and can’t afford insurance, or the treatment they need, will you ask them, “Why should we pay for your health care?”
It’s the right thing to do.
Brilliant, as always.
Well put, ***Dave.
It is the right thing to do.
Yeah, there’s always a tiny minority who scam the system, but the basic good that will be huge.
I’m old enough to remember what it was like here in Canada before we got universal care. I know a family that lost everything because a child got leukemia. Everything.
No one should lose their home and the future of their other children because a child gets sick. I hope your president can find a way that everyone gets a basic lifeline.
~dances happily~
Marn’s alive, Marn’s alive!
^.^
A tiny minority? Things must be different where you are from. I see hundreds of people every day who abuse the welfare system. Drunks who only get checks because they are drunks. Woman who refuse to get married until they have had all the children they want so they can stay on medicaid. The people who have children for the soul purpose of getting another check. Welfare was designed to help people move out of poverty. It is being so grossly abused now though, that it has no purpose but to allow people to live a life of laziness. I am all about helping those who help themselves, but I should not have to spend my hard earned money on people who have no intentions of bettering their lives.
Ashley, can you give us a bit more info about where you are and what you’re doing that you see “hundreds” of cases of welfare abuse every day? Particularly with the specific motivations you mention?
Assuming the number is correct, do you have a basis (i.e., a percent of the welfare population) for maintaining that it is not, in fact, a tiny minority? And, for that matter, that welfare is basically unused by any but those who want to “live a life of laziness”?
(I have to say, if I could be paid enough by the government to live a life of laziness, that would be kind of appealing. I’m sure there’s no downside to it, so where do I sign up?)
And at what point in the proportion of the population involved do we abandon the idea of caring for our fellow humans (whether they “deserve” it their actions or not)?
To draw from another discussion, it better that ten go free than that one guilty person suffer? In other words, if 90% of the folks on welfare are lazy cheaters (for sake of argument), how do we deal with that to make sure that the 10% who aren’t are helped? Do you have concrete suggestions for how to determine which welfare recipients are, in fact, intent on bettering their lives?
I’m not in favor of wasting money, or of incenting socially destructive behavior, but I’m not also a fan of the workhouses, either (see Dickens reference).
Plus, we’re also talking here specifically about health care, as opposed to the general welfare system. Most of your examples involve someone getting “a check”, which doesn’t apply here.
It’s not about “fairness”. Fairness would be if we had a choice about this rediculous healthcare plan and we don’t. It is NOT an American right to have healthcare, however, it IS an American right to work, capitalize and pay for your own healthcare. It is NOT the governments job to ensure that the citizens have healthcare any more that it is their business if we have enough toilet paper.
We could have solved the problem with those who take advantage of the welfare system with the drug testing proposal (cost of test comes out of recipients money). Working people have to take drug tests and so do military personnel. Why not welfare recpients accepting handouts?
This administration is extremely bold in thinking that they are responsible for the people. They have overstepped our boundaries and our rights. They are forcing us into taking responsibility for people I don’t know. Our paychecks get smaller, handouts get bigger. As the T-shirt says “Why should I have to pay for YOUR healthcare”?
@Jennifer –
Why should I have to pay for your healthcare? Because when you are sick, it increases the chances of others around you — maybe even people I know, people I care about getting sick. Because when you are sick, because you couldn’t afford preventive care, or couldn’t afford to go into the doctor at the first signs of illness, or maybe haven’t been able to afford to get in to the doctor at all, then you’re hurting society, you’re hurting others, you’re certainly a less productive person because you’re not working (I hope — otherwise you’re working at lower efficiency *and* spreading your illness to your coworkers and customers).
Why should I have to pay for your healthcare, and you pay for mine? Because I *am* my brother’s keeper, whether my brother is a saint or a sinner, an industrious worker or a lazy slob. Because you’re my neighbor, in the Christian sense of the word, the person I’m called upon to love as much as myself.
It’s not the government’s job to ensure that citizens have health care? Is it their job (our job, as *we* are the government) to ensure that citizens have clean water, or safe streets, or enough food to keep from starving to death?
Not everyone is so fortunate as to be able to afford to “work, capitalize, and pay for their own healthcare,” fully or at all. We know this because, before insurance became fairly standard for most jobs, we had people dying of preventable illness. And that *still happens today* for people who are working at marginal jobs that don’t provide insurance — insurance which has become the only way to afford most standard medical treatments and regular checkups.
Health care for all isn’t a right — but it is both a moral and pragmatic obligation for a society, as much as the police and fire departments are.
I could not disagree more. I am responsible for no one but me and mine. The government has absolutely NO business in our healthcare business or how fat our kids are. If you or anyone else feels obligated to “keep your brother” you are certainly free to give your money to the charity of your choice. For the government to FORCE people to buy into a government healthcare system is not only unconstitutional but it is stealing. You are stealing money from those who have earned it to give to those who haven’t. I (as well as others) give money willingly to different charities. THAT is how we “keep our brothers”. You cannot force people into being charitable. They WILL take their money and run. You do realize that over half of the country is TAKING instead of MAKING, right? Just because YOU feel it is right for eveyone to “chip in” and be our “brothers keepers” doesn’t mean it’s possible or feasible. The “keepers” are tired of giving.
@Jennifer – I’m very sorry you feel that way. I’m wondering why draw the line where you do — “me and mine”? Why not just you? Why not you and your family and your neighbors? Or the folks in your town? What’s the appropriate bounds beyond which you have no responsibility?
In our historic experience, reliance solely upon private charity to help those who are disadvantaged or unfortunate or even just foolish leads to a Dickensian world of poorhouses, workhouses, little match girls, disease, and death. Not a world I care to live in, and not one that will sustain the national prosperity that the “I’m responsible for me and mine” crowd enjoy and benefit from.
Your “Takers/Makers” analogy is facile and mathematically dubious, but it makes a lovely catch phrase. Are there some particular numbers you have in mind with your “over half the country is TAKING instead of MAKING” realization?
Then why should somebody who doesn’t own a car be forced to pay for the maintenance of roads that you drive on? Is the government “stealing” my money to employ military personnel? The Constitution requires the government to provide for the common good, and that is something we all have to chip in for. It’s not charity, it’s part of the basis of our government. We are a society, not 300,000,000 individuals who are responsible only for ourselves.
52% of this nation collect SOME KIND of government check/charity. That is fact and you can read about it. The Takers out number the Makers. If EVERYONE took the responsibility of “me and mine” then the rest of us wouldn’t have to pick up the slack now would we? Of course, you will have those who are disabled, single parents etc that will need a little help. There should NOT be career welfare recipients and yes, I believe they should have to take a drug test before they collect their benefits. The more we give, the more they take.
Our government has certain functions for which it was intended to be responsible. Our military to protect our country, the borders of our country, federal laws to keep from chaos etc etc etc. NOT to take away our freedom of choice, not to tell us how fat our kids are, not to regulate what we eat, not to force us to “be our brothers keeper”. THOSE are NOT functions of government and they have overstepped their boundaries.
Just because you don’t own a car, doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING you own wasn’t transported on the highway system to get to you. So, yes, you do use the roads in a roundabout way. And if it’s “everybody” that was going to “chip in” to get Obamacare, maybe I wouldn’t be so against it, but is ONLY those who can afford it who will be paying for it and THOSE people are the very ones who don’t need it! Yes, you are right. We ARE a society, so everyone should pull their own weight so others don’t have to take up the slack. In every form of life it’s dog eat dog. Be strong or get eaten. Sit on your butt and take handouts or go make money and support yourself. BUT DON’T tell me that I am going to be FORCED to take up the slack for a slacker, because I will fight you on that one. It’s nothing but wealth redistribution. It is stealing from more fortunate and giving to those who have done NOTHING to earn it. It’s what Obama and the Obamabots are about and I will have no part of it, willingly.
@Jennifer – Regarding the 52% number. Can you cite that “fact”? I’d like to “read about” what goes into that number.
1. That tells me that we have a lot of people who need help.
2. How much of that includes Social Security and other programs to assist the post-working age elderly? Or programs to assist the disabled?
3. It’s not, as Avo hinted at, a binary situation. People who are receiving some sort of government assistance are very likely also paying into the system with payroll taxes, SSI, sales taxes, etc., even if they not, for example, making enough to pay state or federal income tax.
Have you read any Dickens?
Why? On what basis? If I’m only responsible for “me and mine,” same for you, then why should I be at all concerned about those who are disabled, unable to work, unable to find a sufficiently paying job, unable to to get needed medical care?
As a whole, I agree. There are probably some folks who actually do need life-long assistance. And there are certainly some who game the system.
And if they test positive then … what? They and their families go hungry that week, month, whatever? One strike and you’re out?
Establish justice, promote domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.
I submit that any attempt by law to “keep from chaos” is going to infringe somebody’s “freedom of choice.”
Y’know, Jennifer, I keep hearing this particular criticism, and I just don’t get it. Are you suggesting that there is a general welfare benefit to identifying and promoting healthy eating and physical activity for kids? I mean, the US government (and state governments, and various private organizations) have been doing that for decades. I can remember programs like that 40-odd years ago when I was in elementary school. Why all the sudden angst about it now?
The only actual regulation of what we eat that I am aware of coming from the federal government is food safety inspections and similar laws. Are you suggesting we do away with that?
From a strictly moral/religious standpoint, you’re correct. It would be inappropriate for the government to serve up communion, baptise babies, have national prayer days, or enforce as a religious dictate that the Mighty Jehovah and his Son Jesus Christ require us to be our brother’s keeper and to love our neighbor. Some bully pulpit moral suasion is one thing, but that’s about it.
On the other hand, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, that’s what a society is all about. Sick and starving people can’t work. They certainly don’t learn well and are at best suited only for rote manual labor. They spread disease. They commit crimes. When they and their families are hungry enough they riot and destroy, demolishing private property and the economic system. Our national prosperity — and civil order and domestic tranquility — is dependent on a certain amount of mutual care for all citizens.
If everyone could afford necessary medical care (or the insurance to pay for it), then we wouldn’t need health care reform. But they can’t. So is the answer to simply let them get sick, quarantine them somewhere so that they don’t spread their diseases, and be glad that we have a few extra dollars in our pockets?
It sounds like you live in a very scary world, Jennifer.
And there you go. If someone is asking for assistance, then they are defined as a slacker. You have no concept of someone who simply can’t find a job that pays enough to pay for regular doctor’s visits, preventive care, treatment of chronic conditions before they get worse. If they need help, they must be a slacker, out to get Your Stuff.
Like I said, it sounds like a scary world.
How many of that 52% contribute through taxes? Most of them have jobs, albeit low-paying ones. Everybody pays sales tax. Your “takers” and “makers” are not mutually exclusive.
What about the tax breaks the wealthy receive? That qualifies them as “takers,” doesn’t it? Why should a giant company pay no tax because of loopholes?
I work 40+ hours for minimum wage plus tips. My employer is a small business owner who cannot afford to provide insurance to his ten employees. I have just earned a bachelor’s degree in information technology that is worthless because employers who require the degree also want 2-5 years’ experience. Because of pre-existing conditions, no insurance company will cover me with a plan that has premiums that will leave me enough to pay rent and utilities. Apparently, in your opinion, this makes me a “slacker.”
Your idea of a society in which nobody should need help is a fantasy. Did nobody in your family ever need help? Do you really have no friends or relatives who took advantage of Medicare, Social Security, Federal student loans, or VA benefits? I daresay if you look, you’ll find that you and yours are as much of a “slacker” as I am.
You go, @Avo!
You both are thinking like “entitled” people. You are NOT entitled to healthcare, you are NOT entitled to my money or any one elses. Feast or famine. Dog eat dog. Only the strong survive. As a matter of fact, Dave, my world is just fine. There may be some newer generations in my distant family that get help from the government, maybe, I don’t know for sure because I am sure it is embarrassing and it’s not something anyone brags about. I have been in need. I worked 2 crappy, low-paying jobs. When that wasn’t enough, I worked another job. I NEVER collected government assistance in my life. Somewhere along the line, people figured out that if they don’t want to work as hard as others, the government will take care of them. My grandparents and probably your grandparents would have NEVER taken a handout. Now, it is uncommon if you can find some one who doesn’t get some type of welfare. If people aren’t offered help, they will make do.
I don’t know where you get YOUR idea of a society. YOUR idea sounds more like a commune. I am not responsible for healthcare or to feed you or to put your kids through college, nor are responsible for mine. Also, you have NEVER met anyone who was denied healthcare because it is law that hospitals must treat them. Hence the reason illegals are able to get treated at the taxpayers expense which opens a another can of worms.
As far as testing positive for drugs…YES! There are consequences for everything you do! If you know you will not receive your handout if you smoke dope, DON’T SMOKE DOPE! I am subjected to drug tests to keep my job and I know the consequences if I do drugs! Why do you people want to protect the welfare recipients and not hold them responsible for their own lives????!!!!
And lastly, the fat kids….Michelle Obama has WASTED millions of taxpayer dollars putting salad bars and crap in schools that kids are NOT eating! It’s not enough for her to simply suggest, they have to try to regulate our lives and what our kids eat by trying to FORCE it upon our kids. Guess what…kids are going to eat what they want to eat and it’s NOT the salad bar if they have a choice. It is NONE of the governments business to tell us how to raise our kids or what to feed them. It’s not the governments job to make restaurants change their menu and to use less salt and all that BS. If you don’t like the food, don’t eat there. THAT is the American way. It’s all about choices. Good or bad choices, they are yours to make, NOT the governments.
In MY society, if I see a kid that needs help, I help. If I see an old person that needs help across the street, I help. I see a bum on the street, I give a few bucks. Some one needs a ride, tire changed, I am there. It’s NOT my responsiblity to provide healthcare or raise their kids for them. Every one is responsible for themselves and their own and if everyone would stop relying so much on the government we would all be better off.
Speaking of government handouts….where does Ms. Fluke get off expecting the government to pay for her birth control???? PPFFFF!!!
We are not talking about health care! We are talking about health care coverage! People opposing the Affordable Health Care Act often try to pretend that because health care is available, all arguments in favor of affordable health care are invalid. This is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. I’m tired of hearing that i can just go to the emergency room if I need medical attention. Emergency room care is very expensive, and routine check-ups, needed to prevent medical emergencies, are not available there.
I am not asking for free health care. I do not want you to pay for my health care. I want health care that is affordable for people who don’t make $40,000 a year.
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In your society, you help old ladies across the street. Great. Do you help them pay their rent if they are going to be kicked out? I don’t think so. You are clearly willing to help people as long as it doesn’t cost you one thin dime. I do not know if you are Christian, but in a society that often proclaims itself to be Christian, this sounds like the last thing Jesus Christ would advocate.
As far as birth control, why do you apparently have no problems with vasectomies being covered? Men should get this much more expensive handout because… why, exactly?
It sounds like you are parroting the talking points of Rush Limbaugh and all the other right-wing pundits without exercising independent thought. You present opinions as if they were facts, change the subject to deflect arguments, and commit numerous other logical fallacies. Attempting to have a rational discussion with you is an exercise in futility. I admit that I should have realized this when you sought out Dave’s post just to flame him. I should not have succumbed to the temptation to feed the troll.
You are a typical lefty wanting your entitlements. You get NOTHING wthout working for it! Is that plain enough? You are entitled to nothing but FREE AIR. No free food, free rent, free ride, free healthcare, free NOTHING. Everything that you get for free, SOME ONE ELSE WORKED FOR. Did I say “free vasectomies for everyone”??? NO! PERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY is my entire point! If it sounds like I am parroting, I would say DITTO to you. You sound like a typical liberal….GIMME GIMME GIMME.
Hey, I have a brilliant idea….how about the people who want to “opt out” of this fabulous, wonderful, Obamacare, and keep the healthcare we have, you leave us alone. YOU people, who are “all for” this Obamacare BS, go for it! You pay for each other and support each other and whatever….. OH WAIT! You people couldn’t AFFORD Obamacare without US!!!! HMMMM…sounds like a big’ol HANDOUT to me!!! Call me a troll, whatever. I speak the truth and if you are an Obamabot, you are all for wealth redistribution and you are a MOOCHER. Period.
“Call me a troll, whatever. ”
OK. You’re a troll, whatever. Love your caps and multiple exclamation points, though.
Thank you. I pride myself on BEING RIGHT, BEING A BITCH (or TROLL, or ALL OF THE ABOVE) :), and being independent. Obviously, I am GOOD at it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But in a dog eat dog world, I would eat the Liberals first so I wouldn’t have to listen to their insessant begging and whining… 🙂
P.S….Why would you make a ridiculous, publicly accessible lefty website unless you were trolling for trolls? TROLL!?! You don’t want sensible feedback? Don’t put your ridiculous lefty ideas where the independent, smart people can comment. Get a job. Quit begging. You are not entitled to squat.
@Jennifer. ***Dave isn’t begging. I think he’s happy to have the opportunity to give more than he gets from any level of government. I don’t think Avocet is begging either. He’s arguing that everyone deserves a fair shake, even those who aren’t fortunate enough to have been born into a wealthy family. I also don’t think ***Dave is trolling for trolls, or anything of the sort. Clearly we interpret what’s been written above differently, but if you think ***Dave or Avo are trolling, then why did you respond?
To turn from how you have responded to what you have claimed, I don’t think that advocating for health-care reform is necessarily a “lefty” position. Even if you’re right that the world is a dog-eat-dog world, we have a choice about what kind of world we want to live in. We all have the ability to strive to make the world a better place. To me, the world will be a better place if people don’t go hungry, and people don’t go without needed medical care. To me, the world will be a better place if we all try to help each other out rather than trying to out-compete each other. I do not advocate for communism or any form of socialism because I don’t think those systems of government will bring about a community of mutual assistance rather than a community of competition. Instead, I believe a capitalist system that does not give great advantages to some and withhold opportunity from others is the best bet. I think a government within such a capitalist system must take on some tasks that are best and most efficiently handled centrally (e.g. I don’t think we should all have private fire departments, police, or roads). I don’t think the United States today meets that condition. I think that health-care reform will help to bring the United States closer to that condition because I think that health care is a public good that will be most effectively handled in a central fashion. I am also selfish. I think that providing health care to others helps keep me healthy by tending to prevent or reduce epidemics and outbreaks of infectious diseases. Yes, in such a system some so-called free-riders will take advantage of the system and get benefits that they do not deserve. Such a system must guard against the possibility that it will fail because too many are dependent on too few. But to throw out health-care reform to avoid that possibility is to throw out the baby with the bath-water. I support health-care reform because I think the United States will be a better place if we head in a direction that leads to a community of mutual assistance, I’m willing to put up with a few free-riders in order to get there, and I think we can guard against failure of the system without making health-care a strictly private good rather than a public good.
@ Dave Newman…A “fair shake” has been given to them. They were born free, they are American, and they are welcome to work and prosper. The “fair shake” has been stolen from we who don’t want to provide health care to all who are moochers. Where is OUR “fair shake”. Those who work hard, prosper and are FORCED to contribute to a healthcare system that is too expensive and is bound to fail. Are you suggesting that a “fair shake” is taking from others to get what you want? It seems to me that the left seem to feel that they are entitled to healthcare and food and housing and birth control and on and on and on…… at the taxpayers expense. It’s like the left think that whatever goes wrong in their lives, the government (A.K.A. taxpayers) will fix.
#2 I was talking to Ellie when I said “Trolling”. Sounded cynical to me. Should’ve been more clear. My apologies.
#3 Love the idea of “community assistance” if EVERYONE is contributing something. Unfortunately, there is no way to ensure that and right now, half of the country is NOT contributing, therefore the other half are bearing the brunt of the bills.
#4 We all have the same chances to become prosperous. The rich should not be punished monetarily because they have managed to make more money than you. You want more money? Get off your duff and EARN IT! Don’t just expect the government to take it from a rich guy and give it to you!!!
#5 I respect your opinion that you think Obamacare is great. However, it doesn’t give you or the government the right to STEAL (yes, steal) money from people to support this impossible health care plan. Obama lied to get it passed, he lied about the price, he lied to the people.
#6 Why should you have everything that I have if I have worked for it and you just sit on your butt and collect my earnings?
@Jennifer – Sorry, I’ve been off the air on comments here for a few days. I’m going to respond to your thoughts on Dave N’s comments.
While there are a lot of opportunities for success in the United States — “They were born free, they are American, and they are welcome to work and prosper.” — I think you are being simplistic that everyone can have a rags-to-riches tale if they just work hard. Life (esp. in a “dog eat dog world”) isn’t always that karmically just. There are people who work hard and simply don’t prosper, through no fault of their own. There are people who work hard, prosper, and then lose it all. There are people who hardly work at all, and yet seem to have plenty of money and material goods.
My point being that material prosperity is not directly correlated to hard work. I think that hard work increases your chances of material prosperity, but in too many cases that’s simply not true. “We all have the same chances to become prosperous” is similarly untrue.
“The rich should not be punished monetarily because they have managed to make more money than you.” Unless we’re going to start every child off in an orphanage with zero wealth and no idea of their parentage, then clearly the rich are *born* with certain advantages that others do not have (and the poor are born with certain disadvantages that other do not have) which have nothing to do with hard work.
But, of course, nobody is talking about a Leveling society. Regardless of how someone who is rich (however we define that) got that way (be it through hard work, a lucky break, being born with a silver spoon in their mouth, or whatever), they are not being “punished” through progressive taxation — their ability to pay more to the *common* good is being recognized.
“Those who work hard, prosper and are FORCED to contribute to a healthcare system that is too expensive and is bound to fail.” – Your suggestions that it’s “too expensive” and “bound to fail” are unsupported.
“It seems to me that the left seem to feel that they are entitled to healthcare and food and housing and birth control and on and on and on…… at the taxpayers expense. It’s like the left think that whatever goes wrong in their lives, the government (A.K.A. taxpayers) will fix.” I disagree. I think that *everyone* in our society is entitled to basic care, for the good not just of those individuals who need it, but for the good of *everyone*. It hurts *everyone* when someone is malnourished, or crippled or dead because of lack of needed health care (including preventive care). If calling that entitlement, then think of it as a moral and pragmatic obligation of society to all its members.
“Right now, half of the country is NOT contributing, therefore the other half are bearing the brunt of the bills.” I’ve mentioned before how the “half the country is not contributing” thing is grossly inaccurate, and repeating it doesn’t make it any better. Unless you can cite something better, I’d strongly reconsider your argument.
“However, it doesn’t give you or the government the right to STEAL (yes, steal) money from people to support this impossible health care plan.” So is it that it is (you say) an “impossible” plan that makes it theft? Or is all taxation theft in your opinion?
“Why should you have everything that I have if I have worked for it and you just sit on your butt and collect my earnings?” I don’t think that anyone is asking for “everything that you have.” And I don’t think anyone in the argument is intent to pay people to just sit on their butts. My concern is for those who aren’t just sitting on their butts, but who still cannot make ends meet, including for needed health care.
Instead of healthcare reform, I am more for WELFARE reform. Why don’t we reform the welfare system? Take a good look at the career welfare recipients, drug tests. Instead of REWARDING people for having more children, lets pay LESS. Take THAT money and use it to cover health care for those who WANT government healthcare. How about we start checking ID’s at the hospitals and start giving the illegals a free ride home instead of “all-you-can-steal”healthcare. If we can’t have personal responsibility then lets stop giving MORE to those who contribute LESS. Just a few ideas.
Happy St. Patricks Day!
I think I understand what ***Dave is saying. And for the most part, I’m on board with helping people who – through no fault of their own – have “fallen through the cracks,” & perhaps need a helping hand. The problem is this: government = force. I am being forced – through taxation – to support people that I don’t know, who don’t deserve it, who deliberately game the system. People who look to the government to solve problems are saying, “We’re going to send men with guns to force you to give us 25% of your income. But don’t you worry, because we’re going to do good things with the money we’re forcibly taking.”
***Dave’s assertion appears to come from the PANG (people are no good) point-of-view. PANG says, “If we don’t force people to help others, no one (or too few) would help, because people are no good! They’re selfish & would be content to let people suffer.”
I disagree with that assertion, & I am very strongly against the use of force.
I hear people say, “Do you like the roads you drive on? How about the fire department? Etc.” These people assume that only the government can provide these things. It’s as if they never drove on a tollway before, or heard the term “volunteer fire department.” One person wrote, “Why should I pay for roads when I don’t own a car?” Answer: you shouldn’t, for the same reason I shouldn’t have to pay for public school when I have no children, or when I pay for private education, or home school. It’s the reason I don’t want to have to pay to fund a war with which I disagree.
So…what would we do with the money we kept if we eliminated taxes altogether, not just for the poor, but for the middle class & rich? Who knows? Whose business is it anyway? Speaking for myself, I have a more positive view of humanity: I believe most people would do good things with the surplus. Bottom line: it’s nobody else’s business.
The thing I find most disappointing about the argument for the use of government is the lack of imagination. People who are pro big government seem to think there’s no other solution other than force.
@Phil –
Given this post is three years old … I’m going to tackle this without reading it.
I would go further than the above — I’m okay with helping people who have “fallen through the cracks” even if it’s is plainly their own fault, through malfeasance or stupidity or whatever. Because the alternative is the impact on others around them, and people dying unnecessarily.
You are also being forced — through taxation — to build roads for people you don’t know, to buy tanks to defend people who may not deserve it, and to preserve forest land for people who actually just want some place to hike, whether or not it directly benefits you.
Of course, government is force — but it’s force wielded commonly, by the majority (as restrained constitutionally). It’s not some external tyrant whimsically coming and taking money from your pockets, but (in theory, at least), the consensus of the general population as to what everyone should be giving up to provide the services that seem appropriate.
Of course, a lot of those people are folks you don’t know, who perhaps don’t deserve it, or who deliberately game the governmental system.
Which is an odd characterization, because I think people do tend to be good. As individuals. To other individuals. Especially those they know or otherwise engage with. It’s when those others are out of sight and mind that our compassion dwindles, that all of a sudden we start, oh, I don’t know, complaining about people we don’t know, who don’t deserve what I’m providing them, and who are gaming the system to my disadvantage.
Would charitable giving go up if we, for example, yanked Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid? Probably. Would it suffice to avoid people suffering? I’ll point to how things were before those laws were passed to demonstrate that, no, it wouldn’t.
But, as you yourself demonstrate, people tend not to pay for stuff that isn’t yet (or understood to be) benefiting them. Does a road benefit someone who doesn’t drive? Well, it doesn’t benefit their personal driving, but it may benefit those who are providing an economic community around that individual. It benefits getting food to the store they walk to, and benefits getting repairmen to the telephone lines, and benefits all those folks that do drive. And, for that matter, by not directly paying gasoline taxes, the person isn’t paying as much for those roads.
Similarly, public education for all provides benefits beyond whether one’s hypothetical kid is learning to read. Providing everyone the opportunity to learn to read benefits everyone.
No man is an island.
On one level, yes, it’s none of my business how you spend your money. On the other hand, because your spending doesn’t occur in a vacuum, with no benefit (or deficit, or opportunity cost) to me, then it does, in fact, have an effect on me.
And I find most arguments against the use of government is a lack of imagination as to how individual actions (or inactions) have an impact on everyone. People who are anti-government seem to think there’s no other solution than each citizen looking out for just himself.
“On the other hand, because your spending doesn’t occur in a vacuum, with no benefit (or deficit, or opportunity cost) to me, then it does, in fact, have an effect on me.”
His spending has an effect on you only if you are the person on the other side of such transaction.
How do you think an “economy” (let alone a “society”) works, @Justme?
@***Dave: Well said, sir. But, how can you define taxation in a way that makes it different from theft? Using the government as a proxy doesn’t absolve the robbers to my way of thinking. ”If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.” – Lysander Spooner.
A robber, at least, will leave you alone after he takes your money. The state on the other hand…
Furthermore, you appear to turn a blind eye to the fact that state screws up or worsens nearly every “problem” it seeks to solve. There’s an old joke about how to tell when a politician is lying (lips are moving), which everybody understands & laughs at, yet in the back of their minds, they seem to think, “…except the politician for whom I voted. They’re the best & brightest; [favored party members] put their pants on two legs at a time.” Since when did the state do anything well? Consider public education: how much “common good” does it create when kids graduate functionally illiterate, & have been taught that “intelligent design” trumps evolution (thus creating more people who vote Republican)?
What about the budget? We’re running at a deficit – measured in the trillions – and yet the moochers have the audacity to demand more! They seem to say, “Gosh, the state has done such a great job of handling the war (Iraq), our money (deficit), our privacy (PATRIOT act) & security (TSA) so well up to now, why don’t we turn healthcare over to them?” And don’t get me started on useless laws & regulations (i.e. mandatory use of seat-belts & the enforcement thereof, leaving fewer police to prevent violent crime) we’re forced to fund through taxation.
I hope we can at least agree that no system of government or markets will bring about utopia. Once we understand & agree on that fact, we can best decide which one allows for the greatest amount of freedom, prosperity, etc. For myself, I say that the least amount of government & the least amount of taxation is best. Instead of using the government to force others to give you what you want, why don’t you get together with like-minded people & create your own healthcare co-op to provide affordable healthcare? Sure, it’s much easier to steal it from people who work for a living, but wouldn’t you (& all the other government apologists) at least feel better if you built it yourselves? Heck, I’d stand shoulder to shoulder with you to make /that/ happen, whether through monetary gift or volunteer work. And I think others would, too.
@Phil –
1. Government is of, by, and for the people. In our system, “robbers” cannot “declare themselves a government,” unless they constituted a majority and can work within the constitutional restrictions placed upon the populace.
2. The state “screws up or worsens nearly every problem it seeks to solve”? Really? Everything the state does ends up worse than before the state steps in? And is the alternative simply a state of nature, with lives “nasty, brutish, and short”?
3. In general, seat belt laws tend to be enforced as an adjunct to other safety laws. We’re not spending excessive police time or money going out searching for folks not wearing their seat belts — even though wearing seat belts is clearly and empirically identifiable as the best way to avoid injury and death (and the economic costs, individual and social, that result) in auto accidents.
4. So how do you see a “health care co-op” actually working? Do we assume that those not within accessible range of such a co-op are simply on their own, to suffer, linger, or die as their fate decrees?
With all due respect, Dave, it’s not about selfishness, it is about reality. At least from the viewpoint of this Independent grandmother, it’s not about welfare queens or any of that partisan drivel, it is about the frank assessment of reality. What is that reality?
The cold reality is that we don’t have an obligation to each other. Why? Because at the end of the day, we don’t need any particular individual, we need a person in a slot to do a job, no more and no less. Who that individual is, is largely immaterial. In a world of seven billion, we simply plug in another and life rolls on unchanged.
I always challenge people to think about the last time someone they knew died. Did the gas not pump? Did the electricity not come on? Was there no longer produce at the grocery store? All these things and many more simply continued. The reality is that they didn’t matter and neither do you. The reality is that they are dead. So what? You aren’t and life goes on. Trust me, I’ve buried enough people and seen enough death due to violence, up front and personal, to understand just how little it matters when someone dies. It doesn’t.
The reality is that in a world of seven billion, people have become both redundant and largely disposable. Man, as NASA states some forty years ago, is simply the all-purpose, 150 pound non-linear computer, easily produced in mass quantities by unskilled labor.
I’ve never read Ayn Rand, so I have no basis from which to address your reference to her morality. But I was raised that once you became an adult, if you weren’t completely and totally disabled, you were expected to work. You were expected to use the money you earned to provide for yourself – to put food in your belly, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, your medical care, your retirement, and the expenses of your dependents until they, in turn, reached age of majority. What we were not raised to do was accept responsibility for competent adults. It was on you to plan well, work hard, and make good choices. If you failed to do so, you reaped the consequences. If you simply got unlucky, that was life. As my father has said for years: “Take care of yourself. If you can’t, kindly drop dead so the rest of us won’t have to.”
If my grown children can’t afford the healthcare they need, I may *choose* to help them. But let us be very, very clear. They aren’t disabled. They are grown adults. And I am no longer financially responsible for them. I have no legal responsibility for my grandchildren. I didn’t make the decision to have the child. I didn’t make the choice to keep the child. I had no say in assuming financial responsibility for the considerable expense of raising that child. I met my responsibility, I discharged that obligation, and have no responsibility to assume the expenses for the obligations incurred by another family member.
And who will care for me when I need help? I have no doubt someday that I will have an accident, or get sick, or become old. The answer is, no one, unless I can pay for it. And that is precisely the point – giving away money does nothing but reduce the amount you have available to stave off the same fate. Once I have mine, it represents nothing except rational behavoir to hold onto the one thing which *will* keep you alive. Society has no reason and no incentive to do so. The world will backfill my job role easily enough. The coffee maker on your counter does a job. I do a job. When either breaks, you make a straightforward cost/benefit decision to repair or replace. It literally is that simple. We make it difficult because one tool is organic. As I often say, if you aren’t willing to pay to repair my truck, why are you so willing to pay to repair me? There is no difference between the mechanic and the doctor. They both provide a service. If you don’t expect the mechanic to fix some individuals car for less than cost and pass the difference onto their “more fortunate” customers, don’t expect the doctor to do so.
Once you grasp the reality that there is no rational economic reason for the rest of humanity to care about you existence beyond your functional role (your job), and once you grasp the extreme redundancy of that role, you begin to grasp that survival cannot be based upon trust, but on self-reliance. Acting in a prudent manner isn’t selfishness, it is rational. Trusting in people who have zero incentive to care if you live or die to provide for your welfare and well-being is quite simply, irrational.
It would seem to me that the real reason for “paying the healthcare of others” is to perpetrate the illusion that we matter…because if they matter, then “hopefully” they will affirm the same for us. I choose to live in reality, not fantasy. While my life might be very important to me, my partner, and those close to me, I accept the reality that in the end, my life is as meaningless, as redundant, and disposable as anyone else’s life…and certainly not worth spending money on when the cheaper alternative is available. I see no reason why society should spend money on individuals that we neither need nor require to function optimally as a society. Unless one can demonstrate that the loss of a particular individual has some meaningful consequence to society, what distinguishes that individual from any of the other 7 billion available cogs in the box and makes them worthy of saving?
Frankly, @clouddragon, I think that view of reality is completely about selfishness. Or nihilism. “People don’t matter because everyone else [including me] is interchangeable and replaceable, as long as the gas station still pumps gas, so why should I care for anyone else?” I believe there is value to human life and human beings beyond their spare parts utility to the overall system.
But I was raised that once you became an adult, if you weren’t completely and totally disabled, you were expected to work. You were expected to use the money you earned to provide for yourself – to put food in your belly, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, your medical care, your retirement, and the expenses of your dependents until they, in turn, reached age of majority. What we were not raised to do was accept responsibility for competent adults. It was on you to plan well, work hard, and make good choices. If you failed to do so, you reaped the consequences. If you simply got unlucky, that was life. As my father has said for years: “Take care of yourself. If you can’t, kindly drop dead so the rest of us won’t have to.”
So, why bother providing for your children? If they fall to the wayside, along with any other sick or lame, what’s that to you, aside from the bother of having to dispose of the body?
I believe that the social contract works in both directions; yes, mature individuals are expected to contribute to their capabilities. But society as a whole is obligated to assist individuals when their ability to contribute is impaired or insufficient to their needs.
Why would you? Aren’t they interchangeable parts?
At which point we put you on an ice floe and let you drift away, no longer a burden on the village.
That assumes as well that the available resources, even if you are able to keep all of your money, will be sufficient to stave off such a fate. A pre-progressive society demonstrates what that means — starvation, disease, the crippled begging for food or simply dying off. That wasn’t because folks were lazy or spendthrift or parasites; circumstances sometimes beyond one’s control can exceed the ability to care for oneself. The majority of personal bankruptcies are, for example, due to medical expenses.
Actually, I am willing to pay for repairing your truck, through my contribution to auto insurance, which covers my liability but, in most cases, also pays for catastrophic expenses to my vehicle that have nothing to do with you. The risk is pooled to everyone’s benefit. Ditto, in the function of health insurance.
Selfishness can be rational; the two are not exclusive.
That said, promoting a selfish “I got mine, you can be replaced” mindset hardly seems like a rational or long-term viable strategy for a society. Once everyone else (including yourself) is disposable and dispensable, you get into a Hobbesian state of “all against all”. How does it benefit me to have police that punish criminals who are only affecting you? If your house is on fire, then as long as it doesn’t seem likely to affect mine, why should I pay for your fire service (or even be bothered to pick up the phone to call the fire in)? If you’re dying in the middle of the road, well, the road still works, so simply veering my car around seems the most rational course to take. If you’re in my way at the gas pump, why not simply shoot you and take your place in line (or our car, if it’s nicer than mine)?
Your world strikes me as a very scary, very lonely place, and your attitude, frankly, borderline psychopathic. I don’t believe individuals, even individuals I don’t know and upon whom I don’t rely to keep the gas pumps working, are useless, redundant, replaceable, or unworthy of attention, effort, or money. Individuals matter for more than their unique contribution to the economy or society. They matter in and of themselves.
The classic argument I hear is, well you pay for military, schools, etc. But to me the critical difference is that those kinds of products and services are either beyond the reach of the individual, or are impractical. No one person can afford an aircraft carrier, the planes, and the ongoing operational costs. We don’t need a thousand bridges over the same river, it would be impractical. It benefits us to have schools because it provides the opportunity for kids to have the foundation to do something useful for society rather than be dead weight.
You mention the classic “fire department scenario”. I don’t want my house to burn down. I have three choices: I can do nothing a hope that it won’t, I can have my own private fire department (assuming I can afford it), or I can join in with others and support a fire department via taxes. Even if option (2) was possible, the rational choice is option (3). But make no mistake – I could care if my neighbor’s house burns down or not just as much as my neighbor cares if my house burns down – which is to say, not at all. Never mistake rational self-interest for caring. We support schools and roads and military and fire departments because it is the only way to get what we want as individuals, not because we care about the collective. Will I stop and aid you if you get into an accident? Absolutely. Been there and done that. It is the moral thing to do to get an individual to professional medical help. But if you can’t afford to pay for that service, that isn’t my problem.
We pay car insurance precisely because the actions of another can cause large costs for others – if you cause an accident, the costs of repair for vehicles, infrastructure, and people can be prohibitive.
But if “random person Joe” has a heart attack, does it impact the rest of us? Not really. Statistically someone, somewhere, dies on this planet every 1.8 seconds, or 33 people every minute. Yet strangely, the world doesn’t come to a screeching halt.
There is no doubt that they would prefer not to die. But that onus is a personal responsibility, not an obligation to society writ large.
As to your question with respect to children:
The only reason we have kids is because we won’t live forever; we have to reproduce to create the next generation of workers, and therefore we have to train them to be doctors, engineers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. I did my duty to the family (to continue my spouse’s family name) and I did my duty to society ( to create another generation of people to fill and do whatever jobs society needs filled). I raised two children to age of majority and launched them as competent, hard working adults. I did my job and did it well. I love them dearly. But there is a world of difference between love and obligation.
But unless we are saying that healthcare can ONLY be afforded if it becomes a shared resource, healthcare is an individual responsibility, not a social one. Let’s say for sake of argument that we don’t subsidize the healthcare of the less fortunate. Yes, they will get sick, and as a result of their economic condition – for whatever reason (s), their fault or not – will likely suffer and possibly die. So what? If it is me, I deserve to suffer the consequences of MY failure to get an education, pursue gainful employment in a field that pays well, save money, and have insurance. If the sum of my efforts isn’t enough, I die…and it doesn’t impact you (or the vast majority of the other 305 million people in this country) in the slightest. As I said, the gas will still pump…etc. Given that millions of Americans have health insurance because they work, I don’t believe we are in that condition. Job doesn’t pay benefits? Obviously society doesn’t value the work enough to pay, and you need to pursue a different career.
Finally, you state that people matter “in and of themselves”. Really? Are you really going to tell me that the 100 or so people I’ve buried in my lifetime “mattered”? Where is your evidence? How did the world change in *any* meaningful way because any one of them died, and how will the world change in any meaningful way because you, I, or any of the other 7 billion people on this planet die in the next 1.8 seconds? Not a bunch of moral or ethical blatherings, but in terms of real socioeconomics?
So the issue is not focused on you and what you find of value, but society?
Would a private fire insurance be preferable? The only folks whose houses are protected are the ones who are up to date on their monthly fees?
I’m trying to understand the moral difference between not leaving someone bleeding to death in their car and not leaving them bleeding to death outside of the E.R. they can’t afford to enter.
It can have a dramatic effect on Joe. His family. His friends. Maybe his church. His clubs. And quite possibly his employer.
From a purely pragmatic sense, even without a moral / social sense, people are not cogs. They are not fungible. Aside from the assembly line (and arguably not even there), employees are not all interchangeable. As a manager, I can tell you that. Aside from the cost of replacing people (in terms of lost productivity and the cost of training), I have very good people who work for me who are not simply replaceable by other people.
Though that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t spin faster than it does if that death rate was reduced. Again, just practically / socially, deaths strike me as friction, entropy, waste.
I prefer Donne:
So?
Why? What does the individual owe to the next generation if our individual lives are worthless, interchangeable cogs?
So I remain confused, as you seem to keep veering between self-centeredness and collectivist hive-mindedness.
I would argue that love without obligation is mere whim, effectively worthless.
Given the cost of health care … that’s almost a truism.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse me — I don’t know that.”
“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.
“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”
If it is me, I deserve to suffer the consequences of MY failure to get an education, pursue gainful employment in a field that pays well, save money, and have insurance. If the sum of my efforts isn’t enough, I die…
I believe that life, and society, are more than a Dickensian/Hobbesian/Darwinian survival of the fittest.
I think the deaths of people, even people I don’t personally know, impacts me. Dependent on proximity, the impact may be like ripples across a large lake. But, even at the greatest remove, in aggregate they affect me.
And millions work but don’t have health insurance through their employers. And even those that do pay a substantial mount themselves.
Careers are not fungible. And decisions about pay levels (and insurance coverage) are based not on consideration of the employees but the profit targets of the employer and the price point the marketplace levels to.
Yes.
If you measure the worth of people solely through their socioeconomic value, through their specifically identifiable contribution to the GNP, sure. most people probably don’t matter.
I don’t consider that the sole criterion for individual worth.
So easy to spot an American Christian…
Fire department scenario. Why should MY taxes stop your house burning down? Why not option 4. A private Fire Department, paid for by insurance. they don’t attend any fire on a property not covered by insurance.
You’ve been burgled? Why should MY taxes pay for the investigation, prosecution and incarceration? YOU should have taken more care. Your daughter raped? Well she was probably asking for it – otherwise she would have been more careful. How is it my problem?
@LH –
I can’t say that I find anything particularly Christian about it.
Dave
My point is that the death of *a* person who happens to be, say a mechanic, is NOT a tragedy.
We can pick up the yellow pages (or google search to make things more modern) and find fifty other repair shops in reasonable proximity.
We can log into a job search website, and in a few clicks, drop several thousand resumes for automotive mechanics on our desktop.
Losing a million people such that we don’t have anyone left who understands how to repair a transmission is a tragedy.
Not sociopathic…simply based in the reality that the loss of one means very little.
@Last Hussar
It is my sincere hope that your comment was wasn’t trolling for a reaction…nor your actual belief. No one deserves to be raped, male or female. To suggest otherwise is simply horrific.
@clouddragon9 – The death of a mechanic, as a mechanic, is not a tragedy. Mechanics can be replaced. The death of a person, whether a mechanic or a teacher or a shoe shiner or a commodity broker, is a tragedy. The person is what counts. Your denial of same — the lack of empathy and recognition of another individual as important per se — is what seems sociopathic.
@clouddragon9
I agree. But on what philosophical basis, based on the socioeconomic value of human cogs, do you argue that rape is “undeserved” or “horrific”?
Dave:
I fully agree with everything you have to say about recruitment and retention and some people being worth their weight in gold. But in the end, no one is completely indispensable. If that top of the line employee gets hit by a meteor today, we will back fill their position.
I’ve been a manager also, and a good one – not measured only in terms of financials and projects, but in terms of the retention rate and the development of individuals. Do I do this because I care about them as individuals? No. I do so because I understand that the success of the company is dependent on these factors. It is a duty, no more and no less and one meets one’s duty.
Yes, decisions about pay levels (and insurance coverage) are based not on consideration of the employees but the profit targets of the employer and the price point the marketplace levels to. That is precisely the point. The value of what an individual does for society is defined by the market. It is the responsibility of the individual to establish themselves in such a way to be valuable enough to society that they can command the salaries/benefits they desire. Society gives each and every person that opportunity by providing them with a free K12 education. Yes, I think we should extend this to post-secondary education as well. But the onus to pick the right field is on the person. Why anyone (like my daughter) would choose a field that doesn’t pay (like teaching) is beyond me. You do the work that pays, not the work you love…unless the two happily coincide. Yes, it means the class sizes a larger. Yes, it means there are fewer police officers. None of that is your problem. Your problem is to take care of you. When there aren’t enough of the economics of supply and demand will intervene and the price we are willing to pay for will increase. The market will function and function quite well if we simply allow it to work.
Joe repairs cars. Whether Joe is married, partnered, or single, whether Joe is childless or a father, whether Joe is religious or agnostic, is completely extraneous. We take our cars to Joe, he fixes them, and we give him money. That is the total fiscal relationship we need to have with Joe, no more and no less. Note that I said “fiscal”. We might like Joe. We might be good friends with Joe. But we have no fiscal responsibility for Joe. He’s a grown man and on his own.
If Joe makes poor life choices (say having too many kids), then Joe has a problem.
If Joe doesn’t stay current in his field and can no longer fix modern vehicles, then Joe has a problem.
If Joe’s job becomes obsolete because some new technology (say quantum portal transport) eliminates the need for automobiles, Joe has a problem.
If Joe simply becomes unlucky because Joe (or a member of Joe’s family) gets seriously sick, Joe has a problem.
We don’t have a problem, and I fail to see why it is in our interests to make Joe’s problem, our problem. Our problem is that we need our car fixed, and unless the loss of Joe represents a serious blow to the throughput of repair time in the city, the loss of Joe really doesn’t much matter. Yes, it is a serious issue to Joe. Yes, it may be a serious issue to his wife and children – if a) he wasn’t smart enough to have insurance, and b) she wasn’t smart enough to have a suitable career as well, and c) their lifestyle wasn’t set around the lower of their two incomes. Yes, it may be a serious issue to his employer if they became far too dependent on Joe and failed to exercise good risk management (personnel redundancy). Not our problem – their problem. If we stay laser focused on the one and only one thing that matters – getting our car repaired – then we don’t have a problem.
People are bad at managing risk – not just medical. What frustrates me is that society insists on intervening. It is that society insists on providing a safety net for people who won’t manage risk. It is that people expect others to bail them out. We accept mistakes and believe in second chances. And I’m angry that those bailouts and second chances and safety nets and those pay “pay for us because stuff happens” come at the expense of others…because people (and companies, and countries) cannot and will not accept their fate.
It is incumbent on that individual to be aware and consider the future. It drives me nuts that the vast majorities of people simply do not think and plan ahead. You ask them what they would do if a tornado wiped out their city and you get a blank stare. You ask if they know the long term trends in their vocation and the potential consequences and you get a blank stare. You ask what their backup plan is in the event the entire industry dries up, or their profession dies, or technology eliminates their job, and you get zilch. You ask if they have the funds to leave their town if the mill/factory shuts down and you get denial. And then they look for help when the bottom drops out of their world. Really? I think it is reasonable to expect people to manage risk. I think it is reasonable to expect people to accept the consequences of the outcomes. You manage your own risk, by yourself, without help from others…because unless the sharing of risk is equal, it is inequitable.
Two people graduate from the same school in the same neighborhood at the same socioeconomic level. One happens to move to Seattle and joins a small start-up called Microsoft. The other moves to Texas and joins a small start-up called Enron. What does person A owe person B? Nothing – it is the vagaries of fate. Person A gets to enjoy their millions. Person B suffers and maybe dies. Such is life. Deal with it instead of stealing money from A to bring some arbitrary cosmic justice to B. Twenty years later Microsoft is in trouble…person C better be smart enough to read the tea leaves and join Google. Maybe it doesn’t work out. You makes your choices and spins the wheel of life. If it doesn’t work out, don’t cry to your neighbors to save your worthless hide.
Yes, I fully understand that if everyone is saving, frugal, not spending, then the threshold to start a business, purchase a home, have a child, to do “whatever” is that much higher. Yes, I understand the cost to society in terms of innovation and “lost investment”. Bottom line – I would gladly see that price paid if it means that those who did “manage risk”, those who did avoid major “life mistakes”, those who did leverage their abilities to acquire “good jobs” and who, yes, were flat out lucky enough to avoid *stuff happens*, were spared from having to share that bounty with others who either made mistakes, flat out messed up, or simply got unlucky.
My attitude is not one of malice. There is no sociopathic joy in seeing the individual suffer. It is the acceptance that the individual doesn’t matter. It is one of acceptance that if I haven’t managed to amass the wealth of a professional ball-player, a CEO, or a tech mogul, then I am simply screwed. I cannot understand why they should pay for me any more than I can understand why I should pay for them. I failed. I accept that I had a shot (however small), missed that shot, and now I need to float off on my ice floe and not cost anyone else money. I’m not worth one dollar of anyone’s money and neither is anyone else.
I asked you if any of many people I’ve buried “mattered”. I’m going to tell you right here and now…they didn’t. Nothing, absolutely nothing, changed the next day. Society operated 100% exactly like it did the day before. And yes, maybe that person might have grown up to Einstein – and they might have grown up to be a serial killer. Yes, they might have invented or discovered something. History is replete with knowledge lost and regained. I have faith that eventually, whatever *it* was, it will be developed/discovered/invented. It may mean we all suffer with cancer for another hundred years until whoever in the future invents the cure, but it will be discovered again. Not worried about it.
You take care of you, and I take care of me, and Joe takes care of Joe. And if one of us can’t take care of our business, that individual has a problem…unless the nature of that individuals JOB is such that we need to care. Otherwise, it is very simple…no one’s life matters. Accept that reality and quit insisting that the successful (deserved and/or plain lucky) support the less fortunate. We as a society graciously provided an education and a chance. The rest is up to you. Our conscience, and our fiscal obligation, is done. At least “survival of the fittest”, as decided by the market, is fair. Perhaps not moral…but coldly efficient.
@clouddragon9 – I was starting a lengthy reply, but I came to realize that there is nothing I can say that will matters to your (now armchair-rediagnosed) well-compensated sociopathy. Leave to say that the extent that someone “matters” is more than their socioeconomic niche (where they don’t seem to matter anyhow, as they can always be replaced). Living in a world without empathy or kindness may work quite well for you. It does not for me.
Also, with respect to your comment about rape…
Rape, assault, and similar actions are attacks on an individual (or individuals). They are wrong because they are simply acts of violence against another person.
In contrast, to note your question about taking an injured person to the hospital – if medical care is a personal responsibility (which I believe it to be), then I haven’t harmed you or attacked you. I’ve stabilized you and taken you to where you can get help, because I recognize you might not be able to get there without help…and I would hope that you would do the same for me. Once we arrive at the place of business, it’s not my responsibility to pay your bills. It’s no different than me giving you a ride to the dealership and then expecting me to help buy you a car. Not going to happen, because it’s your bill and your personal responsibility. If you can’t, my conscience is clean; I did what I would ask of you. It’s not like I hurt you or injured you in some way. You are simply reaping the consequences of your life choices.
Dave:
Your “armchair” diagnosis is both misguided and hurtful. I have never deliberately hurt a living creature and certainly take no joy in seeing the suffering or death of a person or animal.
You miss my point. Let me attempt to phrase it differently. There are two ways to make a living – with your brains or with your labor. Over the last 30 years, the “labor” portion has been increasingly eliminated by technology and that pace is accelerating exponentially. The problem is that over that same period, individuals within our society have failed to adapt – in some cases because they have been the “frog in a slow boiling pot”, in some cases because they have been unwilling to face the reality of a changing environment, in some cases because they lack the opportunity to change (and in part this roles back to their personal responsibilities), in some cases they simply lack the cognitive and/or emotional capability to transform their skill sets into positions society now finds useful.
The reality is that inside 30 years, the vast majority of jobs that currently employ people (service and retail) are going to be under increasing pressure…particularly as the cost of labor (including benefits) rises. It simply becomes economical to put in place technology (in many instances) at a price point much lower than a quote “living wage”.
We have several choices. One (that I have tried to advocate) is for society to reconfigure the expectations…but this requires a much more equitable division of labor – in short, we need 80% or more of the population capable of competing for a job as NASA instead of a job at a fast food joint or a big box retailer. Another is to continue on our present trajectory, which places more and more individuals who become “educationally unemployable” on the support of those individuals who are. That trajectory can only continue for so long before serious consequences transpire.
So, to refocus the discussion…I can fully accept that I am drawing the line a bit too close to the side of individualism and not more towards collectivism. The question remains…where do we draw that line, and how do we ensure that a) people are provided for, yet b) not creating a situation where the technology “can-do’s” simply decide “why should I be the sucker working while the majority don’t?”.
My proposal is to let the market operate as the ultimate arbiter of “value to society”.
Why? Because I see healthcare as a privilege, earned as a result of being capable of offering skill sets valuable in the market place. Yes, it means that certain individuals who won the genetic lottery of intelligence are favored over individuals whose marketable skills may be less in demand. Yes, I believe we need to mitigate (to the fullest extent possible) the environmental issues by ensuring a quality K12 education and the opportunity for post-secondary education. I do NOT see it fair to take a lawyer or a medical doctor, or a professional plumber or a skilled mechanic, and force them to provide healthcare benefits to others simply because they exist. What was the point of pursuing the considerable education/training necessary if the “privilege’ is simply to support a large (and growing) group of individuals who didn’t (for whatever reason) do the same?
So…how would you propose that we deal with the reality of change in the environment and what privilege do you extend to the “educated/skilled” to create the necessary incentive to do so?
@clouddragon9:
I didn’t suggest that. The opposite, in fact; the issue is not your joy in hurting or seeing pain, but your lack of empathy toward others, based on your consideration of human life as valueless except as interchangeable cogs in the economy.
That would be, perhaps, more persuasive, if the the cost of labor were in fact significantly rising, vs. the proportion of wealth in the economy controlled by those who make those “economic” decisions. Those decisions in fact seem to be made less because of some immutable law of economic physics than by a desire for those who can make them to increase their own profit.
(The issues of technological replacement of less-skilled labor, as well as the movement of jobs in a global economy to parts of the world that cost much less, are non-trivial, to be sure. But they are not the only, nor even necessarily the biggest factors in those “economic realities.”)
If we have increasing numbers of folks who are “educationally unemployable,” then I think we should be focusing on how to change that. I don’t believe that if that’s the case it’s because those folks are all too dumb or too lazy to simply reeducate themselves. That may mean job re-training, social safety nets for while people are realigning to changes, possibly some sort of federal jobs program during some periods, a wide variety of things.
Accepting that there will always be some who free-ride off of any system, it’s far from clear to me that many, let alone most, people who are on one more more social safety net programs are doing so because they enjoy it or prefer it to not working. Would I prefer not to get up at 5 a.m. to start my work day? Sure. Would I prefer trying to make a few hundred dollars in food stamps cover me for the month? Not so much. So the immediate answer to (b) is not making welfare so comfortable that people people want to stay on it, and people not on it see it as preferable to working.
But, of course, that’s not the debate over welfare these days — it’s not about expanding programs for the poor, but fighting against their being cut back further.
I believe that the majority of people drawing food stamps and other welfare programs would prefer to work 8-5 in a good job and eat and live a lot more enjoyably.
When it comes to health care, the main thrust of the ACA is not about free boob jobs for the poor or whatever other fripperies they might enjoy in their indolence, but about reforming iniquities in the current health care insurance system that stretch far beyond the unemployable and impact nearly everyone, including the “technology ‘can-do’s'”.
Aside from that turning value into a matter of mere money, where do you draw the line in that case? If the value of everything is based on the market, then is anything the market wants therefore of value? If someone is able to pay more, dominating the market, does that mean that person has a rightful and useful greater say in what society values? Are those who don’t have money both valueless and unable to determine what is of value?
Those who can, get it. Those who can’t, get thrown off the back of the sleigh.
(And this is not just about intelligence. Job skills, job opportunities, life circumstances, socio-economic birth conditions, all are areas that can influence who sits pretty in the marketplace and who doesn’t.)
I’m curious as to why? What is my responsibility to see your kid (or any kid except my own, and I’m not even sure about that) get a quality education?
Well, aside from the fact that a lawyer (et al.) is going to have a much more pleasant life than folks who didn’t (or couldn’t) become a lawyer (et al.). I mean, sure, I dislike taxes, but I still live in a much nicer house and lead a much more pleasant life than someone sitting in a ghetto apartment living from welfare check to welfare check.
I mean, we’re not talking about a Levelist policy here. We’re not going to march everyone into identical barracks and dress them in identical clothes and then tell half they people they need to work and the other half they don’t need to and, hey, we’re going to give everyone the same wage. Sure, in that kind of situation that first half would rightfully give up employment as a mook’s game.
And, again, the ACA is not solely about providing medical care to the unemployed/unemployable poor. It reforms (or deforms, if you like) the marketplace in ways that benefit practically anyone in terms of lifetime caps, being dropped from policies, pre-existing conditions, etc., all things that were known to wipe out even successful lawyers, doctors, plumbers, and mechanics.
Bottom line, I don’t want people dying in the streets (or in their cars, or in their apartments) because they couldn’t afford to get basic medical care. Or because they couldn’t afford to eat, for that matter. Even if that means that some fraction of folks will decide they’re going to exploit the system and simply live on the dole and not have to work any more. That’s that empathy thing.
Dave:
I think that part of the problem is the starting point. You are starting from the viewpoint that everyone is entitled to healthcare, I am starting from the position that no one deserves healthcare.
Why?
Because as laudable as the statement is, in the long term economics will win. As the population grows, the costs rise, and fewer people work, the economics must win.
The Europeans are already starting to see this; their costs are rising year over year. Yes, at a much slower rate than in the US, but still rising. While universal healthcare helps to postpone the day of reckoning, it cannot forestall that day. Eventually the costs outstrip the ability of a society to pay, and then the hard choices start to come. If you look at any of the Universal Healthcare countries, they are capping how much that society will pay for a given person at a given stage of life. They have to, because there simply isn’t enough money to given everything to everyone.
I read a great blog entry some time ago which I reproduce below.
“”The value of a human life is beyond any reckoning”. This argument easy to refute.
Thousands of people die in road accidents every year caused, for instance by simple things like tiredness, boredom or clumsiness on someone else’s part. One death is too many! The value of a human life is beyond any reckoning! ! Good grief, we’d better ban the automobile right away.
It is not in any dispute that inhaling smoke increases your chances of getting cancer. A certain number of deaths are caused each year by each coal-fired power station in each city. One death is too many! The value of a human life is beyond any reckoning! Good grief, we’d better shut down the electricity! Likewise the emissions from motor vehicles are carcinogenic. There are many more examples like this.
What is patently obvious is that a certain number of deaths per year are acceptable to our society, as a price for progress or convenience. You may not feel comfortable with it right now, but in general it doesn’t bother us – we accept that we are all mortal, and everyone has to die sometime. Implicit in the structure of our society is the assumption that the value of a human life (which will end anyway, no matter what anyone does), is not beyond reckoning, and that the shortening of a certain number of lives is an acceptable price.
You can prolong a life, but you can not save it. In the long run the survival rate drops to zero. Quality, not quantity.
You may argue that civilization saves more lives that it shortens, but we do not aim our civilization at prolonging the most possible lives. If that were the case, no scrubber on that power station would be too expensive. All the time, we collectively take decisions along the lines of “we estimate that the new model car’s exhaust will kill 3 people per year per million cars. We are willing to spend one million dollars to reduce that, but not two million.”
We take a similar decision about the risk vs. cost to our own lives every time we go bungee-jumping or smoke a cigarette. We do not behave as if our own lives were of infinite value. We behave as if we are mortal. All rather obvious if you think about it.
A human life has a finite value. The calculus of the value of human life is so commonplace that we don’t even notice it.
One death is too many and The value of a human life is beyond any reckoning are fine-sounding rhetoric, but are without any connection to the real world whatsoever. If you are truly principled and and truly believe this, then why not start by giving up your car and your use of electricity, or otherwise accept that the death toll is acceptable to you?
Jongleur claims that according to the US government, the value of a human life shouldn’t have a monetary value placed upon it, but when it is unavoidable, $1,600,000 is the value to use. For a US citizen.
It has been suggested that this line of argument is sociopathically uncaring, and will cause callous injustices. No doubt it has been used to justify awful tyranny which devalues human life for political ends. But that doesn’t refute the argument. Attempts to improve the world should proceed from an an honest appraisal of the reality that exists.”
Ultimately, economics forces us to face the reality that healthcare is a finite resource. It cannot (in the long run) provide everyone the fullest extent of their desires…or our desire for them. At some point, we cannot afford our compassion. It boils down to how you believe about the moral value of compassion. Democrats believe in unbounded compassion for whichever group is less prosperous, powerful or healthy: poor over rich, workers over business owners, the unhealthy over the healthy. The liberal article of faith is that the underdog is virtuous and deserving. But unbounded compassion sends the message that some groups have a claim on the ability and labor of others.
I believe in compassion for anyone who cannot take care of themselves: the handicapped, infirm and helpless. For everyone else, I uphold the freedom to think and act as they choose, within the limits of laws that protect life, property and opportunity, the right to the rewards of their labor, and responsibility for their actions.
We cannot create a perfect world Dave. We have to live in reality of tradeoff’s. The only question is where we draw the threshold’s to make those tradeoff’s. I simply draw the line at the point of saying each individual is responsible.
@clouddragon9:
Actually, my viewpoint is that we (individually and as a society) have a duty and responsibility toward each other. That means doing what we can to be sure that people aren’t starving to death, living without shelter, unnecessarily dying or suffering from illness or chronic health problems, etc.
I don’t think anyone is proposing (or, for that matter, has ever proposed) universal provision of all possible medical care to everyone on demand. You are, of course, correct that we live in a finite world of finite resources, and that means of limiting / distributing those “scarce” medical resources is needed.
But you take from that an absolutist position “if costs for everything could exceed funding, then we should just do nothing”. I disagree. I think there is much (not everything) that can be done for fundamental health care services to the general population, in a fashion that is more equitable and broadly beneficial than an “every man for himself” policy.
That we don’t have the economic resources (or control over the laws of physics) to keep every person perfectly safe does not mean that any such efforts are worthless or that human lives therefore aren’t really worth anything.
Speaking only for myself, I believe in “unbounded compassion” for everyone — with the understanding that what that translates out into in real life possibilities is that some folks need a more practical application of compassion than others (because of their needs and, among other things, economic abilities), and that we do live in a world of true limitations.
I believe that, as part of the cost of living in a society, we all have a claim on the ability and labor of each other. Not an infinite claim, but a real one.
On what basis are you compassionate “for anyone who cannot take care of themselves”? I mean, they’ll die soon, right, as will we all. They can be replaced in the economy as easily (or more easily) than anyone else. Why be compassionate?
I agree that we cannot create a perfect world (though I think that the goals and values that such a world would reflect should be striven toward). I think simply saying to each person, “It’s your responsibility” is immorally limiting. “No man is an island” in my mind — we have responsibilities to others in a widening circle into all of society. The balance between individual freedom and personal responsibility and our duties toward others as individuals and aggregate isn’t neat and tidy and universally bright lined, but, then, this isn’t a perfect world.
Bottom line that I would like to see?
Medical care get treated like any other product or service, period.
Alternative plan?
If you are working and have a undergrad degree or trade school diploma, you get the “Bronze plan”.
If you are working and have a Master’s, you get the “Silver plan”.
If you are working and hold a Doctorate, Medical Degree, or JD, or are a successful businesses owner employing at least five people, you get the “Gold plan”.
If you aren’t working, aren’t educated, or aren’t LEGITIMATELY disabled to the point where you can’t work, you are on your own…and that includes medical care in retirement.
If you want to pay more to upgrade, that is your affair.
I’m not all that much concerned about fraud and those who might game the system. I understand full well that the percentage of those who do is quite small. I also understand full well that the majority of people on welfare are white, often educated, and for less than five years.
I understand full well my vulnerability to a health crisis and the economic devastation it would bring. My fault for not becoming wealthy enough, successful enough, to avoid that consequence. I FAILED and I get what I deserve. Too bad everyone else can’t suck it up and accept the same. Then we wouldn’t have to have these “social programs” at all, would we?
@clouddragon9:
But if I can’t afford a flat screen TV, or a massage, or hat, or a Ferrari, or a vacation home … I’m not likely to die, or lose my job from missed work, or spread disease to other people.
Medical care is right there at the base of the Maslovian pyramid — if you can’t get it, it directly affects your survival (and, indirectly, the survival of those around you).
True. And then we could resurrect Charles Dickens let him tell our tales.
I would ask you hold up a dollar bill and think about all it took to earn that dollar…not just the labor for your last paycheck, but the total sum of effort.
I think coming home at 10pm from night school, which I attended after a full day on the job. I kissed my kids goodnight (they already asleep), and got prepared to do homework until one or two in the morning. Meanwhile, the neighbors in the next apartment were watching late night TV and vegetating. Ahh, but they got laid off when their factory jobs were outsourced, but now I’m supposed to pay for their job retraining? Really?
I think about coming home for a quick family dinner before heading out to work the part time job. I passed you heading out to park with your family. I earned the money and paid off the student loans early? But now I’m supposed to be sympathetic to your student loan indebtedness? Really?
I think about the many nights I worked late, making sure the project was under control, sweating over every detail and thinking through every possible contingency. It was more important to you to be there for your kids sporting event. When the economy went south, you got laid off. It couldn’t possibly be that they kept the person who could be counted on to deliver, on time and under budget now, could it? But I’m supposed to pay for your extended unemployment? Really?
I’ve been to visit you and seen your big screen TV, the surround sound stereo, the multiple gaming consoles and multitude of electronic toys. I have a guitar, a deck of playing cards, a set of dominoes, a library card…and a well funded retirement account. But I’m supposed to pay for your subsidize your retirement…or feel sorry for you when you’re working as a store greeter in your 70’s? Really?
I was working a part time business on Saturday and Sunday while you were headed out to play golf. But now I’m supposed to sympathize when your job got whacked by technology and you have no fall back plan? Really?
You picked some career field that didn’t pay well and/or didn’t offer medical benefits because you “always wanted to be a teacher/journalist/ballerina/whatever. But now I’m supposed to subsidize your medical care so you can “realize your dream”? Really?
Or more egregiously, you decided not to go to post-secondary school. But now I’m supposed to be willing to raise your minimum wage and decrease the return on my investments? Or you decided that you “loooooved the boy”, got pregnant, and then decided to keep a child you couldn’t afford to raise…but now I’m supposed to pay for the two of you because “we can’t let the innocent suffer”? Really?
You made your choices I made mine. I gave up time and hobbies and family to ensure I had a job, retirement savings, medical insurance, and enough money in the bank to weather economic crises. But now I’m supposed to bail out the grasshopper. Really? Maybe I’m not interested in saving an individual whose proven incapable of managing their lives, considering my life isn’t going to change one iota if ytvou go without. Yes, I could spend it and make the world a better place, help out my community, and make a difference in the lives of less fortunate person. But you know something? I’m not interested in doing so. So why don’t you not make life mistakes, get your act together if you can, and simply accept that you are screwed for life if you can’t…because quite simply, unless you make it worth my while, I see very little reason to do anything for you. That’s what I think when I hold up a dollar bill. Really.
I am worried about fraud? No.
The reality is that the “welfare queen” is largely a myth. Most welfare recipients are white, and the typical stay on welfare is less than five years.
What I worry about is WHY did they end up in a situation where they needed the welfare, the food stamps, the unemployment check, or the medical subsidies in the first place.
And if I can find one mistake, one poor choice, one factor that links it back to them, then I see no reason to shield them from the consequences of their life. Condemning them costs nothing, helping them not only costs money, but condones the very actions that made them unable to provide for themselves. The latter is perhaps even more important than the money…and likely more important than the lives of you, I, or them.
I reject both the lack of mercy that condemns someone (sometimes literally) for only one mistake, and the lack of kindness that places some sort of objective punishment for such errors as being more important than lives, your, mine, or theirs.
There is something very wrong when a fast food worker can receive the same healthcare as an individual who has spent years, even decades, building a small business.
There is something very wrong when a retail clerk can receive the same healthcare as a medical doctor or skilled professional.
There is something very wrong when a homeless bum can receive the same healthcare as the CEO of a major international firm.
At some level, at some threshold, we need to draw the line and say “you don’t get medical care”. You want it, do more. Become more. Simply existing doesn’t cut it. We need higher standards, both as individuals and as a society. And we need to get tough with those who cannot or will not measure up to those standards.
There is no way I can look at a PhD and a wino and reconcile the former paying for the medical care of the latter. And if the wino was a PhD who has destroyed his/her life, they get what they deserve. I just cannot accept that the result of work, effort, and sacrifice on the part of a successful person, the professional person (trades or otherwise), should be trivialized by rewarding an individual who hasn’t earned the right to the same. benefits.
On one level, @clouddragon9, I look at your “there is something very wrong” comments and say, “Why?” Why is health care necessarily contingent on material or social success?
On another level, I note that we’re not talking about “the same healthcare.” We’re not talking here about completely socializing healthcare, making ever treatment equally available to all. It’s not a binary choice between “You only get what you’re strong enough (or enriched enough) to grab from others” vs “Everything to all, with no difference in how hard you’ve worked.” I think it’s possible to have a world where people don’t have to choose between eating tonight or having a preventative healthcare checkup, or where people aren’t forced to turn to the ER to deal with a cough that hasn’t gone away for the last week. I think there are ways we can provide basic health care, and yet still acknowledge that (as is even the case in the Universal Health Care nations of Europe), the wealthy are going to be able to get something better, faster, perhaps more effective, than what the poor are going to get, largely because we do live in a world of limited resources.
Public health care and more humane risk pools do not mean that everyone gets flown off to experimental cancer centers in Lucerne, or have immediate and unlimited access to the latest machine that goes “ping,” any more than public food support means that everyone gets to feast on filet mignon and asparagus each night, or public housing means everyone has a penthouse view of Central Park or a summer cabin Grand Tetons. It’s not an easy black and white choice, which makes it more difficult and subject to debate, but no less real.
Along those same lines — should a struggling factory worker get, in your eyes, “the same healthcare” as the guy who inherited all his money from his father and does nothing with it except hire accountants to keep him in fast cars and ski trips to Switzerland? If material rewards should be based on what people “deserve,” or on “work, effort, and sacrifice,” whose effort or lack of effort do you actually trivialize?
Dave
The reason for making healthcare contingent on the material success of an individual lies in the fundamental belief that the welfare and well-being of the individual is at core an individual responsibility, not a communal responsibility.
There are three types of people; those who can’t work, those who don’t need to work (but should anyway), and those who must work.
The first deserve our support, because they are unable to work and provide for themselves.
The second represent the pinnacle to which all aspire – reaching a point where one can work as one chooses, simply because they can.
The third represents the vast majority of humanity – working to live.
Key point number one…I understand fully well your point with respect to healthcare. Here is my perspective…no one will be given anything. Nothing. We will give nothing. If you don’t earn it, you don’t get it. Period. We will provide you with the basic start (free education) because it is in our societal interest to have replacement workers for those who pass on. But past that startup expense, we will give nothing to anyone for any reason. Each worker (or in the case of the wealthy, potential non-worker) keeps what they earn.
We contribute to things like defense, roads, libraries and schools for the specific reason that we cannot achieve them by ourselves. Like it or not, we simply must cooperate and share the cost to get what we want for our money. But food, shelter, medical care, and retirement are individual responsibilities. The individual needs to meet that responsibility or go without and bear the consequences.
Personally, I think very little of the rich person who acts as you describe. The only appropriate use of money is to make more more. Money = Security. One can never have enough; I can no more understand wasting money on entertainment, on “wine women and song” than I can understand the inanity of philanthropy. Both are simply beyond my comprehension…unless one is being philanthropic for political purposes…
Unless I was very, very sure that my heirs would use the money to make more money, I would be reluctant to pass them the money for the precise reason that they would act in such a manner. Equally, I would never give it away to my community. Money is accumulated to ensure survival. When I was dead, I would prefer to see the money burned so that no one benefits.
@clouddragon9 – I think it best to leave it that you simply operate from different axioms than I do. “If you don’t earn it, you don’t get it.” “The welfare and well-being of the individual is at core an individual responsibility, not a communal responsibility.” “The only appropriate use of money is to make more money.” “We will provide you with the basic start (free education) because it is in our societal interest to have replacement workers for those who pass on.” “When I was dead, I would prefer to see the money burned so that no one benefits.” I disagree with those fundamental statements, which makes further discussion pretty pointless.
Dave
Aye, your approach is quite simple “…if we all give but a little, then we can all have …in this instance, healthcare.
You cannot fathom why an individual would, in standing for their principles, say unequivocally “no”.
I shall leave two thoughts which have formed my opinions at an early age.
First, Theodore Roosevelt…
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Second, the message I heard from my family, nuclear and extended…
“Take care of yourself, and if you can’t, kindly drop dead so the rest of us won’t have to.”
You want to create a society where no one can ever lose.
I want a society where the one who has strived valiantly gets to keep what they have fought for, instead of being being expected to “help up” the very competition overcome to achieve their prize.
In the end, your principle rests with the ideology that nothing is more important than life. In my world, many things – freedom, honor, pride to name but a few – are far more important than life…including my own.
Thank you for a civil and spirited debate!
@clouddragon9
I don’t want a society where nobody can lose, but one where the choice is not “succeed or die”. I’m not a Leveler, but I think there’s a middle path between living in a hive and living in a Hobbesian state of nature where life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” And I reject the valuation of individuals (and “success”) as being solely about someone’s economic value as a cog in the system, and that the only thing that matters is money and who acquires the most. To offer a few TR quotes of my own:
“We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far. The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.” — “The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
“Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.” — Ibid.
I won’t denigrate the value of freedom, honor, or pride — they are things that make life meaningful and, metaphorically, worth living. But I don’t think my personal freedom, honor, or pride are more important than your life, or that an offense against them warrants my prioritizing them over your life.
Regardless, I appreciate as well, even with fundamental disagreements, the “civil and spirited debate.”
Over the weekend, I read some interesting commentary from two medical doctors on the topic of health care: See the articles by John Hunt, MD., and Luis Collar, MD.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/category/policy
Their commentary was particularly insightful after having a long and interesting conversation with my long term medical doctor this past week (routine annual checkup), who voices much of the same ideas.
In reviewing the original ACA and the related Supreme Court challenge of the same over this weekend, I find it notable the legal absence of those most central to the case…not the patients, but the providers.
Notice how everyone claims to have “standing” in the ACA case, a genuine interest or right at stake, yet nowhere found “standing” at court are the producers of health care – the doctors, nurses, hospitals, researchers, drug-makers, or health insurers. They are presumed to owe a “noble” and selfless duty (i.e., their time, talent, income and profits) to patients; they are not at liberty to work on their own terms, but only on those dictated by demagogic politicians, or decreed by power-lusting regulators, or demanded by needy patients. The producers are to be mere means to the ends of others. Consumers allegedly have a “right” to what health care providers provide, a “right” to say what will be provided, when, and at what price.
In fact, health care is not a right. It’s a valuable service provided by intelligent, hard-working professionals with years of painstaking education and training, people who, like other Americans, deserve equal protection under the law, people who, like other Americans, have a right to their own life, liberty, property and the pursuit of their own happiness. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug-makers, and health insurers are no more “servants” of the masses, or even of those in need of health care, than are businessmen, bankers, teachers, journalists, or truck drivers servants of those who need their services. If you want to pay for the services of health care providers, simply do so; if you can’t afford it, try to negotiate a discount, or pay by installments, or seek access to private charity; but you have no “right” to take from health care providers what they’re not willing to supply.
I would be very curious as to your take on the commentary by these two professionals (three, but I have no text from my personal doctor) who are front and center to the debate.
The Hunt article‘s headline is that the cheapest form of health care is to let sick people die. It’s focus is on the moral hazard of divorcing health care cost from those seeking health care and how that inflates medical costs (i.e., by having private or public insurance pay for medical care). I find it seems to work on the assumption that if only insurance didn’t exist then medical prices would be low and negotiable between individuals and doctors and folks would all get the medical care they need. I think one only needs go back a century to see how that worked as a system and see that it only works where (a) the need to purchase a given thing is flexible, and (b) the circumstances to purchase a service is a straightforward point of sale. In most circumstances I don’t need to buy a car, or I can go to a variety of car dealers or private parties that can offer me what I want (cash on the table or over time) that serves the basic functions of a car. Medical care, as both a life-or-death matter, is inflexible in demand; the component of medical care that has to do with health maintenance and chronic care are ongoing expenses that further distort the picture. If seeking medical care was as non-urgent matter, it would be one thing. The headline speaks to what the actual alternative is, which is hardly a trade-off I care to see in our society.
The Collar article essentially argues that insurance is unnecessary, except perhaps in a catastrophic sense (as with car or homeowner insurance). The goal is to have medical spending determined solely by the patient, medical care determined solely by an independent physician, and eliminating any middleman that reduces those independencies and increases friction/cost. I think there’s something idealistically appealing to this (albeit with the caveats I expressed above), though I question some of the premises — the long-term value (and net cost savings to the system) of health maintenance / wellness care may not be apparent to individuals but will be utilized (to their and societal costs savings) if made available; completely independent physicians lose the aggregate wisdom of best practices and synergies of collegiality that a group practice model can provide. I concur that for-profit insurance is a necessary drag on the cost monies available to provision of maximum health care to a maximum number, however.
At the end of the day though, Dave, the cold reality is this: I spent years leveraging my intelligence, drive, and ambition to build a career, earn advanced degrees, and survive in a world that has rapidly raised the bar to achieve that objective.
It seems to me that the *reward* (and I use that term scathingly) is to provide healthcare for some high school dropout. Are you really telling me that those who succeed are honor bound to support the stupid?
If that is the case, Dave, tell me why I bothered with all that effort in the first place. Why bother Dave? Because I’m supposed to now use my *gifts* and talents to *serve* my fellow man? My “fellow man” is an expense that is costing me money, no more and no less. My “fellow man” is an unwanted burden. And every program that gives them “something” is an insult to all that I have accomplished.
I don’t understand your aversion to “succeed or die”. What are you afraid of? Dying? Or succeeding?
What I grasp all too clearly is this: dead people don’t cost us money. They don’t cost us anything. So let them die and let the rest of us keep our money. We have use for it. I fail to understand our societal need for them. What I also grasp is this: if the end result of success is to support the less fortunate, there really wasn’t much point in becoming successful, was there?
I think in one sense I can grasp your passion for providing healthcare, for the simple reason that I understand how angry it makes me to even think about having to provide healthcare for someone who doesn’t (in my opinion) deserve it. Words simply cannot even begin to express the violence I feel in my heart when I think about the wages of the successful providing healthcare for a dime-a-dozen high school dropout.
I think in the end what you are really asking for is mercy. You want mercy for the workers when two companies merge, instead of seeing people let go. You want to see mercy for the family instead of foreclose. You want to see mercy for those whose jobs were replaced…by technology, by changing markets, by globalization. You want mercy for those who didn’t see “it” coming, who haven’t adapted to a rapidly changing world. You want mercy for those who may not possess the cognitive and/or emotional skills to succeed in that globalised, technological world. What bothers you isn’t greed, but the lack of mercy – the lack of a shared humanism. What bothers you is the distinction that “why” matters…and if the why can be traced to the life choices of an individual, there is a complete willingness to abandon that individual to their probable fate. “There for the grace of god go I” you say, and therefore we must provide for those in need. I say, ” if there go I”, I neither expect nor deserve mercy, and thus I neither give it or expect it.
I think in the end, the difference lies not with the details of healthcare, or food stamps, or housing, or whatever…but in the choice to practice mercy. You seek a world where any cost is worth the price if it brings mercy…and I am completely comfortable in a world that has none.
I’ll combine responses to both your answers, @clouddragon9:
1. If I were suggesting that you should take all the money and other things you have gathered in your life through hard work and planning ahead and sacrifice and your own personal merits and turn everything over to some shmuck who’d rather play video games than get a damned job, I could understand that anger. But I’m not suggesting some grand leveling of “makers and takers.” My helping to provide others with a minimum level of health care doesn’t mean I’m having to move out of my nice suburban house or forgo all the other “rewards” of my own talent and efforts. I can see food assistance and shelter assistance and unemployment coverage going to people without losing my cable TV or going without a kitchen remodel next year or skipping all the Christmas presents under the tree. Even not counting the “rewards” of not seeing people starving in the streets, I still live, materially, far better than a lot of the citizenry in this country, let alone the world. It’s not a matter of some binary “I keep everything I have / I lose everything I have.”
2. I wouldn’t use the word “mercy” as much as “kindness.” The former term implies a judgment, a justified course of activity from which one turns because of some virtuous forgiveness. I honestly don’t care if a kid is hungry because his parents are jerks or unprepared or just unlucky — the kindness is due regardless. Similarly, if someone is pulled over on the road, my helping them isn’t merciful based on whether they weren’t maintaining their car properly or simply encountered a nail in the road, but is kindness because that’s how humans should treat each other.
Stopping to help a stranded motorist is far different, precisely because it doesn’t cost you money. Perhaps if you give them a lift to the gas station and back it might cost you a little in gas money, but you aren’t giving them any money directly.
I certainly wouldn’t presume to intimate that providing healthcare (or other social welfare) amounts to some grand leveling. Everything you state about not losing a standard of living is true. However, let us look closer at why you enjoy that standard of living. You enjoy it because of the job you do and the money it earns. You have that job at that pay scale for three primary reasons; there is a demand for the work, there is a relative scarcity of people who are able and willing to do the same work for less, and it is not feasible and/or economically viable to replace you with a machine. The moment any of these three conditions change, you will no longer enjoy that salary. You will have to acccept a lower standard, change jobs, or live off what you have accumulated.
You have no more “right” to healthcare than you have a “right” to your nice suburban house, your cable TV, the kitchen remodeling, or the presents under the tree. It is a service which you have earned by virtue of the three conditions.
The person whose job doesn’t meet the three conditions doesn’t command the same salary. As a result, they don’t enjoy the same standard of living; they haven’t earned the suburban house, they don’t get to enjoy cable TV, their kitchen doesn’t get remodeled, and they DON’T get healthcare.
It really is quite simple. EVERYTHING is earned, nothing is given. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how badly it is wanted, needed, or required, if you didn’t earn it, you don’t get it. If it means they starve in the streets, it means they starve in the streets. You earned it, you get to keep it…ALL of it, not “most of it” less “what you can afford to give”. You wouldn’t expect someone to share the trophy, the championship ring, the gold medal…each and every penny you or I make is just as precious. It represents the reward for what we have been through and all that we have accomplished. I can’t speak for you, but I’ve worked for it, sweated for it, sacrificed for it, even bled for it. I’ve fought for it, gone without many things for it, damn near lost my life for it. I’m not giving it away; not one penny, not one dime. Why not ask me to cut off my arm and give it away? Hell, I only need one kidney, I must be a horrible person for not giving up my redundant part.
What I (or you) can afford to give is immaterial. Giving it to someone who hasn’t earned the right to have it is the point. What I do is question *why* they cannot afford it…and in nearly every case, it doesn’t take a whole lot of questioning to find out that they are to blame for their conditions and circumstances. They chose to stand pat with a high school education. They chose to select careers that didn’t pay. They didn’t adapt to the realities of a world rapidly changing due to globalization and technology. It’s their fault that they haven’t paid attention to the three conditions necessary to enjoy a good salary with benefits, not yours or mine. I’m sorry, but I was raised to believe “your choices, your consequences”. If it meant you wore the “scarlet letter” till the day you died, so be it. If it meant you were going to be trapped in your condition, so be it. If it meant you might die, so be it. There was, is, and never shall be help, relief, or forgiveness for one’s mistakes, choices, or failures…but also no claim on one’s success.
So we have the bottom line…it will cost me an additional $600 this year to subsidize what is at core the responsibility of each individual (health insurance), but since they have failed in that responsibility, I get to assume responsibility for their incompetence.
$600 that buys me what again? A bunch of damn personages that
I don’t want, don’t need, have no use for, and could easily do without? A bunch of people who death wouldn’t mean one iota of change to my daily life?
That price is just for this year, who knows how much it will continue to increase in the coming years…after all, they are legally (by the act) permitted to increase premiums up to 10% every year!
As far as I’m concerned, I see nothing good about this program and this is only the latest in the long litany of problems. Give me back my g% d d@mn money, cut the worthless bastards off, and let them fend for themselves!
If they can’t provide for themselves, THEY have a problem. You and I don’t, and I fail to see why we should make THEIR problem, OUR problem…especially to the tune of $600!
So society, via their personal bully called government, steals away $600…which I could live with it they just burned it…but noooooo, they have to waste it subsidizing insurance for a bunch of life’s failures.
Care to tell me again why I should *loooooove* this ACA?
Oh, I know!!!! I’m supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that thanks to my $1.64 spent each day, my fellow citizen(s) gets healthcare! Bullcr@p. I’d be perfectly willing to pay even more just to prevent the UNDESERVING from sponging off of me.
Nothing more than organized extortion, aimed directly at punishing those with any modicum of intelligence, drive, and ambition. Why bother to succeed in the first place if they (society) are just going to steal it away, piece by piece, because (said with great disdain) “…lives are just soooooooooo important”. Excuse me, rant over…I have to go puke now.
Why was I ever stupid enough to leverage my intelligence and actually try to become successful? Your only reward is to be used by society…and they don’t even have the courtesy to say “thank you” after scr% wing you royally.
Dave:
Earlier this week I happened to listen to an NPR report on efforts to bring the ACA healthcare to some of the rural regions of Appalachia. The report involved one woman who works a waitress in a small town well off the beaten path…so enthusiastic at the prospect of getting healthcare!
Which really brings the crux of my antagonism to the ACA home.
If you want healthcare dear, here is a proposition for you. Why don’t you leave your one horse town, head to Raleigh or Durham or another real city and GO TO COLLEGE! Get a Real education in a Real field with a Real future that leads to a Real job…one important enough to society to warrant paying for your medical care. There are Plenty of great jobs in the Research Triangle, jobs that we are desperate to fill, both as a country and as a society. Get the education and become something worthwhile that society actually needs.
But if all you are going to do is be a dime-a-dozen waitress is Nowheresville, I fail to see why we should waste our money, our time, and our resources. Quite frankly the only consequence I see to your passing is the favorable reduction in expenses for our country.
So tell me Dave…why are we bothering?