Why Trump Won ... Based on Data

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[JE Pettibone]

Ed: Sandy writes " If the way most conservative, right wing Christians want to handle health care in the US were applied to the Bible, I wonder what the price tag would have been on Lazarus' resurrection? Jesus could have made a fortune."

So again Sandy, you over simplify, if Jesus was setting an example for us in your example, why then did he not heal all who where Ill. And keep in mind the cost of his resources, and that he alone paid the price.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

Health care is not a free market commodity, so the free market is not the "enemy." Putting health care into that category puts a price on the ability to save a life, or relieve pain, or access care to improve the quality of life. It means that those with the means and affluence can access the best, while those who don't have those means must sacrifice what little they do have to pay for it, or suffer if they can't come up with it. And that's a morality that is exactly the same as the kind of thinking that says a baby is a mass of cells that is just part of the mother's body, and is not entitled to life if the mother decides it is an inconvenience.

It is unfortunate that most American Christians have bowed to the almighty dollar, and have allowed that to be their savior, or at least, the principle by which they live their life, and have become calloused and hardened toward those who don't share their wealth, or their opinion. The only economic model that is outlined in the scripture is the one that the Jerusalem church used in its early days, and that's not the free market. Try to preach the principles of those scriptures, and you'll find some of the most convoluted, twisted methods of interpreting scripture, and all kinds of exceptions.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Jon Estes]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

Stick with scripture, huh?

There is no place in scripture where getting health care, which is maintaining and preserving life, is seen as an economic commodity with assigned monetary values which people must pay in order to receive it. The "Master Healer," as we often refer to Jesus, never charged for his services, nor did he ever advocate for doing so. Acts 8 contains a pretty good example, and some strong words from Peter, about what the apostles thought of exchanging money for healing. Healing arts, whether its modern medicine or miracles, is a gift from God. At least, from the perspective of the writers of scripture, it is.

I don't see much in scripture about a free market economy either. What I see is that humans are tempted to be selfish and greedy, and any economic system needs to have safeguards in place which keep an eye out for advantages that some will take over others. The rules of "free market" health care in the United States are not anywhere close to being beneficial to those who need the care, and in most cases, not even toward the medical professionals who provide it. Profiteers take advantage of people's fears, pain and desperation. It's interesting that those godless, secular, liberal Europeans recognize this, but conservative Evangelicals in America are perfectly fine with allowing the gouging on life-sustaining care and medicine go on, and happily support the politicians who let it happen.

[KeithE]

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

So, as Christians we have a faith that redeems us and makes us right with God, and provides spiritual influence and guidance for living with principles and precepts which come from Jesus as the Master teacher, but we can separate those principles and place them in the category of our own personal life (our business) but we shouldn't allow those principles to interfere with an open and unrestricted free market economy because if your are blessed with abundance, that must surely be a sign of God's blessing, and if you're not, well, he's just sovereign and that's the way things are. So if you are affluent enough to buy the kind of insurance at a level that allows you access to everything that can be provided, then that's a sign of God's blessing, and if you can't, well, then that's a sign of your spiritual depravity.

That seems to be the argument made here against any kind of attempt to level the playing field, and make health care reasonably accessible to everyone.

I saw a comment about "sticking to scripture" in a thread somewhere. A good, conservative, literal application of Leviticus 25 might be just the ticket.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[Jim]

K: I am a wealthy man (a millionaire actually) who earned salaries+perks in excess of $200K/year when I retired almost 3 years ago now - now living on much less quite comfortably.

I’m a blue-collar pensioner, who took a different career-path: five years of teaching school, 10 years of fulltime “church-work,” and finally a union-bargained job (railroader) that allowed me to send my kids to college…even bought a house at age 43 and paid it out in about 20 years. One church didn’t even pay SS, so I couldn’t, either. You are typical of the liberals who have “made it” and can afford to sermonize about the government being the cradle-to-the-grave guarantor of the good life. You can have anything you want with no actual sacrifice since you have plenty left after taxes to live “quite comfortably.” Despite being on the low rung, I’ve always insisted that those who can make it should do everything legal to make the most and should be able to keep it. After all, virtually the only necessities are realized by everyone – satisfying hunger, thirst and handling the elements. I wish I had made it, too, but don’t regret some choices. I believe that a Medicare-type of health-care for all administered by the insurance companies is the answer, and it will be costly. Your crowd will not have to worry because there will always be plenty left to live “quite comfortably.” The rest will continue to grind-it-out day-by-day…sorta eat cake.

[Sandy]

Other than the fuzzy numbers right wing media, most of the analysis that has been done on various options for universal health care/single payer/government operated insurance and medical care proposals show most options to be much less expensive than the current per-capita cost of insurance and medical care. It's not a reinvention of the wheel, either. Medicare in this country works, the sheer volume of business that it produces ensures that it is widely accepted at the rates it negotiates. There's a model to look at and which could be expanded. Canada's program is also called Medicare, and since it works, and it is difficult for the right wing media in this country to find Canadians who are unhappy with it, you don't hear much about it. Statistically, the quality is comparable to what you find in the US, the pay for health care professionals is a little better, and the per-patient cost is about half of what it is in the US. There are plenty of other examples of successful systems in most industrialized countries.

The health care/insurance "industry" raked in over 3 trillion in 2016, while for-profit health care providers and insurance companies earned a little over 1 trillion in profit, not including "costs" that aren't directly related to medical care (administrative, construction, R & D, advertising). The profits are records under the ACA by the way, dispelling completely the myth that it is "collapsing." Theoretically, if the whole system was switched over to a single payer, government administered program, using the existing infrastructure, it would free up $1.3 trillion into the economy. A FICA payroll deduction of 3-5% would cover the remaining costs of providing care, not counting the savings in "costs".

[Jim]

[Sandy]

You can google anything I've cited here. I figured you wouldn't go to MSNBC anyway.

The question facing Trump now isn't his electoral college win, or even the votes he got. It's whether he and his campaign colluded with a foreign government to do things that altered the outcome of the election, and interfered with the campaign. From what's been presented so far, the question of Russian interference has been settled with evidence that indicates they did interfere. Nor does there seem to be much doubt that there were Trump campaign officials involved, since at least three have been identified and the dollar amounts of the checks paid to at least two of them are known. If there's enough evidence, then those same constitutional provisions you point to will allow for his impeachment and removal from office by a Congress that will do it in a New York minute without looking back.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

Nice quote from Adrian, but has nothing to do with whether health care is a basic human right, or an economic commodity exchanged on the market with pain and suffering as the means of supply and demand.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

Well, that may be a statement that represents Adrian's opinion, or it might require interpreting specifically what is meant by "legislating the wealthy out of freedom," in order to get a clearer understanding, but since I see no scriptural corroboration, and I could come up with a very different argument by quoting scripture, I'll chalk this up to being Adrian's opinion. I still do not see what it has to do with any discussion about health care as a basic human right.

I have an idea that what you are insinuating is that any kind of universal health care proposal automatically means something which will take money from those who work, and use it to provide all kinds of benefits for those who don't. That's always the line used to disqualify or eliminate any such proposal. What we have now is a system in which those who work are tapped out in premium and health care service costs that take right at half of what we pay to cover the dividends that get paid off the top. That means that literally half of what we pay for insurance and medical care is not going toward our insurance or our medical care. I was always taught that taking someone's money without providing anything in return was stealing.

I don't see any health care plan proposals that simply ask the government to take the cost of health care out of their tax dollars, and use that to pay only for those who don't work. What I see are plans which take the massive amount of money we now overpay for health care and insurance, and either subtract it by changing the way it is administered, putting it in a single payer program, and letting the government administer it the same way they do medicare. That leaves plenty of money for the providers, especially for those trained in the medical profession, and would allow a trillion dollars a year to flow back into the economy elsewhere. The witholding "tax" would be about half of what the average person now pays in health insurance premiums, and would no longer have to include medicare tax.