I’m feeling grouchy today.
For all the world it sounds to me as though the loudest voices in the debate are those who see themselves as prospective commissars of the new system who urge on us what Glenn Reynolds refers to as the “fierce moral urgency” of the problems with our healthcare system, the free riders that are healthy who complain about the terrible unfairness of compelling them to pay their share in supporting the healthcare system, the free riders that are sick who complain about the terrible unfairness of compelling them to pay for the consequences of their own folly and circumstances, and taxpayers, those who will end up paying for the reforms, who aren’t particularly interested in paying to support somebody else’s healthcare.
Nobody’s hands are clean.
Moral imperatives fall on the individual and most of the barriers that prevent those who believe in the moral imperative argument for universal coverage from opening free clinics or free hospitals are those imposed by the government they see as interceding or those imposed by their own indifference.
The free riders, healthy or sick, are frankly self-interested. That’s one thing you’ve got to hand them. They aren’t hypocrites.
The preponderance of those who aren’t much interested in paying to support somebody else’s healthcare profess Christianity on the one hand while ignoring the obligations their faith imposes on them on the other.
Update
Just for the record I place myself in the last hypocrite category. I profess Christianity but I don’t personally give enough (I donate about 10% of my gross income). However, I also don’t believe I should be taxed to pay for the healthcare of many of those who are or will be beneficiaries of the plans that are currently in place or those that are making their way through the Congress. For example, I definitely believe in means-testing Medicare.
You have managed to get two things dead wrong in your brief post:
1. There are almost no “free-riders” in health insurance, considering that the Feds fund some 50% of all healthcare expenditures through everybody’s income taxes. That means this: your “uninsured” has already paid for half the healthcare costs of his visit to the emergency room. And I will bet you that the uninsured use less healthcare than the insured, on average, meaning that it might well be that the uninsured are subsidizing the insured through their taxes!
2. Insurance is non-Christian. Have you ever read Matthew 6:34 ff, which counsels, “Take no thought for tomorrow, …”? I find it so amusing that it is the Christians who have God watching over them 24/7 who are the great supporters of insurance, much less socialized medicine.
I’m sorry, how much more money is my “share” of this exactly? And says who exactly?
And if I question or disagree with someone else’s idea of what my “share” is I’m “unChristian” and basically the scum of the earth?
And I’m also sorry, what part of Christianity requires the use of the coercive power of the state to enforce specific public policies?
You’re absolutely right on that last point, Rich. Harnessing the state to coerce others isn’t remotely virtuous nor does it satisfy one’s personal obligation.
As long as bankruptcy is an option to escape debts, anybody who gambles that they’re going to stay healthy and doesn’t take out health insurance in a system in which healthcare providers are required to treat you regardless of willingness to pay is rent-seeking, a free rider on the system. Large deductible catastrophic care insurance isn’t expensive and can be obtained by practically anybody without pre-existing health problems.
And I’m not saying that you’re the “scum of the earth”. I honestly have no idea and it’s not for me to say. I’m saying that I’m the scum of the earth.
Human beings are social animals. We live in societies and aren’t solitary hunters. We need those societies in order to stay healthy, mentally and physically. That means that we have obligations to each other.
There must be a balance, neither a complete abandoning of the freedom of the individual nor the law of the jungle, each against the other. Striking the balance is hard and requires judgment, not just slogans.
These politicians voted Against the Nathan Deal Amendment, that would Prevent Health Care Benefits to Illegal Aliens. Simply put–it’s not their BLOODY MONEY! So what! Do they care if taxpayers have to foot the behemoth bill, for anybody who snubs our laws and enters a sovereign country called America? The nationwide parasites are –CHEAP LABOR–businesses who could care less, because they pile up enormous profits. The corporate hierarchy have been having a field day–FOR DECADES. A foreign national gets hurt, their service manager or whoever the underling is, drives the maimed person and relinquishes any responsibility by dumping them on the emergency hospital entranceway. BINGO! nothing to pay!
Perhaps Americans should find some old shoddy clothes, no shave, no haircut and enter every emergency room in our country in the millions? Speak a lot of gibberish and carry no identification with a small splinter in their finger, a touch of a fever or any minor condition. By federal law the hospital will have an emergency on a–EMERGENCY. I am afraid Americans have been Lemmings going over a proverbial cliff, since who knows when? We just keep paying and paying even more to the IRS, to support–ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Try getting free health care in any other country, other than societies in the European Union? A FAT CHANCE! We are literary being taxed to death, to give welfare to the business overlords. These legislators have already tried to weaken E-Verify, local police action 287(g) and now unwinding the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli enforcement law–which worked, but again was never enforced.
Even our Democrats who are trying to engineer health care for every American—INCLUDED 20 PLUS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR LARGE FAMILIES. Here are 29 Judas Iscariot’s, who sold the American people out–for a lot more than 13 pieces of silver? HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS EVERY YEAR. Capps (D-CA), Eshoo (D-CA), Harman (D-CA), Matsui (D-CA), McNerney (D-CA), Waxman (D-CA), DeGette (D-CO), Murphy (D-CT), Castor (D-FL), Rush (D-IL), Schakowsky (D-IL), Braley (D-IA), Sarbanes (D-MD), Markey (D-MA), Dingell (D-MI), Stupak (D-MI), Pallone (D-NJ), Weiner (D-NY), Butterfield (D-NC), Space (D-OH), Sutton (D-OH), Doyle (D-PA), Gordon (D-TN), Gonzalez (D-TX), Green (D-TX),Welch (D-VT), Christensen (D-VI), Inslee (D-WA) and Baldwin (D-WI). I’m afraid I would be banned if I used the right epithet, when leaving a comment for these so called lawmakers?
These are the betrayers of–ALL–taxpayers. These 29 traitors gave illegal immigrants the right to pilfer your billfold and purse, while they sit in their Washington office collecting their 6 figure salaries. REMEMBER THEM AND THROW THEM OUT! DEMAND NO AMNESTY! NO FAMILY UNIFICATION KNOWN AS CHAIN MIGRATION! BUILD THE ORIGINAL FENCE! NO MORE HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CLOSE THE BORDER AND STATION THE NATIONAL GUARD. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, JUST IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS? Learn uncorrupted facts at NUMBERSUSA. For myself and family! I am for any health care re-organization, as long as it doesn’t smell of copious profiteering and corruption, like the majority of private insurers do?
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Then they just show up in emergency rooms, or get other people sick with their untreated illnesses. The saner solution would be to find a way to reduce overall illegal immigration.
That’s the root of it – businesses that are heavily dependent on frequently illegal labor (I’m looking at you, American Agro-Industry). Every time someone wants to go really hard on the employers as well as illegal immigrants, these guys whine and say “Do you want farming in America or in Mexico?”
The farmers have been doing that for well over 100 years (they started recruiting Mexican labor in the 1890s and early 20th century after the Chinese Exclusion Act cut off the prime source of cheap labor in America).