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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2018 14:27:45 GMT -7
I'm not certain that "less-bloated" and "more capable" are exclusive goals for a government. I would love to see the DOE, EPA, and NRC work together to create a more robust and sustainable power grid. I would also support the FHA, DHHS, EPA, DOE, and NASA working together on more robust housing (to survive ugly weather, climate change, etc...)
There are a few other items on my wish list (USDA and NASA working together on better farms, DoT and DOE creating a useful transportation system), but they all involve better use of the existing agencies working together, rather than in their typical isolation. Every dollar we waste on government bureaucracy is one less that goes toward research, so I have to push for a less-bloated, more efficient government.
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 7, 2018 15:00:36 GMT -7
Universal health care for one.
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Post by cowboy40 on Oct 7, 2018 15:26:08 GMT -7
Universal health care for one. That will bankrupt the United States....it really isn't working in those countries that have it....like the left claims it is....It is an expensive thing just for a a few million...now try to apply that to 350,000,000....don't think it can be done unless we all agree to pay 80 percent taxes across the board!!!!
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Post by rabid on Oct 7, 2018 19:47:02 GMT -7
Universal health care for one. I've argued against that to exhaustion through our state association, in front of senators in their office, and through our lobbyist. I don't think there's anything to gain by arguing it here.
Regardless of what I think of the intelligence of that proposition...based on the responses we got and considering how many young people are coming up who believe health care is a "right", I think when it comes down to it you're going to get your wish.
You just have to wait for a democrat in the white house (or another more liberal trump) and another big recession, that's when Obama care looked most appealing to voters. Obamacare came up after a major financial bubble burst, like social security before.
That said I'll probably have retired by then so I won't suffer the wage hit that some of my foreign colleagues have, and I'll be on medicare by then anyway. Kids are going to get this eventually unless all the wanna be hippy baby-boomers have croaked by then (here's hoping). I don't think those opposed will be able to stop it.
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 7, 2018 23:19:55 GMT -7
What is your argument against universal health care? I'm genuinely curious. I've never heard a good argument against it but I'm always willing to at least hear the other side out.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2018 3:46:12 GMT -7
What is your argument against universal health care? I'm genuinely curious. I've never heard a good argument against it but I'm always willing to at least hear the other side out. I don't know that i have a specific argument against Universal Healthcare, I just don't know that it will be an improvement over the current system. My experience with Socialized Healthcare in the Military, and seeing how badly our Government runs the rather small (in comparison) V.A. Hospitals has put me off Single-Payer/Universal/Socialized Healthcare for the foreseeable future. On the other side of the coin; my parents, grand-parents, an Aunt and an Uncle, and a large percentage of my Dad's hunting/fishing buddies all worked in the Medical fields. They tend to agree that Health Insurance was just about the worst thing to happen to Healthcare in the US. It's a close second to Lawyers. This is an interesting read on the subject â–ş [ LINK] Granted it's dated, but it does show some of the pitfalls the US would have to avoid.
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Post by cowboy40 on Oct 8, 2018 3:54:31 GMT -7
Babies are dying in England...waiting on the National Healthcare to get their act together, which they have not done for 50 years......My daughter in Canada use to have to wait for six months for a simple appointment to get her eyes checked....IT DOES NOT WORK!!!
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Post by rabid on Oct 8, 2018 6:14:27 GMT -7
What is your argument against universal health care? I'm genuinely curious. I've never heard a good argument against it but I'm always willing to at least hear the other side out. I appreciate it but I really don't want to argue. It's been my experience that people who have already decided this is a good idea are unlikely to reconsider. People vote their hopes against cold reality. However, I'm willing to share some counter arguments with you. It would be useful to know your what vision of universal health care is.
There's a few key questions, specifically: Is health care a right? Do you proceed from the notion of plenty, e. "We are the wealthiest nation in the world we can afford it..." Kind of argument?. Is it meant to be SINGLE payer, which means NO supplemental insurance or option to opt out. There is only ONE payer at point of service and that's the government.) Is it truly universal (every health problem from birth to death?).
As it pertains to this thread, republicans have screwed this up entirely. Too bad trump couldn't have respected McCain, who turned out to be more dangerous to his goals than any other person including bob mueller.
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Post by edgeworthy on Oct 8, 2018 6:35:03 GMT -7
Babies are dying in England...waiting on the National Healthcare to get their act together, which they have not done for 50 years......My daughter in Canada use to have to wait for six months for a simple appointment to get her eyes checked....IT DOES NOT WORK!!! And the US has the highest Maternal Mortality Rate in the Western/ Developed world! (Expectant Mothers have better odds in Costa Rica)
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Post by cowboy40 on Oct 8, 2018 6:42:57 GMT -7
Socialism is a proven failure across the board for most pasts....It doesn't work....
Orwell was right when he stated in Animal Farm...."All pigs are equal, but there is always one that is more equal!"
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Post by cowboy40 on Oct 8, 2018 6:51:58 GMT -7
To those that support universal healthcare....it looks good on paper...yes...given an equal world...yes, but now take out your pocket book...look inside it....you have a dollar bill in there now....prepare to give up 8/10ths of it....because that is what is gong to take....an 80% tax rate to pay for 350 million plus people.....IN the process do we give out tax money to undocumented folks as well, that will place even a higher burden on the system.
Where do you draw the lines...what taxes are you willing to pay, what are you willing to give up in your lifestyle to support those taxes? Where do we draw the line for where those tax payer dollars will go?
This will not work....simply because no government can afford to maintain the level of care that will be needed, without raising the taxes that high. Are you willing to give up 80 cents on he dollar...if it means you can't have that nice house, car or even computer? Are you willing to sacrifice that much for someone else? I know this is a hard question, but I don't see anyone else asking it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2018 8:30:56 GMT -7
Babies are dying in England...waiting on the National Healthcare to get their act together, which they have not done for 50 years......My daughter in Canada use to have to wait for six months for a simple appointment to get her eyes checked....IT DOES NOT WORK!!! And the US has the highest Maternal Mortality Rate in the Western/ Developed world! (Expectant Mothers have better odds in Costa Rica) I think a claim like that needs to be supported by data. I went here [ LINK], and found: Maternal Mortality Rate per 1,000 births US: 14 Costa Rica: 25 China: 27 UK: 9 ROK: 11 Denmark: 6 Nothing to be proud of, but clearly better than Costa Rica.
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Post by rabid on Oct 8, 2018 18:39:10 GMT -7
And the US has the highest Maternal Mortality Rate in the Western/ Developed world! (Expectant Mothers have better odds in Costa Rica) This is due to overdevelopment not underdevelopment. Maternal mortality in the US is proportionate to maternal obesity, (diabetes, pre-eclampsia and heart disease among overweight mothers) also the higher rates of c-section in the US (especially under general anesthesia, obesity sure doesn't help there) These maternal mortality rates partly reflect anesthetic death rates. Accessibility causes some of it to be sure but no one has the specific rates. My take on this is that Closing planned parenthood isn't helping. Point is "universal" health care won't fix this and medical science is complicated...it's a mistake in the developed world to equate high mortality with "backwardness", people aren't dying these days because they had to run and get the Vet to deliver the baby. They are dying because they are undergoing anesthesia and inducing labor with pre-existing medical conditions derived of first world obesity. That's my take looking at the data. I doubt anyone at the CDC would be so crass. Lol Source: (good summary here) www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pregnancy-mortality-surveillance-system.htm
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 8, 2018 18:48:02 GMT -7
There's a few key questions, specifically: Is health care a right? This question is trickier than it may seem on it's face. What do you mean by a "right"? I believe that the only rights that exist are those we choose to protect. So by that definition, it would be a right if we decided to make it a right. Do you proceed from the notion of plenty, e. "We are the wealthiest nation in the world we can afford it..." Kind of argument?. No. Certainly universal health care would be massively expensive. I would expect that taxes would have to be increased to pay for it. However, I believe that if properly managed the cost of a universal health care system COULD be less than the American people are currently paying out of pocket for private health insurance. Is it meant to be SINGLE payer, which means NO supplemental insurance or option to opt out. There is only ONE payer at point of service and that's the government. I don't know what the best way to implement universal health care would be. I think that there are benefits of a single payer system but I am open to other ideas as long as they work. Is it truly universal (every health problem from birth to death?). Yes. These answers are provided in a vacuum and are not set in stone. These are my initial positions but are open to change if I am provided with compelling reasons to change them. This is why I was interested in hearing your take on things.
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 8, 2018 19:03:39 GMT -7
Socialism is a proven failure across the board for most pasts....It doesn't work.... Cowboy40, I suspect that you may be indulging a false equivalence here. What do you mean by Socialism? People use the word Socialism to describe a multitude of things. To those that support universal healthcare....it looks good on paper...yes...given an equal world...yes, but now take out your pocket book...look inside it....you have a dollar bill in there now....prepare to give up 8/10ths of it....because that is what is gong to take....an 80% tax rate to pay for 350 million plus people.....IN the process do we give out tax money to undocumented folks as well, that will place even a higher burden on the system. I'm curious how you justify this number. Right now we have a health care system where the vast majority of people are either taking advantage of Medicare/Medicaid or paying for private insurance. This is mandated by law. At worst a national health care system should cost no more than the current system. Do our current health care costs represent 80% of our earnings? If they do not, then why would those costs suddenly skyrocket just because we pay taxes instead of enriching insurance company CEOs? You throw out 350 million people (The U.S. Population is more like 327 million). Why is this number important? What is the significance of 327 million people? Is it that it is more than the 66 million in the U.K. or the 36 million in Canada? If so, are you ignoring the fact that a similarly greater number of people are also paying taxes in the U.S. than in the U.K. or Canada?
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Post by rabid on Oct 8, 2018 19:12:31 GMT -7
JAFisher44 reasonable as always. If someone thinks healthcare is a right I usually stop right there. I think 2A is a right, so I know how they feel about it...people don't want to listen when they think they may be deprived of a right. So by "right" I mean like free speech and religious freedom and even the 2A, as in "shall not be infringed". More to follow! cowboy40 we can be a capitalist country with some socialism (socialized medicine) on top. The problem is how much socialism can capitalism sustain before the economy crashes. Hell even Lenin was obliged to reinstate capitalism to save socialism...didn't work but that's the historic example.
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 8, 2018 20:14:05 GMT -7
rabid But what does it mean for something to be a right? In your mind is a right anything more than something our society ensures we are able to pursue if we want?
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Post by rabid on Oct 9, 2018 4:26:22 GMT -7
It's supposed to be self evident. These are things that belong to a person simply because they are human. "You have the right to speak your mind", "the right to protect yourself". To Believe something is a right requires holding an abstract as absolutely true.
So if I believe that, why isn't health care a "right"? Basically rights are abstracts that originate from the individual and it's a crime to take them away without cause (criminal behavior for example). We don't pursue rights, those are already ours. But they enable us to pursue happiness.
A right can be guaranteed even in poverty of circumstance, a material need can't be guaranteed in the same way (I.e. housing, food). Picture a circumstance where things so bad that no one has those anymore. But even if someone is living absolute privation they still have free speech, etc. Also if you think about it, none of the other "rights" is contingent upon getting a service from someone else. In this way health care can't be considered a basic human right in the same way as the others. You have to have a doctor nearby for your "right" to be realized.
Also being the religious person I am, I hold rights as being endowed by our creator, small wonder then, that if there is no creator then across the world rights are generally cast in doubt. People get arrested for challenging their government as well as for ranting against Islam on twitter. It's a shame.
But on that note how do you define rights as a secular humanist?
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 9, 2018 6:59:07 GMT -7
I do not believe in rights as you do. I am looking for the function of a right. How can I empirically tell if something is a right? Perhaps I can show you what I mean.
Lets look at two examples.
1) The right to life
2) The right to punch rabid in the face
I assume you agree that 1 is a right and that 2 is not. Typically, we treat a right as something in which society should not infringe upon our ability to participate. Usually we also expect society to prevent others from infringing on our rights. Assuming that we agree that 1 is a right and 2 is not, answer the following questions:
Is it possible to kill people?
Is it possible to punch rabid in the face?
Is is possible for a society to protect a person's ability to live?
Is it possible for a society to protect a person's ability to punch rabid in the face?
Is it possible for a society to interfere with a person's ability to live?
Is it possible for a society to interfere with a person's ability to punch rabid in the face?
As far as I can tell the answers to each question is the same. Is there any functional difference between having a right and not having a right?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2018 8:06:56 GMT -7
A right is irrevocable, inalienable, and inherently held by all human beings. It is self-evident and universal under the laws of nature.
The Freedom of Speech, of Religion, of the Press, and to Peaceably Assemble are rights. No man, woman, or child need ask for permission to exercise them and should not expect to be penalized for doing so. Nor does any government, instituted by any collective body of people, have the right or authority to deny or circumvent such rights, even though it is the nature of all governments to do so.
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Post by rabid on Oct 9, 2018 8:54:09 GMT -7
"How can I empirically tell if something is a right Read more: ststcsolda.proboards.com/thread/952/thoughts-on-conservatives-liberals?page=4#ixzz5TRwLM1lL" You can't. I said it's abstract, one of those truths that we wouldn't need evidence for because to test the presumption is inhumane and ghastly. "I have the right to shove old ladies into traffic." How many old ladies do we need to shove before it's obvious empirically that this is wrong? EDIT: then pursuant to that we could establish that since it's wrong to shove old ladies into traffic, that old ladies have a right to not get shoved into traffic. I love this discussion BTW. But many secular humanists (looking at sam Harris) tend to confuse freedom of choice with true autonomy. Just because someone can do something it doesn't follow that they have a right to do it. Rights are at odds with the notion of moral relativism. I'm not sure how people can square those positions and still believe in equity and ethics. Final edit: you asked for a "functional difference", rights are only missed in absentia, honestly would they occur to people who never held them due to a capricious government? This is why the West is awesome. Let's use Islam as an example: someone can say "Islam sucks" in the US without legal consequence. Not so in the UK, it's "hate speech". Also 2A, someone breaks into your home to rob you at gunpoint. Without the 2A you have no right to shoot them before they kill you.
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Post by krebizfan on Oct 9, 2018 14:25:23 GMT -7
Health care as a right is being treated a bit differently from other rights. It is used a reason to have the government pay most of the costs of health care. The first amendment does not require the government to provide every citizen with a TV station; the second amendment has never been suggested to require the government to supply free weapons to citizens. Actually, some of the proposals to implement health care as a right focus on cutting spending and thereby prevent the utilization of the right which I find amusing.
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Post by edgeworthy on Oct 9, 2018 15:57:48 GMT -7
And the US has the highest Maternal Mortality Rate in the Western/ Developed world! (Expectant Mothers have better odds in Costa Rica) I think a claim like that needs to be supported by data. I went here [ LINK], and found: Maternal Mortality Rate per 1,000 births US: 14 Costa Rica: 25 China: 27 UK: 9 ROK: 11 Denmark: 6 Nothing to be proud of, but clearly better than Costa Rica. I was using The Lancet (One of the oldest peer reviewed medical journals in the world) linkWhich puts the US Maternal Mortality Rate at 26.4 per 100,000 live-births, and rising since 1990, 49th in the world. Canada at 7.3, the UK at 9.3, France at 7.8, Germany at 9.0, Denmark at 4.2, China at 17.7, ROK at 11.6 and Costa Rica at 24.3. Its over 3 times the average for Western Europe, at 7.2.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2018 17:14:43 GMT -7
edgeworthy - Thanks for providing the information. I wonder how these two sources could be so far off. Also what are the findings as to the causes of these MMR's? The Lancet table also differs from data from the CDC, which only serves to further muddy the waters. The CDC states that about 700 women die each year in the United States as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications. Their web page does not go into a lot of detail, but does give a rather depressing statistic - Black Women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die during pregnancy or within one year of the end of pregnancy from a pregnancy complication, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy, than are white women.
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Post by JAFisher44 on Oct 9, 2018 17:25:23 GMT -7
"How can I empirically tell if something is a right? You can't. I said it's abstract, one of those truths that we wouldn't need evidence for because to test the presumption is inhumane and ghastly. I think that it is inhumane and ghastly to deny a suffering person medical care if you have the means to provide it. "I have the right to shove old ladies into traffic." How many old ladies do we need to shove before it's obvious empirically that this is wrong? EDIT: then pursuant to that we could establish that since it's wrong to shove old ladies into traffic, that old ladies have a right to not get shoved into traffic. I love this discussion BTW. But many secular humanists (looking at sam Harris) tend to confuse freedom of choice with true autonomy. Just because someone can do something it doesn't follow that they have a right to do it. To be clear, I do not think that any rights exist intrinsically. I am not advocating for the right to push old ladies into traffic or the right to punch rabid in the face. I used that example to illustrate that one is a right that you believe that we have and the other is a right you don't believe we have, yet they are functionally identical. Take the right to life. What does having an intrinsic right to life accomplish? It doesn't protect your life. There is nothing about having an intrinsic right to life that compels anyone else to respect your right to life. Rights are at odds with the notion of moral relativism. I'm not sure how people can square those positions and still believe in equity and ethics. I am not a moral relativist. At least, not as most people would recognize it. I do however believe that rights only exist when others agree to be bound by them. Final edit: you asked for a "functional difference", rights are only missed in absentia, honestly would they occur to people who never held them due to a capricious government? This is why the West is awesome. It seems to me that if a right is "built into the universe" then everyone would be aware of it. How could anyone avoid it? Access to health care is greatly missed in absentia. Let's use Islam as an example: someone can say "Islam sucks" in the US without legal consequence. Not so in the UK, it's "hate speech". Also 2A, someone breaks into your home to rob you at gunpoint. Without the 2A you have no right to shoot them before they kill you. This seems to be a point in my favor. The U.S. grants its citizens a right to free speech (with some limitations) The U.K. grants its citizens a right to free speech (with some more limitations). How is this right intrinsic if it can be violated? It seems like you are basically saying that a right is something that we feel like we are owed. If that is the case how can you say someone else is wrong if they feel like they are owed something you don't think they are owed? By what criteria do you say this thing you are owed and this thing you aren't?
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