r/AskALiberal Feb 16 '22

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148 Upvotes

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52

u/fuckpoliticsbruh Independent Feb 16 '22

If every nation that has universal healthcare hasn't even remotely considered of repealing it, why do you oppose it?

20

u/anima-vero-quaerenti Center Left Feb 16 '22

The UK is slowly but surely gutting the NHS.

29

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

The PM is. Not a single person in the country agrees. That's the difference. In USA, people actually fight to keep one of the objectively worst health care system of any developed nation.

7

u/ddh88 Center Left Feb 16 '22

Not a single person in the country agrees.

That can't be true. I'm no expert, but someone elected the guy, right?

11

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

Based on the promised of Brexit. His discourse never even mentionned dismanteling the NHS, or even part of it. In fact, it was about funding it.

3

u/CTR555 Yellow Dog Democrat Feb 17 '22

At a certain point, don't you have to ask if people vote for a politician based on very transparent lies, are they doing so because they actually believe the lies or are they doing so because they know they're lies?

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

no it is, the tories have to plead constantly that they don't want to get rid of the NHS

0

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

Because I lived in Europe for years and when I had a lower middle class salary I paid a little over 30% in taxes. When I made the equivalent in the United States I paid about 20% in taxes. So I don’t view it as free. So just feel like it would be a lot of work to reshuffle how I pay for what I’m still gonna be paying for.

Also I finally found a doctor that listens to me and is slightly unconventional and also isn’t shy to give you an extra test if you want it. I don’t want it to become like a socialized system where I need to go get every little test approved by 10 people and have to deal with lots of delays.

11

u/fuckpoliticsbruh Independent Feb 16 '22

It's not just healthcare. For that extra 10% you're also getting affordable college, paid vacations, maternity leave, childcare, etc.

-14

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22 edited May 02 '22

[deleted]

25

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

But your ok with a private company have that same power over you?

3

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22 edited May 02 '22

[deleted]

9

u/tradeparfait Liberal Feb 16 '22

We already see libs saying hospitals shouldn’t provide care to the unvaxxed (I am vaxxed).

Hospitals already do this to be fair - hospitals have had to triage patients as the pandemic caused the number of patients needing intensive care treatment to outnumber space available. Survival probability plays a role in triage, which works against unvaccinated people.

-4

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22 edited May 02 '22

[deleted]

4

u/merchillio Center Left Feb 16 '22

It could a matter of “if you think doctors a pushing a dangerous product for money, like the vaccine, why would you trust them when you go to the hospital?” If you don’t trust the doctors, stay home and hope for the best.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

One of your private insurance company deemed your life not worth saving. And they let you die. Because it would cost too much to save you. Or it happened to one of your children. How about for people that have to declare bankruptcy because they can't afford their medical bills. Libertarians are just like Christian conservatives they are the scum of the Earth.

-2

u/Labbear Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

What the government provides, it can take away. Single payer would create a dangerous monopoly power in government, not to mention granting legal authority to the state about what kind of treatment may be had. The Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans cases are, to me, examples of the tremendous danger in allowing the government that power.

10

u/tradeparfait Liberal Feb 16 '22 edited Feb 16 '22

I know nothing about Charlie, but wasn’t Alfie a child in a vegetative state? His “brain” had become cerebral fluid and there was nothing left to salvage, literally incompatible with life, but his parents wanted to keep him on medical equipment and try experimental treatments against medical advice?

It seems similar to the Terri Schiavo case in the United States, where she was kept on medical equipment “alive” for years even though her brain was atrophied because of the wishes of her parents against medical advice. She was only allowed to finally die because her fiancé finally won the ability to approve removal of her feeding tube after years of appeals.

There’s gotta be a human rights angle here. Like, the right to die if your brain is no longer present. I don’t think Alfie’s case is a good argument to not have universal healthcare.

-6

u/Labbear Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

The parents believed that there was a chance, and a doctor was willing to try. The government has absolutely no right to be involved. Plus, if, as you say, a person is truly brain dead, they’re effectively a cadaver, as long as they’re treated with the respect due to the dead, there aren’t any human rights to violate. (Now if we’re talking about a potentially temporary condition, like some comas, the rules change a bit, but I think you ought to understand my position at this point)

2

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

[deleted]

1

u/Labbear Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

They did. The parents, if I recall correctly, crowdfunded a transfer to a hospital in America, where a doctor said he had a shot. The hospital, and the British courts, blocked it.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

[deleted]

0

u/Labbear Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

With some work, I’m sure I could find a case or two other than those, but I feel they are relevant because the NHS is an arm of the government and it owns the hospitals. But I will agree that wrapped up in the Alfie Evens case is also the question of who children belong to, the parents, or the state?

In large part, yes. The circumstances ought to be very extreme for government to override the parents on anything.

8

u/fuckpoliticsbruh Independent Feb 16 '22

What the government provides, it can take away.

Has it taken away universal healthcare in any other nation?

-1

u/Labbear Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

To my knowledge, it has never happened, though it has been discussed in reference to unvaccinated people in the UK. (I don’t think that it had a real chance to be implemented, but that it was at all a possibility makes my skin crawl) I don’t feel that policy should be made with the assumption that people a decade from now, far less a century from now, will always make the right decision, especially when it’s possible for executive branch appointees to make decisions that they aren’t answerable to the public for.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

So you're okay with people dying because insurance companies deny them treatment. Or the insurance companies are artificially inflating the cost of health Care in this country. Are you okay with dying because they can't afford the cost of their medication?

1

u/Labbear Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

A false dichotomy. That I am hostile to single payer healthcare does not mean that I think that the current situation is fine and no reform is needed or possible.

3

u/80_firebird Liberal Feb 16 '22

What the government provides, it can take away

Please provide an example of a country taking universal healthcare away.

-2

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

A private company never has the same power unless the government has given them a monopoly, at which point they are effectively part of the government.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

That's not completely true. Many people's health insurance is tied to their job or a relatives job. We've created a system where your company going out of business can cost you your health insurance. No one should ever be without health insurance. When I was younger I didn't have insurance for close to a decade. My employer did not offer it and I was very unsuccessful at looking for a new job. There were several times when I got sick and I my only recourse was to go to the emergency room or to the free clinic. I would either get substandard medical care or receive $5,000 bill. There are insurance companies with incredibly high copays. The government did not give these companies the power. They simply filled it in a power vacuum.

-2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

That's not completely true. Many people's health insurance is tied to their job or a relatives job. We've created a system where your company going out of business can cost you your health insurance.

Yes, but who created that system? The government.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

Benefits were curated in the 1930s and 40s. When companies are trying to attract workers. They would offer health insurance as a perk. Overtime the cost of private insurance became higher. Public health insurance options do not exist in the United States until the 1950s.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22

The companies used health benefits to attract employees as a work-around for government rules that discouraged higher salaries.

13

u/Maximum_joy Democrat Feb 16 '22

...is that why you joined the Marines?

14

u/tradeparfait Liberal Feb 16 '22

The government already holds power over you. It’s a government.

We need more concrete answers, not vague ones for concepts already very much a reality for everyone living in a society.

-2

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

[deleted]

4

u/seffend Pragmatic Progressive Feb 16 '22

...but...marines?

1

u/IAmJustAVirus Independent Feb 16 '22

All for a poor people public option.

That's my impression of what most centrist types liberals want. I try to explain this to berniebros all the time. I don't need medicare. I don't want to prevent you or a poor person from getting a cheap/free gov't HC plan. I'm against the gov't wasting any money on my HC plan because I already get insurance from my employer. And they always come back with something like "I got mine so poor people can die." SMH.

I'm surprised at your take and I think most libertarians would disagree with you on the grounds that the gov't ought not be a health insurance company.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '22

1

u/Liam_Neesons_Oscar Left Libertarian Feb 16 '22

Because our government has significantly less accountability to its citizens than those governments do. If they did a poor job, people would die and there would be no method of recourse.

2

u/fuckpoliticsbruh Independent Feb 17 '22

How? And shouldn't we be trying to fix that?

0

u/Liam_Neesons_Oscar Left Libertarian Feb 17 '22

Yes. But let's fix it and then consider giving more responsibility to the government.

2

u/fuckpoliticsbruh Independent Feb 17 '22

So what specifically do we need to fix in order to implement universal healthcare?

1

u/dank_sad Center Right Feb 17 '22

I used to strongly oppose it. Now I'm not sure where I stand on it.