Health care a "privilege" - owning guns a "right"

[Hermit For Peace]

This is a powerful image that hit me in the gut. Where are our priorities?

Universal Health care for everyone: it's the right thing to do.

[ApatheticAustrian]

just stating the reality of the constitution.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Memes are the most powerful force of changing opinions known to mankind in 2017. We should just lay down our weapons and spam ISIS with democracy memes.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Memes are the most powerful force of changing opinions known to mankind in 2017. We should just lay down our weapons and spam ISIS with democracy memes.

well, to be fair....ISIS is following your suggestion since years for recruiting and convincing.

[DrScholl]

There are semantics that can be played, but the fact of the matter is that guns are viewed as more essential than healthcare by some people.

[Goldwater]

Are you familiar with the concepts of the "positive rights" and "negatives rights"?

[Antonio the Sixth]

And I'm not especially fond of the "rights" argument in the first place: There's a more compelling case in treating taking care of one another as a moral obligation that we meet in part through government action

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. The whole concept of positive rights exists to connect them.

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That sounds awfully eww-tilitarian to me.


But yeah, that cartoon is dumb.

[pbrower2a]

A dog makes more sense as a household defense than does a gun. The razors in a dog's mouth and in a dog's paws are good-enough reason to not break into a house. Dogs do not scratch like cats; they scratch WORSE!

[Suburbia]

Both is a right. Healthcare is a right and guns is a right. I don't understand liberals who hate guns. It's weakness, madness. How do you guys deal with intruders at night?

[Hermit For Peace]

There are semantics that can be played, but the fact of the matter is that guns are viewed as more essential than healthcare by some people.

This is what I'm trying to get across. You nailed it!

I think some pictures depict things that are necessary to discuss and ponder. This picture is one of them.

[Cashew]

Both is a right. Healthcare is a right and guns is a right.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with you.

Nethertheless

just stating the reality of the constitution.

[Goldwater]

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That sounds awfully eww-tilitarian to me.

I suppose it will very from person to person, but utilitarian arguments are what ultimately convinced me that universal healthcare was a good and necessary idea.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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That sounds awfully eww-tilitarian to me.

I suppose it will very from person to person, but utilitarian arguments are what ultimately convinced me that universal healthcare was a good and necessary idea.

For me it is just common sense. If you are going to treat people at the emergency room and give people Medicare, why would you deny coverage of things that reduces significantly the cost burdens on both?

My souring opinions on movement conservatism has also encompassed most of the Republican positions on healthcare as well, which at this point amount to miss applied philosophical bullsh**t and cliche euphemisms that clearly only exist as a product of being horribly out of touch with the reality of most of the people. I love saving accounts, savings accounts are great, but the amount you can contribute directly correlates with your income and you are in the territory of basically saying "you want healthcare, get a job" as if it is some kind of luxury, unless you have some kind of sliding scale subsidy.

That said while I agree with covering the poor and helping the middle class substantially, I don't favor tax payers funding healthcare for people like Donald Trump, who are more than capable of paying for it themselves. That is why I don't support single payer.

[Intell]

Why is health care a right?  What document gives one this right?  Why does anyone have the right to demand that others spend years in medical school then bill that out to other taxpayers who pay for that on behalf of some people?  This is a privilege of living in a wealthy country not a god given right.  

Oh boo! Something many need to survive is not a right, that's nice! I need to pay less taxes, so fyck the rest of the population.

Of course you're a scummiest person, and don't realise that.

Also why haven't you joined the republicans sice you're scum that wants people to die.

I don't mind being a right ftr.

[Intell]

Are you familiar with the concepts of the "positive rights" and "negatives rights"?

Meaningless Distinction. Libertarians need to stop making such arguments.

[Intell]

Why is health care a right?  What document gives one this right?  Why does anyone have the right to demand that others spend years in medical school then bill that out to other taxpayers who pay for that on behalf of some people?  This is a privilege of living in a wealthy country not a god given right. 

Also you awful trash person, UN 30 rights of man, through logic and reasoning includes healthcare as a right, even though it's not mentioned there.

[EnglishPete]

That said while I agree with covering the poor and helping the middle class substantially, I don't favor tax payers funding healthcare for people like Donald Trump, who are more than capable of paying for it themselves. That is why I don't support single payer.

That's not really an issue in the UK where we have the single payer NHS system.  The service provided by the NHS is good but for those that want a 'de luxe' service with shorter waiting lists, and to get testing or treatments that are less readily available on the NHS we do still have private healthcare companies (the biggest being BUPA http://www.bupa.co.uk/ ) People in the Donald Trump income bracket in the UK will almost certainly have this type of insurance.

I suspect that these insurance companies may well offer a better service for the equivalent price than those in the US because they have to compete against a free at the point of use service. I seem to recall recall that that was one of the arguments in favour of the 'public option' option during the Obamacare debate and I think that from an electoral point of view it was a big tactical mistake of the Democrats not to do this.

The NHS also has some minor means tested fees, such as the prescription charge which those on low incomes are exempt from paying. There's no reason why an expanded Medicaid for all system can't have the same.

[EnglishPete]

What I think would be in the tactical interests of the Republicans, which doesn't mean that they'll do it, is to introduce some kind of Medicaid/compulsory insurance system that provides genuine universal coverage. I'm not a big fan of Trump promoting this terrible bill. In the UK the Conservative governments of the 1920s and 1930s had made substantial moves in the direction of Universal healthcare. They were opposed to the introduction of the Single payer NHS in 1948 but once it was established it became politically impossible to oppose to this day. If the Dems get back in power in 2020, which they'll have a much better chance of doing if the Dems keep screwing this up, they'll be able to introduce Single Payer, they probably will and the issue will be taken off the table forever.

[Torie]

Is this a moral question or a legal question? Gun rights folks generally are making legal claims. Putting aside the law, yeah, health care is more important than toting a gun in most cases.

[EnglishPete]

Why is health care a right?  What document gives one this right?  Why does anyone have the right to demand that others spend years in medical school then bill that out to other taxpayers who pay for that on behalf of some people?  This is a privilege of living in a wealthy country not a god given right. 

From a European point of view I find it astonishing to see a Red Avatar hear say such a thing. Are you one of those DC beltway Democrats we here about who think in a similar was to DC beltway Paul Ryan type Republicans. Do you think that the US should welcome in and give citizenship to as many grateful peons new Americans as want to come but if they get ill then f**k 'em.

So that you can understand how strange your ideas sound to normal people try talking to a group of them and announcing that the thing you really hate about the public schools is that taxpayers are forced to pay the school fees of poor people and there's nothing in the constitution to say you have to pay the school fees of other people's children. That's how your ideas on healthcare sound to normal people.

[Hermit For Peace]

Having a healthy society benefits everybody. An intelligent society understands this and will act toward providing health care for all of its members so that it can function as smoothly as possible. It's just common sense.

In my view, the U.S. is a very shallow country, spiritually vapid, and stuck on money as their god. Our priorities are pretty messed up, but we can change that if we decide to.

Regardless of whether or not some people want to believe this, we are all in this together. And every action we take has consequences, good or bad. We can't afford to go backwards in time. It's time to grow up, America and stop living in the dark ages.

 

[EnglishPete]

Why is health care a right?  What document gives one this right?  Why does anyone have the right to demand that others spend years in medical school then bill that out to other taxpayers who pay for that on behalf of some people?  This is a privilege of living in a wealthy country not a god given right. 

From a European point of view I find it astonishing to see a Red Avatar hear say such a thing. Are you one of those DC beltway Democrats we here about who think in a similar was to DC beltway Paul Ryan type Republicans. Do you think that the US should welcome in and give citizenship to as many grateful peons new Americans as want to come but if they get ill then f**k 'em.

So that you can understand how strange your ideas sound to normal people try talking to a group of them and announcing that the thing you really hate about the public schools is that taxpayers are forced to pay the school fees of poor people and there's nothing in the constitution to say you have to pay the school fees of other people's children. That's how your ideas on healthcare sound to normal people.

I don't know if NSV is from the DC suburbs but if he is, and perhaps even if he isn't, then this article may very well explain his views

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http://www.unz.com/freed/capitalism-and-the-minimum-wage-i-got-mine-screw-you/

[parochial boy]

Why is health care a right?  What document gives one this right?  Why does anyone have the right to demand that others spend years in medical school then bill that out to other taxpayers who pay for that on behalf of some people?  This is a privilege of living in a wealthy country not a god given right. 

Humans don't have inherent, natural "rights". Rights are something we create as part of the Social Contract and the rules by which we live with each other for our mutual benefit.

So in that respect, you might as well argue that you don't actually have any "right" to retain any of your income. Not having your entire salary confiscated and handed over to the state is not any more of a "right" than a poor person having access to healthcare is.

We do these things because they are morally correct, and because in doing so, we create a society that works for everyone's benefit.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Invoking positive rights tends to confuse people or lead to tangential arguments, so I've learned to avoid it.

I'd wager that finding positive rights confusing might be a typically American problem. In Europe the idea that rights aren't necessarily just "stuff the government should leave me alone about" is pretty widely accepted. Unfortunately America still has a hard time moving past naive 18th century liberalism in its political thinking.

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But better health for whom? If person A is healthy, why should they care that person B (who might be from a different social class, gender, race, etc.) is sick? If mere instinctive compassion were enough, we wouldn't be having these discussions to begin with. You can't answer this question without some kind of moral framework.

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I highly doubt that much good will come out of US healthcare policy as long as this assumption is maintained.

[Mercenary]

People already have as much a right to purchase health insurance as they do to purchase a gun.
Likewise people have no right to be guaranteed health insurance just as they have no right to be guaranteed a gun. That said, I certainly think our society should provide health coverage to all. Not so sure about giving everyone a gun that wants one though.  :/

Seriously people need to stop letting memes and partisan talking points stop them from thinking things through. Sometimes it is hard to decide whether it is the dumber segment of society that doesn't participate in politics or if it is the dumbest segment that does given how dumb politics seems to make most people.