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There's a simple thought experiment that helps: - an american citizen break his leg, he is not insured. Do you A: let him die B: take care of him ? if your an
by rogerb 8y ago
There's a simple thought experiment that helps:
- an american citizen break his leg, he is not insured. Do you A: let him die B: take care of him ?
if your answer is A - you are a terrible person, but you hold a consistent position. if your answer is B - the only question that remains is what is the most economic, efficient way to take care of this person ?
b is universal health care. if you think you can do A with emergency care, consider how inefficient and expensive this is, and who ends up paying for it.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoWhat if they're not an American citizen? What if they're also in a different country?
- knieveltech 8y agoWhat if they aren't? Are there criteria that can be met that make the decision to leave someone injured on the side of the road morally sound?
- SamReidHughes 8y agoWe aren't on the side of any roads here.
- knieveltech 8y agoFine. Sidewalk, in the middle of a restaurant, in your livingroom, at the airport. Pick a location and then feel free to explain what selection criteria make ignoring the injuries of another moral.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoOkay. I pick any of the injuries of others that you're ignoring right now.
- knieveltech 8y agoI am not currently actively or passively ignoring anyone's injuries. I'm a trained first responder, registered organ donor, and actively lobby my local, state, and federal government for universal healthcare and robust international humanitarian aid. It is instructive to note that two attempts to shift goalposts and distract with trivia have been made while nobody seems willing to take a crack at what is a very simple question.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoYou haven't helped care for my injuries. Lobbying for international (paid for by others) is like calling a taxi when you've got an injured man by the road and telling the cabdriver to deal with it.
- knieveltech 8y agoYou intentionally confuse turning a blind eye with limited ability to render aid, further attempting to obfuscate the central question. Again I am not that easily distracted. Last time, for the cheap seats, what criteria make ignoring others' injuries a moral choice?
- rogerb 8y agoMy position is to take care of that person, like weve been taken care of visiting while other countries, but trying to avoid the illegal/undocumented immigrant strawman for clarity.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoOkay, but what about people in other countries? Why don't we have an obligation to help them, to?
- rogerb 8y agoThat's a different question which is outside of the scope of healthcare in the US IMO.
- mistermann 8y agoThe underlying reasoning for universal healthcare is based on a principle, does this principle end at the US border, which I'm told is just some arbitrary, meaningless line right? If it's not clear, my tongue is firmly in my cheek as I say that, but where it isn't in my cheek is when I'm telling you some people don't just buy your simple pro-universal-healthcare argument wholesale, especially when you refuse to defend it against valid questions like this.
- rogerb 8y agoI live in the US and I pay taxes in the US, so yes - healthcare for US citizens/residents paid for by US/citizens residents ends at the borders. If there is a better, more efficient system that is morally right (i.e. provides basic healthcare for it's citizens) than universal healthcare I would like someone to propose it ?
- SamReidHughes 8y agoThat's a nice saccade you've made from "you are a terrible person" to "healthcare ... ends at the borders." Universal healthcare would be great if it was cheap and covered everything.
- dv_dt 8y agoCare for them under the universal system, but bill the cost of the universal system directly.
- analog31 8y agoMy mom got injured while hiking in a country with universal care. She hobbled to the next town, found a clinic, and got treated. Then she wanted to pay. First, the person at the clinic said: "What do you mean, you don't pay for health care." My mom explained that she was from another country. It turned out they didn't even have the means to take her money. Treating a few foreigners for free might actually be cheaper than setting up a billing system.
- Hozzle 8y agoMost UHC countries have reciprocal deals where a citizen of one has all the same rights as a citizen of the other when travelling. Its just a lot cheaper than having to ship people around or delay treatment or all the paperwork. The US has no such deals because it does not have a UHC system to deal with. However, most UHC systems that do not charge aren't going to pay out for setting up a billing infrastructure for the occasional American. The ones with co-pays etc already have a billing structure in place, and may charge you. Or not, it would be pretty mortifying to have to charge someone for health care.
- dv_dt 8y agoFor small stuff almost certainly, but if you get medical "tourists" explicitly travelling for say cancer treatment?
- Hozzle 8y agoIf you are a legal resident, you are covered. If you are a visitor it depends on what deal your national UHC system has with the nation you are visitng. Normally there would be little reason to go to a foreign country for treatment.
- RandomCSGeek 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pygy_ 8y agoI'm a Belgian national, living in France (under the French health care regime). If I need medical assistance while I'm in in Spain or Germany, the care will be reimbursed per the local rules, by the French health care system. Quoting Wikipedia: The European Health Insurance Card (or EHIC) is issued free of charge and allows anyone who is insured by or covered by a statutory social security scheme of the EEA countries and Switzerland to receive medical treatment in another member state free or at a reduced cost, if that treatment becomes necessary during their visit (for example, due to illness or an accident), or if they have a chronic pre-existing condition which requires care such as kidney dialysis. The term of validity of the card varies according to the issuing country. The intention of the scheme is to allow people to continue their stay in a country without having to return home for medical care; as such, it does not cover people who have visited a country for the purpose of obtaining medical care, nor does it cover care, such as many types of dental treatment, which can be delayed until the individual returns to his or her home country. The costs not covered by self-liability fees are paid by the issuing country, which is usually the country of residence but may also be the country where one receives the most pension from.[1] It only covers healthcare which is normally covered by a statutory health care system in the visited country, so it does not render travel insurance obsolete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Health_Insurance_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Health_Insurance_Card
- Consultant32452 8y agoThe most economically efficient way to pay for B is to allow the free market to drive the cost of care so low that the person is either able to pay for it, or the cost through charity is trivial. This has the double benefit of not attempting to rectify one moral wrong (person does not receive care) by committing another (violent coercion by the state).
- clarkevans 8y agoRegarding "violent coersion of the state", by this, I assume you mean.. taxes. At this point in the world's history, we are not individuals who can wander off into the wilderness on our own, to live and die as God might have intended. We are members of a vast, global social fabric. We benefit from it. We pay into it. There's no way to avoid the coersion/evils or really deny the benefits/goods that this society provides. We can only discuss things relatively speaking, on a whole, in balance. I think a productive use of our time is thinking about (and experimenting with) how information technology could better support our emerging social fabric so that we could make the best collective decisions: that is, enable even more personal freedom.
- fogzen 8y agoLaw is violent coercion. This isn’t libertarian philosophy class, it’s the real world. In many places in the real world, universal government insurance is already in place. This isn’t some hypothetical.
- Consultant32452 8y agoThe fact that some people or nations behave in a particular way does not in any way determine whether that behavior is moral.
- aninhumer 8y agoNo, but the fact that it results in demonstrably better outcomes in pretty much every case does.
- 8y ago
- throwaway84742 8y agoThat person will not be denied care. It will cost a lot, but nobody is in any danger of dying in this situation.
- conanbatt 8y agoUnfortunately this simplistic model plays out like insurance doesn't exist. Any tragedy works like this: a fire, a life lost to chance, etc. The point of insurace is to pay beforehand to reserve a fund and to distribute the chances in a pool. One more argument: normally its spoken as is government is the solution to this problem, but the government does not prevent the legs from breaking in this analogy. It just decides B for you and everyone else.