Nation in Crisis: The U.S.A. Health Care Debate

[Janenmori]

Reminder:

This is not about how Democrats are stupid and how Republicans are racists and who hates America and who murders babies and who does this and who does that. This is about HEALTHCARE PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT and any consequences thereof. So please refrain from ad hominem arguments.

And if you are outside of the United States, please make sure you are informed before you post. Thank you :)




The country is in quite a state. Socialized healthcare sits on Congress' lap and there is pressure from both sides to pass it or to shoot it down. Senators and congressmen are both pressured by their states and districts, respectively, to take action. Democrats are pressing for it to go through, but many representatives fear losing their next election.

From the perspective of John and Jane Doe, things could not be more mixed. The economy struggles to stay afloat on the seas of bankrupcy and amid the maelstrom of lost jobs and foreclosure. With times as hard as they are, insurance is just another burden on the camel's back. Some people argue that it will further the country into debt, (which it will lol), but others argue further that without insurance people will be so put out by healthcare costs they will not be able to pay taxes at all.

Personally, I find the whole concept of socialism to go against what the founding fathers intended in the formation of this country. A large federal government should not have control of people in any respect. People act like the Feds are supposed to be a bra for the 50 tits of America. They are not here to coddle us. We should establish our own ways and not succumb to struggles and whatnot blah blah blah...feel free to disagree.

DISCUSS

 

[Ancien Régime]

here's how you fix healthcare

end medicare/medicaid
end state mandates
implement "loser pays" rules for malpractice suits
end hmos/employer based care; make medical fees out of pocket
generally limit insurance to actual catastrophic stuff instead of wasting it on breast implants and viagra so that insurance fails to pay for cancer treatement (THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS)
profit as insurance costs crash, general costs of medical care drop to levels not seen in half a century, and the market produces better products at lower cost like the market is supposed to do

/thread

 

[billymills]

I agree with the health care debate. Debating is important, if there was no debate, we could just get laws imposed on us, no questions asked.

Semantics aside, I think AR's opinion is far more interesting and worthy of discussion. I really could not care less what 40 old men decided 230 years ago.

 

[Force Majeure]

Personally, I find the whole concept of socialism to go against what the founding fathers intended in the formation of this country. A large federal government should not have control of people in any respect. People act like the Feds are supposed to be a bra for the 50 tits of America. They are not here to coddle us. We should establish our own ways and not succumb to struggles and whatnot blah blah blah...feel free to disagree.

....Yeah. I see where you're coming from, and I don't think government-run healthcare is a good idea, but your reasoning is crap. What the founding fathers intended is almost entirely irrelevant because none of them could have foreseen our society today.

Semantics aside, I think AR's opinion is far more interesting and worthy of discussion. I really could not care less what 40 old men decided 230 years ago.

I agree. Let's begin. I've taken the liberty of bullet-ing these points.

1) end medicare/medicaid
2) end state mandates
3) implement "loser pays" rules for malpractice suits
4) end hmos/employer based care; make medical fees out of pocket
5) generally limit insurance to actual catastrophic stuff instead of wasting it on breast implants and viagra so that insurance fails to pay for cancer treatement (THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS)
6) profit as insurance costs crash, general costs of medical care drop to levels not seen in half a century, and the market produces better products at lower cost like the market is supposed to do

1) I'm game. Just doing this would lower costs enough because the market would have to adjust to the influx of po' folks who can't pay for their own healthcare. Also, we can institute new taxes in place of the medicare/medicaid taxes to pay down the national debt!
2) Yep.
3) Nah. A rare miss.
4) This probably wouldn't work, but it's a nice thought.
5) If the insurance companies decide that they want to pay out for boob jobs but not cancer treatment, that's their prerogative. To do otherwise, there would have to be some type of government regulation. Hmm.
6) It's not the job of the market to operate at a lower cost to consumers. The job of these firms is to maximize profits while remaining competitive. If that necessitates lowering costs (which it would do if 1, 2, and 4 happened) then the market would adjust in that direction. The market isn't candyland.

 

[Ancien Régime]

1) I'm game. Just doing this would lower costs enough because the market would have to adjust to the influx of po' folks who can't pay for their own healthcare. Also, we can institute new taxes in place of the medicare/medicaid taxes to pay down the national debt!

Higher tax rates generally mean lower tax revenues. Confiscatory taxes on capital = less capital formaton = less tax revenue.

3) Nah. A rare miss.

how much does defensive medicine cost again? loser pays = no frivolous lawsuits. Basically, think "an extremist manifestation of tort reform".

4) This probably wouldn't work, but it's a nice thought.

Can you please explain why this wouldn't work? It's essentially "cutting out the middleman" and allowing consumers to be connected with the price of the service they're buyng.

5) If the insurance companies decide that they want to pay out for boob jobs but not cancer treatment, that's their prerogative. To do otherwise, there would have to be some type of government regulation. Hmm.

You misunderstoond what I said. I simply said that insurance companies ought to do this in order to stay competitive. If they offer money for boob jobs but not cancer treatment, they will go out of business.

6) It's not the job of the market to operate at a lower cost to consumers. The job of these firms is to maximize profits while remaining competitive. If that necessitates lowering costs (which it would do if 1, 2, and 4 happened) then the market would adjust in that direction. The market isn't candyland.

The job of the market is to satisfy consumer needs. If they don't, they don't get profit and they go out of business. Consumer needs generally entail lower cost, better quality, or both. Thus, firms compete to satisfy those needs.

 

[Deck Knight]

The Founding Fathers were experts on tyranny and its impositions on individual liberty. Their words regarding the tyrannical actions of the British government act as a warning to all Americans about the dangers of too much power in the hands of too few men. Their words are thus extremely prescient.

"Affordable health care" is not a right. It is impossible to put a subjective qualifier before a right and still call it an absolute right.

What if the health care the government provides is, in fact, not affordable? What if it is a drain on the system and a detriment to the health of its supposed beneficiary? Then clearly your "right" has been usurped by the very inefficiencies of the system it is supposedly granted by.

Who is the government to decide what is a reasonable or affordable price for health care? Are they doctors? By and large government bureaucrats have no medical training and even if they did, they would not be employing it if their duties were to manage a health care bureaucracy.

The government that grants you health care has the power to take it away.

This is the central point about health care:

Health care is an individual need.

The health care needs of each individual require different treatments. As a 23 year old relatively healthy male, I do not need the same kind of health care treatments as a post-menopausal woman. It is as ridiculous for her to pay for a mandated one-size-fits-none policy that covers the prostate exam I'll need 30 years from now as it is for me to be mandated to pay for her mammograms and pap smears under that same ludicrous policy.

Health care is thus individually relevant and should be driven by consumer choice. Adults know what their health problems are and seek out policies that will cover them. Universal Health care thus can only be described as a government program that treats grown people like children. The founders did not particularly care for that kind of condescension. Taxation without representation implies the entity levying the tax knows better than the individuals paying it. "Why should you be concerned? We're only protecting you from the greedy Tea Merchants. Do as you're told."

Most insidious in this entire debate is the supposed "evil" of profits. For those of you who haven't taken a Business Administration class:

Profits = Revenue - Expenses.

Revenue is derived from the sale of your product or service.
Expenses are what it costs you to provide that product or service.

The only way you can "skim profits (as if it were overhead)" as the President suggested is to make your system less efficient or alternatively, reduce the price of your product or service. Obviously this goes against his stated goal which is to increase efficiencies in the system.

Now your retort, if you went to a school where they taught you the saints of the world all reside in government offices (and the sinners elsewhere), is that there is "too much" profit. As if profits sit in some CEO's personal bank account for eternity and never again enter into the economy. Companies use profits to reinvest in their business and provide a superior product at a lower cost. The better their product is, the more of it they can sell. The more they sell, the more they can reinvest.

If they have competition, that is. Competition is what makes the market efficient. If your competitor provides the same service that you do at a lower profit margin and thus lower market price, all other things equal they will attract more business by taking away your share of a finite market. Government has no competition. If they run a deficit they can just print more money. If their delivery is slow (but no one dies or is poisoned), they are immune to legal retaliation. If they misallocate resources, it doesn't matter; they don't need to pass an audit. Far from companies needing government to "keep them honest," government fails to keep itself honest. The idea that these people should be the Caesars mandating how much profit is "too much" is laughable.

So to recap:

1) Profits are not evil. The suggestion that everything would be better if only companies sold products and services at amounts equivalent to their cost (or worse, some arbitrary amount set by government) is ludicrous. No successful person does this in real life. If you paid your bills this month and still have money in the bank, you have by definition made a profit. How selfish of you.

2) Health care is an individual need requiring individual plans. The best way to fix this health care system is to remove the number of actors in it. Rather than moving to a system that requires an ever more cumbersome government bureaucracy, employer-based health care should be moved to an individual basis.

Currently there are five forces at work in accessing health care: The health care providers (doctors), insurance companies, the employer, the consumer, and the government mandates that effect the first three.

Moving to an individualized system and removing government minimum mandates on plans would remove two of these forces. Because there are less pipers to pay, less mandates to cover, and less middlemen to go through, the cost to procure health care will go down. Your provider will need to be credentialed with your insurance company, and you will need to pay your premium. Everything after that is doctor-patient relationship. Furthermore, freedom in customization would allow you to change your plan more easily without running afoul of bureaucratic rules. If your insurance company does not cover what you want, you can go to one of their many, many competitors.

In short the system treats you like an adult in charge of the health of your own body. Want to be a lout who doesn't care about themselves? Because the system is individually driven, you are not a burden on "the system." Thus it cannot be argued that your behavior must be corrected by Big Brother at taxpayer expense for your own good or, as is commonly euphemised: "The greater good."

The current arguments for socialized medicine treat individuals like children. "If you don't do xyz you're a burden on the system! You don't want to be a burden do you?" The easiest answer is to stop making "the system" responsible for everyone. Then the burden is removed entirely. Then no one can argue that we must ban fatty foods and cigarettes because they burden the bloated, inefficient health bureaucracy by their very existence. Then we do not need to pass mandate after mandate for procedures that are never used (and even physically impossible for the insured to use) because we don't start with the assumption people are too stupid to take care of themselves.

It is individuals who are responsible for their own health. It is not an act of altruism to control every facet of someone's life you deem unhealthy through government coercion. It is, in fact, an act of tyranny. Only tyrants believe the masses are peons incapable of taking care of themselves. Only tyrants would propose people lend their very health over to the government to redistribute as the government sees fit. If socialism is the redistribution of wealth, socialized medicine is the redistribution of health.

The Founding Fathers hated tyrants, and they knew tyranny when they saw it. Their words are more prescient today then they have ever been. Just because the internet and the cell phone were invented does not mean the arguments laid out by the Founding Fathers are anachronisms. Truth is timeless.

The only person qualified to represent your health care interests is yourself. The government should not and indeed, cannot do that. Any government that tries is foisting a tyranny onto you. After all, if they control your health, what do you have to bargain with? "Universal health care" is just taxation without representation dressed in 21st century garb.

 

[Force Majeure]

Good stuff?

Seriously. Put Liberty and Tyranny down. I agree with a vast majority of what you're saying, but some of it has a Horowitz-ish intellectual "conservative populist" crap that undermines the principles of true Burkean conservatism.

Only tyrants believe the masses are peons incapable of taking care of themselves.

The problem is that most people actually are. That, I suppose, is sad, but it's not really within the scope of government to care one way or another. Don't whitewash reality by saying that there aren't masses of paralyzingly stupid people who cannot work in today's society.

 

[Ancien Régime]

COI, just posting to say that your post was one of the best posts i have ever seen

Anyway, one thing that really shouldn't be done yet is done by nearly all the opposititon (i.e virtually the entire non-Ron Paul GOP) is defend the current status quo - the current healthcare system is broken (though not for the reasons that the media puts forth) but the current opposition leaders propose bandage fixes and concessions to government expansion rather than an actual competing vision. In fact, some right-leaning pundit expressed the opinion that "Republicans and Democrats agree on 80% of the provisions for reform."

As an aside:

The Founding Fathers were experts on tyranny and its impositions on individual liberty

fun fact the founders were pretty fucking statist except jefferson, as seen in quotes like this from James Madison:

‘In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation"

"let's protect the landed interests of the country against competition HERP DERP FREE MARKET INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY"

the constitution is nice but let's not pretend it's this perfect document that represents a perfect defense of liberty, otherwise bullshit like the commerce and general welfare clauses wouldn't have even made the document (as well as making one Ancien Regime 3/5ths of a person~)

 

[Luduan]

I don't actually feel like reading the entirety your huge post, but I did find this rather interesting:

The Founding Fathers were experts on tyranny and its impositions on individual liberty. Their words regarding the tyrannical actions of the British government act as a warning to all Americans about the dangers of too much power in the hands of too few men. Their words are thus extremely prescient.

[...]

The Founding Fathers hated tyrants, and they knew tyranny when they saw it. Their words are more prescient today then they have ever been. Just because the internet and the cell phone were invented does not mean the arguments laid out by the Founding Fathers are anachronisms. Truth is timeless.

"In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body."

"An obvious and permanent division of every people is into owners of the Soil, and the other inhabitants. In a certain sense, the Country may be said to belong to the former... Whatever may be the rights of others derived from their birth in the Country, from their interest in the high ways & other parcels left open for common use as well, as in the national Edifices and monuments; from their share in the public defence, and from their concurrent support of the Govt., it would seem unreasonable to extend the right so far as to give them when become the majority, a power of Legislation over the landed property without the consent of the proprietors."

A pair of lovely quotation from James Madison (some of which I see AR already posted), that ardent defender of individual and collective liberty and democracy. Honestly, I really don't understand why Americans need constantly to appeal to the opinions of a slaveholding, landed aristocracy of the 18th century as the final arbiter of contemporary policy debates. It takes on all the characteristics of cultic fetishism. I think it is even more interesting coming from someone who professes a visceral abhorrence of state-worship.

 

[Tanner]

"Affordable health care" is not a right. It is impossible to put a subjective qualifier before a right and still call it an absolute right.

Health care is an individual need.

I'm not an expert on the subject. I don't know enough about the bill currently up for vote in it's bazillion page glory to make an educated decision. I can't explain where the money is going to come from, or how service should be provided.

However, we (as a society) have decided that everyone has a right to live. This means providing health care to those who cannot produce it for themselves. In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. When we decided that all people within the geographical United States were entitled to Emergency Services regardless of ability to pay or citizenship, we decided that health care is a right. Every person is guaranteed legal access to it.

You either accept that some people have to die because they cannot pay, or you must accept that everybody has a right to life saving health care. Some people, through laziness or bad luck or whatever, have to be "coddled". Some burdens have to be shared by all of society (assuming you accept that people have a right to life) even if you are a strapping young man with no health concerns.

The word affordable is not subjective, if someone can afford health care it is affordable. Some people have nothing, so the only way for health care to be affordable to them is for it to be a freely provided service.

 

[Xia]

Frankly, I don't see why America can't adopt a health Care system like the German or Swiss models. I believe we have one too many sstems in effect now, and the best way to solve them is to root out all of the inefficiencies caused by so many forms of health care and either invent a new system, or adopt one that's proven to work (hopefully th elatter, for America's sake).

 

[Ancien Régime]

However, we (as a society) have decided that everyone has a right to live.

You either accept that some people have to die because they cannot pay, or you must accept that everybody has a right to life saving health care. Some people, through laziness or bad luck or whatever, have to be "coddled". Some burdens have to be shared by all of society (assuming you accept that people have a right to life) even if you are a strapping young man with no health concerns.

Tanner, you hold a fundamental misconception about rights that I will address right here.

Rights can be either be "positive" or "negative". The simplest way to express the difference between the two is that "positive rights" imply the right to have something done for you, while "negative rights" imply the right to NOT have things done to you.

Now, at least in the context of healthcare, the two concepts are mutually exclusive. Why?

Because if person x is entitled to some good or service, then other people are obliged to perform that service for person x, despite the wishes of these other people. This constitutes a violation of the negative rights of the people who must provide the service, in order to affirm the positive rights of the person who demands the service he is supposedly entitled to! Thus, only one class of rights can be legitimate - and because positive rights MUST involve coercion; there is no way around this - the only legitimate rights are negative rights.

 

[MetalGearSamus]

Health care is an individual need.

Yep, pretty individual if everyone on the planet will probably need some type of medical care at sometime in their life...

Why is everyone so against universal health care? I'm not privy to the details of the health care reform bill, but I don't see the problem with a government regulated health care system.

After all, we do the same fro our postal service, police force, judicial system (obviously), and the fire department.

Imagine if we didn't:

Say you don't have fire insurance, but your neighbor does. His house cathces on fire, so he calls the Firefighting co. and they come and put it out before he loses everything. The next month your house catches on fire, but you don't pay for the fire service so you are helpless and can do nothing while your house burns to the ground and spreads to you neighbors house. It gets put out in a jiffy but he then sues you for some BS reason. So now you have no house and a lawsuit on your hands.
Too bad you couldn't have just called 911 and have the local fire department come and put it out ASAP.

 

[Ancien Régime]

Why is everyone so against universal health care? I'm not privy to the details of the health care reform bill, but I don't see the problem with a government regulated health care system.

1: they don't work
2: they're coercive
3: we already have one btw, see my opening post

After all, we do the same fro our postal service

Which is losing billions every year

, police force

they've sure done a great job

, judicial system (obviously)

i'm a criminal justice major and i can tell you that the judicial system literally creates criminals

The next month your house catches on fire, but you don't pay for the fire service so you are helpless and can do nothing while your house burns to the ground and spreads to you neighbors house.

and that firefighting company would go out of business REAL quick if they let shit burn down.

more like "we put out your fire, you pay us later, and if you don't THEN we sue you up the ass"

 

[billymills]

How exactly would you run a 'capitalist' Justice System. Aren't the very principals behind the Justice System that it is a neutral third party resolver?

I'm interested in how you would re-structure the justice system, as it plays a large part in your idea of a privatised health care platform. Every second one of your posts includes a mention to law-suits in some way shape or form.

 

[Force Majeure]

How exactly would you run a 'capitalist' Justice System. Aren't the very principals behind the Justice System that it is a neutral third party resolver?

I'm interested in how you would re-structure the justice system, as it plays a large part in your idea of a privatised health care platform. Every second one of your posts includes a mention to law-suits in some way shape or form.

You really can't run a justice system like that, although I don't claim to be an expert. In terms of the mail service especially, it's a necessary part of government because such a large mail network would be impossible for companies to run because certain areas aren't nearly large enough in population to pay for the amount of mail service they get (rural areas).

 

[theamericandream38]

I'm not an expert on the subject. I don't know enough about the bill currently up for vote in it's bazillion page glory to make an educated decision. I can't explain where the money is going to come from, or how service should be provided.

However, we (as a society) have decided that everyone has a right to live. This means providing health care to those who cannot produce it for themselves. In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. When we decided that all people within the geographical United States were entitled to Emergency Services regardless of ability to pay or citizenship, we decided that health care is a right. Every person is guaranteed legal access to it.

You either accept that some people have to die because they cannot pay, or you must accept that everybody has a right to life saving health care. Some people, through laziness or bad luck or whatever, have to be "coddled". Some burdens have to be shared by all of society (assuming you accept that people have a right to life) even if you are a strapping young man with no health concerns.

The word affordable is not subjective, if someone can afford health care it is affordable. Some people have nothing, so the only way for health care to be affordable to them is for it to be a freely provided service.

Like you, I have relatively little knowledge of the health care industry and/or goverment control of it. However, I would still like to state my opinion. You say that "we" have decided that everyone has a right to live. First of all, this whole majority rules nonsense is a crock of shit. I don't make decisions for anyone else, so why should other people be able to make decisions for me? Living is about having free will and making your own choices. I don't need someone else telling me what to do. While I certainly agree that everyone has the right to live, they also have the choice to make something of their life or not. If someone is nearing death but doesn't have the money to pay for the necessary procedures to save them, why should I care? If some people can't afford health care, then that's their fault (this would be a lot more fair if everyone were born of equal standing, but unfortunately that is not the case as of this moment). By the way, "affordable" is most certainly subjective. A certain price point for health care may be affordable for one person but not for another. Therefore, "affordable" is subjective.

 

[Illithian-Z]

I'm not fully against the government sticking their nose in healthcare.

However, the past speaks for itself: generally when the government gets involved, three things happen.

A. The program goes far overbudget.
B. The program gets far slower and less effective.
C. The program gets abandoned and goes bankrupt.

All of that adds up to money wasted. Its stupid to go right back into that. The proposed healthcare bill is not only impractical but would offer healthcare to all uninsured people in America. Not citizens, but people. Illegal immigrants would get the same access as a full citizen. Not only that, but since at first the government healthcare would be much cheaper then other healthcare providers, companies would start switching to the government. Insurance providers would go under, and more businesses would switch to the government. Eventually, barely anyone would be able to compete. And by that time, if even half the nation is insured by the government, and that cycle above starts happening, thats more then 150 million people that are stuck in an expensive healthcare fiasco that will probably get abandoned, leaving even more people uninsured and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars.

The system as it is in most states requires state clinics and hospitals to provide emergency and urgent care to anyone, insured or not. That really doesn't need to change. Some system changes could be made, but I'm not the one to decide that. In any case, a government run healthcare system like the one proposed has no chance of working.

 

[Vineon]

1: they don't work

Aren't most of the top ranked healthcare systems in the world universal health care systems? With Scandinavian countries and France topping most lists?

 

[Ancien Régime]

The "rankings" are deeply flawed in that they favor "equitable distribution" rather than overall quality. An example of this is found in this passage where "The FF factor is not an objective measure of health attainment, but rather reflects a value judgment that rich people should pay more for health care, even if they consume the same amount"

The WHO rankings (which I assume you're referring to) effectively measure relative quality of healthcare, which is absolutely incoherent (think of this - in the average feudal manorial state, there was little difference between the healthcare available to the landlord or king, and that of the peasant. Does that mean their healthcare surpasses that of the United States?) and result in a strong inherent bias towards universal/single-payer/socialized medical systems.

 

[Vineon]

The goal is to measure a nation's healthcare system's overall effectiveness (which you are saying such rankings don't gauge, which is untrue) and compare it to another. It is not a measure of comparison between healthcare systems for simply the priviledged. This is how you would rather compare?

The same way a proper comparaison of education systems should not take the poor and less priviledged into consideration?

You are right about non-universal systems being disadvantaged in such rankings as they leave some of their citizens out of the loop.

Sweden's healthcare system is entirely financed by the state and scores amongst the best regarding life expectancy. Everything from their infrastructure to equipment is always up to date and they suffer no lacking of doctors. You are saying however that it "doesn't work".

Of course, they also happen to spend a lot of money on this system and here lies for you the problem, you might help paying for it more than what you deem is your fair share. I do agree that the "FF factor" should be left aside when making comparaisons; you should not compare how the health care systems are financed or who pays for them but what is their overall effectiveness at dispensing healthcare.

 

[lati0s]

the WHO ratings do not measure relative quality only, distribution of health is only one of the qualities, other qualities include cost and of course overall quality.

It also may interest you to know that the US ranks well behind France and other countries with universal health care in healthy life expectancy which is a good indicator of health care quality

@vineon the US spends about 67% more of its GDP on health care than sweden, the US also has a higher per person GDP so this is very significant
source- http://www.photius.com/rankings/total_health_expenditure_as_pecent_of_gdp_2000_to_2005.html

 

[Polis4rule]

I like the fact that many politicians treat health care and health insurance as the same

 

[Vineon]

What happened with the market, through many entities and intense competition being a cost regulator in this case then?

 

[Deck Knight]

RE: The Founding Fathers:

They were products of their time, but the words in the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution were still the poison pill that killed slavery and various other social ills throughout American history. Also, slaves were not considered 3/5ths of a person based on skin color. The actual law was designed to limit the power of slave states.

In the US, congressional representation in the US House is determined by the population of a state. Slaves were included in the population because unlike what they teach in public school, not every black person was a slave and not every white person was a master. By limiting the value of slaves towards the population of a state, it would also limit the ability of the southern states to amass political power simply by purchasing tons and tons of slaves that they didn't employ. Superfluous slaves still eat, can still sabotage machinery, and can still try to run away. Keeping track of five is a lot harder than keeping track of three.

Was slavery still despicable and a boil on America's history? Yes. But its a pretty ridiculous standard to hold people from hundreds of years ago to, especially when they debated it so fiercely and put the poison pill for it in the nation's founding. I can think of tyrants in the past 100 years who said fouler things and engaged in more tyrannical monstrosities than the Founders. Unlike Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto however, the United States Constitution wasn't a treatise on slaughtering millions of designated class enemies towards a glorious utopian social revolution, despite the many historical flaws and hypocrisies of its creators.

I'll take the racist landowning class from the 1770's over the various socialistic agitators from the 20th century, thank you.

Yep, pretty individual if everyone on the planet will probably need some type of medical care at sometime in their life...

Your argument would be valid if that was an a, not an o.

Some people go through life with no serious medical issues and they die in their sleep. Other people are plagued with health concerns in early childhood that dissipate when they grow older. Still other people are perfectly healthy until some drunkard sideswipes them and breaks half their limbs.

Government is too cumbersome, too inefficient to be able to plan for all of these different needs with a single plan. The only thing universal about universal health care is the poor quality for those who are actually sick, and the absolute death of any innovation in medicine whatsoever.

The same people who argue for a health care system that benefits primarily the healthy are the same people who decry tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy.

After all, we do the same fro our postal service, police force, judicial system (obviously), and the fire department.

This video breaks it down. Including the erroneous fire insurance example.

In brief: all of those things are local, not federal. All of them are constitutional, and most firefighters are volunteer anyway. Meaning the firehouse is pretty much just the place for training and dispatching.

Finally:

The difference in life expectancy between the US and other countries is negligible. US life expectancy increases every year, and our lower life expectancy is largely a result of our working and dietary habits. Control for obesity and smoking and America blows the other nations out of the water. We also have more patients survive actual diseases like cancer for longer periods of time.

Quite frankly I don't believe the government should take over 20% of the economy because Canada, whose citizens live almost entirely within 100 miles of our border and are therefore habitually pushed into our country for treatment, lives 5% longer than we do.