Sunday, July 26, 2009

Pesky logic.

Marko on the "right" to health care:
Yesterday morning, on my weekly sojourn into town for Dadcation Day, I spotted a bumper sticker in the Borders parking lot that had me shaking my head:

HEALTH CARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT

Now, health care is certainly an important commodity. I sure like being able to see a doctor when something ails me, and to get my teeth cleaned and fixed on occasion. I’m also a big fan of antibiotics, x-rays, vaccinations for the kids, and all the other medical advances that have doubled human lifespans in just a few generations. Health care is great, and I wouldn’t want to be without access to it.

But a “human right”? Hippie, please.

Marko brings the logic. (Too bad rainbow-farting flying unicorns aren't logic-soluble.) Go read the whole thing. Now.

13 comments:

  1. There's a lot of that going around. Unfortunately. I'd be quite pleased if they would exercise an existing and very-real right: That of remaining silent during the decade or two remaining until emotional maturity.

    Art

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  2. "Hippie, please."--priceless


    WV: scortab--what the Hippy with the bumpersticker is hoping to be able to do at the free clinic

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  3. Argh. Spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck.

    "What the Hippie..."

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  4. I can't wait until 72" LCD TV's become a right. And Blu-Rays too!

    It will be so great!

    Wait, those things are key elements to my continued good mental health! I want them and I want them now!!

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  5. "I have just one question: Why is it that the more imaginary "rights" people invent, the less personal freedom I have?"
    -(the late)Acidman

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  6. Billy Beck summed it well, I think:

    Get this straight: you have no right to anything that was produced by others and taken from them by force or its threat.

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  7. Wookie please.

    Shootin' Buddy

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  8. This is not the time to get complaisant. Remember affirmative action at colleges and universities and businesses, where people were denied entrance or promotion to enable others to enjoy a place at the table. Based on race.

    Look at the S.909 Hate Crimes bill - that defines different legal protection for Protected Class citizens (protected classes are non-caucasian and non-homosexuals). Do not ever think that definition, if passed, won't be used all over the Federal Government. We can see from B. Hussein Obama's abject apology (he called the Camden police that arrested Gates "acting stupidly") how dear the creation of Protected Class citizens, and separate legal protections, is to our dear leader's heart.

    Be afraid. Be very afraid.

    Just think, if B. Hussein Obama were to issue an executive order establishing a national license to practice medicine, and issued the license through ACORN. Suddenly all the medical care providers you could shake a stick at will be available. Any states that tried to enforce their local licensing requirements would face the same strong arm tactics that Tennessee and Montana face from the ATF - as well as threats to withhold funding for federal programs. And maybe face the national guard, the US Army (for the crisis of preventing health care), or the promised internal military forces (promised during Oh! Bummer's presidential campaign).

    Wow. I sound like a conspiracy nut. Almost like I see corruption and influence peddling in Justice Souter's resignation, in assigning the Clinton administration to the President's cabinet. Almost like some of the bills that have passed Congress already scare me about the future of America.

    But I do see some hope. Now that the polled number of people strongly opposed to Obama's administration out number those strongly in favor, I expect to see the Democrat support for much of the nonsense to splinter.

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  9. Suddenly all the medical care providers you could shake a stick at will be available.

    They won't do that. The pipeline is too long (11+ years, counting undergrad) and there would be enormous subsidies and loan guarantees involved. Far easier to expand the current practice of outsourcing medical education by importing physicians from Pakistan, India and China.

    Another simple way to increase availability is to bait and switch physicians into accepting the Public Option, just like they did with Medicare back in '66.

    Works like this: They enact a plan that's lucrative and, like Medicare, allows for easy access to diagnostics, referrals, etc. Once everyone's payor mix hits about 40-50% Public Option patients, they nail the coffin lid shut by cutting reimbursements (again, like Medicare.)

    Physicians respond to the drop in income by seeing more patients. Instead of 20 visits a day, you schedule 25 or 30.

    It's just that simple. Physicians are an odd breed: Highly independent, competitive and arrogant, yet astonishingly naive about the business of providing medical services.

    I've often pointed out that I'm less important than the guy who works at the sewer plant or picks up your trash. If all doctors vanished, some people would become ill and die. Without sanitation, cholera, typhoid and the Black Death are about 3 weeks out.

    Yet, Ed Norton runs strictly fee-for-service and I'm the one who takes a copay and deals with insurance companies.

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  10. Unfortunately, we're stuck with the stupid, Tam, and these same folks are the ones who repeat nothing but illogical bullshit, in hopes that the masses buy into it.

    It's working too.

    The right to health care. The right to feel safe from crime, safe from terror, safe from the threat of guns...you know the schtick.

    People can't think straight, and that's why we have these schmucks who put touchy, feely slogans on their Prius bumpers, hoping to get the sobbing masses to go vote for it all.

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  11. On the plus side if health care is a right that the government "must provide to us" then the the same logic applies to the right to keep and bear arms. The government must give us guns and ammo!

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  12. Anon, the decision of what kind of firearm to buy and what kind of ammo to load into it is highly personal, and should only be made by the individual citizen in consultation with a couple hundred internet gun nuts. We don't want some bureaucrat in Washington telling us what kinds of guns we can buy and what kinds we.... oh, wait...

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  13. Free bread? Hell, let's make circuses a human right, too, then civilization can come full circle.

    WV: flaness - the state of being like a tasty custard dessert.

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