2012 Presidential Campaign

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I'm not asking for total security. I just think it's profoundly immoral to cheer for the death of people that made poor economic choices.

This.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Ding ding ding. We have a winnah. If the Church did its job better, then much of that particular discussion is moot.

Is the Church going to take care of everyone though? Even non-members/people whose lifestyle they don't agree with?

Also - taking care of all these sick people would bankrupt the hell out of most local diocese, let alone the urban ones.

And there'd be a lot of unnecessary duplication.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

I think most government apologists conveniently forget that when the government was not involved in the healthcare, many religious organizations stepped up to the plate. Methodist, Baptist, and Catholic hospitals were not started for grins.

I think it would actually help out in the long run. Religions and charitable organizations would move to fill in the void. Just as they moved out when government moved in.

The bigger problem and this is worse in the younger generations is we have no sense of personal responsibility anymore. People don't look to themselves, they look to government for help. That is not a path we want to go down as a country.

It's worth pointing out that while I am generally irritated with the Church's response to this particular need, these haven't gone away entirely. In fact, I'd argue that a new movement is starting to spring up in this arena among the true evangelicals. I sit on the elder board of my church, where we have started our own free medical clinic for the uninsured. It's fully staffed by medical personnel, fully supported by tithes, offerings, and some independent fund raising. I also recently had a few conversations with an old friend of mine who used to be on YL Staff with me, but left to go to med school. Now that he has paid off his student loans, he's moving back to Columbus to start a non-profit clinic there that will be free to the uninsured poor. He's going to make less than half of what he could make in private practice to do this. He was part of a similar clinic in Augusta.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

The idea that health outcomes were better before Medicare and Medicaid just isn't factually correct. Private charity has never been enough. Medicare and Medicaid weren't created because liberals wanted to punish religion. They were created because a lot of poor and elderly people didn't have proper access to healthcare.

You can't compare pre-Medicare times with today for a variety of reasons regarding public health. Correlation vs causation and all that.

But aside from the incapable of supporting themselves population, because that is a completely different subject than a capable person who chooses not to do what is needed to get access to health services...at what point do you stop forcing people to choose the same exact life as everybody else? I mean, aside from the homogenous ramifications for society of such forced choices (which I think is a bad thing), I think a bit of natural selection is what occurs and...why the hell not?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Is the Church going to take care of everyone though? Even non-members/people whose lifestyle they don't agree with?

Also - taking care of all these sick people would bankrupt the hell out of most local diocese, let alone the urban ones.

And there'd be a lot of unnecessary duplication.

Cross-posted above, but...

1. The one at my church takes care of anyone. You just have to live in North Charleston or Hanahan, have a total household income of 200% of the federal poverty level or less, and be uninsured. A very small percentage of the people who come to our clinic are members.
2. Our clinic and the satellite campus that goes along with it are in North Charleston. At the time it was started, North Chuck was #7 per capita in violent crime in the nation. (That's actually *why* the campus there got started. My pastor read that stat in the paper and said "what am I doing about that, so we went there.) Point being, this is as poor/crime-riddled an area as you'll find. Granted, it's not terribly large, but it's rough, and without a lot of resources.
3. It's not as costly as you'd think if you have the right contacts. We recruit Christ-following doctors and nurses who aren't members of our church to volunteer, and of course tons of doctors and nurses who are member volunteer. The response has been great. (Incidentally, I personally talked to my neighbor from two doors down to volunteer, and he mentioned to me recently that once he gets his student loans paid off, he's thinking about doing the same thing mentioned in the post above in *his* home town.) Sure, equipment, insurance, and maintaining the building cost, but the clinic has operated in the black for something like 29 straight months now, even in this economy. It's doable. We've also had some major stuff donated. We have two mobile medical units, and one mobile dental unit. All three of those were just donated.
4. Well, I said it's a new-ish movement. Right now, all the ones I know of are the only game in town doing what they're doing. In our case here, that helps us serve the community better, I suspect. We have doctors and nurses from all over the Charleston metro area volunteering.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

You can't compare pre-Medicare times with today for a variety of reasons regarding public health. Correlation vs causation and all that.

But aside from the incapable of supporting themselves population, because that is a completely different subject than a capable person who chooses not to do what is needed to get access to health services...at what point do you stop forcing people to choose the same exact life as everybody else? I mean, aside from the homogenous ramifications for society of such forced choices (which I think is a bad thing), I think a bit of natural selection is what occurs and...why the hell not?

My post was in response to the sentiment that private charities used to do things better but government fucked things up. That just isn't true. Private charities have always played an invaluable role in our society, but they have never been enough. It was need, not ideology, that drove the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

Not letting those who made bad economic decisions die isn't really anout natural selection. No just society can allow people to die when the means for saving them are available and affordable.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Not letting those who made bad economic decisions die isn't really anout natural selection. No just society can allow people to die when the means for saving them are available and affordable.

I think what you are getting to are the lessons that are learned in life. Without having to learn them, nobody can ever truly appreciate them. If you NEVER touched something very hot, you'd never understand what that means. If you never experienced something awful, you'd never know what a good experience truly is. Certainly there are limits to these in both directions, but the further you push society to remove all (perceived) problems & accountability, the further you push society into melancholy, imho.

But I think how far can you take that, is the crux of the problem. And its much more complex than just a saying "people should be saved at all costs regardless of whether they choose that for themselves". Why dont we fly helicopters around looking for people who might be sick? They are out there...just keep looking. After all, if you can save just 1 person by doing that, its all worth it.

We could also enslave half the population for their own "good" just so that they can use their skills to help others continue to breathe. Of course, nobody would ever call it "enslavement", but that is what we ask people to do when we treat & sustain people who don't choose it for themselves...just a matter of the degree you want to push it.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by HiFiRevival

The much more appalling moment last night was the neocon sheep in Tea Party clothing that booed when Paul suggested that 9/11 occurred, at least in part, due to the arrogant and unconstitutional American foreign policy of the time. It's amazing to me just how unwilling people are to acknowledge that building military bases on another societies holy land just might piss them off.

We were INVITED to help save that country.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

My post was in response to the sentiment that private charities used to do things better but government fucked things up. That just isn't true. Private charities have always played an invaluable role in our society, but they have never been enough. It was need, not ideology, that drove the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

This. Sometimes I think that people believe the government is just some abstract blog that exists to take over stuff, when a lot of these programs were created to fulfill a need.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

We were INVITED to help save that country.

Dictatorships don't necessarily ask their populace what they think about things, however.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Cross-posted above, but...

1. The one at my church takes care of anyone. You just have to live in North Charleston or Hanahan, have a total household income of 200% of the federal poverty level or less, and be uninsured. A very small percentage of the people who come to our clinic are members.
2. Our clinic and the satellite campus that goes along with it are in North Charleston. At the time it was started, North Chuck was #7 per capita in violent crime in the nation. (That's actually *why* the campus there got started. My pastor read that stat in the paper and said "what am I doing about that, so we went there.) Point being, this is as poor/crime-riddled an area as you'll find. Granted, it's not terribly large, but it's rough, and without a lot of resources.
3. It's not as costly as you'd think if you have the right contacts. We recruit Christ-following doctors and nurses who aren't members of our church to volunteer, and of course tons of doctors and nurses who are member volunteer. The response has been great. (Incidentally, I personally talked to my neighbor from two doors down to volunteer, and he mentioned to me recently that once he gets his student loans paid off, he's thinking about doing the same thing mentioned in the post above in *his* home town.) Sure, equipment, insurance, and maintaining the building cost, but the clinic has operated in the black for something like 29 straight months now, even in this economy. It's doable. We've also had some major stuff donated. We have two mobile medical units, and one mobile dental unit. All three of those were just donated.
4. Well, I said it's a new-ish movement. Right now, all the ones I know of are the only game in town doing what they're doing. In our case here, that helps us serve the community better, I suspect. We have doctors and nurses from all over the Charleston metro area volunteering.

Fair enough - props to you all, and extra kudos to you for being involved with it.

And I mean that all sincerely.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Dictatorships don't necessarily ask their populace what they think about things, however.

Are we seriously questioning whether we should have sat by & let Hussein invade Saudi Arabia? Because it was Saudi Arabia that requested US troops ONLY after seeing the amassing of troops on their border in (what they and the US perceived to be) an invasion plan.

I'm sorry...I like Ron Paul for a lot of reasons as I believe he drives conventional American isolationism as at least a topic of consideration in the public arena. But this particular point is just not a fair representation of US interventionism gone wild. Other cases might be...but not that one.

[ISiddiqui]

No one said we had to keep bases in the country after disposing of the threat.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

No one said we had to keep bases in the country after disposing of the threat.

Agreed, and I'd like to see us get out of there as well. But I think you'll find the Saudis are not objecting to it. and likely because they prefer it as a deterrence to Iran (which our government presumably agrees with).

But I will say that the ignorance factor of an Arab mainstreet is not a reason to abandon a region and allow for further destabilization of US interests. This is (yet another reason) I believe we MUST solve the energy independence problem ASAP. We could then remove ourselves from (what we consider) US interests (i.e. oil stability) and only enter militarily when a like-minded country is threatened, and requires assistance. This would stop the vicious circle of funding both sides to the same war and continuing to condone (through our partnerships & inaction) the governments that serve to oppress millions such as Saudi Arabia.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

Agreed, and I'd like to see us get out of there as well. But I think you'll find the Saudis are not objecting to it. and likely because they prefer it as a deterrence to Iran (which our government presumably agrees with).

But I will say that the ignorance factor of an Arab mainstreet is not a reason to abandon a region and allow for further destabilization of US interests. This is (yet another reason) I believe we MUST solve the energy independence problem ASAP. We could then remove ourselves from (what we consider) US interests (i.e. oil stability) and only enter militarily when a like-minded country is threatened, and requires assistance. This would stop the vicious circle of funding both sides to the same war and continuing to condone (through our partnerships & inaction) the governments that serve to oppress millions such as Saudi Arabia.

You think this is all about oil and not about Israel at all?

[SteveMax58]

Sure, its multi-faceted to an extent & we have multiple priorities of interest to even be there. But we didn't get into Saudi Arabia on the premise of defending Israel. We got there on the premise that they have some level of fear of what Iraq was going to do, and are still there because they have trepidation on what Iran might do.

[JPhillips]

This is a nice response from Andrew Sullivan:

Of course, even if such libertarian purity does make sense, that cannot excuse the emotional response to the issue in the crowd last night. Maybe a tragedy like the death of a feckless twentysomething is inevitable if we are to restrain healthcare costs. But it is still a tragedy. It is not something a decent person cheers.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

This is a nice response from Andrew Sullivan:

Well obviously it wasn't a crowd of decent people.

[SteveMax58]

I think far too much emphasis is put into the hyperbolic chantings & cheers/jeers at a rally then on the merits of the questions that prompted such outbursts.

[JPhillips]

It wasn't a rally and this wasn't the first time. This is supposed to be a forum where people can determine who has the qualities needed to be the president. Last debate people cheered the number of executions carried out in Texas. Before that there have been cheers for torture. There's a rot in the GOP that shouldn't be ignored.

[JPhillips]

On a completely different topic, the NY-9 House special election is a great summation of everything that's wrong with our political process. Both parties are pouring in millions to try to win the district. A district that won't exist for the 2012 elections. The winner will have no impact on the balance of the House or any outcome of the 2012 election. The whole contest is to see who can get a win in the media cycle for the next few days on cable talk shows that very few Americans listen to.

It's a giant waste of money and the importance given to the outcome tomorrow, whatever it may be, will be overblown, but forgotten by next week.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

It wasn't a rally and this wasn't the first time. This is supposed to be a forum where people can determine who has the qualities needed to be the president. Last debate people cheered the number of executions carried out in Texas. Before that there have been cheers for torture. There's a rot in the GOP that shouldn't be ignored.

Sort of like the cheering for Obama when he gave that memorial speech after Rep Giffords was shot?

Like SteveMax said... why a group of people who attend the Republican debate speaks for the candidates or the candidates' followers any more than the Tucson cheering speaks for Obama is beyond me. But if it makes you somehow feel superior by knocking them then go ahead. I personally I think they are pretty tasteless also, especially when Ron Paul is booed for trying to at least figure out our problems in the middle East while Santorum is wildly cheered for "USA. Freedom" nonsense responses, however it still doesn't mean that makes him any less appealing to me. It just means there are a bunch of morons in the crowd. (My guess is you can't just walk in off the street to this so that should be your starting point if you really want to figure out who these people are)

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by panerd

Sort of like the cheering for Obama when he gave that memorial speech after Rep Giffords was shot?

Like SteveMax said... why a group of people who attend the Republican debate speaks for the candidates or the candidates' followers any more than the Tucson cheering speaks for Obama is beyond me. But if it makes you somehow feel superior by knocking them then go ahead. I personally I think they are pretty tasteless also, especially when Ron Paul is booed for trying to at least figure out our problems in the middle East while Santorum is wildly cheered for "USA. Freedom" nonsense responses, however it still doesn't mean that makes him any less appealing to me. It just means there are a bunch of morons in the crowd. (My guess is you can't just walk in off the street to this so that should be your starting point if you really want to figure out who these people are)

If I remember right at the time I thought that was inappropriate, but not earthshaking given a college audience. Is it too much to ask for GOP supporters to also say cheering for death is inappropriate?

Of course I also don't think the comparison is justified. Cheering for political figures at a memorial service is a little tasteless, but it doesn't show the same level of indecency as cheering for people to die.

[gstelmack]

TMQ had a great idea today: if PTI can have a fact-checker come on at the end of the show, why can't the national presidential debates? The media has somewhat buried fact-check stories the next day, but how about bringing them on as part of the debate? Or in the post-debate shows right afterward?

[I. J. Reilly]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

It wasn't a rally and this wasn't the first time. This is supposed to be a forum where people can determine who has the qualities needed to be the president. Last debate people cheered the number of executions carried out in Texas. Before that there have been cheers for torture. There's a rot in the GOP that shouldn't be ignored.

Maybe if we were pro-life cheering death would make more sense.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by I. J. Reilly

Maybe if we were pro-life cheering death would make more sense.

Thats the problem with perspectives & having a different view than the people who are cheering. If you are Pro-Choice cheering...then you are cheering for a woman's right to choose. If you are Pro-Life watching...you'd see it as cheering the death of a person.

I'll say it again...the reasons other people disagree with your point is precisely the reason you don't see it as "cheer-worthy". And all of this is just a waste of time to even psychoanalyze because they are based in the same fundamental disagreement about the topic in the first place.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I'm not asking for total security. I just think it's profoundly immoral to cheer for the death of people that made poor economic choices.

I agree wholly - I also think its abhorrent that someone be punished for choices they might not have personally made.

My daughter for instance relies upon my choices for much of her well-being, if I didn't have health insurance is it right that she should suffer because of my decision (or indeed would it be right if she suffered because I simply didn't have money to pay for insurance even if I'd wanted it?).

I also find it somewhat 'ironic' that the same citizens cheering about someones potential death are often part of the similar demographic who protest vehemently against abortion - at what point for them does that 'life' which is protected against abortion become disposable because of lack of insurance?

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I also find it somewhat 'ironic' that the same citizens cheering about someones potential death are often part of the similar demographic who protest vehemently against abortion - at what point for them does that 'life' which is protected against abortion become disposable because of lack of insurance?

I don't necessarily agree with outlawing all abortion but that's easy to answer.

Your daughter is protected (or should be) because she cannot make the choices for herself. No different than a fetus cannot choose if it continues to live or not.

The point that "life" is considered "yours to make or break" is when you are an adult age and can make decision for yourself as to whether you have a job, what you use the money you get from your job for, and whether you want life over everything else, want liberty over life, or want some balance thereof. Many choose any of those 3 choices every day, but those are adults, not children or fetuses.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

Your daughter is protected (or should be) because she cannot make the choices for herself. No different than a fetus cannot choose if it continues to live or not.

Its easy to make a glib statement like that .... but at what age should she be 'protected' though?, she's 17 now - so in England she's been an adult for a year already.

Over here if she lives on her own (very possible at 17) and has a job should she require insurance or is she still required to have it or deal with the consequences? ... if she goes to university to study to become a Doctor (8 years training) should she be exempt from requiring insurance until she's 26? ... these aren't easy questions to answer imho and require people to choose certain things as 'special cases'.

My personal take is that society should be judged by how it looks after its least able, in this day and age certain things should be freely available to everyone - a minimum standard of living, education and health care ... personally I'd be very happy to pay higher taxes in order to help ensure that (as I did in England).

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

My personal take is that society should be judged by how it looks after its least able, in this day and age certain things should be freely available to everyone - a minimum standard of living, education and health care ... personally I'd be very happy to pay higher taxes in order to help ensure that (as I did in England).

Your country also gave up its world empire in exchange for this. (okay maybe not by choice but nonetheless) There's an extra trillion+ a year...

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

My personal take is that society should be judged by how it looks after its least able, in this day and age certain things should be freely available to everyone - a minimum standard of living, education and health care ... personally I'd be very happy to pay higher taxes in order to help ensure that (as I did in England).

But society does this already to an extent so I think what you are really saying is "society doesn't do enough". Fair enough, but its not really accurate to say society doesn't look after the least able because it does (or its social programs are intended to do so at least).

But to counter that argument, which I actually agree with to a limited extent...where does one draw the line at "helping"? Is there no limit to helping people? What if they are able-bodied but refuse to help themselves & do not care if they live or die? I'm throwing these out there because we always bring up the sick & the elderly as examples of why we need more social programs (or expansions of existing programs) but we never really care to engage this element of the creation of the nanny state. It gets dismissed as if its preposterous to suggest...and I'm just not sure it is.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by panerd

Your country also gave up its world empire in exchange for this. (okay maybe not by choice but nonetheless) There's an extra trillion+ a year...

I would think you'd be the first person in line (with me not far behind you) wanting us to give up our world empire.

Not necessarily be isolationist...just give up our hundreds of overseas military bases, multi-ocean navy, multi-conflict military branches, etc.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

I would think you'd be the first person in line (with me not far behind you) wanting us to give up our world empire.

Not necessarily be isolationist...just give up our hundreds of overseas military bases, multi-ocean navy, multi-conflict military branches, etc.

I certainly am. But neither major political party seems to want this, so it comes back to where is the money going to come from? Higher taxes? What if I don't want to pay higher taxes and would rather stop dropping bombs on brown people? Do I not have I say in the debate? Right now I don't hear anyone outside of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in this Republican field even addressing this issue. (Including Bachmann who is so "outraged" of the out of control spending in DC)

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

But to counter that argument, which I actually agree with to a limited extent...where does one draw the line at "helping"? Is there no limit to helping people? What if they are able-bodied but refuse to help themselves & do not care if they live or die? I'm throwing these out there because we always bring up the sick & the elderly as examples of why we need more social programs (or expansions of existing programs) but we never really care to engage this element of the creation of the nanny state. It gets dismissed as if its preposterous to suggest...and I'm just not sure it is.

I'm fairly extreme in my views tbh - I don't think there really should be a limit as far as supplying the basics, if people don't want to work then fine let em be idle.

I personally think that society is already at the point where there aren't enough jobs for every able bodied person and that is only going to get worse as time goes on and because of this I think its farcical for society to be penalizing people for being unemployed.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

I think most government apologists conveniently forget that when the government was not involved in the healthcare, many religious organizations stepped up to the plate. Methodist, Baptist, and Catholic hospitals were not started for grins.

The life expectancy was over 10 years less in that time too.

[QuikSand]

Ooh, I'm sensing it...

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

TMQ had a great idea today: if PTI can have a fact-checker come on at the end of the show, why can't the national presidential debates? The media has somewhat buried fact-check stories the next day, but how about bringing them on as part of the debate? Or in the post-debate shows right afterward?

That would be fantastic.

And it will never happen.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I'm fairly extreme in my views tbh - I don't think there really should be a limit as far as supplying the basics, if people don't want to work then fine let em be idle.

I personally think that society is already at the point where there aren't enough jobs for every able bodied person and that is only going to get worse as time goes on and because of this I think its farcical for society to be penalizing people for being unemployed.

That's a bit extreme even for me TBH. We do need to do something about jobs for those people who are unemployed though, even if it's just massive infrastructure jobs or something.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by panerd

I certainly am. But neither major political party seems to want this, so it comes back to where is the money going to come from? Higher taxes? What if I don't want to pay higher taxes and would rather stop dropping bombs on brown people? Do I not have I say in the debate? Right now I don't hear anyone outside of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in this Republican field even addressing this issue. (Including Bachmann who is so "outraged" of the out of control spending in DC)

Total non-sequitor, but don't you love how we were all over going into the Balkans to prevent genocide of white people there, and spending a crapload of cash there, but we were content to sit back and let the Rwandans slaughter each other?

Disgusting.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Total non-sequitor, but don't you love how we were all over going into the Balkans to prevent genocide of white people there, and spending a crapload of cash there, but we were content to sit back and let the Rwandans slaughter each other?

Disgusting.

Don't forget, some of them were white muslims.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JediKooter

Don't forget, some of them were white muslims.

True that.

White Christians/Protestants/etc. > White Muslims > Brown People > Brown Muslims is I suppose how it goes.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I'm fairly extreme in my views tbh - I don't think there really should be a limit as far as supplying the basics, if people don't want to work then fine let em be idle.

Dam British hippies.

How are you finding Melbourne so far? I'm curious if you've had some culture shock as its probably more conservative than many areas.

I personally think that society is already at the point where there aren't enough jobs for every able bodied person and that is only going to get worse as time goes on and because of this I think its farcical for society to be penalizing people for being unemployed.

Well, I do agree we're at the brink of "working ourselves out of jobs" so to speak. But I think there are a great number of things society can change which would (by necessity) employ more people. One of those is deferring more control & authority to the states.

Another of which is to enable a life that can be more humble but nearly sustain itself for a small nominal amount of money. Things such as energy, food, clothes, housing, etc. could all be cheaper & owned outright, rather than breeding a society of debt-slaves.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Total non-sequitor, but don't you love how we were all over going into the Balkans to prevent genocide of white people there, and spending a crapload of cash there, but we were content to sit back and let the Rwandans slaughter each other?

Disgusting.

EU countries were quick to jump in on the Balkans because Croatia was a popular vacation spot for government officials.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The life expectancy was over 10 years less in that time too.

We also didn't have some of the advances in cancer fighting technology and other killers at advanced ages.

[flounder]

Every time there is a technological upheaval, everyone thinks the gain in productivity will wipe out the demand for labor. That was the Luddite's main argument. But productivity has been increasing for almost 2 centuries. Surely if that were the case we would have "worked ourselves out of jobs" a long time ago.

The fallacy in that argument is that it ignores the new types of jobs that are created by the technologies. How many of the jobs that we have today were around in 1900? Even those that were around then look considerably different today. What's changed between now and the 1990's when we were talking about "The End of Unemployment"?

[RainMaker]

The question was loaded and really bad, but the response is still sad. First off, I'd like to hear what the response would be if the individual simply didn't have a health insurance card on him but had insurance. Would they be allowed to turn him away and let him die? I guess it's his "personal responsibility" to have that card on him at all times.

I do believe strongly in personaly responsibility. I'm not a fan of a lot of welfare programs and think there are better alternatives. But I don't think a country should let someone die because they can't get health insurance. Insurance isn't about a choice many times. A pre-existing condition can exclude you from it. And of course income can exclude you as well, particularly if you are older. You're talking about over $1000 a month easy for someone over 50. And that's for someone who is healthy.

As a taxpayer, I don't think we should be letting people die because they can't pay for insurance or lost the genetic lottery.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

We also didn't have some of the advances in cancer fighting technology and other killers at advanced ages.

Which cost a lot of money. Churches better bulk up those donation plates.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

That's a bit extreme even for me TBH. We do need to do something about jobs for those people who are unemployed though, even if it's just massive infrastructure jobs or something.

Its only seen as 'extreme' because at present the mentality is that people should be working in order to be accepted as part of society.

This has actually changed hugely since the 1930's when for instance nearly half of adults in society didn't work outside of the home (ie. wives) .... today society has been 'cheated' by propaganda into believing that everyone should be working in order to be accepted as part of society when it was initially 'not needed' and is now increasingly becoming 'not practical or realistic'.

PS - I'm nearly off on one of my diatribes about the increasing hours in a work week and the need to regulation of corporations to ensure they pay taxes and actually contribute to society instead of taking away from it