• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Is healthcare a right?

B

Baraka Obama

Banned
Read like half of it so far but my answer will always be yes and income shouldn't dictate your service. To put it simply a homeless person should have the same options a billionare has.
 
V

Viewt

Member
This is a dumb debate. Of course healthcare should be a right. Everyone deserves the same shot at living, and no one deserves to die from a treatable illness.

Also, the whole argument of "I don't wanna pay for someone else's healthcare" is fucking dumb. YOU ALREADY ARE. That's what insurance is. The healthy subsidize the sick. This is the case for all health insurance, private or public. Universal coverage just creates a mandate so that everyone pays into the system, thereby widening the pool and lowering the mean cost.

People who are against universal healthcare are either corporate thieves or rubes. End of story.
 
Sinfamy

Sinfamy

Member
Yes.
It's the moral, and economically sensible thing to do.
At the very least, preventative care should be "free" of cost.
 
I

IamDodongo

Member
Let's put it this way:

What's the point in paying thousands of dollars in taxes each year if your country can't even take care of you?
 
G

g11

Member
I would say so. I honestly don't understand how self-identified Christians on the right can argue otherwise.
 
Duane Cunningham

Duane Cunningham

Member
I'll read the article in a sec, but my immediate reaction is that American healthcare certainly should be, since the very beginning of the very first document we ever wrote as a country included being alive as a right.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Then again, we still haven't gotten the "all men are created equal" part right, two and a half centuries later, so...
 
F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
I very much believe it is a right. Everyone deserves a shot at having a healthy life, not just the financially well off.

I’ll glady pay my tax money into a pool so everyone can be covered. It’s a no brained to me.
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
Healthcare is certainly a right.

Everyone who needs immediate care in the ER should be treated.

The debate needs to shift from people getting health care to people being able to AFFORD healthcare.

If you are having a heartattack or stroke and end up in the hospital, you'll be treated. You'll mostly likely go bankrupt after, though.
 
S

SwiftDeath

Member
Universal Heatlhcare is not just a right, it's the best way to run a nation/economy

We could save so much money as a nation with preventative care, ensure that people could work more and better, put more money back into the middle and lower classes who will actually spend it and boost the economy.

Pure capitalism doesn't work because there are so many cases where there's no nash equilibrium like healthcare where a small group of people can become extremely wealthy by making 98% of the nation pay ridiculous sums for any kind of healthcare at all.
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
Pretty much every other first world country has decided it is. That fact we haven't says a lot about America.

Baraka Obama said:
What? Are you saying in the third world it's okay to not have accessible health care?
Click to expand...

*Everyone* absolutely should have accessible health care and we should keep working toward that, but first world countries have no excuse not to implement a universal healthcare plan.
 
P

platocplx

Member
Yup. Anything that will affect us all in some way shape or form. (water, Power, The internet, Education,Health,Food,Housing) All of this should have a socialized version. Its insane we have debates on feeding,Housing, Healing Teaching people they all should have a public option and honestly we would be better off for it if we all did. Like all these things we ALL pay for its crazy we need to have some private entity profit off things like that.

and Humanity as an entire civilization isnt even on any scale because we have all these trivial things and arent working towards a wholly better society. just a greedy one.
 
T

thechristoph

Sir!
It should be. It should be the rich and powerful’s responsibility to take care of the poor and weak. Instead the rich exploits the poor to snatch away their ever-shrinking portion of the pie.
 
H

h1nch

Member
It should be. Lack of access to affordable healthcare is one of the largest barriers to upward mobility in the developed world.

If you're a society that prides itself on the idea that hard work will result in prosperity, guaranteeing all citizens access to quality, affordable healthcare is a no-brainer.
 
P

Phobophile

A scientist and gentleman in the manner of Batman.
g11 said:
I would say so. I honestly don't understand how self-identified Christians on the right can argue otherwise.
Click to expand...

Rather easily; Calvinistic Protestantism is all about that predetermination bullshit.
 
M

mantidor

Member
zero_suit said:
It's a right in all other highly developed nations, so I'm not sure why this is a debate.
Click to expand...

It's a right in many developing nations as well.

Of course, making healthcare viable has its economic issues, but the State has to absolutely figure it out, it's their most basic responsibility.
 
S

sflufan

Banned
As someone who philosophically doesn't believe in the existence of "rights", my answer is "no".

However, it is the responsibility of the "authority" of the society -- whatever form that society/authority takes -- to ensure that the participants in that society are able to access "common goods" such as healthcare, education, housing, utilities, etc. without regard to economic circumstance. This only makes sense from both moral perspective and more practically a political and economic perspective.
 
B

BoosterDuck

Banned
if we want to strive to create equal opportunities for everyone then we need to provide them the best healthcare possible

so yes
 
A

AstroNut325

Member
From the article :
“I see people on the same road I live on who have never worked a lick in their life,” Joe said, his voice rising. “They’re living on disability incomes, and they’re healthier than I am.” Maria described a relative who got disability payments and a Medicaid card for a supposedly bad back, while taking off-the-books roofing jobs.
Click to expand...

“My personal opinion is that anytime the government steps in and says, ‘You must do this,’ it’s overstepping its boundaries,” Joe said. “A father, mother, two kids working their asses off—they’re making minimum wage and are barely getting by—I have no problem helping them. If I have someone who’s spent his whole life a drunk and a wastrel, no, I have no desire to help. That’s just the basics.”
Click to expand...

Monna considered herself a conservative. The notion of health care as a right struck her as another way of undermining work and responsibility: “Would I love to have health insurance provided to me and be able to stay home?” Of course, she said. “But I guess I’m going to be honest and tell you that I’m old school, and I’m not really good at accepting anything I don’t work for.”
Click to expand...
When she was a young mother with two children and no home, she’d had to fall back on welfare and Medicaid for three months. Her stepson, Eric, had been on Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance before he died. Her eighty-three-year-old mother, who has dementia and requires twenty-four-hour care, was also on Medicaid. “If you’re disabled, if you’re mentally ill, fine, I get it,” Monna said. “But I know so many folks on Medicaid that just don’t work. They’re lazy.” Like the Duttons, she felt that those people didn’t deserve what they were getting.
Click to expand...

Wtf... We are so screwed for the next 3-4 decades.
 
R

Rockandrollclown

lookwhatyou'vedone
It absolutely should be, but man, its a hard sell to Americans. My parents have went bankrupt due to medical issues multiple times. I can't for the life of me get them to agree that some form of socialized healthcare would be better. The idea has been poisoned for so many people. My parents don't believe we should have it not due to fear of the other or racism (which is why a lot are against it), but they believe that they wouldn't be alive without the A+++++ American medical system. They're fine with being financially ruined since they believe the alternative is death.
 
Z

ZanDatsu

Member
Do the people who say no think that when a poor person gets seriously sick and will never be able to afford treatment they should just die? If so, go fuck yourself.
 
legacyzero

legacyzero

Banned
In no way should money or business be more important than a human life. So yes, it's a right. Other nations have figured this out.

The arguments against it are "but corporate profits!" And "I don't want to pay for those or stupid irresponsible blacks/gays/poors/disabled/sick etc etc.!!"
 
T

thelatestmodel

Junior, please.
Yes. In a modern society, all must contribute what they can to ensure that healthcare is accessible to all who need it. Period.

Don't know why that's so hard for some Americans to grasp.
 
C

C.Mongler

Member
If we're going to proclaim "life" is an unalienable right, than I fail to see how healthcare isn't inherently attached to that.
 
S

shiyrley

Banned
Yes it is and I don't respect anyone who thinks otherwise. My country paid for my eye cancer treatment including travel and expenses (surgery couldn't be done here, had to travel to the mainland) and also regularly (every 6 months, will be 1 year eventually) pays for travel+expenses to have checks with the same doctor who treated me. I am DISGUSTED when I think there are countries that wouldn't do this.

If I lived in the USA instead of Spain and my family's economical situation was the same I would probably lack my left eye.

If you think healthcare isn't a right then I don't like you, you shouldn't approach me, and go fuck yourself.
 
N

Nairume

Banned
Is Breathing Necessary? This New York Times opinion piece argues from a Silicon Valley type against the grain.

Yes, without question. Healthcare is a right. Every day we go as is makes us look worse as a society.
 
C

curiouscharles

Member
I'm not even going to click this article [nothing against New Yorker].

Seriously Americans, wake the fuck up and start taking care of eachother, healthcare is too expensive for anybody but the 1% to actually properly pay for - so does everybody but the Trumps of the world deserve to get sick and die?

[the answer is no]


AstroNut325 said:
From the article :







Wtf... We are so screwed for the next 3-4 decades.
Click to expand...


fuck, these quotes just sum up everything fucked with Americans [ed: i mean the bad ones... ok i mean GOP voting Americans].

this whole "I WORK SO MUCH AND THEY DONT WORK AT ALL SO I DESERVE EVERYTHING AND THEY DESERVE NOTHING FUCK THEM FUCK THEM FUCK THEM!" attitude just frightens the mother loving shit out of me.

bro, NOBODY just "doesn't work" and gets away with it.

the amount of people actually on "disability" or whatever the fuck he's on about is fucking negligible - i've literally never met a single person in my 33 years that has qualified for this shit [at least, in Canada, where we do, mind you, have a lot of this bullshit mentality as well].

RustyNails said:
Is water wet? Tune in to find out interesting perspectives from both sides.
Click to expand...

bwahaha.

Sinfamy said:
I sure hope she paves her own roads.
Click to expand...

teeheehee.
 
V

Vamphuntr

Member
Of course it is. It is here in Canada too. I find really off-putting that going to a hospital in the US can have you drowned in bills for the rest of your life Tons of medical conditions and accident happen without you doing anything wrong and it shouldn't put your future in Jeopardy because you are poor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Locked
Doctors on a leading "transgender healthcare body" have admitted that patients have developed cancer + more
2
51
3K
Embearded replied
Shigeru Miyamoto has reiterated he still has no plans to retire from Nintendo: "More so, I’m thinking about the day I fall over."
Game Dev
25
1K
Dr. Wilkinson replied
IGN: Phil Spencer Has Now Been Head of Xbox for 10 Years; We Look Back at His First Decade
Opinion Analysis 2 3
130
7K
ZehDon replied
Maisie Williams And Kaitlyn Dever Were Considered For Canceled TLOU Movie | HBO Show has higher budget than Game of Thrones
News 2
86
6K
Inlusione replied
Oppenheimer debuts in Japan ༼ ༎ຶ ᆺ ༎ຶ༽
Science
41
2K
Winter John replied
Top Bottom