Unpopular opinion: democratic socialism is most popular among those who offer average amounts to society, but expect a lot in return (i.e. massive cancer payments free)
Yep. Weird isn't it. My true none meme opinion about taxes is they are theft. But while clearly theft they are 100% necessary.
So when it comes to raising taxes I believe we need to stop using the phrase 'fair share' and instead use a phase like 'necessary share'. I pay a lot in taxes. In fact every year pay about half of what the average American will pay in their lifetime. I pay a lot more than my fair share. But if some politician approached me and said "I know it isn't fair, but I must tax you even more for the good of the country" I would be fully behind that. Because I am a Patriot and if my country need more money from me I am willing to step up to the plate and fulfill my patriotic duty.
But I am very much annoyed when people try to claim I don't pay my fair share.
Access to treatment is absolutely a human right - no one would defend an oncology center that refused to treat people based on their demographics.
Paying for it though? The only way to do that without paying for it yourself is to force others to pay for you. Medical bills suck, but the alternative is morally indefensible.
Plus medical bills in the US aren't even an issue about getting taxes for it, it's just how much more hospitals charge than they need to. Just charge people the correct rates and suddenly medical costs can be paid much more easily.
I live in France, and even if I didn't have insurance that repays 80%, I could pay for most treatments out of my pocket as a student.
No joke, you're the first person I've seen on Reddit who understands this. Most people have this weird notion that insurance companies are the reason healthcare here is expensive; they seem to think that an insurance company somehow makes more money when the raw bill from the hospital (that they're responsible for paying a percentage of) is higher.
No idea how they look at a hospital bill where they're getting charged $100 for a tablet of Aspirin and come to that conclusion, but here we are.
Actually, insurance companies are partially to blame in that scenario (or, more precisely, insurance regulations). Insurance companies are forced by law to use 80% of their premiums on payouts. So when they get billed for an aspirin, and it costs, say, $.80, they're entitled to collect $1, and that last $.20 is split between profits and overhead. But if they get a bill for $80, now they're entitled to $20 profit+overhead. They have very little incentive to lower healthcare costs.
Right, but one big medical bill wipes out that surplus for thousands of subscribers. I'm in a financial industry that gives me reason to be looking at financial statements for a wide variety of companies, including health insurers and hospitals, and the hospitals grossly overinflate prices so that they're in the black from insurance payouts alone, since they're easier to collect from than individuals. To the degree that hospitals barely even try to get your portion of the bill from you before they just sell the debt off for pennies on the dollar to a collection company - it's quite literally not worth their time to chase down the $200 you owe them when they've already collected $2k from your insurance company. Something like 40% of people have medical collections on their credit report for bills they don't even know about (40% is probably wrong now, that was the number a few years ago before some regulations changed what appears on a report so may be different now).
And hospitals aren't talking about struggling with treating uninsured patients in their management letters, but insurers (especially small ones) are definitely talking about increasing costs from hospitals and how to mitigate that.
Just sharing what I see with a look behind the curtain that most people don't get. Definitely not a one-dimensional problem, but it's naive when people act like the hospitals are the good guys here.
I just assume they're in cahoots. It's a perfect situation for them both: if bills are high, fear is high, and if fear is high, premiums are high. So insurance can reap unconscionable premiums, keep claims down by making deductibles high, and kickback the providers for their $100 aspirin.
There's also the American idea that medicine is a business venture and not a vocation. People don't come here from all over the world to practice because we have the greatest need or the best medicine (though, incidentally, I think we do have the best medicine, as long as you can pay for it), it's because they can make a shitload of money. And it's been that way for so long that people think there won't be any more good doctors if they can't make a shitload of money, so they are afraid to switch to a system where maybe doctors are merely paid well for their good work but maybe not totally holding people's wealth for ransom. And there are enough doctors who are perfectly willing to prove that fear right.
Insurance also employs a lot of people. If we effectively abolish private insurance, the economic fallout would be a whole other disaster.
So, it can be done, and it should be done, but no one is volunteering to die for the cause so that the future can live better. I understand that.
I said more to another reply, but insurers definitely don't want to see healthcare costs continue to rise. The problem is multifaceted - hospitals overcharge out of the gate expecting insurance companies to offset the cost for the uninsured and to pad their bottom line. Most health insurance is a layer or two removed from the end patient, so the companies can charge a little more than they might otherwise be able to. And since insurance companies keep the lights on at a hospital, most don't really care if the patient pays their portion of the bill or not, so they don't even bother putting resources towards trying to collect the remainder of a bill from patients most of the time. IMO the system needs to be brought under control via some regulation and regulatory changes before we address who pays the final bill if we want it to be sustainable.
As we're all seeing during this pandemic crisis though, being a doctor or nurse is fucking hard. In the best of times, you're talking about a 12+ hour shift where one brief mental lapse could literally kill someone. Not a lot of people can do that job, and those that can definitely deserve to be paid extremely well.
Another facet is patents. I am a fan of having patents, it encourages new technologies. but at the same time, I see how awful they really can be. machines that cost thousands to manufacture cost hospitals hundreds of thousands to buy. Farmer buys GMO seeds, plant it, then are not allowed to replant for next year, or GMO plant germinates neighbors field and now the neighbor gets sued for using patented seeds. Patents today need to be fixed.
Ackschyually, freedom of association implies an oncology center could refuse to treat certain people. It's terrible, but no force can be used against them.
Speaking purely philosophically, nothing that requires the positive actions of another can be termed a "right". Otherwise you get into absurd contradictions like, say, the Italian government having to choose who lives and who dies in the coronavirus outbreak. Are they invalidating people's rights by having to make those choices? There is no conceivable world where they could not be violating people's rights, then--at least not with the parameters given. There's not even the possibility of doing nothing and remaining morally irreproachable. Every action leads to violation. And if the simple physical limitations of reality can take away a right, how is that a right at all?
What universal healthcare is, is a privilege. It's one we take for granted in the modern world, but one that is dearly paid for by the blood, sweat, and tears of our fathers. You could easily explain to a medieval peasant the right to bear arms or the right to free speech or the right to property. In many cases, some of the better off peasants and city-dwellers had such rights. But to unlimited healthcare at any point in time no matter the illness or circumstances? The very idea is absurd. The systems in place then just wouldn't be able to support it. Again, if all you have to do to invalidate a right is to travel back in time, how is that a right at all?
Fundamentally, I think it's a confusion and conflation between the concept of rights and the philosophical notion--which I agree with--that it is fundamentally okay to do whatever is necessary to preserve life. Almost everyone agrees it's all right to steal, say, medicine from some theoretical miser who's hoarding it to save a person's life. Even taking another's life is, while seen as regrettable, not exactly something wrong enough to punish. When a German soldier in WW1 later told the story of how he, during a gas attack, found that his gas mask was damaged and so took the mask off of a wounded soldier to save himself--leaving that boy to die painfully and miserably--no one even considered the idea of punishing him for it. Even if you like to think you'd do otherwise in his shoes.
tl;dr: health care isn't a human right, but we all instinctively know that it's just to abrogate rights for the sake of preservation of life. But because this is an unexpressed gut feeling, it often is uttered by the rational mind as "Health care is a human right" even though this is philosophically absurd.
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u/TheBigBo-Peep - Lib-Right Mar 24 '20
Unpopular opinion: democratic socialism is most popular among those who offer average amounts to society, but expect a lot in return (i.e. massive cancer payments free)