I actually laughed out loud at that.

That said, I was at a few of the original Tea Parties and I tend to think you’re correct. They are all about freedom and liberty — as long as it fits within their box of legislation and morality.

you’re being cold man.

I’m being rational. I don’t see any reason that this particular issue should be ceded to emotional arguments.

And it strikes me that you have no problem making your living out of a project that’s made available to you for free

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about if you think that I’m freeloading off of WordPress. And in any case, there is one major difference between a voluntary community project like WordPress and governmental social programs. None of us from WordPress are going to come after you with guns if you don’t contribute back. All the time that I give to WordPress is volunteered. No one is coercing me.

And once again, if you look at the chart I linked to in my first post, you’d see that your overall yearly spendings on Health would go down by about 80%?

It’s not about the cost. I made that clear.

Well not maybe you personally because of course you will never be sick or have an accident in your entire life. I certainly hope so for you.

That’s on me to prepare for that.

And it strikes me that you have no problem making your living out of a project that’s made available to you for free (WordPress + thousands of plugins), yet you refuse this kind of “group-thinking” when it comes to health care, when you are on the “paying” end of things.

And once again, if you look at the chart I linked to in my first post, you’d see that your overall yearly spendings on Health would go down by about 80%?

Well not maybe you personally because of course you will never be sick or have an accident in your entire life. I certainly hope so for you.

People who’ve worked hard like this shouldn’t have to loose their houses at the end of their lives just to pay for health care.

They could save some money when they’re young and healthy. If not, what’s wrong with them losing their house? Presumably they have some equity built up in it by the end of their lives. What good does it do you to end your life with a house?

And how can you say that denying proper health care based on somebodys income, is Moral?

It’s not based on income. It’s based on ability to pay. And yes, of course it is moral to limit the receipt of a good or a service to those who can pay. Should doctors work for free? Should taxpayers? Pick one. Either people are responsible for their own illness, or doctors or taxpayers are enslaved by the ill. I know which one is moral.

Moral to me is making sure everybody can have access to basic healthcare when they need it, without having to sell their house.

Whose house should be sold, then? Would it be moral for your house to be sold to pay for someone else’s health care? Why not?

You’re confusing misfortune for immorality. Yes, it is unfortunate that people become sick. Is it immoral? No, it just is. What is immoral is someone thinking that their sickness represents a lien against the earnings of anyone else. You have a right to exist, but it is up to you to provide the means to do so.

If you deny that, you have to do away with private property, individuality, exceptionalism, and many other things that could be plundered to provide for a more undifferentiated human outcome.

People try to corner me all the time with the “well X happens, and it’s tragic, and what do you say to that?” I don’t say anything. It’s not my business. Their calamity is not my doing and not my responsibility. I didn’t cause it, I don’t have any sense of obligation to remedy it. Sometimes nature throws us a bad roll. There are many people who were born into better situations than me, but I don’t feel as if they owe me anything. It has naught to do with me.

you say this is a “moral” issue to you.

Have you not seen the stories of average middle class families who have worked hard all their lives, then get sick from god knows what, and consequently get kicked out of their insurance and are left without insurance and without money to pay for health care? People who’ve worked hard like this shouldn’t have to loose their houses at the end of their lives just to pay for health care.

The bottomline for me is this; sickness can happen to everyone, everywhere. Young or old, rich or poor. Nobody chooses to get sick. And how can you say that denying proper health care based on somebodys income, is Moral?

Moral to me is making sure everybody can have access to basic healthcare when they need it, without having to sell their house.

I can’t understand why so much Americans are so much opposed to this new bill.

We have a different view of the role of government than Europe. Do some research on American political history.

The third graff is the most interesting: an average US citizen pays 7000$ per year on health care, thats twice as much as we pay over here!

We also have more than twice as much after-tax income as Belgium. And we don’t HAVE to spend it on health care. Yet.

let’s not try and pretend that the current situation is some capitalistic paradise of free-market competition and consumer-driven offers

Agreed. I’m always careful to say that I’m not anti-reform. The current situation has many of the restrictions of a government-run system, with the costs of a cartel, thanks to corruptocrats and votes buying corporate benefits.

I can perfectly respect (if strongly disagree with) the “government is evil, keep it out of my life” argument (although, coming from the teabaggers, it would have much more weight if it hadn’t sprouted right on the tail of 8 years of the most intrusive government in US history)

I’m also suspicious of the tea party movement (aside: no need to resort to sexually degrading names to criticize that movement). Conservatives forget all about human rights when a Republican is torturing and spying and waring, but as soon as a Democrat is in office, they dust off their Constitution. Those types aren’t the only ones in the tea party movement, but it’s a large enough portion to cause me to doubt the sincerity of the movement. You wouldn’t catch me at one of those events, even if I might agree with many of their bullet points. I’d probably shout out something about Obama cracking down on legal marijuana businesses when he promised to pull punches, and then we’d see just how much they’re in favor of economic freedom.

Healthcare costs (everything: from copayments to actual medication costs) are far cheaper in every single country. And arguably produce better care (if you are to believe studies run by that bunch of liberal commies at the UN).

There are two issues it is important to separate. One is high cost (per procedure). The other is high expenditures. Both are high in the United States. But while the first is indicative of some systemic issues, the second is mostly a result of the wealth of the United States. It’s not a bad thing that we’re spending more of our income on health care, per se. I also highly doubt claims that there is better quality care outside the United States. Where do Saudi princes go for their healthcare? The United States. So I guess it depends on your definition of better care. I’d look at where the billionares of the world go to see where the best care is — you know they want the best.

Of course, in the end, I’m not coming at this from a pragmatic standpoint. I don’t care if a free market system is more expensive or is unaffordable for X percent of people. It’s a moral issue to me, about the freedom to do what you want with your body and to enjoy the fruits of your labor you perform with that body. We’ve argued that before, and it’s clear we’re at odds.

The point of this post is just that this bill isn’t a good fix, and that its crafters in all likelihood didn’t intend it to fix anything. They want to change things, not fix them.

I live in Belgium and I can’t understand why so much Americans are so much opposed to this new bill.

Take these numbers for example (in Dutch, sorry:)
http://www.standaard.be/assets/images_upload/2010/03/22/gezondheidszorg.gif

it shows that the USA spends 16% of their budget on HealthCare (in 2007, so that’s BEFORE this bill), whereas Belgium spends 10%.

The third graff is the most interesting: an average US citizen pays 7000$ per year on health care, thats twice as much as we pay over here! And most strikingly, we only pay 500$ or so ourselves, the rest comes from public healthcare. US citizens pay more than half of the cost themselves.

Please enter the civilized world with us now, yes? You are very much welcome USA!

Rather than trying to hypothesise what might happen, once the bill is passed (apart, of course, from the dawn of a new Totalitarian Democratic regime, at the hands of Murderous Nazi-Communist Obama), perhaps it would be more salient to try and compare it with countries that already have such a system (most of the developed world, aside from the US, and good parts of the not-so-developed world as well):

Healthcare costs (everything: from copayments to actual medication costs) are far cheaper in every single country. And arguably produce better care (if you are to believe studies run by that bunch of liberal commies at the UN).
Americans pay more for private healthcare that anybody else out there, including countries where both options are readily available (a lot of countries offer a wide array of private and semi-private complementary insurances). So obviously, there is something wrong with the way American’s “Best System in the World™” worked…

By its very nature, the public healthcare option is at an economic disadvantage (can’t screen patients), ending with the higher risk population and letting private insurance reap the healthy, profitable customers. So I really fail to see what ground private insurances have to complain (other than the fact that they lose a nicely controlled market where price-fixing and policy lobbying was all the “competition” they needed).

So, I can perfectly respect (if strongly disagree with) the “government is evil, keep it out of my life” argument (although, coming from the teabaggers, it would have much more weight if it hadn’t sprouted right on the tail of 8 years of the most intrusive government in US history), but let’s not try and pretend that the current situation is some capitalistic paradise of free-market competition and consumer-driven offers…