Obama Calls Healthcare Critics Names Rather Than Debating Them

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Issuekitchen of 7:31PM December 14, 2009

Muser of NM wrote: "We're the only industrialized country I know of where 60% of bankruptcies are tied to medical bills. The others don't have that problem with respect to health care, which everybody gets anyway."

One of the most important lessons I learned as a Boy Scout was its motto "Be Prepared". This lesson was re-taught during my military service. The acronym was "6P"--Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I agree that bankruptcies are tied to medical bills. But I would argue the percentage. I'd be interested to get your perspective on where you think an individual's responsibility to meet their health care needs ends and the government's responsibility to that person's health care needs begins?

Where was the prior planning on the part of individuals to take ownership of their lives? Do people honestly think they can live forever? That they'll be healthy forever? That nothing bad will never, ever happen to them? News flash. People get sick and die. Guess what they also go bankrupt. Why? Because people live beyond their means. They borrowed more than they're worth. They live paycheck to paycheck and do NOTHING to squirrel away some extra discretionary income.

Secondly, what country has become the world's policeman? The United States. That means our government spends it's GDP on something other than your "Free" health care. Consequently, Those countries have committable resources. As for the care, I'd hesitate to say it's even remotely better. Sure, you can get a heart transplant, but you'll long be dead by the time your name gets to the top of the donor recipient list. You have a cough, sure you can go to the ER but you'll sit there all day until a bleary eyed doctor tells you to go home and drink a spot of tea.

Thirdly, If it's ok for Mexican illegals to enter the United States to get what they want; better paying jobs. Then people who want "free" health care should immigrate to Great Britain that offers it.

david of ID 6:52PM July 01, 2009

We're the only industrialized country I know of where 60% of bankruptcies are tied to medical bills. The others don't have that problem with respect to health care, which everybody gets anyway. So, yes, that's something we don't have here--a single-payer, government-run system.

Our health care costs will double from $2.1 trillion to $4.3 trillion in 2017, a rate about 3 times inflation, and will account for 20% of U.S. GDP. I don't know about you but that to me spells an economic disaster in the making. I don't sympathize much with the insurance companies and health care providers who will get hurt but we're talking about the entire economy being put at risk here. They haven't been able to deliver anything comparable in quality to the health care systems of other industrialized countries but we spend twice as much as they do on the average. A real shame.

Jon Riskter of OH 12:45PM July 01, 2009

Essentially, the socialized health care "discussion" is really just political pandering, railroading, and, vote buying. What's with the blitzkrieg agenda in pushing this legislation?

Where are the "Cooler-Heads" in the beltway? Every person alive and dead acutely knows the primordial principles of suffering and death. Therefore, one's health is an intrinsic aspect of life. Therefore, the discussion, if there is such a thing, should be about suffering and death.

Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning) insight is powerful. I believe he was on to something when he stated that, "The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way 'an honorable way' in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment."

Frankl's word a haunting echo from one who experienced first hand holocaust Germany in WWII. As a survivor of death camps, the renown psychiatrist's experience was well acquainted with suffering and death. Man's, "only achievement," he says, "may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way." It is through suffering that we gain understanding about life. Suffering causes the superfluous to dissipate rendering only what is truely important. Radically take away man's suffering, and you take away his ability to find true meaning and understanding in life.

Consequently one would perceive that last sentence as a calloused, draconian view of people's suffering. Rather, I sumbit that implementation of a socialized health care system will radically take away man's suffering, and take society's compassion and meaning with it--"It's not my problem you're sick, you have free health care!" will be society's response.

I believe compassion not only necessary, but essential. I believe that, as a nation, the health care issue will resolve itself when we as a people feel a desire to help our neighbor. The problem will be exacerbate when Uncle Sam forces us to open our wallets. One causes compassion and gives meaning, the other causes resentment and creates selfishness.

david haws of ID 7:03PM June 30, 2009