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Social security has an eleven figure unfunded liability. Well run?
What would a "medicare-for-all" system look like?
Started by johnfree7
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And could easily be stabilized by removing the income cap on collections and increasing the base tax by 1.2%. That amounts to a tiny tax increase for most people and would sustain the viability of the most effective program in the history of the country at preventing homelessness and destitution among the elderly
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deleted480308
It works if we just take even more of people’s money and give it to other people?
Yep, it works very well
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deleted480308
Power to accomplish theft is not a sound business plan
Did you learn nothing from the British East India Company?
I'm an intensive care trainee in a "medicare for all" health system. It's the greatest honour of my life to treat patients without bankrupting them. There are no limitations (or token ones) on the services I can provide or offer if patients need them. In return, I pay comparable tax to people in the US, and I get paid a very fair wage. I also document for other doctors, not the billing department.
Bringing this system to the US is possible and we came close with the public option in the Affordable Care Act before it was gutted. Whatever the solution is, the system at present just gets worse and worse as we let things drag on and on and accrue inefficiencies like barnacles -- middle-men and administrators siphoning off billions of dollars doing absolutely nothing at all but generating paperwork and misery.
Bringing this system to the US is possible and we came close with the public option in the Affordable Care Act before it was gutted. Whatever the solution is, the system at present just gets worse and worse as we let things drag on and on and accrue inefficiencies like barnacles -- middle-men and administrators siphoning off billions of dollars doing absolutely nothing at all but generating paperwork and misery.
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If you took 12.4% of people’s income and did a ****ty job of investing, you’d still have a large pile of money. If you did a good job of investing most people would be millionaires.
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deleted480308
It would be an honor if you were donating your own time or money for that charity care, there is no honor in theft
Are you calling me a thief?
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deleted480308
I’m saying you are on a thief’s payroll and shouldn’t pretend it’s honorable
You aren’t being charitable in treating those people
I didn't say I was being charitable. I said it was an honour to treat people without bankrupting them. I can confidently say nobody I've treated has had financial ruin as a result, because of the system I work in. It's the system I feel honoured to participate in (and defend). And about 90% of the country rates that system as good or very good -- it's wildly popular.
You seem to be calling that system a product of thievery. But thievery requires stealing, and stealing presupposes a right to property. Do you think that right is a legal or natural right? Genuinely curious.
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As a member of the military you're on the same thief's payroll
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deleted480308
Natural. I’m not interested in something as fleeting as legal rights
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deleted480308
The only differences being that protection of rights against invaders is a legitimate function of a govt, could absolutely be handled without a progressive income taxAs a member of the military you're on the same thief's payroll
You want to argue against mission creep, inefficiency in the military, and against funding it with a progressive income tax? I’m with you.
Over three thousand years of human experience tells us that there's nothing more fleeting than natural rights, because ultimately the only thing that comes between you and a bullet (or dagger or pick-axe) is the law and the State-sanctioned apparatus empowered to enforce that law -- or nothing at all.
The ONLY kind of rights that have endured in human history have been legal rights. So how are they fleeting?
What do you mean by "legitimate function of a govt."? What makes one function "legitimate" and another one not?
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deleted480308
Natural rights are not at all fleeting because they don’t change. They can be violated by force, but violating a natural right and making it not exist are different
Legal rights can dissipate with one vote. Poof. Their entire existence is transient
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deleted480308
Natural rights. Everyone has a natural right to not be murdered by local or foreign powers, so a military and police are legitimate functions of govt.
No one has a natural right to an MRI, so it’s not a legitimate function of govt to provide MRIs to citizens at the expense of other citizens
That's a false comparison. You're comparing something very general to something very specific -- murders to MRIs. The better comparison would be F-35s to MRIs, and of course there's no natural right to either (perhaps).
What if I assert that everybody has a right to "healthcare" -- whatever that means. How do you argue against that?
Not at all. What long-running government in human history has been democratic to the point of "one vote and poof"?
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deleted480308
By saying you have no idea what you are talking about. Was everyone who died prior to MRI having their rights violated? No
Everyone in poor rural nations with no MRI having their rights violated? No
Power goes out and the MRI won’t run? Violation of rights? Nope
You don’t have a natural right to demand an mri be bought for you
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deleted480308
Now you’re being disingenuous. If the law is repealed, the legal claim to whatever that law promised you is gone
You're begging the question over and over again... There's a natural right to healthcare. Tell me why there isn't.
I mean, whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, hypocrite
Why would there be?
No, it's a very clear distinction
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deleted480308
There really isn't. There are ways to defend a country without a multitrillion dollar force paid for by "stolen" money, just like there is a way to pay for healthcare or take care of the elderly without "stealing" money. The trouble is no one wants to do these things that way because it is impractical
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deleted480308
The “trouble” is that only one of those tasks is a legitimate task for govt
And what might those be?
Raised armies paid for by the wealthy and corporations, as in the old days. Those who value a standing army can pay for it out of their own pocket just like everything else, build their own militias, etc. Look to the British East India Company for proof such systems can be effective, or to feudalistic paid conscription models for how such arrangements could be brought under state control in times of war. The wealthy benefit most from stable governmental structures and have the most incentive to privately protect and maintain those structures against foreign invasion.
There are areas where the police are privatized, which are another role that has traditionally been viewed as "essential" to be publicly funded for the protection of the rights of individuals, which is not a whole hell of a lot different than the argument people would have for the military. And sure enough, it's the wealthy who tend to put up the money for these forces in places where funding for public police is scant, such as India and even some areas of Detroit. Let the people who value paying for security pay for it.
The point being, much like everything else libertarians talk about, it is possible but not desirable for many reasons. Health care and social security are no different.
It could be argued that neither are or both are just as easily. Government is what the people make of it. It is an agreement.
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deleted480308
Democracy isn’t an agreement, it’s tyranny of the majority
Straying away from a rights based constitutional republic was/is a tragic mistake
You're trying to make the point that legal rights are fleeting because... Why exactly? Yes, they can be repealed, but in the spate of human history they've been far more enduring than any natural right you claim. The only rights we actually have (as opposed to what you dream about over pot and Atlas Shrugged) are the ones guaranteed at the point of a knife and gun.
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deleted480308
Natural rights are enduring for the reason I already explained to you. Even if violated, the right still exists
More question begging. Why are some rights natural and other rights not? If defence against a foreign invasion is a natural right -- how does that actually work? What if nobody volunteers in the military? Does that justify a draft?
Yes I am, and they're generally a garbage way of framing an issue, because any positive right can be reconstructed as a negative right and vice versa.
"The thing speaks for itself" -- no, it doesn't. But it's certainly a convenient way to tap out of an argument.
But that same thing is true for a legal right. Even if violated, a legal right still exists -- that's the whole point of the court system, to adjudicate violations of legal rights.
And let's suppose the right to property is a natural right. What happens when two people stumble across the same plot of land at the same time? Who has claim to that land?
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deleted480308
Nothing justifies a draft. People either volunteer to fight or we have no army and everyone gets to defend their property alone.
Positive right: claiming you have a natural right to demand a surgery that you will never pay for
Go ahead and reconstruct that as a negative
A legal claim/right isn't erased by it being violated. It is erased by a change in laws that literally ends it. It ceases to exist.
A natural right does not cease to exist in that manner
BeautifulSmiles523
Full Member
If a person has a right to healthcare, where is the limit? Is it for just life or death? How do we make the distinction, and where do we draw the line when its harm that they have caused themselves, or care is optional in nature?
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deleted480308
That certainly could be the result, still wouldn’t justify a draft to me
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You need to stop watching "Parks & Recreation."
There's a reason why democracy exist. To protect the lower-class from the tyranny of the powerful.
No, that's why Constitutional Republics exist. Pure democracy is what leads to the tyranny of the majority.
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762513
Libertarianism is simply tyranny of a different name in a different form.
I'm going to need you to expound on that theory
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762513
I can't match the elegance of Noam Chomsky, so I'll simply use his words:
"Libertarianism has a special meaning predominantly in the United States. In the United States, it means dedication to extreme forms of tyranny. They don’t call it that, but it’s basically corporate tyranny, meaning tyranny by unaccountable private concentrations of power, the worst kind of tyranny you can imagine. It picks up from the libertarian tradition one element, namely opposition to state power. But it leaves open all other forms of — and in fact favors — other forms of coercion and domination. So it’s radically opposed to the libertarian tradition, which was opposed to the master-servant relation."
I'd rather have tyranny by government ran by people who, in theory, we can vote in and vote out, than by plutocrats loyal only to their shareholders.
The whole text can be found here: Creating the Horror Chambers: Noam Chomsky on the tyranny of libertarianism, the need for media democracy, and Latin American resistance to US imperialism
