The Free markets simply CANNOT manage affordable healthcare.

Not in the US you haven't. When you can buy ER coverage only for health insurance at varying levels, like $250,000 annually, or $400,000 annually, then you'll be one step closer to a Free Market.

 

what's your point as what you say is irrelevant to the subject of costs. My parents are from a 3rd world Country where people don't have access to good healthcare, so? If you are asking where i would rather be, i would rather be in USA.

Now on the subject of costs, yes, USA treats people but this is the problem... Having to treat too many sugar craving blobs who don't take care of themselves is the problem. What makes all of this pretty sad is that the healthcare industry doesn't really promote healthier habits and preventive care as much as they should and the reason is basic - they make billions and billions off sick people.

I read all these wonderful ideas about only using insurance for catastrophic events and having people pay hospitals for basic stuff but i still can't see how this will solve the problem of the enormous expense bill of treating the so many people who are sick. It's like someone telling me, well, Mike12, 2+3<>6, this is the problem but 4+3=8. If the math doesn't add up, changing the numbers doesn't matter. To get to 2+2=4, you need to actually solve the equation and the root problem is the amount of sick people we have. The USA probably has the most unhealthy people in the world (we treat them but are reactive, not proactive). It makes sense given we have lived in excess for so long. The food industry has the population addicted to sugar (wonder why sugar is in everything?) and the healthcare system makes money off the sick... This is the free markets for you - Profits keep people sick, it's a symbiotic relationship.

 

The Declaration of Independence is what created this nation. And we *were* a nation for a long time till the Constitution we know was passed by the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and was not ratified until 1789.

The DoI embodies the founding principles of this nation.

And no one has said the Constitution was created by a "Creator". That's just one more Strawman Argument you have created. You can flail away at that strawman and get dirty all by yourself!

Our rights are *not* granted by ourselves. Our rights are *NOT* created by man. Rights created by man can be taken away by man, they are not unalienable. You truly need to read John Locke's "2nd Treatise on Government". It was one of the most influential writings for the Founding Fathers. Some pieces of the DoI are almost plagarized from it.

As the DoI says: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," Right out of Locke's 2nd Treatise on Government!

You are correct that we must protect our rights. This nation has given a full measure of treasure and blood over the past 200 years to do just that, and we are still doing so. But never, ever think that any of our rights come from man. Down that road lies tyranny!

 

So why not let the free market take care of it? If we actually had one, obese people would have to pay far more for health insurance (and possibly even health care) than slender people would. But we ban that at the government level. Too discriminatory. Smokers have to pay higher premiums for life insurance but not for health insurance. Why? Asthmatics cost the health care system a fortune, but government bans excluding them from health insurance. Why? The problem really isn't that we have too many sick people, the problem is that the government doesn't allow the medical system to charge sick people more. If people felt more of the cost of their unhealthy lifestyles in their pocketbooks, they might work at getting healthier.

Here's an interesting analogy for you: In the automotive realm, every five to ten years, some auto company comes out with a new, hot sports car, small, powerful, cool. Everybody loves it, it sells like hotcakes, and then less than three years later, the market dries up to nothing. Why? Insurance. The guys who buy the hot sports car end up wrecking them at tremendous rates, so the insurance companies raise the cost of insurance on the hot sports car to something close to the original cost of the car itself, making it unaffordable to all but the truly rich. A free market in health care and health insurance could work similarly. Suppose someone who was obese, a smoker, and a diabetic went to buy health insurance in a free market. The cost is prohibitive, so he doesn't buy it. But knowing he doesn't have any health insurance and the costs of his existing health care are high, he starts cutting down on his eating and smoking habits to try to bring those costs down. The money he saves and the reduced weight and smoking make his insurance options more affordable as well as making him healthier. Now suppose the same person in a government-run health care scheme. He has to wait just as long at the doctor's office to be seen, he doesn't pay any costs (or any higher costs) for being obese or a smoker as someone who is healthier, and he doesn't have to try to save up money for health insurance. He has zero financial incentive to be any healthier, and being sick gets him higher priority at the doctor's office, so where's the benefit of going on a diet or quitting smoking?

 

This is america, we have the right to be gigantic chain smoking hogs, and the right to healthcare on somebody else's dime

 

If you would have clicked the link, you would see its source is the CDC, but since you were unable to figure that level of complexity I will dismiss the rest of your posts based on the same level of ignorance and inattention you exhibited here.

 

Inattention, perhaps, but not ignorance. I did not see any link. Now I see the whole post was itself a link. I'll check it out.

Yeah, from the source: obesity and arthritis are listed as "chronic diseases and conditions". Of the 117 million people listed, 84 million were obese. No figures on how many of those had other conditions, but excluding them from the 117 leaves just 33 million adults with other conditions, and another 54 million had arthritis as a condition. Obesity is not a medical condition. Arthritis is not life-threatening. Those figures are a load of crap.

 

Ignorance, because of your off handed dismissiveness of arthritis, which is a debilitating disease.

 

Which arthritis?

 

There are over 100 types.

 

Osteoarthritis generally affects those over 65 and isn't a debilitating condition. Rheumatoid arthritis, which can be but isn't necessarily a debilitating condition, only affects 1.5 million people in the US. Those are the two most common types. Everything else affects far fewer people. The CDC exaggerated its numbers to exaggerate its importance. I remember the CDC a few years back tried to claim gun violence as a medical condition requiring its intervention.

 

Typical alt-right response.

 

Wow. At 5-10 195 I wore a 34" waist.

People are heavy because food is easy to get.
How do you think the state can change this?

 

Well, i wouldn't mind seeing the free markets penalize people with bad habits and reward the health ones but there is a problem. The free markets is not in the business of helping people and curing people, they are in the business of making money. For an insurance company, a person that takes care of himself but is unlucky and gets something like cancer is the same as someone who eats like a pig, weighs 600 lbs and is a drag on the healthcare system. To the insurance companies, both are unprofitable and left unregulated, would charge both an extremely high premium. See why government has to play a role? People like you make the mistake thinking that the free markets actually care, it doesn't, it only cares about profits. The food industry is remarkably devious, they are always looking at formulas that get people addicted to their product, irrespective of how healthy it is. Similarly, the insurance companies doesn't give a sh_t about improving the health of people and the healthcare system is in conflict with the idea of a healthier society as they would probably not make as much.

So, i would perfectly be okay with the free markets setting the prices as follows:

1. If you are a sugar craving pig that never exercises, smokes and have a BMI which puts you in obese category, your premium will be high, very high. You want the premiums to go down? take care of yourself so you are less of a drag on the system
2. If you are a person with healthy habits who just happens to be unlucky and get hit by a bus, get stricken with a long term illness or require emergency surgery and expensive care, your premium is set at very affordable levels.

but we know the free markets will never look at things this way will they? The insurance company would treat them the same and left unregulated, charge both such a high premium that these people would go bankrupt. The only entity which can force the free markets to actually think about anything else but profits, is government. This is the fundamental flaw in the free markets, it only cares about profits and profits aren't aligned with solving the root of the problem - too many sick people.

 

As if you didn't try to pass off "arthritis" as a single entity, til I called you on it

 

OMG, I never said you or I said the Constution says 'The Creator'. I even bolded where the constitution says, it's by 'We The People'. Nothing about a creator. The only strawmen seem to live inside your head.
There are no options but man, there is no special 'Creator'.
Per 'We The People', gives the people the rights to create laws, to create our gov't. That is what the constitution is about.
The DoI is just a guiding principle with no real bearing on how the gov't is to run.

Hence the name: Declaration of Independence. Not the Declaration of forming and running a gov't.

 

Really? It wasn't you that said "Sorry, I guess you'll have to look up the definitions yourself. The Creator is NOT Their Creator."

You made up the strawman argument that the DoI was not a founding document. And now you are making up a Red Herring by saying the issue is how the government is run.

The *issue* is our rights. And how the government is run has absolutely nothing to do with our rights.

The Bill of Rights *protects* our rights from encroachment by government. It doesn't give us our rights. Nor do laws give us our rights.

 

!!!WOW!!!

 

Laws and 'We the People', give us our right.
Based on the constitution. It is the only reason the Supreme Court exists. To make sure our laws meet constitutional requirements.
Not some made up creator.

 

Is every right you have enumerated in the Constitution or in the law? Of course not.
The Constitution grants the government it's rights. The people formed the government with the founding document and laid out its rights

 

If I ever said anything this retarded, even under cover of anonymity, I wonder if I'd ever sleep again.

Since none of those people will do that voluntarily, what you want is a de facto repeal of 13A. Pretty much got that bang on, haven't I?

So which of the Founders were Muslims?

Perhaps you'd care to elaborate.

 

Does my astonishment regarding the following assertion require elaboration?

"The *issue* is our rights. And how the government is run has absolutely nothing to do with our rights.

The Bill of Rights *protects* our rights from encroachment by government. It doesn't give us our rights. Nor do laws give us our rights."

 

$30k is a bit too much. They should put in a 70 hour work week for that much

 

And 'We the People', have the right to change gov't if we don't like what they laid out for our rights. Rights change over time.
Because all rights are not enumerated and laws change based on the society of the times.

 

Ok, you just argued that the state abolishes rights. Thank you for agreeing.