Kindness Deficit

[OperaTenor]

<...and now, pinch-hitting for EJA is Haggis....>

Pardon me, I wasn't necessarily referring to welfare, but rather more the topic of this thread: universalization of health care as a moral tenet. And when it comes to the morality of showing kindness this way, if you will, then Ethan's morality, seemingly based in Christian dogma, applies to the reasoning. Go ahead, ask him if he's got a "WWJD" trinket in his possession. My interpretation of the Bible is that Jesus would be a modern-day socialist. He praised the poor for giving their all and despised the rich for hoarding their treasure. He reached out to the outcasts in society, and included everyone at His table.

I'm not advocating government to encourage people to be more Christ-like. I'm advocating that our government, as an entity, should behave more Christ-like.

Whether out of stupidity or puerility, it's amazing what I can type with a straight face.

[RC]

nice job OT

Haggis: "RE: Henry Ford comments. Lets not forget that Ford, Rockefeller, Morgan and most of the other industrial robber barons were Democrats."

So...what's your point? You'd better elaborate 'cause that sounds really half a$$ed - like something I'd say.

[RC]

"in the 90’s the more centrist Democrats (think Clinton) had to admit it didn’t work even though the more left leaning Dems (Shos?) still think beating the dead horse will work if we change the formula of beatings. "

Also Haggis, I didn't quite catch your drift here either. What didn't work?

Welfare?, Socialized Medicine?, Defining the common good?
:confused:

[OperaTenor]

Thanks, RC. You keep re-earning that profile photo, IMHO.

[Shapley]

OT:

RE:I'm not advocating government to encourage people to be more Christ-like. I'm advocating that our government, as an entity, should behave more Christ-like.

I'm sorry, but this keeps reminding me of the line in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas:

"It would behoooove the Arabs and the Jews to resolve their differences in a Christian manner."

V/R
Shapley

We now return you to your regularly scheduled serious discussion.

<small>[ 11-19-2004, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: Shapley ]</small>

[barfle]

OT asks why redistributing the wealth by the government is a bad thing.

I'll agree with Haggis <someone please revive the good Sergeant. I'm sure he'll recover soon.> as far as he goes. What's bad about welfare is that it is detrimental to both the providers and the recipients. In both cases, it reduces the incentive to exert effort and achieve. To the providers it says, "I don't care if you earned it, you don't have the right to it." To the recipients it says, "I don't care if you didn't earn it, you have the right to it."

I have seen the results of multi-generation welfare families. It ain't pretty. The people have no self-respect, they think they can't make it without public assistance, and they think it's up to "the man" to provide for them their entire lives. <Hell, "the man" sent gradma a check every week of her life, he oughta do it for me. But I want more 'cuz I'm miserable.> Going to a charity is far less demeaning than a life on welfare.

And, of course, it is so far from making either party "Christ like" that it is clearly immoral. If you want to be "Christ like" (celibate, dead by tortuous execution at 33, poor, misunderstood - I don't get the appeal) that's fine with me. Feed the hungry, shelter the cold, heal the sick. These actions, in themselves, are laudable. But taking my earnings against my will is pure and simple theft. Simply because I have earned and you have not does not give you any rights to my posessions. I am the best judge of how my earnings are to be spent, not some bureaucrat trying to buy the votes of the indigent.

OT also believes that Jesus would be a socialist if he were alive today. While I make no claim to understanding the mind of the diety, I would tend to believe that anyone who was beyond sin would find collectivism to be adverse to society and its members. Of course, the examples of Collectivist economies in the Soviet Union and its satellites during the 50s to the 80s illustrated that quite well. There was no reward for superior performance, so people only did what they had to do, and the only innovation was by management.

BTW, I did spend a few days in the Soviet Union in 1984, and I found a heck of a lot of surly people sitting around waiting to be told what to do. There were exceptions, to be sure, but cheerful service was as foreign to them as good plumbing.

[OperaTenor]

Once again:

"Pardon me, I wasn't necessarily referring to welfare, but rather more the topic of this thread: universalization of health care as a moral tenet. And when it comes to the morality of showing kindness this way, if you will, then Ethan's morality, seemingly based in Christian dogma, applies to the reasoning. Go ahead, ask him if he's got a "WWJD" trinket in his possession. My interpretation of the Bible is that Jesus would be a modern-day socialist. He praised the poor for giving their all and despised the rich for hoarding their treasure. He reached out to the outcasts in society, and included everyone at His table. "

I realize it gave you another chance to jump on your soapbox, Barfle, but that wasn't my point. I thought I 'splained that three posts ago.

BTW, where in the Bible does it say Jesus was celibate? By contrast, He is referred to as "Rabbi" in a couple of places. In order to be a rabbi, it was a requirement to be married .

Can we let go of our collective money bag and stop thinking in economic terms for one bloody second? Why does it always have to be about money when it comes to compassion?

[haggis]

Actually Barf, we agree a lot more than we disagree.

In regards to your comment

"To the providers it says, "I don't care if you earned it, you don't have the right to it." To the recipients it says, "I don't care if you didn't earn it, you have the right to it."

I think the most profound and least remembered statement Bush 43 has said so far is his comment about

”..the soft bigotry of low expectations”

that pretty much sums up to me, personally, everything that is wrong about the Democratic party.

[RC]

OT: "Hi RC, I'm glad you didn't wait. To me, you and Ethan said two different things. "

Yes, we absolutely did. However, I am beginning to see some thread I can associate with (in this particular conversation ). I disagree when it comes to healthcare specifically. I'm TOTALLY with YOU on that.

But I can clearly see the logic EJA, Haggis, and barfle have put forth.

Our failure, yours and mine, is in making our argument, which is RIGHT by the way, something they can identify with.

You and I have first hand experience in how the current healthcare system does NOT work and realize how ludicrous it is to continue to proffer it up as an ordinary commodity in the market.

health. care.

I also have experience on the OTHER end (insurance).

Trying to comunicate that to someone who has neither is difficult. Obviously.

I'm thinkin and studyin...

I'll be back.

[RC]

<...and now, pinch-hitting for EJA is Haggis....>

rofl

everytime I read that I laugh again...

[piqaboo]

I'm closer to Barfle's POV than to OTs re healthcare, welfare/charity, etc.

Thruout this ramble I will refer to "the poor".
Its kinda like using "he" when writing about people in general. Feel free to substitute "the elderly", or whatever hot button rings your bell.

Jesus gave a lot to help people who had little. He also says "the poor you have with you always" (John 12, Matthew 26). In context he is accepting a luxury that some thought should have been sold to raise money for the poor.
It would seem that Jesus may have meant that not only should one do what one can to help the poor,but that one can/should also enjoy the benefits that result in one's life.

IMO, it makes no sense to make yourself poor in the attempt to help others who are poor. Thats pretty similar to killing the golden-egg goose to get that one egg thats waiting to emerge. Although your overhead will drop to near 0, and you can give the full value of that one egg to the poor, thats it, thats all folks. Better to only use 75% of the yield for charity, use the other 25% to buy feed for the goose, and keep on giving 75% egg after egg after egg...

Money grows in larger steps where more of it is concentrated.* So, it makes sense to accumulate money and invest it, then use some of the returns to help (Charitable giving) rather than to have the initial sum taxed and that money given to the poor.

Where in the heck am I going with this? I support tax breaks for charitable giving. I support contributing within one's own community with time/labor/expertise as well as giving financially to the local and world communities. I support teaching one's children that they "owe" a debt to society, although I hate that way of putting it because I think it has horrible connotations.

With all this, I think making at least maintenance health care (annual exams etc)available to the entire nation is a good idea. This in general contradicts my views. I reserve the right to be inconsistent and human. Financially, we spend far more on emergency rooms than we'd need to if low cost health care were more widely available. We spend "public" (aka yours and my) money on end-stage care which costs much more than preventative and early intervention care which we dont cover. So, if we are going to be spending money on public healthcare (we are, we do), lets be efficient about it.

Also, without public money, trauma centers etc go out of business - in part because they get used in place of preventative care. I want one in my neighborhood, yes please thank you very much. So, lets get smarter about spending the money we spend.

I think the medical situation is analogous to education. We spend "public" money on primary school education with the goal of producing a functional literate workforce out of the next generation. Works well in most countries, ours included. {could work better. that would be a different thread}. SO, we pay taxes as an investment in having grocery store clerks who speak a commonly comprehensible dialect, medtechs who can read the warning labels, veterinarian techs who can calcuate the drug dosage for our dog (per kg), laundromat owners who can read the tax forms and pay their taxes, etc. I have not had children in the educational system but I benefit from it every day in dealing with adults who passed thru that system and learned to read and do math, etc. I consider that portion of my taxes to be a good investment. Similarly I would consider paying for basic health care nationwide as a good investment.

* Even at a fixed rate, you get a bigger lump back from an investment if you start with more, but often more money also gets a higher rate of return.

[piqaboo]

Haggis,
I like the quote from B43 - that is well put. AS you quote it, it would be a good legacy for him. I wonder about context?

[CYNIC ALERT: He has high expectations of nochildleftbehind, but he surely doesnt understand how a mathematical average works.....so I am left wondering if he understands what he said. ]

Barfle/Haggis - I agree with "To the providers it says, "I don't care if you earned it, you don't have the right to it." To the recipients it says, "I don't care if you didn't earn it, you have the right to it." And yet, retaining that human right to be contrary, I disagree re healthcare....(with limits).

I work in an industry that sends me into the laboratory from Day 1 to work with biological nasties. In my current job, we work daily with decaliter quantities of human blood/serum/plasma. Much of it is chosen specifically because it does contain a particular nasty virus. As a result, the industry gives employees healthcoverage from Day 1, even at entry level. By contrast my friend is a national level executive for a major retailer. She's one of 4 in her position nationwide, and one of ~ 30 of the top execs (not counting the board) for that company. Nevertheless, she had to wait 6 months for her health insurance to kick in. OK, she makes a ton of money, and should be able to afford insurance in the meantime. But my other friend, a waitress for 10 years, has a great work record, lives frugally, but doesnt earn enough to pay for health insurance. She also doesnt get paid if she doesnt go to work. She seems more representative of the American population. And she impacts more of us on a daily basis than my first-mentioned friend. And I'd just as soon she didnt work if she has a communicable nasty that day. Catch22 - cant afford to treat it, cant afford not to work, so cant afford not to share it with the rest of us.... I'd rather invest in basic healthcare for her on a national level.

pardon rambling.

[RC]

outstanding...I had completely forgotten your line of work. Thank you for piping up.

[barfle]

Originally posted by RC:
But I can clearly see the logic EJA, Haggis, and barfle have put forth.

Our failure, yours and mine, is in making our argument, which is RIGHT by the way, something they can identify with.

You and I have first hand experience in how the current healthcare system does NOT work and realize how ludicrous it is to continue to proffer it up as an ordinary commodity in the market.

I admit to the view that being fortunate enough to have good health gives me, and being fortunate enough to have been taught how to handle money so I have enough for the necessities first. However, I hope nobody has taken my words as endorsing the existing system. It's busted, and it's busted bad. I don't see it getting better until it self-destructs and has to be rebuilt from scratch, which is probably going to happen just about the time I have the heart attack my family history has promised me.

Is medical care important? You bet. Should I pay for others? Only if I decide to do so.

I can't comment on others, but I try to take care of myself so I don't have major expenses fixing me up, I try to take care of my cars so I don't have major expenses fixing them up, and so on. Shortsightedness isn't an adequate reason to expect me to cover for them.

A near parallel situation: A friend of mine has a son who recently graduated from high school, and he suddenly realized he had a major expense in helping him get through college. In spite of my friendship for him, I had to ask him "How long ago did you know he would be graduating this year? You had that long to prepare." It's a shame he didn't have the forethought to start a college fund 17½ years earlier, and it made the kid's college education tougher to achieve because of it. The three of them (my friend, his wife, and his son) were able to work through it, but a little forethought would have made the last four years a lot easier on all of them.

[RC]

Bon chance!!

You must have skipped Piq's post entirely... none of that selective reading stuff now - you can't just pick the adversary you think you can beat...

tsk tsk tsk

[Shapley]

Piq,

RE:With all this, I think making at least maintenance health care (annual exams etc)available to the entire nation is a good idea. This in general contradicts my views. I reserve the right to be inconsistent and human. Financially, we spend far more on emergency rooms than we'd need to if low cost health care were more widely available. We spend "public" (aka yours and my) money on end-stage care which costs much more than preventative and early intervention care which we dont cover. So, if we are going to be spending money on public healthcare (we are, we do), lets be efficient about it.

Would you make preventive care mandatory? My own experience indicates that, even when it is available for little or nothing, most people won't go to doctor's office unless they are sick.

There lies the rub: If we take control of healthcare for the sake of the people, we will end up taking control of the people for the sake of healthcare.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

Originally posted by RC:
Bon chance!!

You must have skipped Piq's post entirely... none of that selective reading stuff now - you can't just pick the adversary you think you can beat...

tsk tsk tsk

You think I'm going to get in a scrap where I'll lose?

No, I didn't skip it, I just hadn't gotten to it. She made points I don't necessarily agree with completely, but then neither do I agree with them, either.

And I'll now start rambling... I enjoy living, and I want to put off the end of that process for as long as I can. I don't think I'm all that unusual in that respect (in other respects, however...). I fully expect at some point to have to depend on the skills and expertise of others and their tools in order to help me put off the end of my living, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it ends up being expensive.

But from where I sit, I see health care as being outrageously expensive, and it's not just paying the doctors for their time and the clinics for their tools. Much of the expense of health care is due to non-medical issues like administrative costs, malpractice insurance, and lawyers. I work with lawyers on a regular basis, and they run the gamut as much as anyone else does as far as whether they are good guys or bad guys, so I'm not blaming the legal profession for the situation the health care industry has found itself in.

I do, however, blame the environment that has been fostered by a litigious society and by a bloated insurance/government bureaucracy that doesn't seem to allow for a Chevrolet in a world of Lamborghinis. It's not that I wouldn't like a Lamborghini, but in the rest of my life, I've found that I do pretty good with the Chevy (well, it's a GMC, different only in badges and trim). Second or third tier health care doesn't necessarily mean it's less healthy care, but it might not include a full-body scan for an ankle sprain. (I know that's an exaggeration - no, I HOPE that's an exaggeration - I've been pretty successful at avoiding hospitals so I'm making some of this up as I go - I said I was rambling)

[RC]

good point I suppose.

Like vaccinations (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, small pox, polio and more recently, influenza, chicken pox and pneumonia), a lot of folks are not too keen on having their children vaccinated for religious reasons, or concern of side effects and other quite serious risks. Should we FORCE them to be vaccinated? I guess we do.

Obviously, there is a line to be drawn and differing opinions about where to draw it. Deadly contagions are one thing that we've agreed on as a society, you WILL be vaccinated and the government WILL pay for it if the popoulation is threatened.

I guess my point from the very beginning is that the current healthcare system (or lack thereof), runs the risk of threatening the general population.

It doesn't take a deadly contagion, an acute untreated, undefined malaise can do it in two ways, spreading ANY contagion, and being a precursor to something far worse and more expensive - you'll pay in the end as Piq points out.

So the choices are nationalized healthcare, or the free market thing. Don't stop reading! Its just now getting interesting:

I don't see health care being a practical free market commodity. Apparently, a lot of people don't because we have federally mandated medicare/medicaide and states have implemented lots of little healthcare mandates for employers as well.

No one actually counted on the baby boomers impact on healthcare costs so I'm not buying barfle's pure market thinking "well you should have planned ahead" - that's just silly. If you end up uninsured, have a medical catastrophe and don't end up on welfare anyway, you must be in the top 2%.

Jacoby and colleagues published a study of bankruptcy filings that estimated more than 500,000 middle class families turned to the bankruptcy courts for help following an illness or injury in 1999, alone. A separate study published this summer reported that nearly 20 million American families during 2003 had trouble paying medical bills, with nearly two-thirds of those families saying the medical bills made it difficult to pay for other basic necessities.

Besides planning for yourself, spouse and your children, you have to figure for your parents (they didn't used to live that long...).

The sky rocketing costs have so very little to do with our attitudes relative to our general demographics changes that I find that entire issue annoying.

All that leaves me with ONE idea for resolution, some form of national healthcare.

Whatever you think about welfare, this is probably going to be YOU. I doubt that you had planned for whats coming down the pike...

<small>[ 11-19-2004, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: RC ]</small>

[RC]

Please ask me to tell you some medicare/medicaide or under-insured, non-insured, horror stories - I could go on for days and I guarantee you will tear up.

We are discussing this today because folks my age see themselves (the entire population), in a precarious situation with few options.

National healthcare, I'm thinkin it'll come weather or not you like it.

Also, please let me tell you to PURCHASE LONG TERM CARE INSURANCE!!!!

[hal 9000]

Interesting posts and interesting views. I agree that the healthcare system is a mess. Just wanted to mention something that may be overlooked. The current dilemna we face with our healthcare system is a monster with many heads. Insurance reform is needed as well. This should start with thoroughly informing policy holders of there benefits. The current guidelines for many insurance policies are a confusing mess. A large percentage of the (insured) population believe that having insurance means they are covered. When you try to charge them the amount of money dictated by their insurance plan, they feel that they are being robbed. Few understand their copay information, and those that do usually only understand the copay info that pertains to a PCP visit. They think it is a straight fee across the board. Talk to them coinsurance, deductible, and out-of-pocket concepts when they have diagnostic testing, specialist outpatient visits, labs, etc. and they look at you blankly. It is rare when such fees are paid at time of service, due mainly to the fact that the patient truly believes that it is not their responsibility but their insurance company's. These become bills that probably will not be paid before they go to collections. And once in collections, they tend to stay there as well. Though insured people are better off than the uninsured, they still face large medical costs until their deductible's are met or, for some, their out-of-pocket's are met.