Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

Let's be real...While I do appreciate Sarcasmo's service, and I'm glad I was not drafted because he volunteered, military service is not exactly charity and there are very real socioeconomic gains that can be made for putting your life on the line in the military. Granted those are just incentives, but it is not totally selfless. If Sarcasm's service is totally selfless in nature, as a individual, then I do applaud that.

I believe health starts with the individual's ability, whether based on upbringing or information acquisition, to keep themselves from falling into illness. Then, if that step has been bypassed or ignored, that little bill we use to quantify workmanship and effort in this society, personal wealth can be used to make up for those shortcomings. Finally, if money and giving-a-fuck (ignorance is no excuse) are both absent, hopefully the less fortunate can rely on the personal charity of hospital, doctor, or peer to prevent their mistakes as individuals from catching up to them.

Good health is a fundamental human privilege, and I have a constitutional right to not be forced into charity. Killing someone is unconstitutional, letting someone die is not.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

And the fortunate-enough, the ones who dumped ~$6k a year for ~33 years, are supposed to sit idly by as their coverage is denied on the whims of their carrier? These are the same fortunate-enough people who don't have a choice how they handle medical needs -- their options are dictated to them and sometimes at a cost that wipes out a good portion of their short-term savings. What happens when illness strikes in close proximity and financial stability is not quite back where it needs to be?

Your ideals presume that the only reason people get sick or need medical attention is because they are weak or because they weren't wearing a foam body suit. Prevent their mistakes? Tell a dying relative that their cancer is a preventable mistake.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

ok everyone lets raise some money for tuition. Isilirunite needs to take ethics 101

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

Step two in the health care process, for my ideals, is that you have money to pay for those things. If everyone went through step 1, the only real major health concerns would be from people who sleep, eat, exercise, and deal with stress well (because of education/upbringing) but have health conditions that arise from genetic cases or other diseases we haven't pinpointed to be cause by human recklessness (because ideally, in step 1, people don't get preventable diseases as much as they do today). If the disease is not preventable hopefully the individual has enough monetary credit to pay for care (that isn't as overpriced as things are today, ideally). If there isn't money, in my ideals, there would be a community safety-net act that would provide the health care for her.

I do believe that medical care is unreasonably priced, to agree with the Universal Healthcare types. I'm not sure I expressed that before clearly.

I don't think this is too utopian, or unrealistic. I believe this is not utopian because humanity has gradually made some gains in certain aspects of society, like slavery and other retrospectively inhumane things, and I believe health care charity/community action is a possible jump. I'm slightly smoked out so excuse any incoherence...

I also just got the idea to brilliantly sample the synth anthem from Dark Train...

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

what a load of crap!

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

Because accidents (freak or otherwise) don't happen on a daily basis that require medical attention and that are neither caused by reckless behavior nor genetic predisposition, do they?

I'd love to hear your charity-riddled thoughts on short & long-term-disability pay. Sometimes these accidents take people out of work, and dumping money into medical bills while trying to support a family is something that can't be shirked.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

i know. i hope everyone here is working hard to avoid parkinson's disease! you know how you do that? well.... um...... see first you...... huh. i don't think anyone knows how to avoid parkinson's disease.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

read the fucking post.

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

you mean this one?

Re: Another one o' them smoking ban threads....
 

Oh, right. There's no problem, because everyone has the tens of thousands of dollars on hand it takes to go through even a minor hospital stay. I know you address this point later, but seriously. Imagine this. You lose your job and with it your insurance, and you're worrying about paying the rent/mortgage, grocery bill, and tuition for the kids. Then, you get hit by an uninsured drunk driver. Now, with no job and no insurance, what do you pay for? Your medical bills, or the bills you need to pay to support your family? Is this a serious statement? I can't believe that you realistically think these would be the only remaining major health concerns. What about accidents? What about someone contracting HIV through a blood transfusion? What about Alzheimer's? And how are people supposed to get the exercise you prescribe when you also claim that injuries resulting from sports shouldn't be covered? You really are painting a picture of a terrifying world where I think we'd all be forced to live in nerf bubbles to avoid getting hurt or sick and going bankrupt.

Let me sum up my point clearly - shit happens. Shit happens, and at some point or another, most everyone ends up in a situation beyond their control where they need a safety net to keep the shit that's happened from obliterating all they've worked for their entire lives. You seem to be one of the lucky few who hasn't had shit happen to you where this is concerned, but some day it will, and you'll understand what we're all talking about.

Yeah...."hopefully" they can jack up their credit cards with medical bills, and then end up in a lifetime of debt, or bankruptcy. There's a good policy. Really comforting as you stumble into the emergency room with some major problem. Oh...you mean something like what we've all been talking about! Finally a light at the end of the tunnel!

For the record, I'm not sure I really qualify as a "universal healthcare type". I just think that the system as it is now is inadequate.