Tea party crowd about sick man without insurance: "Let him die"

[nebris]

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The largest audience cheers in the Republican presidential debate came when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul whether he wanted an uninsured 30 year old with a treatable disease to die because he didn't have health insurance. You can hear the crowd shout, "let him die." healthcare, reaganomics, corporate profits, income inequality, libertarianism, tea party politics, gop, ron paul, wtf, social safety nets, 'capitalism', washington, class war, starve the beast, ayn rand, 2012 presidential election

Comments

[lightvortex]

It costs less, not more, in other developed countries where it is practiced, as far as I know. There is less spent on administration, for one thing, with just one agency handling basic needs. But I don't see the U.S. moving to that model unless lots and lots of people start demanding it; politicians aren't going to decide on their own initiative to propose something which will make them powerful enemies.

I think that the question posed at the Republican debate was almost like a straw man. I don't doubt that there are people who fall into the category of earning a good living and choosing not to buy health care, for whatever reason (particularly people who are self-employed), but many people are either too poor to make it feasible to pay for it or work for companies that at least pay a large fraction of the cost, making it not so much of a choice. The question implies that the 30-year-old could easily have chosen to buy health insurance, considering it not that important, but it often won't be such a simple decision. In a single-payer system the person will not have a choice (as some Republicans think he should have), but on the whole the system would generally work well for people. These systems have their problems, but I don't think that most people in countries that have them would trade their system for something like ours.

[gwendally]

but on the whole the system would generally work well for people. These systems have their problems, but I don't think that most people in countries that have them would trade their system for something like ours.

I live in MA and work with self-employed people, so I'm extremely involved in the way MA handles their universal health care mandate.

Only about 2% of MA residents are uninsured now, and that 2% are the ones in that straw man argument: the healthy who earn too much to be subsidized and decide they are going to live forever and so make the choice - pretty much an affirmative choice at this point - to not get health insurance.

So: what DO you do when they get in a car accident? It's not a stupid question. The free care system has been destroyed in MA because all that money got shifted towards subsidizing health insurance for the poor.

Could we have gone the route of free care rather than free health insurance? Yes, but we didn't. It's a bit of a silly debate, in my opinion, because all the insurers in MA are not-for-profits and the work they do of negotiating contracts and developing risk models and determining premiums would have had to have been done by SOMEONE. I have trouble believing that government workers would do any better for less money than insurance company workers. Insurance companies at least have some level of competition between them... which is playing out in really interesting ways. (For example, the cheapest insurance company in this area pays the doctors the least so many of the doctors are opting out of accepting that insurance plan... which leaves the consumer with a cheap plan with no doctors in it. Pricing information gives REALLY valuable signals in a market.)

MA does have many problems with our hybrid version of health care and a lot of people still yearn for universal care, but we have to deal with where we're at. Implementing universal coverage is a really important first step.

So: back to the question from the debate: you've implemented universal coverage and someone declines to opt in... then gets in an accident. What now? Do you affirm that freeriders are fine, we'll pay anyway? What happens next with a policy like that?

I think it's a really interesting question.

Part of why I'd let the guy die (as a matter of public policy) is because I think there will be more suffering in the world overall if we save him. A dollar spent saving his life would have been better spent saving MORE lives elsewhere.

Edited to add: personally, I find nothing wrong with someone saving him who chooses to do this out of charity. But it's not what I would consider the best bang for MY charitable dollar. I could save THOUSANDS of lives for what treatment of his disease would cost. And THAT is the crux of why tax dollars should not be used: tax dollars must go to the MOST beneficial use, not the emotional one.

A kid died yesterday in our town. A driver fell asleep and drifted across lanes and ran into her and she's dead. She was 18, the only daughter of a local family. Her life could have been saved if there had been jersey barriers between lanes on that road that prevented cars from leaving their lane. There were not, so she died. How many car accidents could be saved if we upgraded our highways?

[gwendally]

Oh, in case Nebris thinks I'm being smug, let me assure you, I have wept for that child.

I have wept for that child.

[nebris]

You get a cookie.

And how much Infrastructure Work might all the TARP money have paid for? Or, for that matter, all the wealth destroyed by the Casino Banking that caused that crisis in the first place? The last number on that latter amount that I heard was $14 TRILLION.

Yet here we are, debating comparative nickles and dimes over who lives and who dies and trying to justify that bullshit with noise about 'freedom of choice'. THAT is what I mean by "peasants arguing over a bucket of pigshit." And trust me, next to someone like Jamie Dimon, you're a fucking peasant, madam.

~M~

[badnewswade]

Part of why I'd let the guy die (as a matter of public policy) is because I think there will be more suffering in the world overall if we save him. A dollar spent saving his life would have been better spent saving MORE lives elsewhere.

That's because you're a sociopath.

Lack of health care kills more Americans than terrorists ever could. Do you think we should let all the mad bombers out to roam the streets and sell plastic explosives and combat knives at airports, too? I'm sure you could come up with some load of bullshit argument about how allowing people to be murdered by terrorists creates jobs, lifting people out of poverty, and therefore actually saves lives. But it would still be a load of self-serving bullshit.

[gradeafan]

But don't the wealthy in those other countries still come to the US for better care they can afford? I say this simply because I'm an accountant and work for a cancer center here in Arizona. MANY of our patients are from other countries. ALL of those patients are wealthy by standards of either country.

So although their care may be free in their system, the wealthy can still afford better care and come here to our system to get it.

f

[badnewswade]

Who gives a fuck?

The world isn't an amusement park that exists for the benefit of people with money.

[nebris]

I'm afraid that depends entirely upon where you're standing.

~M~

[lordperrin]

What reality are you living in? I mean, it's a shame, but that really is what the world is right now.