The Sarah Palin VP announcement

[SarahG]

The problem with the concept of a living wage, or of the minimum income needed to live decently, is that the standard keeps shifting as society as a whole advances.  100 years ago, indoor plumbing and refrigeration were luxuries; now, they're essentials.  50 years ago, air conditioning was considered a luxury; now, it's almost a basic human right.  Things that were once unheard of have become necessities.  So how do we define our basic acceptable standard of living?  Is it a median of what the entire society possesses?

Similarly, when you say that everyone should have access to health care, what exactly do you mean?  That every individual deserves as many CT-scans and transplant surgeries as they need, along with every other new technology that may yet be invented and every experimental drug?  That every person has a right to be treated by the very best, most skilled, doctors?  And what about non-life-saving medical treatments, such as cosmetic surgery?  (Should only the rich be allowed to make themselves beautiful?)  I believe one of the big problems with our health care system is the advance of technology, leading to an increasing sense of entitlement; each patient believes he deserves every possible treatment, no matter how costly, even if it's a treatment his grandparents would never have dreamed of.  If it's available to someone, it should be available to everyone.  It's like saying that because housing is a basic human need, we should pay for everyone to own the largest, most up-to-date mansion available, with the latest heating system and the most infallible security system.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

The difficulty of defining a baseline doesn't mean you should throw out the idea of a baseline.

Everyone should be able to buy decent healthcare and not get rejected. Healthcare companies are not allowed to deny coverage to anyone whose employer offers a group health plan, and the healthcare companies aren't going bankrupt doing it. So—everyone should have the chance to buy into those same group health plans. You can solve the "only sick people will want to buy insurance" problem by making insurance mandatory—with options to get lower premiums by paying higher deductibles, etc.

Also, healthcare companies need to get OUT of the business of serving their shareholders and need to start serving their policyholders instead. People who offer no services (shareholders) are making money off people's suffering. That's not right. Insurance companies should be required to refund the majority of their profits to their policyholders at the end of the year.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I'd take that one step further and say I don't think medical insurance companies are moral institutions because the entire premise of them is to make a profit off of other people's suffering.  So long as medical coverage is handled by a private business, that business has a responsibility primarily to those people who invest in it, and then the customers.

I don't think everybody should be able to up and get whatever treatment they want from wherever they want.  But should anybody, especially those who are more likely to need it (e.g. the homeless or poverty stricken), be able to walk into a hospital and find out what is wrong with them?  Yes.  If somebody needs a surgery that could be performed at nearly any hospital in the nation to try and save their life, they should be able to receive it without putting a second mortgage on their home.  Does this mean everybody is entitled to the best possible medical care around all the time?  No.  Should everybody be given enough health care to handle accidental injuries at their local hospital?  Yes. 

What is poverty has to shift with growing technologies, as they affect us as a society.  That being said, I don't have AC and I'm not in poverty.  I do have indoor plumbing, because in order to maintain sanitation it's pretty important that everybody have indoor plumbing.  Also, because refrigeration is taken for granted by the food industry, it's pretty important that people be able to buy things they used to be able to get locally when they needed them (meat, for example).  Changing times make what is poverty change.  There are international standards for poverty which have been laid out by social scientists, policy makers, etc. who work on these very same problems and the very least we could do is try to match the low standards those set.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

My car insurance company is a private business, yet it exists to serve its policyholders rather than shareholders—because the policyholders are the only shareholders per se. It does exactly what I described—it cuts a dividend check at the end of the year for excess premiums.

Credit unions operate on basically the same principal—they exist to serve their members rather than to turn a profit. So it is possible for helpful private organizations to exist without government control. (Government oversight is important, though, and credit unions are backed up by a government agency similar to the FDIC with the same guarantee limits.)

I agree that the healthcare industry has proven that the shareholder-pleasing profit model does not serve the good of the people in this instance. In most industries companies compete to offer the best services to their customers. But with the current healthcare industry, the whole point is to get people to pay when they don't need help, and then when they do need it, they're desperate and cannot go somewhere else because no one will cover them.

[darxbane]

I agree with that in part, but de-privatizing health care is not the answer.  The majority of hospitals, for instance, are technically "not for profit" hospitals.  Yet, many of them receive poor grades for care, and are more expensive than private hospitals.  Competitions is the key here.  Why is auto insurance different?  Because you can buy from any company you want.  They have to fight for your business.  Health insurance, on the other hand, is restricted.  The state where you live or work limits your choice, and also regulates differently than other states.  The government is the worst possible solution, because they are the biggest mismanagers in the country.  I also disagree with making insurance mandatory without changing the way insurance companies are regulated.  Massachusetts has already taken on this practice, yet insurance premiums have not gone down, nor has coverage increased.   Canadiens pay very high taxes compared to us, yet while their national health care is available to everyone, there are many limitations.  You don't have the choice of doctor's you do here, and the waiting list to see one can be absurdly long.  There is less access to specialized equipment because of the cost restrictions, so only hospitals with high volume have them.  Again, longer waits or bigger travel expenses occur.  The system definitely needs to be fixed but not by increased regulation.

Taxes, taxes, taxes.  This argument kills me.  The top 5% of American earners pay 80% of the taxes, and we want them to pay more?  How about we make sure that the money is actually better off in the Government's hands.  The money they invest into companies (which provide jobs), colleges (which allows for discovery and invention, which makes the world better and creates jobs), and in  hospitals (look at the plaques on the walls, just about everything is bought by philanthropists) be taken from them so Congress can misuse it?  Until I see some real spending reforms, I don't want another penny extra given to those clowns.