Do some people not live in reality?

Question

When it comes to health care lots of people say "Let them buy their own".. and heck, if they can afford it sure, why not... but not everyone can afford such a thing.. I spend 2 years working with troubled teens.. and do you know the places these kids came from? they LITERALLY had DIRT floors in their houses.. i say houses.. they were more like shacks... tell me these families can afford a penny to anything else when they can hardly get by as it is.. we may be an advanced nation.. but not all of our people as well of as you and I sitting here chatting on our computers.

Answer 1

People who live in shack with dirt floors probably cannot afford condoms or birth control pills, either. And with no cable or computers, what else do they have to do all night?

No matter how a child was brought into this world, that child deserves a chance to grow up, get an education, be healthy and safe. By refusing poor children medical care just because their parent's are poor, you are only perpetuating the cycle of ignorance and poverty.

Although, judging by the reactions to this question, there are plenty of ignorant people who DO have computers.

I don't think it is the role of government to support indigent people who refuse to work, can't get off the drugs, and don't care about themselves. But why should we punish the kids for their parents' failures?

Answer 2

It's not like rich people are sitting in ivory recliners and thumbing through hundred dollar bills to use as napkins. The issue isn't about people not caring for less fortunate or even worse, the issue is paying for it. A lot of people are proposing a nationalized healthcare system, and while the idea is a nice one and nobody wants to see the less fortunate suffer illness on a grand scale, we still have to pay for this.

The only way to pay for government sponsored programs are through tax dollars, and our tax system is already an absolute mess. You see how much money is wasted all the time, like that "bridge to nowhere" news bit that came out last summer. How in the world can we afford a new program--and one that's on a much larger scale than anything else we've propsed recently--when we can't even control the money we already contribute to the tax system? Heck, even war funding is all over the news EVERYDAY, and can you cite one example where the costs are broken down? Do you know for sure that all of that money that's come out of all of our pockets is even going to the military? How many times do we hear about legislation that gets snuck into the last page of a 400+ page proposal that no one will read anyways?

Add to that the fact that what we pay in these new taxes will have to cover 300+ million people, how much do you think taxes will go up? Even when the government tries to lessen the blow to taxpayers, you can bet that the quality of care is going to lessen. I mean, how can you think that taking a system built for individuals and catering it to 299,999,999 more people is going to be a smooth and cost-free transition?

I agree that we can't let other human beings teeter on the edge of death because they can't afford simple shots and prescriptions, but there has to be a better way than just adding another tax to an already broken system.

Answer 3

Cost per head for healthcare in England, Japan, and most of original EU countries is lower than that in US. Further, life expectancy is longer and infant mortality is lower in those countries too.

What I love are those here who decry any sort of social contract (read Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke, people) and equate shared cost burden with communism. They augment their argument with the specious claim that the US health system is the "best in the world" (stated in the 5/3 Republican debate).

And so I ask - if the US system is the world's best, why is NO other industrialized country doing anything at all to dismantle their own systems and emulate the current US model?

Answer 4

1) Why does someone's lack of wealth entitle him to take someone else's?

2) Again - troubled TEENS. How much medical care do you need when you're 19? Not much. When you're in your 40s, 50s - more - - and guess what, the vast majority of people make a lot more in their 40s and 50s, a multiple of what they made in their late teens.

A lot of us grew up poor. I don't know if you could call my upbringing poor but it was definitely lower middle class - a house but with no heat in half of it and on a busy street in a crappy neighborhood, a school in a neighborhood where it's too dangerous to take my kids there now, not dirt floors but linoleum, and hamburger helper for dinner a few nights a week, soup some other nights - a far cry from my life now. And I busted my butt to make that jump. And the BLS numbers are pretty clear, I'm the rule, not the exception.

The "reality" is there are 20-25 million illegal immigrants in the US, none of whom have health insurance because it's illegal to provide it to them.

That means even if the estimate of people without health insurance, which a year ago was 35 million, is now truthfully 40 million, only 15-20 million of them are US citizens. So give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's 20 million - that's 20 million out of 280 million US citizens.

1 out of 14.

1 out of 14 is NOT a crisis!!!!!

Alias nobody's looking to emulate our low minimum wage model either even though it results in our having half the unemployment rate of the countries in question (France and Germany).

Answer 5

Everyone lives in reality. Some people just don't care, others just don't know.

I tend to lean to the left. However, these people raising babies on a dirt floor in the US? I don't see any reason to get them healthcare. If you can't find a way to take care of your family in the US then, well, I don't know. That's pretty bad. We could use that healthcare money on unfortunate people in Haiti or Africa. Then again it's not like I'm going to change anybodies mind. Everybody has their own opinion.

Answer 6

They simply don't care.Poor ill,and disadvantaged are ALL lazy bums who should get of their butts and start to work like real Americans do.That's what they repeat to themselves and others until they believe it.
You can't see the numbers of extreme poverty in the richest country in the world,The United States of America,accept the reality that's it's not all their own fault and still have a conscience and enjoy your wealth.That's why they CHOOSE the delusion,it helps them sleep at night and allows them to continue to call themselves Christians.

Answer 7

Ah, the sour smell of hypocrisy, the only thing that beats that smell is the smell of napalm in the morning. It's hard to help our own when so much money goes to destroying another country only to rebuild it. Most people are blind to others needs, we seem to only care about ourselves. If you can't give money, give your time to help others. Habitat rocks.

Answer 8

Well.I had to work my way up. I 've worked in factories. I 've worked 2 jobs at a time ,even when I was exhausted. In my state there's Medicaid and Welfare for the poor. Section 8 housing,etc.

Answer 9

Well the people here are so well cared for that theyre not only the first to complain, but theyre also the last to believe that not everyone has it like that.

Answer 10

Well check things out and see what you can do to make a difference for those children that are living in these situations, involve people,get sponsor's,you make a difference!