Socialized Medicine

[Guest]

My biggest thing about socialism over private charities is that if we have socialism, I have lost much of my ability to be charitable.  If that many people are being "taken care of" by the anonymous hand of impersonal government, who can I help?  If I can help people, why is government taking away or diminishing my capacity to do so?

I'm commanded by God to care for those in need.  I am to sacrifice my time, talents, and means to help those in need.  I am not supposed to let someone take stuff at the point of a gun and line their own pockets so they can have a fee for helping others in need that I never even get to see.

Part of service is getting to know people.  Getting to meet with them and learning who they are.  Then not only are we blessing their lives, but they bless ours.  With socialism, I'm robbed of that opportunity.

The United Order had interesting ways to take care of that problem.

Edited May 26, 2017 by Guest

[Vort]

2 hours ago, zil said:

And other than that, I'm speechless.  Amazing post, JAG!

One of the great benefits of participating in this forum is occasionally reading posts like JAG's.

[askandanswer]

I'm wondering how many American children have died because of inadequate or no access to socialised medical care. I suspect its many many more than the number of UK children who have died as a result of poor administration of their system of socialised medical care. Three weeks ago, in the annual budget, our Treasurer lifted the rate of everyones contribution to the national medicare scheme from 2% of a person's annual income to 2.5%, to pay for an incredibly expensive, but well liked scheme called the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Labour Party are promising to reject the Treasurer's scheme by saying that the extra .point 5% should only apply to those earning more than $87,000 but the Australian public has accepted the increase with hardly a comment or complaint because they support the scheme.

Edited May 26, 2017 by askandanswer

[askandanswer]

2 hours ago, Vort said:

One of the great benefits of participating in this forum is occasionally reading posts like JAG's.

@Vort for a man as erudite as yourself its always a little surprising when you make a spelling mistake. This - JAG - is not how you spell my name.

[eddified]

5 hours ago, yjacket said:

"Life isn't fair".  It's never going to be fair and any attempts to make life "fair" will simply result in more misery as someone will be inconvenienced in the attempt to make life fair for another individual.

Parenting pro tip: whenever a child says something "is not fair", I make two points:

• Agree with them that it's not fair, but what of it? (I.e. it doesn't matter)
• I say, "Did I ever say I was going to make it fair?" - (to which the response is always, "...no...").

I am very explicit with my children that my wife and I DO NOT CARE about making things perfectly fair. (But we do actually try to be fair - that is, we do care about fairness, we love all of our children equally.) The trick is making them understand that we parents can never, ever, make everything fair -- it's impossible to do!

 

And wow, @Just_A_Guy's post was really great. 

Edited May 26, 2017 by eddified

[NightSG]

On 5/25/2017 at 5:16 PM, JohnsonJones said:

Even in Peter's time, in the New Testament, we have a story of a couple that held back and were severely punished by the Lord.

Erm, no.  Peter makes it abundantly clear that they weren't punished for holding back the money, but for claiming that what he gave was the full amount.  His words are pretty specific that the land and the money from its sale were Ananias's to give or not as he chose, but that lying to the Spirit was the serious sin committed in that instance.

[SpiritDragon]

On 4/30/2017 at 0:24 PM, yjacket said:

We couldn't cure cancer, now we can to a large extent.  Why? b/c of the profit motive.  Without a high enough incentive for companies and businesses to take lots of risk in developing solutions, cancer cures wouldn't exist.

On 4/30/2017 at 1:42 PM, my two cents said:

False. It's because of the profit motive that you don't hear about the real cures that are already out there.  You made good points until the end and I just had to speak up. 

Now back to regular programming...

 

On 4/30/2017 at 1:44 PM, The Folk Prophet said:

Haha.

Conspiracy theorists unite!!

The profit motive ends up being a double edged sword. Certainly the profit motive does increase the drive to search for products and services that are highly profitable. In the field of medical science we have much to be thankful for that has come about because of this search for profitable solutions to health problems. The double-edged sword kicks in when companies realize that there is more financial potential in treating a condition for life instead of curing it. When organizations like the heart and stroke foundation or cancer society exist on funding from government and charitable donations to continue searching for a cure, one must admit that the incentive to find said cure is paradoxical because in doing so they (the organization) make themselves obsolete and are no longer able to continue to get donations and grants for research. I believe this does play into yjacket's premise, but has also become a case of socialism mingling with capitalism to screw up how the profit motive works. 

However, there are effective treatments and cures that are suppressed because they can't be patented and don't maximize profits. In this case it is unfortunate entirely that the lust for money gets in the way of stopping human suffering. One huge example would be that almost 30 years ago a cure for heart disease was published in Lancet using a low fat vegetarian diet. While even more is understood about just what works as far as lifestyle interventions for the reversal of heart disease and many doctors have successfully used this type of protocol for their patients, this cure is suppressed. It should be the standard of care for all patients to be told what can be done to make the disease go away, but instead the industry focuses on treating symptoms with drugs and surgery which make piles of money when compared to lifestyle consultations. The same can be said of many other chronic conditions including type II diabetes which is completely preventable and reversible, but the standard is still to use drugs instead of lifestyle. Now I don't have a problem with people using drugs to treat symptoms, but I do have a problem with them being told they have an incurable condition and the drugs are the best we have to offer, when this is patently false. If someone chooses to forego the lifestyle modifications because they feel it's not for them, great! That's how it should work, people choose the product or service that they feel best suits their needs. If, however, they are not even informed that they have other options then there can be no true informed consent because they haven't been given the requisite information.

Many of these organizations are responsible to shareholders first and patients second. It's not a conspiracy, it's economics at work.

 

 

[SpiritDragon]

On 4/28/2017 at 8:58 AM, Carborendum said:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/25890-u-k-denies-treatment-to-baby-won-t-let-parents-take-him-to-u-s

We don't think it could happen to us...

 

What I find equally concerning to not having the choice to seek treatment elsewhere is not having the choice to seek treatment elsewhere  Okay, let me explain that - in this situation the parents would like to leave the country to find a treatment option when they are offered nothing to do but watch the child die. On the flip side others end up having a treatment available but it's not one they agree with. When attempting to leave for a second opinion or to seek treatment elsewhere (even within their own country) many people can face having the state step in to take a child away because the parent is not, in their view, looking after the best interests of the child. I hope to never have to watch my child go through treatments that I don't agree with, but am compelled to go along with if I don't want to risk losing my child.