Should health insurance/coveragr be a right?

[havok579257]

So I have been thinking about this lately.  Should it be a right that everyone has health insurance? Now I am not talking about access to health insurance but everyone having health insurance. Also just a note, i am not talking about obamacare, ryancare or any other specific piece of legislation.  I am talking more in general terms. 

Part of me thinks that everyone should have the right to health insurance.  The reason is because without health insurance in this day and age you more than likely will be forced into homelessness if something major happens.  The sheer cost of medical treatments are near impossible to pay for on your own if your middle class or poor.  Your essentially forced to decide if you want the medication that without it will kill you sooner rather than later or not going homeless.  I guess I thinking about it as food.  I believe everyone has a right to food.  I believe those who live in third world countries have a right to food.  I am starting to think the same way about health insurance.  It's not like even 100 years ago when you could pay a doctor out of pocket and be treated and it would not cost you everything.  Today if you try to pay for things out of pocket they will bankrupt you.

 

So I wanted to get other people's opinions on this.  Do you believe people have a right to health insurance which means access to long term medical care or not?

[Anomaly]

No.   Essentially health insurance is a group of people contributing money to share the cost of medical expenses.   Unless you are willing to contribute to the best of your abilities, then you don't have a right to have your bills paid.    I pay over $9,000 a year, plus my employer pays an additional $10,000.  The $18,000 a year in premiums gets my wife and I the basic insurance with $6,500 per person deductible and $60 co pay for a doctor. 

I can't afford to go to a doctor but I'm paying for someone else to get free healthcare because they work for a small company that doesn't offer healthcare?.  WTHIUWT?

 

Edited March 5, 2017 by Anomaly

[havok579257]

1 hour ago, Anomaly said:

No.   Essentially health insurance is a group of people contributing money to share the cost of medical expenses.   Unless you are willing to contribute to the best of your abilities, then you don't have a right to have your bills paid.    I pay over $9,000 a year, plus my employer pays an additional $10,000.  The $18,000 a year in premiums gets my wife and I the basic insurance with $6,500 per person deductible and $60 co pay for a doctor. 

I can't afford to go to a doctor but I'm paying for someone else to get free healthcare because they work for a small company that doesn't offer healthcare?.  WTHIUWT?

 

so what do you have to say about people who can't afford to be medically treated for some medical problem that if left unchecked will eventually kill them?  does someone have the right to medical care to avoid dying?  obviously we give care to someone if they are in an emergency.  although i am more talking about someone with high blood pressure who if left untreated will eventually have a heart attack or cva.  i work in a hospital.  if someone comes in, we treat their symptoms and give them a prescription for medication but we don't give the medication.  its up to the patients to get and pay for their own medication.  some of the medication is hundreads of dollars for a months supply.  someone who does not have insurance is not able to pay for these medications.  i've dealt with many patients when i was a paramedic who told me they didn't take their medication because they could not afford it.

 

i guess my question is it right when someone can not afford medication that will save their life because the price is to high?  is having access to medication enough.  or does a person have a right to long term medical care and not just live saving medical care? i think we would all agree someone has a right to life saving medical care.  That if someone comes into the hospital with a gunshot, he has the right to be treated.  So why not the same for long term care that without it, will kill you (such as medication)?

[Norseman82]

I would like everyone to have health insurance, but a deeper question is why does it cost so much?  Why is out-of-pocket so expensive?  Is there an option for basic hospital or medical-surgical coverage, or does one have to purchase coverage with all the add-ons? 

[havok579257]

10 minutes ago, Norseman82 said:

I would like everyone to have health insurance, but a deeper question is why does it cost so much?  Why is out-of-pocket so expensive?  Is there an option for basic hospital or medical-surgical coverage, or does one have to purchase coverage with all the add-ons? 

i think a lot of the problem is so many people do not pay their emergency room bills which then jacks up the price for everyone else.  obviously the homeless man or the extremely poor woman can not pay for their hospital care from whatever emergency brought them into the hospital.  the hospitals are forced to jack up the rates to compenstate for those who can not pay.  not to mention the government insurance (medicare and medicaid) pay out a fraction of the bill to the hospital or ambulance service.  like a few hundread dollars on over a thousand dollar bill. 

 

i know when i worked with a fire department in an inner city this was our issue.  we served so many poor or homeless people who could not pay their bills.  obviously since they could not pay their bills, they could not get long term treatment for their  medical problems so the would just wait until it became an emergency and then call us again racking up another bill they could not pay for.  its a never ending cycle.  at the very minimum our ambulance service charged around 800-900 dollars just for transport and taking someones blood pressure and heart rate.  anything extra added to the cost.  not to mention we charged so much per loaded mile.  so if your poor and receive a 1500 dollar bill from the fire department and on top of that a 3000 dollar bill from the hospital, how is someone supposed to afford the hundreads of dollars a month for their medication for their chronic issues?  once you fall into the cycle, its near impossible, short of a mircle, to get out of.

[dominicansoul]

It's a lovely idea but I would rather the government get out of the healthcare business all together.  The government doesn't know how to implement it.  

It would be nice if the Church had some sort of universal health plan for its members.  

And im with Norseman, why does it have to be sooooo expensive???  

[havok579257]

1 minute ago, dominicansoul said:

It's a lovely idea but I would rather the government get out of the healthcare business all together.  The government doesn't know how to implement it.  

It would be nice if the Church had some sort of universal health plan for its members.  

And im with Norseman, why does it have to be sooooo expensive???  

it has to be so expensive to cover the costs os those who can not pay.  the doctors, nurses, tech's, cleaning staff, office staff and so on all need to be paid.  all the equipment needs to be paid for and all of the medical tests.  not to mention the massive amounts of electricity that is required to run a hospital.  so factor all that in.  you then as a hospital have to eat the expense of anyone who receives medical care who can not pay due to mental disability, poverty, homelessness.  You have to be able to pay for the things and staff you need.  So your only option is to charge extremely high prices to off set the cost of those who are unable to pay.  although even with that, all hospitals with emergency rooms still rely on government funding/tax dollars to operate.  its not possible for a hospital to survive without government tax dollars.  

 

thats the problem with wanting to get government out of healthcare all together, its just not possible.  not when there is a mandate that you have to treat anyone in an emergency who comes into your hospital.  that have to be seen by a doctor.  even if their emergency is a stubbed toe.  a doctor has to still see the patient and some basic things need to be done like checking vitals.  not to mention the hourly cost of the doctor, nurses and all other staff.  i agree completely that the government does not know how to implement healthcare in our current system but the situation we are in, its impossible for the government to not be involved.  its impossible for a hospital to exist without government tax dollars due to how many patients who don't have health insurance and cant pay their bills.

[Anomaly]

Everybody dies from something. Some from old age, others not. 

Sorry about your bad luck if you need a rare and expensive medication to live.  Blame God.  But you don't have a right to demand thousands of people to toil and sacrifice for years for your medication.  Same thing for a heart transplant, etc.  

If a group of people decide to share medical costs and come up with a viable economic plan to do so, that is different.  People put money in a bucket and pay for shared needed expenses as long as there is money in the bucket.  You can't have a few that take it all for a rare disease if it bankrupts the bucket. 

It is a basic right for access to basic healthcare.  See a doctor, antibiotics, affordable treatments, etc.   There has to be realistic limits.   What the average treatment is available now for diabetes is vastly different than thirty years ago.   Why should we pay for medication for decades when the diabetic won't eat properly and exercise to mitigate their symptoms because medication is cheaper.  Same thing for high blood pressure, etc.   

Most people don't understand the difference between won't and can't and don't understand or appreciate who pays for taxes.  80%of takes comes from payroll takes.  Corporations wouldn't have jobs if the business didn't make a profit. 

I will have worked and paid social security and Medicaid taxes for 65 + years by the time I'm 70 and neither will be enough to pay living expenses or anything more than basic medical care afterwards.   That is reality. 

9 hours ago, Norseman82 said:

I would like everyone to have health insurance, but a deeper question is why does it cost so much?  Why is out-of-pocket so expensive?  Is there an option for basic hospital or medical-surgical coverage, or does one have to purchase coverage with all the add-ons? 

No.

 Are you asking this question rhetorically, or do really not know this?

[havok579257]

1 hour ago, Anomaly said:

Everybody dies from something. Some from old age, others not. 

Sorry about your bad luck if you need a rare and expensive medication to live.  Blame God.  But you don't have a right to demand thousands of people to toil and sacrifice for years for your medication.  Same thing for a heart transplant, etc.  

If a group of people decide to share medical costs and come up with a viable economic plan to do so, that is different.  People put money in a bucket and pay for shared needed expenses as long as there is money in the bucket.  You can't have a few that take it all for a rare disease if it bankrupts the bucket. 

It is a basic right for access to basic healthcare.  See a doctor, antibiotics, affordable treatments, etc.   There has to be realistic limits.   What the average treatment is available now for diabetes is vastly different than thirty years ago.   Why should we pay for medication for decades when the diabetic won't eat properly and exercise to mitigate their symptoms because medication is cheaper.  Same thing for high blood pressure, etc.   

Most people don't understand the difference between won't and can't and don't understand or appreciate who pays for taxes.  80%of takes comes from payroll takes.  Corporations wouldn't have jobs if the business didn't make a profit. 

I will have worked and paid social security and Medicaid taxes for 65 + years by the time I'm 70 and neither will be enough to pay living expenses or anything more than basic medical care afterwards.   That is reality. 

No.

 Are you asking this question rhetorically, or do really not know this?

three things.  not everyone who has a medical problem is a result of bad exercise or diet.  many people are born with being a diabetic that requires medication.  it has nothing to do with what they did or did not do, its just they were born that way.  now they require medication the rest of their lives.

also treatments are not affordable and have not been for quite a long time.  when the country was started, you could pay for a doctor to come treat you at your house and pay for medications out of pocket.  now, its nearly impossible to pay for things out of pocket.  even if you just go to the hospital for emergency medical treatment for an assault or car accident, the costs are in the thousands.  how is that affordable out of pocket?

also what about children, the elderly who can not work to provide for their medical treatments and other people who have mental disabilities whom can not work to pay for medical expenses (servely autistim, mental retardation, etc).  are we just supposed to say, well you were born this way, so smells of elderberries to be you but you have no right to health insurance.  if you can't pay the bills, not my problem?

[Norseman82]

4 hours ago, Anomaly said:

 

 Are you asking this question rhetorically, or do really not know this?

I'm asking this because this needs to be addressed in order for any progress to be made on this issue.   

I do not believe there is one "magic bullet" that will solve this problem.  From what I've seen in my life, it's like pushing down on a water balloon:  push down in one area, it will rise in another. 

You made a valid point when you said that we all die.  A corollary to that is that we all age, and that in and of itself requires medical attention.  We are living longer - often due to better technology - and in our attempt to prolong life, we are requiring more and often more expensive care.  Two Monty Python skits illustrate this (see the 4:10 mark in the psychiatry skit from the late 1960s/early 1970s - it has a prophetic line "There's nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can't prolong"): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n19vHS5_WVk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc

 

[Anomaly]

Sometimes you have bad luck.  

There is a reasonable limit on what is to be taken away from earners to give to those who can not, and caution to not have it taken advantage of by those who choose not.  

In a group of people sharing expenses, there are limits on what can be fairly given to one or a couple.   

[havok579257]

28 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

Sometimes you have bad luck.  

There is a reasonable limit on what is to be taken away from earners to give to those who can not, and caution to not have it taken advantage of by those who choose not.  

In a group of people sharing expenses, there are limits on what can be fairly given to one or a couple.   

what about people who have the inability to earn to pay for their bills?  elderly who can not care for themselves.  adults with mental disabilities who can not care for themselves.  children who can not care for themselves.  what about all these people who can not provide for themselves and who do not have family to provide for them?  do we just tell them, to bad?  should there be a reasonable limit for someone who is unable to care for their own medical expenses?  not won't care for it but are unable to care for themselves?

[Anomaly]

See my previous post.  At what point is enough?   Would it be moral for me to sell my home, not pay for food,  nor buy clothes for three of my children so that the fourth child can get a perpetual kidney dialysis and die in ten years instead of two weeks?  

Why don't you sell all you own, live in a homeless shelter so you can give everything else to a child's medical care?  Are you that mean, or is there a reasonable limit to what should be demanded if you?

[havok579257]

1 hour ago, Anomaly said:

See my previous post.  At what point is enough?   Would it be moral for me to sell my home, not pay for food,  nor buy clothes for three of my children so that the fourth child can get a perpetual kidney dialysis and die in ten years instead of two weeks?  

Why don't you sell all you own, live in a homeless shelter so you can give everything else to a child's medical care?  Are you that mean, or is there a reasonable limit to what should be demanded if you?

i would contend that we as a society should never say when is it enough when it comes to children.  it is not childrens fault they can not pay for health insurance.  i mean your argument works perfectly for the people who are pro abortion.  they also say at what point is it enough?  should i sell my home, not pay for food, go homeless and make it unbearable for my other children just so i can give birth to this child who will either die now or in the future?  i mean if we don't care enough to provide for a child so he doesn't die in 2 weeks, why do we care enough to savea child from abortion? 

 

i can fully understand what your talking about when it comes to people who can work.  although we as a society do not allow certain groups of people to work (children until a certain age).  so your essentially say, you need to pay for your own healthcare but we are making it against the law for you to work.  how does that work?  how is a child supposed to pay for his healthcare when we as a society say it is against the law for them to work?  i mean would anyone be ok if we said to homosexual adults that you need to pay for your own health insurance but we are making it agains the law for you to have a paying job.  i imagine you would say it is unfair to homosexuals in that instance.  that its unjust since they have no way to earn an income to pay for their own healthcare.  so how is it any different with children?

[LoveZoe11]

I believe everyone should have access to health insurance at a reasonable price for their situation. Obviously children and the elderly should be covered universally. Universal health coverage at the hands of the state has been proven to be problematic in many of the countries that have it, so I am not really in favor of completely government funded health care. Also, I believe you should not have to get coverage that doesn't apply to you, or is against your personal beliefs, like contraception.