| Aielyn said: First of all, no, a "right" is something granted by society to people. You have the right to legal representation in court, for instance, but that's not something that you have "inherently" got. Indeed, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments of your bill of rights establish rights that have nothing to do with things that a person inherently has. They're protections put into the system in order to make things better. And the right to health care is similarly a protection. And "nearly every developed country is trying to contain spiraling health costs"? No. America is trying to contain spiraling health costs that are being driven ever upwards at a huge rate by the health insurance industry and by the dominance of the private health system, as well as the sue-happy American culture. Indeed, Australia has universal health care, and health care costs have remained fairly stable at 8% of GNP since it was established. It's so popular and effecitve, our right-wing parties (such as our Liberal party - don't be fooled by the name, they're the equivalent of the Republican party, the "Liberal" refers to their economic position of free market) are strongly in favour of keeping universal health care (which we happen to call Medicare). The best part about our health care system? We have essential health care that is universally covered, and then private health insurance that provides a heap of extra benefits. And the private health system is quite healthy, without costs spiralling out of control (because they have to actually compete for your money - market forces are much more efficient when the product isn't something essential to life). And I "pooh" the idea of small government, because a close examination of nations reveals that the ones with the best systems, overall, are the ones that have government that isn't particularly small or large, but instead are well-tuned. Norway is a great example. We in Australia have a reasonable one (our government isn't perfect, but it's hugely better than the American government, and larger as a proportion of population/GDP). Reform isn't achieved by shrinking the government. A smaller government isn't easier to reform, it's just less capable of doing its job. You want government reformed? Get together other people who feel the same as you, and start running for government. There are billionaires out there who would be happy to support you, given the right policies, so you needn't worry about being out-spent. The attitude of "we need to shrink government in order to reform it" is like arguing that, because you're severely overweight, the best way to get started on weight loss is to cut off one of your limbs. |
You certainly have a natural right not to be thrown into an arcane system that you don't understand, to answer for charges that you don't understand, while being forced to make incriminating statements against yourself, to face cruel and unusual punishment as a result, and in the event that you are found innocent, to be tried repeatedly for the same charge until you are finally found guilty. Building legal representation for defendants into the system when the state hauls you into its court and attempts to throw you in a cage isn't even in the same universe as telling everyone they are entitled to avail themselves of other people's skills, equipment, drugs, and so on free of charge.
All it takes is a quick Google of "insert western nation here" and "health care costs" to see that it's a huge problem everywhere. America's system is more screwed up than most, not because of private insurance alone as you suggest, but because of the entire third party payer system. Medicare and Medicaid are a massive part of that. And thanks to Obamacare, the private insurance market has just been turned into a fucked up form of for-profit welfare, so shit is going to get worse before it gets better. The fact that Democrats want European style health care without including European style tort reform because they are so beholden to trial lawyers doesn't help.
You do realize that most other nations have populations and economies comparable to our individual states, don't you? Saying that a tiny, ethnically homogeneous country like Norway can swing a massive nanny state at the national level, so America with its 310 million wildly diverse citizens should, too, is bordering on the imbecilic.
And downsizing a bloated, wasteful government is not at all like chopping off a healthy limb to lose weight, it's like losing weight because you need to lose weight. Your comparison is so absurd, I had to read it twice to make sure you actually said something that ludicrous.
