Trumpcare...

[Cool Girl]

Yeah, this whole health care bill that's going on is so messed up. Me personally, I don't like Donald Trump either. When he was elected president, I tried to be optimist, but the more the months went by, I just can't. He even has the nerve to discriminate Muslims by doing a travel ban! I'm a Muslim and I've said it once and I'll say it twice. I will challenge ANYBODY ANYONE who dares say that Muslims are terrorists. There is good and bad in all religions. Just look at Christianity. There's a group of radical Christians called the KKK.

 

To makes matter worse, I heard he changed the custom policies at the airport. Like, you're not allowed to bring electronics with you to the airplane anymore and everyone, even Americans will be patted down! Yeah, that does not make me want to travel anywhere! I don't know about you guys personally, but I don't like to be touched nor patted down. Like a hug is fine and all of that, but don't start poking me! That's why I don't like going to the doctor or any of that stuff.

 

I am just embarrassed for the president we have. He's hasn't proven to us that he can lead this country. All he's been doing is being a brat. (I'm not afraid to say my opinion). I'm pretty sure that if he keeps going at this rate, he is going to get impeached.

 

I also understand the fact that the media can be bias, which is why I try to be cautious.

 

I wasn't going to respond or say something because I was scared of the respond I was going to get, but you know what, I'm the kind of person who wants to be honest and wants to express myself, whether some people like it or not. So, yeah, I hope my opinion helped give you guys some insight and provide a efficient discussion. I also believe that there are some things we just have to talk about even though we feel inconfortable about it.

 

Thanks,

Cool Girl

[Peanuts]

21 minutes ago, Wheat said:

Healthcare is not necessary to live. It's encouraged for sure - however you don't need to have a child in a hospital, vaccinations (for some reason) are being debated, household remedies for illnesses are still employed, and so on and so forth.

 

I have a bone to pick with you on this. Health and life are different, sure. But will you justify someone's extremely poor quality of life - or death for that matter - since they are unable to afford healthcare since it is not their right to have it? It is very possible to provide a modicum of healthcare that would cover the vaccinations and basic needs for anyone that gets poor. This will make the greatest impact for most individuals that have little money. Aside from the simple cases, diseases like aids, diabetes, cancer, etc - require expensive healthcare if the individual is to survive. Or live for another year. Healthcare that is a hell of a lot more expensive here than it is anywhere else in the world. For such people, the access to healthcare is literally the access to life or death.

 

Just because universal healthcare was not around when the Declaration of Independence does not mean that it can be ignored in this discussion of life and death. Healthcare is as important as life for certain individuals.

 

To simply tell a terminally ill patient 'I encourage you to get healthcare' doesn't do sh*t. And good luck telling them to use household remedies as well.

 

Sorry if this sounds a little aggressive.

[Chase]

The justification you speak of is in what I said later in the post. Health isn't a right and is not explicitly stated as one in the DOI. The document states that the individual has an "unalienable" right - meaning one that can't be taken away - to Life. Life is merely existence of organisms. Jefferson didn't add any qualifier.

 

Long story short. The DOI merely grants the right to exist as an organism. I would prefer personally to do what -I- can as a human to help make that life better to that individual. I would not want the government to force my hand in doing so. Especially when they didn't do so before.

 

You said it yourself. Sometimes - we're dealing with just an "extra year." If we are supposed not quantify life, why are we paying for health if it's going to end for naught?

 

I never met one of my grandmothers because of cancer. The assertion that she was to have health as a right is a position that troubles me. Where's the cure for late stage cancer when she was alive? She had a right to be healthy. Right?

 

No. Sickness doesn't consider a list of protections. It's a fickle entity humanity has yet to overtake. Therefore, it's a considerable blessing if you are able to live long and prosper to your hearts content.

[Eviora]

I'm not at all one to put any stock in religious beliefs, but this line of thought reminded me of a quote by Sister Joan Chittister (a Catholic nun), and I thought it, too, belonged here.

 

"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."

 

Of course, I would extend that to include "a child healthy", too, despite not being pro-life at all. What you are engaging in, Hunter, is a mental gymnastics argument that conflates should and is. Clearly, not everyone is healthy. Otherwise, this line of discussion would be extremely pointless. The question is whether we should do what we can to ensure as many people are healthy as possible, knowing that we'll never be able to protect them all. 

 

Plenty of the Constitution's so-called "unalienable" rights have been denied before. Take slavery as an example. Plenty of people were robbed of their freedom. How is this possible? Because that right is, in fact, alienable. There's no point in defending rights that literally cannot be taken away. Unless you think Jefferson was a complete idiot, it follows, then, that he must have meant something else. Such as defending rights that should not be taken away.

 

Besides, you're going to have to do a lot better than quote some old document to convince the kinder ones among us to let people die of horrible diseases without lifting a finger.

 

If we go by your insipid definition of life - "existing as an organism" - then I guess we're all pro-life. After all, a fetus has to be a living thing before we can kill it. Since, apparently, all you want to protect is the right to a moment of existence, that should be plenty, right?

[Chase]

On the topic of "unalienable" rights, Life, Liberty, -and- the pursuit of Happiness are all things that have been robbed in this country. The DOI was a document that marked the American Revolution. It wasn't intended to state the obvious more so than it was to let Britain know we were making a change. I used quotations over italics because I am aware of what -is- in reality.

 

On the argument that all people are pro-life, that would be relatively true. If a fetus is an organism, than it is life - until it is killed. Robbing the fetus of it's existence denies the fetus it's so-called "unalienable" right to live - especially if that's the definition of life. I believe that they refer to "relatively" pro-life people by a different moniker.

 

On the topic of kindness - I'm willing to bet that I have willingly donated money and gone out of my way to care for others personally just as much as you all have if not more. As I said with Mael, kindness and compliance are not one in the same. I understand that here my character isn't displayed for you all to judge as clearly as it would have if we are all in the same place. And I've certainly made mistakes and regret a few of them. The situation that was posed to me above was that I couldn't justify my position to a hypothetically very ill person. I can - based on what I have documentation-wise. That doesn't make it my will over taking care of that person however.

 

As a Republican I am obviously for closing loopholes in welfare and improving the job market (the latter of which a bipartisan effort), but I am not one that is anti-caring. Chittister may have been speaking of political attitudes toward welfare sure, but she may also have been addressing Christian life instead. Christians should -want- to care for the hungry, the homeless, and the uneducated. There are various ways to go about acting on those. One thing that notably is missing in that quote is children being cured. Do you believe a nun would be apathetic of children's health? Do you think the first thing she would do if not is direct people to the government website to apply for healthcare? I've been on mission. I know what actual "care" looks like. I've seen children first-hand that lacked homes and food and, yes, medicine. Those people need to see more than insurance to believe people actually care about them.

 

Chittister is right either way, but I'm not sure she was speaking in a manner of governance here.

 

Bringing it all back home - I am not a Freedom Caucus House Republican. I like many of the provisions of the ACA. I just don't like the notions behind the legislature, the mandate to ALL people to pay for healthcare even if they don't want it, Obama's "Lie of the Year" regarding keeping your preferred doctor (Politifact), and rising premiums.

 

As an individual - yes. I would LOVE to provide as much care as possible. I'm not going to speak for all Americans on that issue. It isn't my place.

 

[Eviora]

Robbing a cancer patient, for example, of the treatment they need is a direct threat to their continued existence as an organism, i.e. "life". I find it odd that so many of the people who advocate for knocking people with serious diseases off healthcare anyway also so vehemently oppose abortion. If you take the position that fetuses are humans (which I do not), then the two are in effect the same thing - a removal of the the tools (medical treatment in one case, a womb in the other) necessary for a human being to keep existing. If people should be free to opt out from paying for healthcare to protect the very sick, why shouldn't women be able to opt out of protecting fetuses?

 

There's a double standard here regarding when actions that are obviously going to end humans lives are acceptable. It's covered up by semantics, like the whole "life vs health" think, but you really can't talk it away. Undeniably, there are cases when having no access to healthcare is a death sentence. In those cases, to take away healthcare is therefore to take away life.

 

The Chittister quote explicitly refers to the allocation of tax money, which is a government matter, so of course she's talking about opinions concerning how one should govern.

 

 

[Chase]

Are you assuming that cancer is a pre-existing condition? I actually support the ACA's protection of citizens that have pre-existing conditions and initially supported the AHCA because it upheld those protections while trying to solve some of Obamacare's issues.

 

I'm not "for" causing people to become uninsured either. The reality however - is that anytime systems are changed when it comes to healthcare people will suddenly lose it. There are people who were insured before the Affordable Care Act that are not now. And this is an act that was supposed to aim for universal scope!

 

I don't "advocate" knocking off people with dire health consequences from their insurance, so it's not a double standard personally to begin with. However, those people are in the minority when it comes to what people want insurance for.

 

There's injury. There's common illness. There's mental health. There dental and eye care. There's transitional therapy. There's physical therapy. There's medical equipment costs. Co-pays. Doctor's salaries. There's cosmetic surgery. There's women's health. There's sports health like Tommy John surgery.

 

Most of those matters are not "Life and Death" instances. Are you telling me that I am not pro-life because I am not for forcing my uninsured friends to pay for a stranger's nose job? This can be certainly trimmed down no?

 

I think it's a bit of a stretch to categorize all Pro-Lifers as ones who don't want there to be access for healthcare at all.

[Eviora]

I'm pretty sure even the ACA doesn't cover nose jobs.

 

However, yes, there are a wide variety of medical issues. There are also a lot of things that appear minor if you have healthcare and end up being not-so-minor without it. For instance, I'm very prone to getting ear infections for some reason. When I do, I go get my medicine, take it, and a few hours later, voila, better. But apparently ear infections killed people much more frequently before the advent of effective medicine. I'm not at all an expert on the matter, so I could be wrong about that, but regardless I could easily provide plenty of other examples with a little research. Vaccines, for instance, pre-emptively turn all sorts of awful diseases into a little pinch.

 

However, as people who do, in fact, realize that healthcare can be this complicated, we needn't just give up. We can make laws that take the uninsured into account if they suddenly get into life-threatening situations, for instance. Will it be a big mess? Undoubtedly! But even an opt-in healthcare system doesn't necessarily have to be as ruthless to the poor as Trump would have it.

 

Of course, we're talking about a guy who gave up on his healthcare bill after zero failed votes. I won't be expecting any miracles.

[Chase]

By virtue of being in America, many of the health care situations regarding life and death are already averted or at least possibly averted by the inability of hospitals to turn you away (unless you go to a private hospital for a non-emergency situation. - which is probably not life and death as it is.)

 

Then you have over the counter medicine that is increasing in effectiveness. This cuts out the need to visit the doctor as often when certain symptoms are showing up, which is good for poorer Americans. OTCs are not always cheap, but there's a chance your neighbor or a friend you have can let you borrow some with the sheer proliferation of them out there.

 

If someone were to say - pass Senator Sanders' measure of opening up the global medicine market for Americans, perhaps even prescription and higher cost OTC drugs go down in price. While Bernie caucuses with the opposition party, the measure has received a vote of confidence from Senator Ted Cruz in a debate CNN held on healthcare a few weeks ago - a completely opposite ideologue. If that's not bipartisan appeal in exhibition I don't know what is. The biggest threat to that would be Donald Trump and his rather leftist inspired populist adopted protectionism of American pharmacy.

 

---

 

I am for a basic tier of government provisions such as expanded Medicare, Medicaid, and Children's Health. I also am ok with most women's health provisions, and can begrudgingly take limited abortion services (I know. Not a popular opinion.)

 

I also dig protecting pre-existing condition sufferers from insurers turning them down. I'd rather do it with legislature than subsidizing insurance companies for good behavior however. Discrimination is in fact not ideal.

 

I also very much like being insured under my parents' plan until I am 26.

 

The individual mandate is a matter of collective willingness. Not of individual concern. I'm also insured anyway. I don't think I can vote to force others to pay for health insurance they don't have with a good conscience. The ACA doesn't have the attractive statistics in place to justify it.

 

I am not a fan of telling people how to run their businesses outside of providing a safe workplace and sensible pay to it's employees. Time off and health insurance should be between the employee's union and the employer. Not all of us.

 

 

 

 

[Eviora]

Leftist. I've noticed that's a word that only conservatives ever seem to say.

 

I don't have a clue what inspires Trump to do the nonsense he does, but most of his actions since taking office are very far from what I or any other liberal I've spoken with at any length would consider ideal. His travel ban was a pitiful and discriminatory disgrace, and his "spend more on military but be an asshole to our allies" attitude doesn't exactly mesh well with the diversity we embrace. If anyone seems to be regularly taking Trump's side, it's the now-infamous "Alt-right." I certainly don't like the idea of pharmaceutical companies basically preying on Americans, so maybe Bernie's proposal is worth looking into. Hearing that Cruz supports it makes me a zillion percent more skeptical of the idea, though. =p

 

It's not like I'm 100% happy with the ACA, either. I'd prefer a universal healthcare system like Canada's. =p But it looks like Obamacare has beaten Trumpcare, at least for now, so I guess we'll just have to live with it. =p

[Chase]

For the time being anyway.

 

The Trump administration and the Republican Congress can always play the dangerous game of neglecting the Affordable Care Act and allowing it to harm Americans without getting it's check-up (ah. Punny.)

 

If the ACA does implode - everyone is at fault. The Democrats gave birth to the thing, and the Republicans let it run wild without supervision.

 

It's almost an equalizer in 2020 if the GOP can make people forget they are now the incumbents.