Unconstitutionalcare

[JonnyD]

And health care should not be subject to markets. It should be a government service, absolutely.

Agreed. That's why this market-based solution is so terrible.

At least you guys are honest.

Most of this talk about "insurance reform" is BS. The left wants health care to be a government service.

That's what we used to want, anyway. Then Obama decided he had to get something passed for political reasons, so he passed what amounts to a massive, heavily regressive middle-class tax increase paid directly to private insurance companies and cementing their place in the system. And for some reason I have yet to fathom, the liberals cheered.

 

[Tarheel316]

Health care is not a car. You're bank account shouldn't determine what you get -- though if you want something like cosmetic surgery, then you should be able to pay for that out of your pocket if you want/can.

Agreed. Very well said.

 

[Azrael]

However, the individual has the responsibility to care for their body and maintain their health. If that does not occur, then perhaps they lose their right to care...

This is a pretty slippery slope. We're about half a sentence away from declaring illness a moral failing.

 

[Dick Whitman]

However, the individual has the responsibility to care for their body and maintain their health. If that does not occur, then perhaps they lose their right to care...

This is a pretty slippery slope. We're about half a sentence away from declaring illness a moral failing.

I didn't get that at all from that sentence.

There is absolutely a contradiction in this country where people will run to the doctor for just about anything, but won't take the time to exercise for a half-hour a day or eat an asparagus stalk once in a while instead of a Big Mac.

 

[DocTalk]

However, the individual has the responsibility to care for their body and maintain their health. If that does not occur, then perhaps they lose their right to care...

This is a pretty slippery slope. We're about half a sentence away from declaring illness a moral failing.

Policy decisions would have to be made for large groups of patients, not individuals. With limited resources and you had to choose a group of people to provide aggressive cancer therapy v. palliative care....would it be to the smoking cohort or the non-smoking?
If you denied one group, could they go outside the system to obtain care? Would they be able to buy alternative insurance? Would there be an individual appeal process?
For smoking, the moral question might ask...if you read the cigarette packaging understood that smoking causes cancer and death, why would you expect to be treated? That said, it would be reasonable to have a user tax on tobacco that generated enough funds to pay for the health related consequences. How many hundreds of dollars a pack?