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As the days go by our hard won freedoms and liberty are slowly being eroded. In Europe a crushing blow has been made to freedom of speech with a European Court of Human Rights upholding a conviction for saying that the person known as Muhammad ten centuries ago was technically a paedophile based on information in historical texts. The statement was made in reference to Muhammad's marriage to a six year old child name called Aisha. The court found that “Presenting objects of religious worship in a provocative way capable of hurting the feelings of the followers of that religion could be conceived as a malicious violation of the spirit of tolerance, which was one of the bases of a democratic society.”. In giving its ruling that "Muhammad was not a worthy subject of worship" the court has additionally demonstrated a complete misunderstanding as to the religion involved which worships "Allah", a word meaning 'God', not 'Muhammad' who claimed to be a prophet of this god. Freedom of speech is dying.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @03:28PM (45 children)
As opposed to corporations inserting themselves into basic needs like healthcare, and setting up actual death panels like in the US where they refuse to cover certain treatments to save money? It doesn't follow that a government that provides healthcare to its citizens will necessarily become an authoritarian monstrosity. After all, plenty of governments that don't provide healthcare are authoritarian.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 13 2018, @04:02PM (33 children)
Faulty logic on those last two sentences. They have no causal relationship.
And yes, it does follow that a government that provides healthcare to its citizens will necessarily become an authoritarian monstrosity. Any decisions regarding healthcare made by it are by definition authoritarian.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday November 13 2018, @04:51PM (4 children)
No, doesn't follow. Totally faulty conclusion.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:00AM (3 children)
TMB makes sense if you are libertarian enough to consider any authoritarian be a monster.
And he's not wrong about them being authoritarian. If the government is required to provide healthcare they will necessarily try to control it. They may tolerate a parallel private system of insurance/healthcare, as in AU and I believe in UK and Canada, but they will still exert authority over it.
Whether you consider that control to be a reasonable trade-off for having a functional health system is probably a philosophical discussion.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday November 14 2018, @09:45AM (1 child)
No, does not follow. In Europe (the countries I know), government controls the fact that everybody is health insured. The terms of the contracts are negotiated between insurance companies and the medical profession. As far as I know, no government bureaucrats. The only strong political influence might be that the premiums must not become, well, too premium. On this part the libertarian would wholeheartedly agree. That makes them being authoritarian then, right?
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:01PM
Depends on what you call authoritarian I guess. Authoritarianism isn't necessarily bad.
The system I am familiar with is Australia's.
The government controls who can practice medicine, how much it costs the patient, the price of drugs, who can buy/sell those drugs. There is actually a constant pressure between the medical groups and the government bureaucrats over these things which helps avoid the worst aspects of authoritarianism.
If the situation is as you describe, the government is not providing healthcare, they are merely enforcing the purchase of insurance and participation in a private system.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday November 26 2018, @07:12PM
Anyone that "libertarian" is actually an anarchist. :)
Libertarians almost uniformly agree that government is needful. They're about liberty; not a complete lack of an authority structure. In fact, some of their precepts are non-starters without an authority structure. For instance, if "my right to swing my fist stops at your face" is to have any meaning at all, then said right must be subject to enforcement, and therefore, authority. Otherwise said "right" is just meaningless babble.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:50PM (2 children)
Someone already called you out, but sweet jesus
is the most stupid brainwashed bit of "logic" I've seen around here in a while. Shit like that is why I have no respect for your opinions, blatant ideology with quite a few real world instances that disprove your statement.
You are one of the sheeple, which must eat you up so bad subconsciously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:40PM
Indeed. It is rare to find someone so willing to roll over and die so that an insurance company can save a few bucks on medical coverage.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 15 2018, @07:15PM
You don't know what authoritarian means, do you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:39PM (21 children)
That's not how taxpayer funded healthcare works. At least where I live, the government makes no decisions regarding healthcare. Doctors do that.
Government makes some decisions regarding funding, but not all, as we have elected Health Boards who make the real day-to-day decisions.
Doctors and nurses tend to gravitate to stand for election to Health Boards, because they have an interest. They also have specialist knowledge.
We think this is a much better system, as insurance companies don't control the whole process to maximise their profits.
It also means that when Mrs. Zombie broke her ankle last year, she got prompt, professional treatment at no cost. We didn't even have to sell our house to pay for it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:11AM (4 children)
That's government too.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday November 14 2018, @06:36PM (3 children)
You're right.
Let's just throw money at them. Who needs management?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 15 2018, @05:53AM (2 children)
That is the problem with government-run systems. They're great for making sure the checks are signed, not so good for spending money usefully.
Insurance companies don't control the whole process in any country, including the US.
Nobody does even in the US. And since you owned a house, it sounds like you could have easily paid for her health care rather than burden your society with that. So why didn't you?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 15 2018, @07:20PM (1 child)
Of course I could.
And I have been over the last 30-odd years. It's called tax and I'm happy to pay it, because it gets me things like schools and roads and proper health care.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 16 2018, @03:59AM
And an immense level of corruption and incompetence. That's what happens when people use other peoples' money in place of their own.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 15 2018, @07:16PM (15 children)
I didn't say you aren't allowed to like the idea. I said it was authoritarian by nature.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 15 2018, @08:47PM (14 children)
I am aware. You will need to explain why though, because I don't think it is.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 15 2018, @09:20PM (13 children)
Because of the definition of authoritarian. When you take authority over people's lives from them and place it with the government, that is authoritarianism. Full stop.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 15 2018, @09:49PM (12 children)
I had a quick peruse of this: which seems pretty informative. [wikipedia.org]
I can see how you might think your own political system fits the definitions, but it doesn't really work for the country I live in.
The US has a total of two political parties, which seems remarkable for a country of 320 million. We currently have 5 parties in our Parliament, and will probably have 6 next time. So, yes this might apply to you, but not to where I live.
From what I can see there is an awful lot of scare-mongering in US politics. (Have you guys fought off that invasion yet)? To be fair, various parties try it where I live sometimes, with varying levels of success.
Did I mention that you have two political parties? How does that happen? Not with violence, I assume. Still, we do this much better than you do.
You guys do this one pretty well, with your written constitution and all. Well done.
From that brief bit of info I am going to say that when I vote for the local people to run my local Health Board, I am not really participating in an authoritarian regime.
When you, however vote for one of the two parties that have any chance at all of representing you in anything at all, you might be.
Don't confuse what goes on in the US for how we live in other places.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 15 2018, @10:37PM (11 children)
Indeed you are. You're simply participating in a local one that you don't object to. Where you live is irrelevant. Whether you think the government has any business telling you how to live your life is what decides if you are an authoritarian or not. That's all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 15 2018, @11:06PM (10 children)
So what's the alternative?
No hospitals?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 15 2018, @11:14PM (9 children)
Bit drastic, innit? There's a whole world of options between universal healthcare and getting rid of all healthcare.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 15 2018, @11:44PM (8 children)
Sure. still don't see how my local Health Board could possibly take authority over my life (your phrase).
All they do is decide how to spend the budget they get from taxes. Thy don't decide anything to do with health care, doctors do that, so maybe the doctors are the authoritarians?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 16 2018, @12:01AM (7 children)
How the budget is spent makes a pretty damned big difference, no? And the taxes (money taken from you under threat of imprisonment or worse) are definitively authoritarian to begin with. Unless your healthcare funding all comes from voluntary taxation?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday November 16 2018, @12:50AM (6 children)
Oh, "violently imposed monopoly" then.
LOL.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 16 2018, @03:53AM (5 children)
You have some way to explain it where men do not come to your house with guns if you fail to pay them not to?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 19 2018, @02:10AM (4 children)
I'm not sure who those men would be, as the police don't carry guns where I live.
The army have guns, but I have never heard of the army trying to collect debts.
No, men with guns coming to people's houses is just not something that ever happens here, because why would it?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 19 2018, @02:39AM (3 children)
Clubs to beat you with if you resist isn't exactly a whole lot better. Force being used against you is the key, not the type of force employed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 19 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)
Force? That's not how we do things around here.
This is how we handle things. [nzherald.co.nz]
Bear in mind that has taken 11 years, and even though the woman involved is now dead, her house has still not been sold, and the taxes have not been collected.
Is the quote from the government mouthpiece.
Doesn't sound like violence to me.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 21 2018, @11:17AM (1 child)
That is a surprisingly less than typical example. Regardless, the use of force is the only means any government has to enforce its laws should a person not feel morally bound to obey them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday November 21 2018, @08:31PM
That's a totally typical example for where I live.
Maybe it's not Government that you have a problem with, maybe it's your Government.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday November 13 2018, @09:11PM
The government is not authoritarian. It represents authoritarians. I would like to say that the corporations that finance campaigns and legislation are authoritarian. That is true, but the real authoritarians are the voters who give consent. Over 96% of them... We can demand government service without all the baggage, but as we just saw, it is not to be for at least two more years. Oversight is our obligation. if we don't do it... well you are witness to the result.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday November 13 2018, @09:22PM (1 child)
I'm sorry, but that is asinine. Government providing healthcare is not necessarily involved in any decision making whatsoever regarding your healthcare. Not if you mean fully socialized medicine, and you're not specifically talking about assisted suicide.
If, we, as a people, decide that healthcare is important enough to provide as a people to each other, it is a rather simple matter to remove the insane amount of money that goes towards profits only. Let's define profit as any money that goes towards any entity that didn't directly provide efforts in a specific case to provide care. Meaning, a stockholder is defined as profit. A c-suite is defined as profit. A nurse, janitor, and a doctor are not profit, but base costs of care. We engage in massive collective bargaining with all corporations that provide resources like syringes, gloves, IV bags, scrubs, band-aids, etc. Same with the pharmaceutical companies. They could sell directly to a patient, but if they want to to business with an entire hospital, then we collectively bargain their asses down. If they refuse to take a reasonable profit above their expenses, and they do have something that cures people, then we take it with the same logic found in eminent domain. We can quite easily become a more efficient healthcare system with 85%+ of money spent being directly for the benefit of the patient, instead of a parasitic stockholder and c-suite that believes that their lives and livelihood are more important than a grandma getting treatment.
Finally, the biggest reason you are full of crap today my friend, is that in all systems that I've heard proposed, it is a panel of DOCTORS that make decisions regarding your healthcare. Not just that, but whatever happens is performed with informed consent. Furthermore, no panel of doctors is going to decide to not provide care due to the costs. Those costs will be heavily lowered if you get rid of the bullshit parasites.
Government as it is now decides what happens in your healthcare by supporting the hellbound shitheads that lobby them for the power to deny pre-existing conditions. Even though, insurance is the ONLY FUCKING WAY A BLUE-COLLAR WORKER CAN AFFORD HEALTHCARE. It's not as if they can relax and thank God they are in a Capitalist society where abundant competition arising from a free market ensures that the invisible hand tangibly provides. It's some sort of insurance, or death.
Wake up, dude. There are powerful people today, that are not even close to being a healthcare provider, that make decisions affecting your healthcare on a constant basis. You cannot get around that when 60 pennies on every dollar go towards the parasites, and their lobbying power is supreme.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 15 2018, @07:18PM
You're just shifting the authoritarianism from the elected shitstains to the greedy, voting shitstains. It's still authoritarian unless you're allowed to opt for a different system or out entirely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @04:14PM (10 children)
A corporation is just a group of people paying the government to get access to a special legal system if they follow certain rules (determined by the government). So I dont really see any way not to blame a government for the behaviour of its corporations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @04:25PM (9 children)
Businesses besides corporations can exist as well, and they would do all of the same things in order to save a buck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @04:38PM (8 children)
Local family doctor is much more likely to care about their patients. I also wonder if it really is possible to run a business without at least buying a llc from the gov anymore.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @06:23PM (7 children)
You still need money to go to a local family doctor, which the poor often don't have. And local family doctors don't usually do major surgeries, which cost more than a poor person can possibly afford.
Healthcare is indeed a basic need, and that's why I have no issue with governments ensuring that everyone has access to it without going bankrupt or dying from preventable causes, much in the same way that governments can build roads, bridges, and so on.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @06:56PM (3 children)
The "sticker price" healthcare is inflated beyond all reason by government meddling and insurance scams. Before you pay for anything make sure you first go to at least one place and tell them you are uninsured to get the real price (usually 10-50% of the supposed price). Keep in mind that once they know you have insurance its illegal for them to charge you the real price...
http://selfpaypatient.com/2014/01/03/insured-patients-can-save-money-by-pretending-to-be-uninsured/ [selfpaypatient.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargemaster [wikipedia.org]
So if you are worried about the poor having access to healthcare, more insurance and more government is the opposite of what you should want.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:23PM (1 child)
I don't want more insurance. I want a system that has been proven to work better in every other first world country: Single-payer healthcare. Even if we generously assume a situation where governments and corporations are out of the picture, and even if that brought costs down substantially, poor people would still have trouble paying for healthcare because it will never be totally free. I really don't see how this is all too different from using tax dollars to provide roads, bridges, military, police, firefighters, etc.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:54PM
Yup. Better in every way.
That's because it's exactly the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:35AM
Not this shit again.
lol! Do these places exist outside of California?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:14PM (2 children)
That only applies in some countries.. Free health care is a thing, in many places.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:30AM (1 child)
Nothing of monetary value is free. I mean, it's a pretty simple concept. Someone pays. Using the government to force someone to pay your medical expenses under the threat of jailing them (taxes) may be "free" to you, but it isn't free healthcare.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:00AM
Here's the kicker - even people who don't pay tax get free health care.
If your arguement is "user pays" vs "pooled payments with government oversight" (ie, tax), then fine, you are welcome to your weird insurer-rules mess. I'll pay tax for roads, schools, and healthcare. Makes for a nicer place to live.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex