Does the child of an investment banker deserve better health care than the child of a mechanic?

Question

Oprah's question, not mine, but I just want to see what answers are here. Studies are showing that mortality rates are higher for lower income families due to poor or no health insurance in the United States. Those who do not believe in government sponsored health care are failing to come up with any answers, just criticisms of a government system. What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

I find this one of the most laughable arguments that people like to sling when pointing the finger defending the bogus system we already have.
I am Native American and I get free health-care through my tribal clinic. This has hardly made me a socialist. My health care is good! my prescriptions free!
How come the rest of the country is not being looked out for, for all the money we keep paying in to the government?
I'll tell you why. No politician wants to tell their sacred cash-cow (the pharmaceutical companies) they are no longer going to be a controlling power broker in this country.

Its like a revolving door watching Pharmaceutical executives leave their companies for a short spell to enter into government offices like: the FDA, Department of agriculture and EPA.
Those facts are all there for anyone who wants to look them up on the net.

This is another reason why you see the witch doctor medicine of today treat symptoms and not find cures...there is no money in cures.

Answer 2

There are so many factors to consider, but if studies show that income is reflected in mortality rates it could show that lifestyle has a big factor as well does the quality of the type of insurance that is available for each one. I used to be a lib and would have welcomed care for all, but being the working poor for most of my life, as well as being a single mother, and raising my son without any kind of help from the government, I see it differently now. Parents need to take responsibility for their children and this type of aid will only let parents use the money that they should be paying for health care go to dining out, new cars, and vacations and such. If you were to look at say those that would be eligible for this aid you would find that most if not all have two cars, cable TV, and eat out often and take vacations often. I bet they would also have large credit card debt, and live was beyond their means. I have family members that have health care available with their jobs, but do not get it because the premiums are too great, so their families go uncovered, but they have two new cars, remodeled homes and vacations yearly at the very least. So when we cover their health care we are just subsidizing their lifestyle

PS> I used to be a cashier at a Chevy dealership, I don't think they made as much as a banker, but I would bet the money they made was more than enough to cover their families health care, what they charged was more like highway robbery than minumm wage

Answer 3

I honestly don't have a grand opinion on this going in, but since I have some training in business and economics, let me brainstorm....

I guess you are implying that unlike other uses of the Investment Banker's money, he shouldn't be able to purchase better quality health services by spending more of it?

Economically speaking of course :)

OK let's look into that.

Somehow, that would mean that health coverage is enough of a special case that we would try to distort the open market for it and it alone because we have decided it is important for the benefit of society.

So, now that we have reframed the question, what would we have in such a world?

Well, if more money couldn't buy better health care, then that means the quality of all health care would be exactly the same, right?

It also means that the amount of money people were wiling to pay (and doctors are willing to accept) would be enough for the doctors to make a living they want to make.

And that no additional amount of money could act as an incentive to either attract potentially better doctors to the field, or for existing doctors to imporve their skills (violating the principal that all have equal quality).

All of this is contrary to the rest of our entire economy's principles and I don't see how it could be done.

I know Canada and others have socialized medicine, and I don't know how they address these economic issues.

I am not familiar with their details, but it is my impression that Canadian medical quality is more consistent if not unifrom.

Because doctors do not need to be as entrepreneurial as here inthe US, overall the delivery of medicine is less sophisticated as an organization that evolves.

And also, both the lowest level of quality and the best level of quality that you will find in the US are not available.

What would be interesting to know is if the proverbial Canadian Investment Banker will come to the US when he needs bettter quality or more specialized care then would be available in Canada but *is* available outside Canada?

I think he would, or truth be told, at least the best American medical care is available to him, but not to all Canadians, and so the example that Canada's system is somehow more equitable because the rich can't get better care with their own money would be a fallacy.

Just some thoughts, sans emotion, from an economic point of view, in what is usually presented aas an emotional and political topic.

Answer 4

The government of this country has a program in place to provide health insurance to people who do not make enough to provide health insurance for their children. It is called the SCHIP program. It provides insurance to the working poor on a sliding scale. These are people with incomes up to $30,000 dollars a year. (Most mechanics make considerablely more than that, they are very highly paid they just get dirty at work.) President Bush has already raised the amount of money in the SCHIP program, what he vetoed was increasing the amount of money to cover people who make up to $80,000 a year and would insure children up to the age of 25. (Don't know about you but 25 is not a child.)
However, the problem I have heard is that people who are eligible are not signing up for the program. There have been various reasons given for this. The biggest one is the pride people have in providing for their own.
What should we do? Most counties in this country have a public health care system. This program should be expanded. It is not that I don't want my tax dollars used for health care it is just that I don't want the federal government to do this. The feds are too loose with my money and the folks at the county level are close enough to feel the voters wrath if they waste our tax dollars.
Another thing that would help is if teaching hospitals saw more patients. The patients could pay on a sliding scale. This would be a win/win situation as the doctors to be would get more practice and the patients would be getting state of the art care at a price they could afford.
Lastly, malpractice lawsuits. I do not have a problem with a harmed patient receiving money to cover the original problem plus the problem the doctor caused through the wrong treatment or no treatment. I do have a problem with that patient becoming wealthy off this doctor's mistake. Needless to say the award should also cover reasonable attorney's fees. The lawyers do not need to become wealthy off the doctors either.

Answer 5

These arguments are always so bogus - you want to us to assume that Little Sally mechanics daughter is living in squalor and dying of scurvy while the Little Johnny the bankers son is eating bon bon and getting treated for disease he doesn't even have!

It's crap. Health insurance is available to all children through SCHIP if the income is below a certain amount. Many companies offer health insurance as a benefit - but you have to pay a portion. The issue is that people will pay for cable, internet, new cars, big TV's - but they don't want to make a co-pay for freakin health insurance! That is the FIRST damn bill that should be at the top of the pay category each pay day! My daughter works RETAIL PART TIME and is offered health insurance, but she'd have to pay a portion of the premium (about $200 a month). She has the option - and she knows that health insurane is extremely important - but luckily she is a college student and covered under our insurance (which we pay a hell of alot more for than $200 a month!). She would take the insurance in a heartbeat if she was not covered - and she would adjust her living around a necessary bill!
The tear jerker garbage is ridiculous - the "haves" as people would like to think those who have health insurance and good income didn't get their with their thumb up their butt whining about how unfair the world is. They got off their butt and made their way in the world.

Answer 6

Oprah likes to talk about children. I don't know why exactly.

It's not a question of merit; it never has been. It's a question of who can afford it. And it's also a question of fairly compensating doctors who incur staggering tuition bills, and then staggering malpractice premiums every year after graduation. They can't charge what they're worth because the insurance carriers won't pay.

But bad as things are, the government screws up everything it gets its greedy little hands on. I have no confidence in the government's ability to fix health care in the US.

So when I get the tumor that will eventually kill me, it's good-bye Charley!

Answer 7

Health Care programs are all different. Some plans have broader coverage than others which make some plans more expensive than others.

From what I've seen, some mechanics today make as much or more than an investment banker and they could afford a better plan.

As with all things today it's about the $$$$. If you've got the $$$$ you'll have better than most and not as much as some others.

Answer 8

Your question, Oprah's question in your spurious disclaimer, is loaded and you well know it.

You imply that in the interest of "fairness" that lower income people deserve national health care and throw in the ever-emotionally charged issue of the "children suffering."

Why not simply ask how long someone has been beating their mother? "Oh, not long" and "Oh quite a while" are equally damning answers to a pre-loaded response necessitated by such an inquiry as that, and so is the case with your inquiry.

Why not instead ask why the more productive members of society who statistically speaking have eschewed unfettered breeding in favor of advancing education, career and productivity, should be obliged to pay for the profligate lifestyles of an underclass who have children they cannot afford to support with critical amenities like health care?

The answer does not lie in why the productive class is not doing more to address the problem. It lies in why the less productive class is creating the problem in the first place. Take some personal responsibility!

Answer 9

"Deserve"? What an odd choice of wording. It's really not meaningful in the debate, IMO. And shame on Oprah for continuing the idiotic emotionalization of the issue.

It's not about "deserving" better care or not. That's for over-emotional dimwits to whine about.

The issue is about the proper Constitutional role of the federal government with regards to extra-Constitutional excursions into the areas of health care or health insurance.

The framers of the Constitution were quite clear on the point that the Constitution did not allow for charity or welfare, that such things were the province of state government.

"Deserve" is a bullsquat argument that avoids the issue.

Answer 10

Health care, as Michael Moore showed in his movie Sicko, is a privilege for the privileged. If you trust a multi-billion dollar corporations with your health care (which nearly all American do) then we're putting our lives in the hands of these corporations. A corporation, no matter it's service, is about money. Even a health care organization is not focused of making you healthy, they're focused on making money and becoming bigger and more powerful.

If the question is about ethics, than certainly not. All human beings are unique and beautiful, and all of us deserve the highest quality of care regardless of social class or income. When greed, power, and money outweigh human life than we know we have serious problems. If people demanded a universal health care system (like England, France, Canada, and Cuba) then we would have it. Complacency is what allows those corrupt few to make decisions that directly affect us all.

Then we have the skeptics saying universal health care is bad because we shouldn't trust the government with our health. They may point at public education as an example. That's because the government purposely provides inferior services to make private companies look better by contrast. Why would they do that one may ask? Our government is not a sentient being, it's merely people collected together making decisions. Who are these people? Businessmen. And these businessmen want to ensure their side-business thrive and succeed. Even our vice president Dick Cheney's Carlyle Group owns Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins.