A socialist solution to universal healhcare. Does it defy human nature?
Offline Here is a thought experiment. Imagine if all 140 million working Americans were to donate $100 every month into a giant pot over the course of 20 years. The accumulated wealth would amount to a little over 3 trillion dollars and this is double the predicted 1.5 trillion dollar cost of a universal health care system in the US.
Now suppose we were to adjust the monthly donation so that the wealthier folks donate more and below that there is a graded donation dependant on the individual's annual income. And let's throw into the mix that those who choose to work longer years will pay less per month than those who choose to work for say only 10 years. Those who lose their jobs would be exempted (eg. disability, death, etc..).
The socialist would say go for it. However, the libertarian would argue that 140 million working Americans should not be held responsible for everyone else's needs. Instead each individual should be simply responsible for him or herself. Throw into the mix the fact that people are innately greedy and the wealthy minority simply will not give more than someone with a lower annual income let alone give any money at all. Also throw into the mix the fact that most Americans don't want to wait 20 years for universal healthcare. Everyone wants their MRI now.
Thus, I'm pessimistic that the above solution or anything similar would fly at least in the US. Yet what puzzles me is that even the poorest folk would gladly given a few dollars to Jesus every Sunday.
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Just allow me to opt out and never pay a cent for UHC and never recieve any benefit from it. I don't mind people voluntarily paying into this kind of a heath care scheme, but I personally want no part of it. My only problem with it would be that I would be forced into paying for it.
How about this for a decent compromise: everyone pays for children to have health care and there is no opting out on that matter. So all kids get taxpayer funded health care (I almost said 'free' healtcare, but then I remembered that there is no such thing). Adults get to opt out and for life (that's important, no opting out and then later deciding you want in once you need a lot of expensive treatments) and never pay into the adult system and never get to use it. We also could perhaps let those who have opted out use the government's medical system on a pay-per-use kind of deal where they can use it but they have to foot the bill themselves (so taxpayer's won't be covering them). Under this proposal adults get to make decisions for themselves (like adults should) and children get covered as a public service. I just thought this up right now, so it could have glaring flaws in it. But, off the cuff, it seems like an OK proposal. Socialists get their UHC and people like me get to laugh if (I'll admit that this is just an 'if') it turns out to be a bloated and barely functioning system run by a bloated and incompetent bureaucracy.
But in regards to your system: don't worry about saving up money for it. If the government wants something it just starts printing new money to pay for it. Look into how much the suppy of money has increased in the past 20 years. If we decided to get UHC but it will cost 1.5 trillion dollars, the government would just further harm our currency by printing out 1.5 trillion new dollars to cover the costs.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
We already have this I believe they're called taxes.
Only in America could universal health care be called 'socialist' everywhere else its society (sorry Americans call that government) most basic role
Its certainly more important than the military ,cancer is far more likely to kill me than any foreign soldier
Why of course I'm talking about taxes. My point is that there is so much resistance to this for the reasons I explained. The current American taxation system is not in the least geared towards creating a Universal Health plan. The only system that comes close to this is the Veterans Affairs health system which comes under Defense and not healthcare per say. Would you all agree that American vets overall get decent healthcare? Any politician who even has the slightest inkling of eliminating VA hospitals would be thrown out of office. And yet the majority of Americans feel comfortable with this form of "socialism." It must boil down to God and guns. Give money to sky daddy and to those who fight wars.
BTW, what I described is more or less the Canadian system of taxation in regards to paying for healthcare.
It's always miffed me tht Americans are more or less totally cool with their government allocating an arbitrarily large black budget to purchase F-22 Raptors from Lockheed Martin, with all of the associated bloat and inefficiency that comes with bureaucracy , but will so vehemently oppose spending their own money to provide medical care for themselves, with all of the associated bloat and inefficiency that comes with bureaucracy.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
We Americans have the largest socialized medicine program in the world and it's called Medicare/Medicaid.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
Most Americans are against our level of military spending, but politicians just don't care.
"A Washington Post poll conducted in September 2000 demonstrates the relatively low level of interest in military spending. The survey found that defense was ranked below the top 10 issues that most concerned registered voters. The higher priority issues were education, the economy, social security, health care, moral standards, the federal budget, crime, helping the middle class, and prescription drugs, in that order. The Mellman Group commissioned by the Council for a Livable World in the spring of this year found similar results in a poll. Of course, there are people who feel otherwise. They are a small minority. The polls show that only three percent to four percent of those surveyed rank military spending as a top priority."
"The Center for the Study of Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland has been analyzing polling data on military questions since the early 1990s. The Center’s results reinforces the conclusion that if questions about military spending are placed in an appropriate context most people see no reason to increase military spending and would prefer that it be reduced. For example, if people are asked to specify the level of military spending they would prefer, the majority say they would like substantially less to be spent. If they are asked whether they would prefer increases or reductions in military spending, most favor reductions. When people were informed by the polling group about the portion of the federal budget’s discretionary dollars spent for defense, compared with the amount spent on other discretionary programs, most people say they favor a substantial reduction in the share going to the military."
We don't like big military spending, but our government does. So we are fucked. Even Obama wants to increase military spending despite the general consensus among Americans, and Democrats in particular, that we are already spending too much.
So no, we are not totally cool with our military budgets. But since Democrat and Repubilcan politicians want to spend more, we are out of luck and just have to deal with it.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
I stand corrected.
That's interesting, though. A substantial number of those polled must've been Republican... how can they reconcile wanting a large reduction in military spending while also supporting efforts like the Iraq War?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Hmmmm, I like it.
The type of military spending is important too. I'd say spending any more money on nuclear weapons is equivalent to burning the money, considering that humankind already has enough of this stuff to annihilate itself multiple times over. And, if we get attacked by aliens, we're fucked regardless of how much defense we have. Lol.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
You ever meet those people who work shitty low-paying jobs that have family members to take care of, yet they own $200 cell phones cause "man that's my BABY!" I have.
Or how about those people who've worked their ass off their entire life for a decent salary, are now considered "upper middle class", but are struggling to pay bills, send their kids to good colleges, pay off loans and make ends meet? Met them too.
Just saying, it's not so black and white as "rich" and "poor"...
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
I don't have health care.
I'm a student and I can't afford it.
What am I supposed to do? No one offers full-time jobs around here, all low-income jobs hire at 39.5 hours to get out of paying insurance.
Even then, I don't think I could juggle a full time job and 18 hours of classes at once.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
I don't want to be held responsible for the Police or Fire Dept cost either. I should be able to pay a privatized rate with a premium based upon my utilization. Since I haven't needed to call the cops or the fire dept ever! That rate should be low, correct? I do own a gun and a hose after all...
Now that I think about it why not force everyone to pay for a private education? I can afford to send my kids to private school. Why do I also have to pay for everyone else?
I really don't see how medicine differs from any of these other socialist concepts... Let's do away with them all.
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs
I'd rather have to pay later on working a job to make sure I have healthcare now :< and Insurance is not healthcare. Insurance companies are fing useless most of the time.
Whenever anything bad happens you have to fight tooth and nail to get standard medical care out of them. They look for any possible reason to deny you.
We need a real medical care system. I think that everyone should be able to stop in a hospital if they have a problem, and get adequate care without worrying or dieing on the streets. :I
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
At risk of getting in to a nasty political debate I'm going to say it anyway. This sentence twigged something for me about the Libertarian politic, if this is really what a Libertarian would say then I would beg to differ, they're not refusing responsibility for someone else's needs, they're refusing responsibility for their own demands and expectations.
Every Libertarian, like anyone else, demands and expects to live in a decent society among people being, essentially, decent to each other at the most basic level. By that I mean -
a) people are not robbing each other, no body is stealing your hard earned precious possessions
b) personal interactions between people are, in general, conducted in a safe clean manner. for example: everyone maintains at least rudimentary hygiene standards - not dying of voracious untreated bacterial infection in the laneways by your route to work for example, leaving you the mess to avoid or worse.. clean up!
c) as above, safe clean interactions, but this time in the sense that at least rudimentary etiquette is displayed eg: that people primarily communicate in a proper and amenable oral language, intelligibly and politely, without the desire to resort to more physical or aggressive means of interaction.
And I could go on here, but I'll rest on the points so far - Libertarians all want their social environment to be a clean safe and amenable one but deny any responsibility to themselves for providing that it exists? I'd call that a Fail.
Socialism is terribly, terribly underrated.
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I just can not get my head around what could possibly be how this "wealthy" group conceives of the purpose of money. It's existentially ludicrous, money has no meaning unto itself, right? It's role and sole end is to facilitate human activity, is this not correct? Isn't the facilitation of interesting human activity the single and solitary end that gives money purpose. If so, isn't money, then, rendered utterly meaningless if it is not put to use expediting the establishment of interesting and necessary human activities?
Like I said, I simply can't get my head around what it is that these so called "wealthy" think money is that they would argue against putting it to the intended use of moving things around in the social environment, in whatever amount, surely the more is the better.
I dunno about "wealthy" I'm inclined to call them killjoys, wet blanket, spoilsport, party poopers or something along those lines....
So as to your question, Ragdish, Is it against human nature to embrace the ideas of socialism? Maybe it is. Like you pointed out in your final comment, everyone seems perfectly happy to throw money at invisible agencies for imaginary beings and fantasy futures - is this yet another example of our potent self destructiveness?
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