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Is Healthcare a "right" and should it have limits on how much is consumed and by whom?

ManSinha

Well-Known Member
The debate over the provision of healthcare in the US has raged for years and seems to be ramping up. I have had a very narrow view of those who consume it but I am reminded of an incident from my past:

Very unfortunate pregnant young lady with little pre natal care was brought to us in late stages of pregnancy with very very high blood pressures. They delivered the child (since that is the only thing that will allow the patient's pressure to be controlled effectively) but she had a major brain bleed and became a person who exists rather than lives.

No brain activity after several days and the family agonized about what to do. The father wanted the plug pulled and the husband did not. Finally he asked for their pastor. I requested to sit in the conversation as a mute observer. I shall take with me to my grave what the pastor kindly said to the husband: "If God wanted us to live on a breathing machine; He would have sent us all with one. The soul has left; the person you knew as your wife is no longer; it is time to let the body go"

On the flip side I see families of people who have very advanced diseases sometimes like dementia, demand that everything be done to keep them going. What are various religious view points if any?

For my own - if I am not mentating (meaning my brain is irreparably damaged), I am happy to be let go.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
It's not a right whatsoever, yet it's ethical to make healthcare available to as many people as possible and ought to be encouraged within reason and capability to do so.

Might consider DNR orders along the same ethical lines where retraction of further care would be preferable in face of a life that can not recover in terms of quality.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Healthcare should be legally defined as a right. It costs more in the long haul to not have it that way, reduces production, and requires more spending when someone foregoes treatment and something easily treated becomes something difficult to treat. There should also not be any limits, as someone's need can be great from birth, or it can become great in a day. And we have healthy people with low needs to help balance out the costs.
 

ManSinha

Well-Known Member
Healthcare should be legally defined as a right. It costs more in the long haul to not have it that way, reduces production, and requires more spending when someone foregoes treatment and something easily treated becomes something difficult to treat. There should also not be any limits, as someone's need can be great from birth, or it can become great in a day. And we have healthy people with low needs to help balance out the costs.

Your viewpoint would be most valid for preventive care
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I would not call it a "right". But it is the most cost effective way to administer health care. Our system right now is bloated and inefficient. There are European models that care that is at least as good for less. There are some things that government does better than the private sector. Could you imagine the chaos if the road system was paid for directly by the people that use them? There would be no consistency, there would be no way to regulate it. Neighborhoods would stagnate or move constantly into disrepair. We have a "socialist" road system, a "socialist" police force. A "socialist fire department". Etc. and so on. Why not have socialist medicine? Even though taxes would go up insurance payments would disappear. It would more than balance out if done correctly.
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
Healthcare should be legally defined as a right. It costs more in the long haul to not have it that way, reduces production, and requires more spending when someone foregoes treatment and something easily treated becomes something difficult to treat. There should also not be any limits, as someone's need can be great from birth, or it can become great in a day. And we have healthy people with low needs to help balance out the costs.



I would think eating would be more of a "right" than health care. Maybe we should force the farmers to put food on our tables for free.
 

Shad

Veteran Member
The debate over the provision of healthcare in the US has raged for years and seems to be ramping up. I have had a very narrow view of those who consume it but I am reminded of an incident from my past:

Very unfortunate pregnant young lady with little pre natal care was brought to us in late stages of pregnancy with very very high blood pressures. They delivered the child (since that is the only thing that will allow the patient's pressure to be controlled effectively) but she had a major brain bleed and became a person who exists rather than lives.

No brain activity after several days and the family agonized about what to do. The father wanted the plug pulled and the husband did not. Finally he asked for their pastor. I requested to sit in the conversation as a mute observer. I shall take with me to my grave what the pastor kindly said to the husband: "If God wanted us to live on a breathing machine; He would have sent us all with one. The soul has left; the person you knew as your wife is no longer; it is time to let the body go"

On the flip side I see families of people who have very advanced diseases sometimes like dementia, demand that everything be done to keep them going. What are various religious view points if any?

For my own - if I am not mentating (meaning my brain is irreparably damaged), I am happy to be let go.

It isn't a right as you do not have a right to other peope's labour.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
I would think eating would be more of a "right" than health care. Maybe we should force the farmers to put food on our tables for free.
Both are essential for life.
And, unless things have radically changed, farmers grow food but it's very often in such conditions where the farmers have little control and ownership. They aren't growing for us, they are growing for the corporate sharks they had to turn to to keep farming. It's to the point many aren't even allowed to save seeds for next year's crop.

It isn't a right as you do not have a right to other peope's labour.
Healthcare just isn't like manufacturing. No one is going to die because they can't access the goods produced by Levi, Frito Lay, or Chrysler. When it comes to health care, going without can easily turn into more costly and difficult care and even death. Someone having to be sick rather than getting treatment is detrimental to the GPD, it's very costly, and it tends to get people working while they are sick, spreading their germs around and making others sick.
 

Shad

Veteran Member
Healthcare just isn't like manufacturing.


Irrelevant as it is someone's work aka labour.


No one is going to die because they can't access the goods produced by Levi, Frito Lay, or Chrysler.

If all vehicle manufactures stopped production modern civilization would stop. People die and have died all the time. Civilization is still here. Heck humanity has survived plagues. Lack of healthcare is no plague.

When it comes to health care, going without can easily turn into more costly and difficult care and even death. Someone having to be sick rather than getting treatment is detrimental to the GPD,

No it isn't. Individuals die all the time. Still have a GDP and a civilization. New people takes those jobs. It is called death, reproduction and life. AKA the life cycle.

it's very costly, and it tends to get people working while they are sick, spreading their germs around and making others sick.
'
Which only shows that the sick people have no concern for their fellow workers by exposing them to illness. All you have demonstrated is quarantine is necessary.

There is a difference between a social safety net and something being a right. The later forces people to provide a service lest they violate someone's rights. The former does not.
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
Both are essential for life.
And, unless things have radically changed, farmers grow food but it's very often in such conditions where the farmers have little control and ownership. They aren't growing for us, they are growing for the corporate sharks they had to turn to to keep farming. It's to the point many aren't even allowed to save seeds for next year's crop.


Healthcare just isn't like manufacturing. No one is going to die because they can't access the goods produced by Levi, Frito Lay, or Chrysler. When it comes to health care, going without can easily turn into more costly and difficult care and even death. Someone having to be sick rather than getting treatment is detrimental to the GPD, it's very costly, and it tends to get people working while they are sick, spreading their germs around and making others sick.


Uhhh...healthcare is not necessarily essential for life, and could you possible give a source concerning the see thing?
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
It isn't a right as you do not have a right to other peope's labour.
Rights always have limitations. There is no absolute right to free speech nor absolute right to religion or any other right in the Constitution and so forth. There are derivative rights to clean air, clean water again with limitations on how "clean" is defined.

So from that framework, I assert that health care is a right and one that is available in every other developed nation besides the USA. In all other nations, the right to health care comes with limitations of one sort or another.
 

ManSinha

Well-Known Member
In as much as healthcare workers are mostly full time professionals who also have to put food on their tables and pay their mortgages - I would tend to agree with the road and police analogy that it is not "free" never mind the cost of innovation (new drugs / procedures etc)

But I am also of the opinion that there should be a per capita limit as otherwise the treasury would be bankrupt paying for what people want (as opposed to need)

In the UK (Apologies if I am misstating) the National Institutes of Clinical Excellence sets the tone on what is covered and what is excluded based on evidence

And I came across this article about state limitations in Canada
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Uhhh...healthcare is not necessarily essential for life, and could you possible give a source concerning the see thing?
Just look up and see how many people die for lack of health care.
 

Shad

Veteran Member
Rights always have limitations. There is no absolute right to free speech nor absolute right to religion or any other right in the Constitution and so forth. There are derivative rights to clean air, clean water again with limitations on how "clean" is defined.

Those rights are about the individual only not the individual having a right to another individuals labour. 2A A right to bear arms not a right to arms. 1A A right to free speech not freedom of consequence nor freedom of platform access. See the difference?

So from that framework, I assert that health care is a right and one that is available in every other developed nation besides the USA. In all other nations, the right to health care comes with limitations of one sort or another.

Your frame work is in error as you have confused individual rights with rights to another labour. Dismissed as babble
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Uhhh...healthcare is not necessarily essential for life
If it wouldn't have been for healthcare I wouldn't have lived an hour in this world. Cancer survivors tend to be survivors because of health care. It's very rare for us to die from a scratch or bug bite anymore, thanks to health care. We are more likely to survive childhood because of health care. Because of health care we can stop a serious problem in it's earliest "pre-problem" stages. And because of healthcare we don't have to worry as much about a simply infection turning into a serious infection that can kill us without treatment.
Healthcare keeps us healthy, which is essential for life (and the whole healthy mind and body thing). I'm also willing to bet they would have wished they had half of what we have today every time the bubonic plague has devastated a population.
 

Yerda

Veteran Member
It isn't a right as you do not have a right to other peope's labour.
The other person is paid for their labour.

An analogy could be justice. A fair trial requires legal representation and that requires someone else's labour.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
No it isn't. Individuals die all the time. Still have a GDP and a civilization. New people takes those jobs. It is called death, reproduction and life. AKA the life cycle.
Pretty much every economists disagrees with you. They have worked out how much it costs us, as a nation, per year to have sick people without health care, how much it costs industry, and how it effects the GDP. All the math indicates it is way more expensive and worse for the economy to not have health care.
And, FYI, those new people are also going to get sick, and a business model that functions on discarding people when they are sick is going to spell disaster because it's going to bring law suits, an extremely high turn over rate, and a potential employee base of only the most desperate because everybody else won't work under such conditions.

Which only shows that the sick people have no concern for their fellow workers by exposing them to illness. All you have demonstrated is quarantine is necessary.
Quarantine is a very extreme measure. All we need is access to healthcare and paid time off, and encourage them to stay home, rest, and heal.
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
If it wouldn't have been for healthcare I wouldn't have lived an hour in this world. Cancer survivors tend to be survivors because of health care. It's very rare for us to die from a scratch or bug bite anymore, thanks to health care. We are more likely to survive childhood because of health care. Because of health care we can stop a serious problem in it's earliest "pre-problem" stages. And because of healthcare we don't have to worry as much about a simply infection turning into a serious infection that can kill us without treatment.
Healthcare keeps us healthy, which is essential for life (and the whole healthy mind and body thing). I'm also willing to bet they would have wished they had half of what we have today every time the bubonic plague has devastated a population.


Right there is the problem-"health care keeps us healthy...". I'm sorry, but healthcare does not, nor should it keep us healthy; we are responsible for our own health. Healthcare should keep us alive when there is no other choice. When you start looking at health care as a right to keep you healthy, then your are demanding that someone else take care of you.
 
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