universal healthcare

[kandrathe]

Oh, if it were only this blindingly simple. Unfortunately when an individual or family faces these consequences their effects are not isolated and it has repercussions across everyone, even people who are diligently paying for insurance and taking wonderful care of their health.

It is that blindingly simple. The people who go to emergency rooms anonymously are people who should be covered already by State and Federal programs. The barriers to their embracing the existing bureaucracy are probably also the ones that affect their earning ability as well (be it legal issues, illegal status, mental health, etc.) The costs for them will continue to be on county or state governments.

I'm only speaking as the head of a family who actually lost our health care for about a year, with nary a safety net to be found. This is not a problem that is solved by Obamacare. Yes, we had medical problems during this time period, not to mention a huge amount of fear of having two fairly wild boys who no matter how hard we tried were not covered by any of the four health plans run by my State government. We paid out of pocket. Under Obamacare, we would also be fined $695 for not having insurance (or spend ~ $6000 to buy it out of pocket on the open market). The boys actually eventually became covered by Medicaid about a month before I found my current job. I'm pretty familiar with government run solutions, and their problems as well. I still don't believe our problems should be a burden on tax payers, but I'm 100% against health care being tied to employment.

No, that is unequivocally not a better question. And it's so laden with ideology and hyperbole that the idea of it being more accurate borders on laughable. The real question underlying this is; Does the government have the power, through taxation, mandates, and regulation to promote behavior which it finds to be individually and socially beneficial. I'm sure you will find that the resounding answer to this question is yes.

I think we are bordering on developing an Anarchy of law, where no matter how hard we might try, we cannot help but be in violation of some law. This is a danger then if our government became more of a police state where arbitrary justice is practiced against the enemies of the state. I can't wait to see what the repercussions will be for those who refuse to buy themselves health insurance.

A corollary question would be; Should the government have this power? I'm sure you would answer no. I disagree.

Actually, I would answer a qualified yes. We should be able to discern when power is used to our mutual benefit, or when this power is abused.

To quote Howard Zinn: "The Constitution set up big government, big enough to protect slaveholders against slave rebellion, to pay off bondholders, to pass tariffs on behalf of manufacturers, to tax poor farmers to pay for armies that would then attack the farmers if they resisted. ...Big enough to use the armed forces to clear Indians off their land, to put down labor uprisings, to invade countries in the Caribbean for the benefit of American growers, bankers, investors. This was very big government. "Big government" in itself is hardly the issue. That is here to stay. The only question is: Whom will it serve?"

I would ask if this is the vision we SHOULD have of our government. It was an abuse as much then, as it is now.