Thread: Isn't health care more of a human issue than a political one?

No, it isn't

Originally Posted by Mandrake

Can anyone put forth an argument against reasonable reforms to health care along ethical lines? The opposition seems to be mostly political. This is an instance where I feel very strongly that respect for humanity goes well beyond American partisanship. In fact, the politicization of the topic is extremely counterproductive -- a bit like politicizing the subject of air pollution.
I realize this a political discussion forum; and I also realize that abstract concepts like human suffering really have no place in such a forum. Maybe that's the point I'm trying to make. Reducing the things we all face to political terms is patently absurd. This "debate" has derailed, in part because the debate has become part of the issue and now a subject as innocuous as health care seems twisted and toxic.

(Substantive, meaningful, thoughtful responses appreciated. Sarcastic, dismissive, personal, political, diversionary, narrow-minded responses expected. All invited, few if any anticipated ~ god bless America. )

BINGO!

We have a holocaust and all the assholes are taking one side or the other but they fail to see that there is another side and that is the side of the people who are being ripped off, maimed and killed by a medical industry that has been spinning out of control for 30 years.

Politician are in a tough spot. If they piss off the big medicine they will not get reelected. None of them dare let the whole truth out and that is way health care is and should be treated as a non partisan issue.

The deaths cause by bad medicine is like a 911 everyday. Every year we lose millions of us to this dreadful health care system.

When I hear the arguments that are really the parroting of the media lies and omission on this subject I can see why Stalin did the purges he did. PEOPLE are FUCKING DUMB LEMMINGS!

There is one reason and one reason only why we have the most dangerous and most expensive health care in the world. It's allowed!

Most people have never had an independent thought in their lives betas that they are. It's really pretty simple. We have horrible and expensive health care that gets worse and worse year after year. Other countries have good health care and a reasonable price. If they can do it so can we.

The government won't fix it. They are simply the street whores of the medical industry. Any industry that is 17% of the US GDP makes rules. Somehow the lemmings can't see that.

This starts with you greedy doctor who prescribes medication he knows are dangerous and not very effective.

It goes to the FCC for allowing the advertising of drugs to the general public.

It goes to the rampant insurance fraud that you doctor and hospital are involved in.

It goes to lack of CRIMINAL prosecution of the people in this system who kill, maim and steal.

It goes to the intellectual laziness and dishonesty of the tea baggers who certainly have a right to be pissed but who are unwittingly working for the very people who oppress them.

When the tea baggers were bringing guns to town hall meetings to intimidate our elected officials they should really have been heading to New Jersey where the drug companies are. They should be heading to Connecticut where the insurance industry is. They should be heading to South Carolina and take the billions directly out of the pockets of the Columbia HCA crowd like criminal Tim Phillips and criminal Rick Scott of Conservatives for Patients Rights Former Hospital CEO Rick Scott Leads Opposition to Obama on Health Care - washingtonpost.com

Rick Scott is a major league criminal as bad as John Gotti or Al Capone. He is am major player in the tea bag bowel movement. Instead of turning your tea bag guns on our politicians who are between a rock and a hard place why not turn your guns and anger on the people who are killing harming your fellow Americans and stealing form them in the process.

WHY NOT help your government hunt these bastards down and bring them to justice.

I get it. there are a lot of sleazy politicians out their but it is impossible to get elected and stay elected without corporate money and bribes.

Most of the people in DC really don't want to have to fuck you. It is a balancing act for them. Think about it. Who really has more power, some congressman who make 200k a year of a corporate CEO who makes that much in one day?

The enemy is not the government. They enemies are the corporate interests that own the government. The most powerful industry on earth bar none is the medical industry. They are the real enemy.

We need to stop playing politics and start saving lives on innocent Americans. I do it by blogging, contacting members of congress, churches, medical schools. You may have other ideas. BUT the bottom line is this health care system is deadlier than disease whether you want to admit or not.

Originally Posted by Mandrake

Can anyone put forth an argument against reasonable reforms to health care along ethical lines? The opposition seems to be mostly political. This is an instance where I feel very strongly that respect for humanity goes well beyond American partisanship. In fact, the politicization of the topic is extremely counterproductive -- a bit like politicizing the subject of air pollution.
I realize this a political discussion forum; and I also realize that abstract concepts like human suffering really have no place in such a forum. Maybe that's the point I'm trying to make. Reducing the things we all face to political terms is patently absurd. This "debate" has derailed, in part because the debate has become part of the issue and now a subject as innocuous as health care seems twisted and toxic.

(Substantive, meaningful, thoughtful responses appreciated. Sarcastic, dismissive, personal, political, diversionary, narrow-minded responses expected. All invited, few if any anticipated ~ god bless America. )

If what you are suggesting is to happen then health care will have to cease being an industry. What type of entity you are determines where you fall on the political spectrum. Health care is BIG business! The stake holders are very wealthy. This debate is not about people. It is about money. And in the US, money is usually political or is able to buy blocks of political power.

I think the stake holdes have done a fantastic job of bamboozling the American public. I mean, how many people feel sorry for say, AT&T? Or General Electric? I could go on. Health care is not a charitable organization. It is several VERY profit oriented corporations. The really sad thing about this and the thing that amazes me is that so many people of modest means will vote against their OWN interest and allow themselves to be killed and maimed by very rich people that they actually feel sorry for. Go figure.

Originally Posted by Mandrake

Can anyone put forth an argument against reasonable reforms to health care along ethical lines? The opposition seems to be mostly political. This is an instance where I feel very strongly that respect for humanity goes well beyond American partisanship. In fact, the politicization of the topic is extremely counterproductive -- a bit like politicizing the subject of air pollution.
I realize this a political discussion forum; and I also realize that abstract concepts like human suffering really have no place in such a forum. Maybe that's the point I'm trying to make. Reducing the things we all face to political terms is patently absurd. This "debate" has derailed, in part because the debate has become part of the issue and now a subject as innocuous as health care seems twisted and toxic.

(Substantive, meaningful, thoughtful responses appreciated. Sarcastic, dismissive, personal, political, diversionary, narrow-minded responses expected. All invited, few if any anticipated ~ god bless America. )

Well, I agree with you. We already provide Health Care for some citizens, would it not be better to provide it to all. In our present system I can't imagine what an insurance policy would cost for someone over 65, or what that policy would cover or exclude.

Healthcare is, first and foremost, a human issue.

Leave government the hell out of it.

Originally Posted by lutherf

Healthcare is, first and foremost, a human issue.

Leave government the hell out of it.

Don't hold your breath!

Originally Posted by Sunshine

If what you are suggesting is to happen then health care will have to cease being an industry. What type of entity you are determines where you fall on the political spectrum. Health care is BIG business! The stake holders are very wealthy. This debate is not about people. It is about money. And in the US, money is usually political or is able to buy blocks of political power.

I think the stake holdes have done a fantastic job of bamboozling the American public. I mean, how many people feel sorry for say, AT&T? Or General Electric? I could go on. Health care is not a charitable organization. It is several VERY profit oriented corporations. The really sad thing about this and the thing that amazes me is that so many that they actually feel sorry for. people of modest means will vote against their OWN interest and allow themselves to be killed and maimed by very rich people Go figure.

Truly amazing.

Originally Posted by lutherf

Healthcare is, first and foremost, a human issue.

Leave government the hell out of it.

Heh.. yup. That's pretty much where the "politics" enters into it.

Politics is a human issue.

There are two schools of thought among the left driving this. The idealists believe that health care is a right, but a right does not require forced labor out of the dozen layers of people that make health care possible. The more Machiavellian among them simply see it as gaining a monopoly on a commodity most would give anything for at one point or another.

The right view the corporate insurance and pharmaceutical industries as somewhere in between the only way to efficiently distribute care to a necessary evil to guarantee continuing innovation.

Ones health is a function of an individuals choices, genetics, and fate. Neither the government, nor a physician can control ones genetics or fate, and no free country can sufficiently control an individuals choices. The lionshare of resources for funding ones health care must therefore, come from the individual.

The government can only ensure that sufficient emergency infrastructure capacity is maintained for mass casualty events, regular emergency care, or routine preventative screening. It can facilitate planning ahead for forseeable needs. But the disposable equipment used on an individual and the labor to apply must be paid by the individual.

Originally Posted by Dr Genocide

BINGO!

We have a holocaust and all the assholes are taking one side or the other but they fail to see that there is another side and that is the side of the people who are being ripped off, maimed and killed by a medical industry that has been spinning out of control for 30 years.

Politician are in a tough spot. If they piss off the big medicine they will not get reelected. None of them dare let the whole truth out and that is way health care is and should be treated as a non partisan issue.

The deaths cause by bad medicine is like a 911 everyday. Every year we lose millions of us to this dreadful health care system.

When I hear the arguments that are really the parroting of the media lies and omission on this subject I can see why Stalin did the purges he did. PEOPLE are FUCKING DUMB LEMMINGS!

There is one reason and one reason only why we have the most dangerous and most expensive health care in the world. It's allowed!

Most people have never had an independent thought in their lives betas that they are. It's really pretty simple. We have horrible and expensive health care that gets worse and worse year after year. Other countries have good health care and a reasonable price. If they can do it so can we.

The government won't fix it. They are simply the street whores of the medical industry. Any industry that is 17% of the US GDP makes rules. Somehow the lemmings can't see that.

This starts with you greedy doctor who prescribes medication he knows are dangerous and not very effective.

It goes to the FCC for allowing the advertising of drugs to the general public.

It goes to the rampant insurance fraud that you doctor and hospital are involved in.

It goes to lack of CRIMINAL prosecution of the people in this system who kill, maim and steal.

It goes to the intellectual laziness and dishonesty of the tea baggers who certainly have a right to be pissed but who are unwittingly working for the very people who oppress them.

When the tea baggers were bringing guns to town hall meetings to intimidate our elected officials they should really have been heading to New Jersey where the drug companies are. They should be heading to Connecticut where the insurance industry is. They should be heading to South Carolina and take the billions directly out of the pockets of the Columbia HCA crowd like criminal Tim Phillips and criminal Rick Scott of Conservatives for Patients Rights Former Hospital CEO Rick Scott Leads Opposition to Obama on Health Care - washingtonpost.com

Rick Scott is a major league criminal as bad as John Gotti or Al Capone. He is am major player in the tea bag bowel movement. Instead of turning your tea bag guns on our politicians who are between a rock and a hard place why not turn your guns and anger on the people who are killing harming your fellow Americans and stealing form them in the process.

WHY NOT help your government hunt these bastards down and bring them to justice.

I get it. there are a lot of sleazy politicians out their but it is impossible to get elected and stay elected without corporate money and bribes.

Most of the people in DC really don't want to have to fuck you. It is a balancing act for them. Think about it. Who really has more power, some congressman who make 200k a year of a corporate CEO who makes that much in one day?

The enemy is not the government. They enemies are the corporate interests that own the government. The most powerful industry on earth bar none is the medical industry. They are the real enemy.

We need to stop playing politics and start saving lives on innocent Americans. I do it by blogging, contacting members of congress, churches, medical schools. You may have other ideas. BUT the bottom line is this health care system is deadlier than disease whether you want to admit or not.

Ahhhh.... yes, I see.

But you left out the Pope, the Knights Templar, Sunshine and the Queen of England.

Originally Posted by Sunshine

If what you are suggesting is to happen then health care will have to cease being an industry. What type of entity you are determines where you fall on the political spectrum. Health care is BIG business! The stake holders are very wealthy. This debate is not about people. It is about money. And in the US, money is usually political or is able to buy blocks of political power.

I think the stake holdes have done a fantastic job of bamboozling the American public. I mean, how many people feel sorry for say, AT&T? Or General Electric? I could go on. Health care is not a charitable organization. It is several VERY profit oriented corporations. The really sad thing about this and the thing that amazes me is that so many people of modest means will vote against their OWN interest and allow themselves to be killed and maimed by very rich people that they actually feel sorry for. Go figure.

Other corporations and industries are subject to scrutiny and regulation. The communications industry is regulated by the FCC and most people would agree that it is better for it. The auto, coal, energy, telecom, agricultural, airline, transportation, steel, food, housing, firearms, alcohol industries are all regulated to their benefit and to the benefit of the consumer through gvt regs. They all have a partnership with government and most of the time it's a good partnership. We have some damn good industries in the US. We don't have the 4th highest GDP in the world because of too much government regulation of businesses. I also think that most industries and corporations are some what moral. The health care industry is a whole different kettle of slime.

I have a friend who is a social worker. He tells me that if there is a devil he works in the human services field. Medicine is a human service. It deals with suffering and the terror of pain and death so let's look at this from a strictly human point of view. Every civilization has had health care. Let's take native Americans and how they dealt with taking care of the sick and injured. They saw health care as much more than a right. They saw it as their duty and I really don't believe that a wounded brave of a sick squaw had to fork over any wampum to pay for medical treatment from the medicine man.

We can talk to we are blue in the fact as to whether health care is a human right but IMO it is a moral imperative. We judge a society on how it regards its sick and elderly and compared to most of the rest of the world the US sucks. Our health care industry sees disease as something in which to exploit for money long before they see it as a duty. I am older than most of you and back in the day doctors were compassionate advocates for the patients that they loved and cared for. They had a sense of duty and they took the oath to heart. The ones who take the oath to heart today are a dying breed. Maybe then when US health care really was 2nd to none we could get by without government regulation because the profession did police itself. Today medicine is no longer a profession with the sanctity of a religion. Today medicine is a corporate run industry whose goal is profit and growth like all other industries and monetarily they medical industry is doing great. Morally they are lower than Exxon/Mobil, Tyco, and AIG.

Medicine in America went from a profession to the biggest industrial complex in the world. It went from the best in quality and safety to the worst.

Today we are left with a health care system that does more harm than good.

Originally Posted by Dr Genocide

Other corporations and industries are subject to scrutiny and regulation. The communications industry is regulated by the FCC and most people would agree that it is better for it. The auto, coal, energy, telecom, agricultural, airline, transportation, steel, food, housing, firearms, alcohol industries are all regulated to their benefit and to the benefit of the consumer through gvt regs. They all have a partnership with government and most of the time it's a good partnership. We have some damn good industries in the US. We don't have the 4th highest GDP in the world because of too much government regulation of businesses. I also think that most industries and corporations are some what moral. The health care industry is a whole different kettle of slime.

I have a friend who is a social worker. He tells me that if there is a devil he works in the human services field. Medicine is a human service. It deals with suffering and the terror of pain and death so let's look at this from a strictly human point of view. Every civilization has had health care. Let's take native Americans and how they dealt with taking care of the sick and injured. They saw health care as much more than a right. They saw it as their duty and I really don't believe that a wounded brave of a sick squaw had to fork over any wampum to pay for medical treatment from the medicine man.

We can talk to we are blue in the fact as to whether health care is a human right but IMO it is a moral imperative. We judge a society on how it regards its sick and elderly and compared to most of the rest of the world the US sucks. Our health care industry sees disease as something in which to exploit for money long before they see it as a duty. I am older than most of you and back in the day doctors were compassionate advocates for the patients that they loved and cared for. They had a sense of duty and they took the oath to heart. The ones who take the oath to heart today are a dying breed. Maybe then when US health care really was 2nd to none we could get by without government regulation because the profession did police itself. Today medicine is no longer a profession with the sanctity of a religion. Today medicine is a corporate run industry whose goal is profit and growth like all other industries and monetarily they medical industry is doing great. Morally they are lower than Exxon/Mobil, Tyco, and AIG.

Medicine in America went from a profession to the biggest industrial complex in the world. It went from the best in quality and safety to the worst.

Today we are left with a health care system that does more harm than good.

You are REALLY confused.

Tribal medicine? Yes, many Native American tribes as well as other tribal peoples from around the world made it a point to take good care of their hunters and their warriors. They also had means of "taking care of " the aged, the infirm, the hopelessly crippled and the crazies. In many of these cultures you were expected to leave the community if your presence created an undue burden on the rest of the population.

Are you suggesting that we head back in that direction?

In todays society we care for all members more or less equally. We replace hips on people that may only live another 4 or 5 years. We treat cancers for people that are in their 90's. We go to great lengths to make sure that the crippled can have a life as full and adventuresome as the fully abled. Yet, you have the audacity to call us barbarians. It's shameful.

Originally Posted by lutherf

You are REALLY confused.

Tribal medicine? Yes, many Native American tribes as well as other tribal peoples from around the world made it a point to take good care of their hunters and their warriors. They also had means of "taking care of " the aged, the infirm, the hopelessly crippled and the crazies. In many of these cultures you were expected to leave the community if your presence created an undue burden on the rest of the population.

PROOF? The fact is, in most tribes and in the Iroquois Nation and particularly the Mohawks and the Oneidas the elderly and the informed were well treated. Stop pulling BS out of your but. In fact the Iroquois nation was one of the first democracies on earth and women had equal rights.

Stop making fact free statements because it look like you are lying. Are you lying? Is making stuff up lying?

Are you suggesting that we head back in that direction?

Why do you ask? I am suggesting that we show the same humanity that most other culture show.


I also suspect that before the Whites screwed the native Americans they were very healthy people.

In todays society we care for all members more or less equally. We replace hips on people that may only live another 4 or 5 years. We treat cancers for people that are in their 90's. We go to great lengths to make sure that the crippled can have a life as full and adventuresome as the fully abled. Yet, you have the audacity to call us barbarians. It's shameful.

GET A CLUE! We treat 90 year old people for cancers because it is profitable. Generally most 90 yearolds cannot tolerate our barbaric cancer therapies.

We are barbarians. Our medical system is the leading cause of death an injury and here is a little fact check on cancer. A False Appeal to Women’s Fears | FactCheck.org

We are barbarians because we have more uninsured than any industrialized nation.

We are barbarians because we charge 3 times the world average for health care.

We are barbarians because we talk a lot on how to pay for health care but ignore that we have deadly health care.

Except for maybe the Muslim world most other countries and cultures are far more humane than us.

Next time do a little research.