Healthcare (or "I have a right to your time and money!")

[Deacon]

Ronald Reagan chimes in. It's weird because that was so long ago, but just change the names to reflect the current players, and it could be damn near exactly current.

[StruckingFuggle]

Yeah, but that's Ronald Reagan. His principles make his arguments suspect.

[Deacon]

[collegestudent22]

1) Which principles would make his argument suspect here?

2) Could I not then apply the same reasoning to ignore any argument the other side makes FOR socialized medicine? It is exactly that "I'm smarter than you and have better principles, so your argument is meaningless" nonsense that CAUSES problems like this in the first place.

[Deacon]

More to the point, I want to know which points (made at what times in that video) are the ones Fuggle finds suspect.

[JermCool]

Socialized medicine brilliance example #287.

My mother-in-law was in a car accident a few months back. It screwed up her shoulder rather nicely. She was due for surgery last week, but it got canceled. The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) decided that her shoulder problems weren't due to the accident (despite what her general practitioner noted) but rather due to her age. The compensation was denied and her surgery was canned. She went to appeal the decision, but was told that anyone over the age of 60 was given the same reason no matter what the circumstances. Fortunately for her, she does have private insurance as well so she may still yet be able to get the surgery. For people who couldn't afford private, sorry! You're stuck with debilitating pain for the rest of your existence.

[StruckingFuggle]

Fortunately for her, she does have private insurance as well so she may still yet be able to get the surgery.

Also, unfortunately for her, as a private company they're entirely within their right, too, to also ignore her GP and decline her coverage, and probably will if it's unprofitable. She's an older lady with a fucked up shoulder - that sounds like a bad risk for a new company to take on, too, so it's not like she has every reasonable expectation of the threat of competition to get her insurance company to look at anything other than "would it be more profitable to worm our way out of covering her, or to actually cover her?" ... so she'd better hope that the private company decides that the latter is the road to the only thing that matters: greater profit.

[Mav]

Yeah. That has nothing to do with socialized or private insurance, you could see the same story on either side of the fence.

[Deacon]

Don't worry, she'll be having someone from the government come around soon to "counsel" her on starving herself to death to save the taxpayers some money since she's no longer contributing to society.

[Mav]

Wait, what? Is it hurr time again already?

[collegestudent22]

Yeah. That has nothing to do with socialized or private insurance, you could see the same story on either side of the fence.

Except that private insurance means (generally) signing a contract beforehand stating explicitly what types of care will be paid for and what won't, and since it's neither run by doctors or the government, there is legal recourse due to many contracts stating that they have to follow through on the reasoning of the doctor (i.e. if they agree to pay for damages due to a car accident and the doctor says the care is necessary due to a documented accident that happened at X time, they will have to pay for it, even if forced to by the courts....)

[Mav]

...and the government service provided is not a contract how? Are you telling me it would be impossible for a government service to state its terms of service/policy? And, lastly, plenty of people have happily sued the government.

[JermCool]

It wasn't a pre-existing condition. Her insurance will likely pay out - although they're stunned the government made the decision the way they did.

[adciv]

Wait, what? Is it hurr time again already?

In the healthcare reform bill, last I saw, was a section on 'living wills' and setting up a DNR or stop life support section that your doctor is supposed to council you on every five years after you reach about 65.

[Bigity]

Don't forget when Obama said something about 'at some point you have to think about quality of life versus the cost', or something to that effect when asked if the new plan would pay for certain treatments for people over a certain age.