[quote author="Nude" date=1252651814]Healthcare is not a right. A right is something that can be exercised freely without the aid of or interference from others. You have a right to pursue happiness, but you don't have a right to take it from someone else. You have the right to liberty, but you don't have the right to take someone else's liberty. You have a right to see the doctor of your choice, but you don't have a right to force someone to become a doctor so they may treat you... and without that treatment, you have no healthcare. You might as well claim donuts are a right.
In fact, let's do that. Let's substitute Universal Healthcare with Universal Donuts. Right now you are free to shop and choose from among many competitors, using whatever criteria you feel will result in a superior donut experience. Price, recipe, preparation, consistency, flavor... you get to pick and choose, as does your neighbor, your children, your parents, and your co-workers. The donut makers also get choices, in the ingredients, store location, prices, number of employees, hours of operation, etc. The competition weeds out the bad donut makers, allows for innovation among new donut makers, and keep the number of choices high and the prices low, balancing the supply of donuts with the demand for donuts.
Now, here come a faction of government that see some people not getting donuts. They think it's unfair that some people are getting donuts while others can't afford them, or can;t afford the best donuts for their family. This faction wants to provide the entire country with donuts so that no one has to go with out quality, affordable donuts. However, they are ignoring a key fact: providing donuts to everyone will actually cost more than the current system because everyone will be getting donuts whenever they want. So, right away, the national cost of producing donuts has increased to meet the increased demand. Further, since lower income folks are not paying the same amount for their donuts as more well-off folks, the deficit is even larger than just the increased cost because revenue is down from the jump. In order to keep costs from skyrocketing even further, the government puts in price ceilings on the amount farmers can charge for the ingredients, on the amount bakers can charge for their labor, and force the wealthy to pay more for their donuts to offset the poorer people getting their donuts for free. further controlling costs, they will only allow the cheapest (as decided by a panel of donut experts) sorts of donuts to be made, and will force you to pay extra for sprinkles, icing, or flavors other than plain. Eventually, they will outlaw private donut makers from making eclairs, maple bars, bear claws, or apple fritters so that everyone is supporting the system by buying the government donuts.
Now, you say "But Nude, health care is far more serious than donuts, this is life and death!" You are correct... specifically my life and my death. It makes health care a very personal decision. I'm not comfortable with anyone telling me what I can and can't have when it comes to my doctors or their procedures. With a population of 310 Million people, I am not comfortable with a systemic change that will affect my access to the care I need to stay alive so that we can cover less than 10% of the population that either refuse to buy it, can't afford it, or are temporarily uncovered.
We could cover the people who can't afford it for far less than we are projected to spend under the Democrat's plan. We could address the portability and competition issues by making health insurance nationally available rather than state by state, in the process delinking coverage from employment compensation packages. We can mandate that pre-existing conditions carry no more than a 10% premium to normal policies and coverage cannot be denied. We can require that everyone purchase some form of insurance from a national pool offered by the private insurance companies. We can add health insurance payments to unemployment benefits or set up some other system to cope with the unemployed needing coverage. We can establish a baseline for public purchase of private insurance for the small number that want it, but can't get it.
What we seemingly can't do is rid ourselves of entitlement spending once someone's good idea turns out to be not so hot. This is an irreversible decision that will effectively and permanently put government bureaucrats in the loop when it comes to decisions on what procedures are worthwhile and which are a waste of time. It will also require a hike in the rates the middle class pay in taxes, since the lower class will not be contributing anything in the name of "fairness". It's not a knee-jerk reaction to "socialism", it's a recognition that this is NOT what the federal government was intended to do, and that we are dismantling a very good system that needs a few fixes in favor of creating a totally new system that will include an unknown number of as-yet unrealized problems that may take years to fix, if not decades.</blockquote>
Ok, you won me over. Forget about the healthcare system. It should be free donuts for everyone!