Your country needs better/decent/affordable healthcare like other countries.
Oh and everything ozbenno said.
Our healthcare is on the whole pretty good. Emergency's are dealt with quickly and efficiently. It's true that you can wait some time for non emergency surgery, the waiting lists go up and down, depending on which government's in at the time, and there is some room for improvement, but most people over here that use the NHS, are satisfied with the service.
What objectivists and "libertarians" don't want to acknowledge about health care is that it's all insurance one way or another.
So you could compare it to life insurance or home insurance, and people certainly seem to have a choice whether to buy those (assuming your house is paid for) on the free market.
The thing about insurance is that it works better the bigger the risk pool. Big losses get absorbed not by the size of the premiums paid but of the number of premiums. Risk comes down as claims become relatively smaller.
That's why some insurance markets are naturally doomed to a failed condition - like flood insurance. The only people who will buy flood insurance are people in floodplains. Then, when a flood hits, it causes a large percentage of those policyholders to make huge claims that quickly wipe out the fund. Now, the government could enlarge the risk pool by forcing all insurance companies to bundle flood insurance with their policies, but that seems a little heavy handed, so instead flood insurance is heavily subsidized by every American and policies are bought only by those in floodplains at a reasonable rate. Critics will point out this has led to reckless beachfront development and some places like New Orleans should be depopulated, but I'd point out that lower Manhattan just last month became a floodplain.
I'm sure you can make the appropriate corollaries to health insurance. Sometimes the free market doesn't function. That's why we have government.
Yeah, I know. He brought his illness into it, expecting me to back down to his emotional plea, and I didn't.
I forget to add: I didn't ask for your sympathy. I asked, specifically, for your EMPATHY. Something quite different and something you sadly appear to be incapable of giving. But its your loss rather than mine.
Really? Your logic is flawed. As I stated, I HAVE and STILL DO contribute to my healthcare; it's called tax and I'm happy to pay it. As I said, its kept me alive - and still paying taxes! It also keeps thousands of others alive and being productive members of my society.
The problem here is that not everyone is happy to pay for it. Some people don't want to pay for the privilege, yours, or their own, of relying on government. In effect, government entitlements are ponzi schemes, with each person paying in, and then expecting someone down the line to pay when it's their turn to collect. This is not moral.
Let's make one thing completely clear: government has no wealth, except that which it takes from the people. The government kills or imprisons any person who dares to refuse to be robbed.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
YOU however do not (or at least appear to want to do everything to avoid) pay taxes. My taxes buy me the privilege of utilising common goods. I don't think that when I use those common goods that makes me a thief.
Commons? Let's not fool ourselves; government monies are not "commons" in the proper sense. They are not held in common, they are held by the government, at one level or another, and distributed unevenly by the government -- you are the recipient of a LOT of money confiscated from your fellow Australians; people who had no choice in the matter.
Contrast government entitlement money, with community sewers. A community sewer is held by the city, and each person can choose to pay the city for its use, or find an alternate method of disposing of their waste.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
However, if/when you DO use those common goods without paying for them, then in my view that makes YOU the thief. A free loader. And the greedy, avaricious one. Now there's a small dose of reality that might hurt.
And don't tell me you don't use common goods: you ride a motorbike. Roads, traffic management systems, law enforcement, and yes the emergency room you are taken to if you come off the bike, are all common goods YOU USE - many of them EVERY DAY (god willing not the emergency room though :-) ).
There is a deep whiff of hypocrisy here my friend.
I pay taxes, and my family pays taxes. Roads, and traffic management can be handled without government -- they were for a long time. In some places they still are; the owners of certain properties enter into a compact to pay for the road leading to their properties. As for law enforcement, I don't need, or want, the police. If someone breaks into my home, I will escort them out myself; there is no need to call the police. Emergency rooms are not public goods, they are private here in the US.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
But I'm not robbing any one and nothing is being stolen. I'm paying my share, although, once again, it appears that you are not. I'm not sure how that makes me the bad guy here. I do expect my neighbours to pay their share, according to their means.
You are in receipt of monies that were taken from others, and those others had no say in the matter. I'm sorry if you cannot compute the obvious consequence of such a situation, but it is "THEFT". If it were anyone but the government doing it, you would say it was theft. Why on earth when the government does it, does it become something different? It doesn't.
Just like with piracy, and hostilities, it's the same thing, big or small. When you take from another, you steal from them. You only agree with it, because you are a recipient of governments annual haul.
No one is the bad guy here, except for those government bureaucrats, and big government politicians, who keep the system going.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
Unfortunately your two points don't explain what I should do INSTEAD of stay home and die, except that "You should rely on those around you, and on human kindness." How does that provide healthcare? My family are not doctors and nurses (indeed they live a thousand kms away so relying on them is not so easy). Hospitals cost money to build and run, doctors cannot live and work for free, MRI machines and medicines aren't made for free. It's a nice utopian idea, but it is fantasy.
It was common in America, before socialized medicine, for people to receive care even if they couldn't pay. People would pay what they could. There was an understanding of charity. Now, with government in control, instead of charging the least, hospitals and doctors charge the most, because they know government would be there to pay out. There is no competition, and no compassion.
I'm not asking you to do anything different, within the current system. You do what you must. I'm arguing against the SYSTEM, and what it does to people, both when it takes their money, and when it makes them take the money of others. It has hurt you in that way, in that you are fighting, resolutely, to be allowed to continue receiving money forcefully taken from other people. It has hurt your very soul.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
Now lets deal with this gem, shall we? I'm lucky enough to have been born and live in one of the richest countries in the world (as have you - the richest on a total GDP amount; mine higher on a per capita basis). We do have poverty, some homelessness and our treatment of indigenous people has been awful. But on the whole, our society functions well and nearly everyone goes to bed with a roof over their head and food in their belly all of the time.
It is not like this for one fifth of the world's population.
Western countries would be wealthy, with or without government services. The greatest economic boom in history occurred in a time without any of that, 19th century America.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
Those people--including the poor in Australia--are NOT the ones who are helping foot my medical bills. It is other people LIKE ME (and presumably you) who earn money and therefore can afford to pay taxes -- through our individually small but collectively large contributions -- that keep OUR society in the happy shape it is.
So because people have money, they can afford taxes according to you, and should have money extracted for the sake of others? Sounds awfully despotic. I assure you, society isn't in a happy state, and neither is the fiscal outlook .
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
Now, if you would prefer to live some in a society where you don't have to pay taxes, perhaps you should go see what it is like to live in rural Ethiopia. Before you bark at me, I HAVE DONE THIS. Go to work with farmers in rural Ethiopia. Most work 10 or 12 hours a day or more, 7 days a week, JUST TO SURVIVE. Harvesting is back-breaking work by hand with sickles. They are not poor because they are "lazy." They are not sucking off some government teat. They are poor because they live in a dysfunctional society. These people do not pay tax. They live with that individual freedom you seem to long for. But they also barely have roads to get to market. This makes it even harder for them to get ahead. They do not have electricity to their two-room mud-hut homes. This too makes it hard for their children to study (to learn and get ahead) and their wives to prepare food for them (so they have enough energy to work harder). They do not have access to clinics or hospitals or nursing care. This means when they get sick their kids do not eat. They DO rely on their families and kin for survival. It is all they have. Whether you understand or admit it or not, THIS IS THE KIND OF LIFE YOU ARE WISHING FOR. Individuals left purely to their own devices. And no collection of taxes by the government. (Though the government might well steal other things from you like your land but that's a different set of issues.) I have been there. It is not pretty. And I am happy to make my contribution so our society can have all the public goods you take for granted. You should be too. (And actually, when you're in the city and earning decent money and are paying taxes to the regime, it's not always pretty either but that too is a different story.)
One thing I'll add here is that my work in Ethiopia is about trying to address root causes of poverty, hunger and food insecurity. So I find it pretty offensive that you suggest that I'm a selfish, greedy coward. But whether or not you hold on to that opinion of me is irrelevant. I am trying to make the best contribution I can with the time I have allotted to me in this life and I am, and will remain, proud of that.
Do you really think that Africans live in poverty because they don't pay income tax? Of all the reasons that Africans are poor, you chose income tax. Not predatory IMF loans; not endless aid money and goods, which stifle their industries; not the corrupt and despotic governments; not the distinct differences between African and European populations; not the constant wars the continent endures. No, none of that. It must be cause they don't have a big government. Of course, African countries do have central government, and the people DO pay tax, and these taxes go to a plethora of government bureaucrats and government wards.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
There is one alternative for you. I have also worked in Saudi Arabia. Fascinating country. They don't pay taxes either. They don't have to, and they are not completely f*cked up like Ethiopia because the state has an eye popping amount of oil money. This money is used by the government in a social contract that ensures domestic stability and social compliance in return for a post-pregnancy-sized swollen government teat to suck upon. If you want to avoid paying taxes, go and work there... but you have to give up all your values of individual freedom, including your ability to express your misinformed opinions on forums like this.
The reason Saudi Arabia pays for all of these services, is because Saudi Arabia is a US client state, and needs to keep the people dependent, or else there would be a revolution. How is that a good thing? That people have been made dependent and docile.
Average income in Saudi is $23,000. Contrast with UAE, at $67,000. I wonder why? How about because government isn't in the way of human achievement.
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Originally Posted by ozbenno
Contrary to your imagination, you can't actually have everything.
Taxes + public infrastructure + a vote = pretty bl00dy good.
I don't want everything, I only want to have what's mine, and I want you to have what's yours. There is no way that such a thought could be unfair. How is it unfair for each man to have what is his? People confuse "fair" with "nice". It is fair that a man who does nothing for himself, or his family, should starve to death. It isn't nice, but it's fair.
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You call me an avaricious coward and thief, I simply say you're deluding yourself if you think you're any different.
You are not the independent product of your independent parents. You exist and thrive because of the Leviathan.
You survived infancy and went to school because of our society, you thieving, cowardly greedy collectivist!
Whew, now that I've been rescued you can pull in the lifeline, guys!
This is crazy! The nation of my birth, Australia, didn't at the time of my birth, and still does not, have any human breeding programs. My parents decided, of their own free will, to have a child. That child was me, and I exist because of that decision and nothing else. What you are saying, is like saying that people who live in North Korea, exist because of the communist state, or that people who live under an African warlord, exist because of the warlord. Absolutely crazed, statist nonsense.
I also have private health insurance, as a perk, because I work for an American company. I have used it, and I find that it's very good for getting non emergency surgery done quicker than the NHS. The con is that it's an insurance policy, and as with all insurance, the company will try and get out of paying if they can. I have back problems, and I was treated under my private health insurance for it. They did eventually find a solution, after a couple of years trying, with this treatment, and that but they then said no more. If I had any further back problems, they wouldn't treat me for it. With the NHS, you have no worries in that department. If you're ill, you will be treated, whether the cost of that treatment comes to a few pounds, or millions. You'll never be in a situation where you are told to ******************** off and die.
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Man, I'm surprised this thread hasn't detonated and become locked. When I read the OP I was like "oh boy, here we go again". If no one brought up religion or politics, 90% of all online arguments would disappear. Then again, I suppose you guys are doing an okay job of discussing without getting as crazy as a lot of other forums would.
Man, I'm surprised this thread hasn't detonated and become locked. When I read the OP I was like "oh boy, here we go again". If no one brought up religion or politics, 90% of all online arguments would disappear. Then again, I suppose you guys are doing an okay job of discussing without getting as crazy as a lot of other forums would.
Ha ha Rusty, I seem to remember you making a similar comment to this on another thread a while ago. Two pages later, it erupted into a practise for WW3. I sure hope history won't repeat itself on this thread.
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You meet the nicest people on a Honda.
This is crazy! The nation of my birth, Australia, didn't at the time of my birth, and still does not, have any human breeding programs. My parents decided, of their own free will, to have a child. That child was me, and I exist because of that decision and nothing else. What you are saying, is like saying that people who live in North Korea, exist because of the communist state, or that people who live under an African warlord, exist because of the warlord. Absolutely crazed, statist nonsense.
It seems you've adopted the ignorant, selfish "Others don't matter, and I don't care" attitude of middle America. In the end the east the west, and a few in the middle voted for the candidate that the rest of the world overwhelmingly hoped would prevail (over 80% according to a survey reported on the BBC).
Romney's a loser. Get over it.
Are you sure that you exist because of a decision of your parents? Or were you accidentally conceived during a moment of passion in the back of a Holden Sandman?
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Amazing that the empathic types get labelled derisively as bleeding hearts and suckers for emotional appeals, while the opponents of commonwealth-funded dignity and humanity are the ones who seem so disproportionately enraged.
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