The “right” to healthcare does not require....

[Minister_of_Information]

I did not decide it, I am merely reporting it.

[ChartsandGrafs]

Originally Posted by Minister_of_Information

I did not decide it, I am merely reporting it.

Cop out.

You know you don't need to report anything to me. I know the score. You agree with it, but don't like having to come up with answers for it.

Cognitive dissonance, perhaps?

[Row6]

Originally Posted by Minister_of_Information

The leftists can disagree all they like, or preach that an outcome has to be guaranteed -- that changes nothing. Triage is as ancient as caring for the sick, and people have an inherent sense of when efforts are wasted and therefore when they should be limited. When the choice is between survival and the sick and the dying, the sick and dying will be left behind. To die.

That feeling -- and it is a feeling -- that prompts you to help a helpless person is what I am describing. Perhaps you don't feel it, but you are definitely in the minority. It is the judgment of how to act upon this feeling that is what is up for grabs, not the feeling itself.

The problem with dogmatic ideology regardless of whatever virtues it possesses is that there is always some circumstance where it leads to a conclusion that is absolutely false. And in this case the dogmatic ideology that the free market is a panacea for all social problems (and to hell with those that it does not cure) ignores a few realities:

1. Care for the sick and the dying can never be done both ethically and profitably. It is only profitable to insure young healthy people who don't need much care -- unless you think insurance companies should be able to decide who is going to be treated and who is going to be allowed to die. Ethical decisions of this magnitude are not viable in commercial hands, they require political sanction.
2. We already have a tacit single payer system -- Medicare -- that bridges all of the cost gaps with what is effectively a blank check. This system has no cost controlls.
3. Most industrialized nations provide better health care to most citizens at about 2/3 of our cost per capita.
4. The US public at the present time is politically unwilling to turn away people at the Emergency Room door. This is the foundation of the "back door" single payer -- basic care for the uninsured that could be achieved much more efficiently and cheaply is now done in the Emergency Room on the public nickel.
5. The US public at the present time is politically unwilling to let granny die in the street. Yet since we are unwilling to make choices, the net result is that we spend 80% of our resources trying to keep people alive in the last 6 months of their lives. 50% of care expenses are consumed by 5% of patients. This is where the choices about what we are willing to pay for must be made, and will be made when things get bad enough.
6. The current fiscal trajectory will lead to national disintegration unless realistic reforms are enacted. The abolition of Medicare is not a realistic reform.
7. Uniform standards of care could provide the necessary foundation for the elimination of liability-induced redundant and unnecessary medical care, as well as wholesale tort reform. It also could significantly improve the outcomes and costs of the system as a whole, which at present is organized around the assumption that every doctor is equally qualified to make recommendations and decisions about what care is appropriate in every case.
8. A bare bones cost controlled single payer system would prevent the very worst outcomes for everyone, which at the present time amount to essentially unavoidable national ruin.

Good post.