Sure would love national health careFollow

Almost good enough to sig.

I'm pretty sure that's what they were saying.

Yes. I mean this seriously.

To what extent must the government go to ensure that everyone recieves this "free health care"? I think it's a relevant question, especially in this case where the reason her child died was because she changed addresses without informing medicare and so lost her paperwork. How much effort should the government have made to track her down and ensure that she recieved the benefits?

Isn't that the whole point here? I'm asking a pretty straightforward question. I'll also point out that you *still* haven't really given an answer. You presnted a far off condition underwhich you wouldn't expect the government to go, but didn't say exactly where the "line" is. Where's the exact point at which you'd expect the government to spend whatever effort expense was required, but past that point you would no longer?

It's relevant because I think it's foolhardy to start down a path without having any clue how far you're willing to go. It's easy to say "we should provide free health care to everyone". It's a lot harder to determine how much the state should be willing to pay in order to provide that health care and under what circumstances the state should be able to just throw up its hands and move on.

What's interesting about this is that in those states that do have universal health care, they don't seem to have openly defined this either. They still have limits, but keep them somewhat hidden from the public. The "line" in those cases is often arbitrarily created via long waiting lists for the more expensive proceedures. While I'm sure no public official would openly state this, those exist because they know that it'll reduce the number that'll end up recieving those more expensive proceedures (cause they'll die while waiting).


My secondary point is that if the cost to provide increased health care for those who can't afford it themselves results in even a single person who might otherwise have been able to afford care (or something else) dying as a result of the taxes they had to pay to provide it to others, is it still worth it?


The teriary point is that if the government simply does not get involved in the first place, then the "result" is determined by "natural selection" processes. As I pointed out earlier, I as a taxpayer did not cause this woman's child to die. However, the more we use taxpayer money to provide care for those in that situation, the more responsible we become for failures. In addition, we become responsible for any problems related to the cost of the program itself.

Let's say in a free market model, I could choose to pay for health insurance for my children for this month, or to buy new brakes on my car. I get to choose. Under your system, I don't. I *must* pay for health care (one way or another), and therefore may not be able to pay for that brake job on my car. If I get into an accident that kills my child because the state took the money away from me that I would have used to fix those brakes in order to pay for the "free" health care, the state has now effectively made the decision that killed my child.


Does that make more sense to you now?



It's not silly. It's incredibly relevant. Because when you argue for universal health care, you are making the exact same argument as I just did. You're saying that the state should ensure the health and safety of every child. I'm simply expanding that to including protecting them when they walk across a street. Why is that silly? If you're willing to pay for one form of protection, why not another? And if not, what exactly is the criteria you use to make that determination?

What's the "rule" you're using? What makes you believe that providing free medical care to children in order to protect their lives is ok, but providing free "street crossers" to protect children when they cross the street is not ok? Again. I'm trying to figure out where that boundary lies, and how you determine it. I think that's sensible. Clearly, since you don't think paid crossing guards is a good idea, then you clearly agree with me that there is a point at which the government should not expend resources to protect children. Now I just want to know how you determine that.



Ok. But what exactly is "basic preventative services"? So if a child comes down with cancer, we don't pay for it? What happens if the parent does not take the child in for the preventative servies (like dental checkups), and as a result needes major work (like dental surgery)? Do we tell the mother: "Too bad! You should have taken advantage of the free dental checkups and avoided having your child's teeth rot out".

I ask, because it appears that was the case here. She was recieving medicare during the time period in which her child's teeth were rotting. It wasn't until after they rotted that she ran into trouble. Would you call teeth extraction at age 10 a "preventative service"?

The point is that no matter what list of services you come up with, I'm quite certain someone out there will figure out a way to avoid/ignore them and then need more later. The slippery slope is that having committed to providing those basic services, we often find examples of those who slip through the cracks and use them to argue for expanding the services. No matter how foolproof you try to make something, the world somehow manages to generate better fools...

Um... You said "You can safely assume I don't recommend a Good Teeth Task Force, knocking down doors and ripping children away from their parents.". Not me.

That's a far off scenario. I'm asking you to provide the "farthest" scenario underwhich you'd recommend the government spending time/money to provide health care, but where one step further you would not.

It's easy to point to far off scenarios and say "Well, that's ridiculous". It's a lot harder to say where exactly something starts to be ridiculous.

I'm asking you where that point is. It just seems reasonable to me to expect an answer to that *before* we embark on something like national health care. Shouldn't we define *what* we should pay for before demanding it? Just a thought...

Where it ends is the most important point because that determines both the cost to us *and* the responsibility the state is assuming. The starting point is irrelevant. The end point tells us that we pay for "everything up to this point". That includes a starting point. A starting point without an end point tells us nothing...

I notice you've *still* managed to avoid the question.

During the course of this thread I have come to notice that one of my wisdom teeth is impacted and now causing considerable pain. if I can't figure out how to use my insurance/benefits soon, I may end up as a case study for you all.