Need moral argument against Universal Health care

[HarbingerOfTruth]

I am trying to convince some liberals to support Ron Paul, but some of them are very strong for supporting universal health care. They see it as the moral justification, even if taxes have to be raised. They said according to a poll many Americans are willing to have even 5000 dollars raised in taxes to help those in need.

But as we all know, universal health care does not work. I need a moral argument and proof it doesn't work. If anyone can help me for strong arguments (I already have arguments, but I want to make it stronger) I'd appreciate it.

 

[Zavoi]

I had trouble with this issue a while ago. People will say, "How can you possibly believe in an ideology that rejects providing health care to those who need it? Why should a rich person deserve to live more than a poor person who can't afford health care?" The first temptation is to shout out "NO UNCHOSEN POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS EXIST!" as a fundamental, "self-evident" if you will, axiom of natural law. However, merely asserting this will not convince a die-hard liberal.

But then I realized: If, as you say, many Americans are willing to have even 5000 dollars raised in taxes to help those in need, then why would they not support a voluntary charitable enterprise to provide health care to the poor? Liberals and conservatives both alike seem to have gotten the idea that if you want to get some agenda accomplished, then you must use the government to achieve this agenda. There's nothing wrong with universal health care. We are not saying that poor people "deserve" to die. But if you want to ensure health care for all, and so many other Americans do too, then you go out and do it! All the time, money, and effort spent lobbying the government to get it to set up a universal health care system would be better spent actually setting up a universal health care system. So even if we admit that government-run health care works in other countries, there is no reason why a voluntary system would be any worse, and every reason to believe it will be morally preferable.

 

[Primbs]

Research the british system. They are about to deny care to people who are too old because it is too expensive. They will also deny care to those who have unhealthy lifestyles.

How moral is that?

 

[TER]

An adult should not be forced to do charitable works, it should be given freely. Otherwise, it is not an act of true love.

 

[shadowhooch]

Name one government program that is run efficiently..........can you do it?

 

[Chester Copperpot]

I had trouble with this issue a while ago. People will say, "How can you possibly believe in an ideology that rejects providing health care to those who need it? Why should a rich person deserve to live more than a poor person who can't afford health care?" The first temptation is to shout out "NO UNCHOSEN POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS EXIST!" as a fundamental, "self-evident" if you will, axiom of natural law. However, merely asserting this will not convince a die-hard liberal.

But then I realized: If, as you say, many Americans are willing to have even 5000 dollars raised in taxes to help those in need, then why would they not support a voluntary charitable enterprise to provide health care to the poor? Liberals and conservatives both alike seem to have gotten the idea that if you want to get some agenda accomplished, then you must use the government to achieve this agenda. There's nothing wrong with universal health care. We are not saying that poor people "deserve" to die. But if you want to ensure health care for all, and so many other Americans do too, then you go out and do it! All the time, money, and effort spent lobbying the government to get it to set up a universal health care system would be better spent actually setting up a universal health care system. So even if we admit that government-run health care works in other countries, there is no reason why a voluntary system would be any worse, and every reason to believe it will be morally preferable.

Its ALOT more than $5,000 per person in taxes.. Look at the other countries.. They have a 70%-80% income tax... That is the sort of thing we will have to have here for Universal Healthcare..

This is an easy argument to win.. I got a strong obama supporter to give up obama and go all out for Ron Paul after she understood this.

 

[VIDEODROME]

I'd just mention the Social Security program and what a mess it has become.

I do think Universal Healthcare sounds really swell, and I think it even works in some countries rather well, however the American government is incapable of handling such a thing.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

Research the british system. They are about to deny care to people who are too old because it is too expensive. They will also deny care to those who have unhealthy lifestyles.

How moral is that?

Yeah like the 108 year old lady in England who has to wait 18 months for her 'free' hearing aid...

 

[Matt]

Look no further

What I don't understand about the nationalized health care movement is why it must be done using the threat of force. If there are people in the US who wish to be a part of a health care system in which each contributes according to their means and receives according to their needs (with rationing), then aren't they already free to form a private organization of freely consenting members to do so?

If only to prove that such a system can be done in a way that is both acceptable to the participants and sustainable (without the ever increasing debt financing of all current socialist systems - including the US's) you'd think they'd already have one. Micheal Moore himself certainly has the resources and connections to start such an insurance system. I'd suggest he create one and show us how well it works.

The only difference between a system of the kind he advocates which is private and one which is 'public' is that the later will put you in a cage or kill you if you resist participation. The unspoken truth of socialism is that it is that despite any good intentions, it is always and ultimately done (ironically enough) at the point of a gun.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/014047.html

That's from a readers email to LRC, I modified it some.

 

[thuja]

Yeah like the 108 year old lady in England who has to wait 18 months for her 'free' hearing aid...

i bet she did not get much 'HEALTH CARE' and that's why she got to such an old age.

 

[Lymeade-Lady]

B/c it sets up a great possibility that those who sell drugs (pharmaceuticals) will control more of our health care. If you think HMO's and Medicare control things now...think what greed will make happen if we make it so easy.

Also, the higher taxes lead to more moms who have to work. In Germany (I lived there--not with the military), people complained about the health care providing less and less. And I had a friend who wanted more kids, but couldn't afford more than 2. She already had more than the average German! I haven't read any statistics on Germany, but the people I knew didn't seem too happy with it.

It's the middle class and lower class who get overwhelmed with the tax increases to pay for the insurance. Think 50% of your paycheck being taken and how people won't be able to afford giving to charities.

And what about people like me. I have Lyme, but don't want to be antibiotics the rest of my life. So, I'm doing alternative treatments and they are helping. I really think I will beat this thing in the next year or so. But I pay for every penny of it b/c it's not traditional. And would I still have to pay for the insurance/taxes that don't help me a lick?

 

[eccitante]

go to

mises.org

and

lewrockwell.org

and run a few searches....

the cases against it are both moral and economic...just like the case against taxation

 

[Kalash]

The drug laws.

Malum prohibitum crimes.


Onces YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH becomes a public interest (i.e. public property) you lose control of your health and body.


If you want to take drugs - they're illegal for your own protection. Can't do it. Sorry. No personal liberty there.

You want to take a high risk activity? Like... promiscuous sex in a club? You can't do it. Government won't let you. You might cost too much.


But it goes beyond that...

Driving is a high risk activity.
Eating McDonald's is a high risk activity.

Skiing is a high risk activity...
Bungee jumping, elective surgery, cooking, using a knife, etc...

At what point does the RISK outweigh the BENEFIT?
And who gets to decide?

Once the government has a vested interest in your health, waive away the rest of your liberties - because you're going to lose them.
And as anything you do to screw up your body COSTS society - you've harmed public property.
It may not be CRIMINAL to have done so - but expect there to be some kind of hearing at least - to determine if you should pay a FINE for intentionally running up risks/health care costs.

 

[barrett203]

Read my thread, I wrote a paper about persuasive paper against universal health care.

 

[Goldwater Conservative]

What about taxpayer-funded food, shelter, clothing, transportation, entertainment, etc.? At what point do you stop giving "free" stuff at the expense of others? If you're really being "compassionate" with other people's money and with the threat of force (government care), how can you draw the line for people who live irresponsibly by making poor lifestyle choices in their eating or by doing things like smoking, drinking, skydiving, having too many children, etc.?

Think of the welfare state like this: there are only two families in a given country, each composed of a married couple. They have equal income, wealth, etc. One couple chooses to have a child every four years, but the other chooses to have a child every two years. After a while, one family will be several people larger than the other, but both still have the same resources to sustain their families. Should the smaller, probably better-planned family be forced to subsidize the bigger family? How fair would that be?

Honestly, if you can't trust the government with your civil liberties, personal privacy, etc. (and you can't), why can you trust it with your money, whether it's taxing you or giving you a mandate? Especially when it's thousands of miles away and when your voice is one of only hundreds of millions? When corporate interests write the laws?

Anyway, the best solution to the health care crisis is to, in my opinion, cut all taxes for poor and working class Americans (mostly payroll), phase out the fiat money system in favor of hard money to protect poor and working class Americans from the highly regressive taxing effect of inflation, and put an end to farm subsidies (they encourage overproduction of certain unhealthy products).

 

[midevilmark]

Say Bob sits on his couch all day, eats Micky D’s three times daily with money that could have gone to an insurance premium and the last exercise he endeavored to take on was the walk to the kitchen to get a Twinkie. Why should his risk now be spread to the entire population? He willingly chose to ignore his risk, and in turn, did not take care of himself because there was no incentive to do so.

Let’s assume Bob knows that no one is going to pick up the tab for his irresponsibility and that he will have to foot the bill. Bob now has a greater incentive to a) take care of himself and b) carry private health insurance.

Once we subsidize bad behavior and poor decision making, people no longer build in a risk premium on their decisions. A perfect example of this is our current mortgage crisis situation. We encouraged bad behavior and mal-investment by striping away risk premiums vis-à-vis artificially low interest rates resulting in a now current crisis. This is a perfectly analogous example of subsidizing bad behavior.

When people have no cost based incentive to make the right decision, they will tend to make the wrong decision.

 

[riner69er]

the biggest problem that you have when arguing against universal health care is this - why do kids have to suffer because their parents are too lazy, poor, uneducated, unwilling, etc. to provide them health care?

Kids are pawns in this whole thing. they are at the mercy of their parents, and if they draw a low card in the parent lottery, they are screwed. I don't think alot of people are in a hurry to pay for health care for the lazy lard who sits on his couch and has diabetes and drinks 12 sodas a day. But the kids is a whole different story.

What is the solid argument to defend the kids?

 

[Shed]

For more information, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS#Criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public...#The_case_against_publicly_funded_health_care

There is universal healthcare in the UK and satisfaction with the level of service is very low. It's still the rich that afford to pay for private healthcare that are treated faster and better.

In the last ten years, the government has made an effort to improve the NHS (National Health System) by enforcing 'targets' that hospitals and regions have to meet. The result was that meeting targets became the primary job of hospital managers and staff, not treating patients. For example, now you can't make an appointment in advance to see a doctor, just to lower appointment cancellations. The Opposition party has an agenda of giving more independent management to the NHS.

People are getting older and fatter in the UK, and there just isn't the money or resources to cope with it. Even if the NHS excludes people above a certain age, or those with lifestyle problems, it still requires a high level of taxation of the populace to provide a poor level of service.

Of course when Clinton Mk 2 promises universal healthcare for everyone, it sounds great, but it will bankrupt the USA while failing to provide adequate health care to many people. I bet it will still be the poor that lose out.

 

[chipvogel]

I think the same argument for the Patriot act applies to universal health care(socialized medicine). Universal health care is giving up freedom for security; plain and simple.

We'll be forced to pay in so were loosing economic freedom. At some point the government is likely to start regulating the behavior of people to save money on their care...and we won't have any choice but to go along. That old saying about if you are taking their money you have to take their shit is so true.

If you are against universal health care then you are a mean uncaring person. Just as with the Patriot act you are unpatriotic if you oppose it.

It would force people who never even go to doctors (like Christian Scientist) to pay for others care.

Would it cover an elective procedure like abortion?

 

[FreeTraveler]

There are two ways to pay for any "universal" program.

1) Tax the money from some people to pay for other's care.
2) Force the doctors to work for less than their free market rate.

Theft or Slavery. Don't pretty it up with moral justifications, it's one or the other, at the point of a gun.