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This video’s been making the rounds already, but as I was out of commission for part of last week, I’m just now watching it. And let me tell you, this girl is my new hero!
Exit question: will any politician be man enough to actually take her up on her offer and show themselves for the filthy thief they are?
Hat Tip: Hot Air
Kevin M says: I admire her spunk, and her point was well made. However, that was the same kind of street theatrics we have come to know and loathe from the left.
Just because I agree with her philosophically doesn’t mean I have to admire her tactics. It was a cheap shot.
sonja says: No, I very much disagree with this take on universal healthcare. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I live in a country which already practices universal care, but perhaps not.
We pay taxes anyway, and everyone in their life will need to access healthcare, so why not make it universal? Why not use our tax money to keep ourselves and others healthy and well?
It already gets spent on the roadways, the public libraries, public schooling and so on, so why is universal healthcare so reviled by so many?
Kevin M says: @Sonja: I don’t know which way the planet turns in your country, but in the US (and I worked in a Boston hospital for 6 years), the number of people who completely fuck up their lives (drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, a danger-riddled lifestyle, a 100% carbohydrate diet, etc., etc.) would mean that well over 40%–easily well over that amount–would be devoted to trying to keep “slow suicides” alive.
That isn’t my idea of a well-ordered society. When you work in a hospital in a major city, you’ll change your tune.
Case in point: Do you know what a cancer ward smells like?
Cigarette smoke! People who are on death’s door get their friends to smuggle them cigarettes while they’re hooked up on oxygen!
If you want to pay for that, you go right ahead.
Agree with Keli, agree with Cassy, disagree with Kevin on the theatrics, disagree like the dickens with Sonja.
Sonja, if you’re serious, then how about food? We need food to live. Why not make that a right. Am I using an unfair straw-man argument? If so, then how so? What’s the meaningful difference? Your argument is one of precedent, my argument is one of where-does-it-stop. If you say a line has to be drawn someplace between health care and food, then I see absolutely no reason why the line shouldn’t be drawn before health care and I’ll bet you can’t give me one.
I hereby nominate “Taking Carender’s Twenty” as a new political slogan cliche. It makes as much sense as any of the others, and “Keli Carender” should become a well-known household name. As should “Cassy Fiano” but that’s a whole different story, of course.
as Kevin and Morgan have already said…I’ll agree with that.
Also, there’s no way we can pay for all of that. We’d break ourselves financially in 30 years (or less). We already have runaway spending as it is (and China’s holding all of our debts over our heads because they keep buying it up…sooner of later they’ll collect, but that’s another story for another time) As for your univeral health care, Sonja, I’m assuming you’re living in Canada (though it could be Britain). Guess what? Canada’s vaunted health care system is imploding. They’re running out of money. Maybe you want to pay taxes through the nose, but I don’t. I just don’t feel like paying for someone else’s chronic irresponsibility.
sonja says: I’m in Australia, for what it’s worth. Ultimately, I’m an idealist, so when it comes to the ‘hopeless’ drug addicts who ruin their own lives, I don’t see a lost cause. I even knew a girl who wound up in the local hospital psych ward due to her drug habits, but even knowing my tax money is being spent on her doesn’t bother me.
The single-payer system doesn’t just help those who won’t help themselves, it helps those who CAN’T help themselves, too. The elderly, like my grandmother who crushed her L1 vertebra last year. The children and babies, people in workplace accidents… the list goes on.
Morgan: Yes, we do need food to live. Have you never given to charity? Ever handed over some tinned beans to a local charity so others might live? The biggest difference is cost. A life-saving operation can cost thousands of dollars. Having enough food for a week…
People who don’t use the roads pay for them. People whose kids are privately educated still pay for public schools. Explain to me again why this is so different?
Sonja,
“I’m in Australia, for what it’s worth.”
Ok, Australia, close enough…it’s the Commonwealth…essentially the same thing…
“Ultimately, I’m an idealist, so when it comes to the ‘hopeless’ drug addicts who ruin their own lives, I don’t see a lost cause.”
Well, I’m a realist, and I say that someone who screws up their own life voluntarily should have the responsibility to accept consequences for their own actions. Why exactly should I, being totally responsible, have to pay for someone who’s being chronically and consistently irresponsible? I don’t see lost causes either, but the person should at least own up to their actions.
“I even knew a girl who wound up in the local hospital psych ward due to her drug habits, but even knowing my tax money is being spent on her doesn’t bother me.”
Well good for you. And I’m kinda glad that we actually were able to wrest ourselves over 200 years ago from the silly examples that Britain provides. If you really think that, then I can’t really explain it to you. It’s an independence thing.
“The single-payer system doesn’t just help those who won’t help themselves, it helps those who CAN’T help themselves, too. The elderly, like my grandmother who crushed her L1 vertebra last year. The children and babies, people in workplace accidents… the list goes on.”
Ok, but see, the difference is that hospitals here are required by law to take people in if they are injured. They can’t be turned away. Therefore, your point is pretty invalid. That’s why when you go to a hospital here, it’s outrageous paymentwise. Because those of us who go there to get treatment are paying for those who are unwilling or more importantly, unable to pay for their care. This is why the “you’ll see people dying in the streets” is such a bullshit argument. No one (at least as far as non-conservatives are concerned) takes what I just stated into the equation. The solution in that situation is to not go to the hospital (or or any kind of care clinic for that matter). That way you avoid the costs. With single payer, you can’t avoid it no matter what the situation is.
In any case, you’ve fallen into the same trap that the Commonwealth countries have all done: you’ve had it for so long that you cannot possibly wean yourselves off of it. You’re already, in many ways, slaves to the government. That’s what we’re trying to avoid here: becoming government zombies…
“Morgan: Yes, we do need food to live. Have you never given to charity? Ever handed over some tinned beans to a local charity so others might live? The biggest difference is cost. A life-saving operation can cost thousands of dollars. Having enough food for a week…”
Ah, but charity is a choice and most Americans are very charitable by nature. What bugs conservative Americans is that they will be forced to pay into a system that they would usually help out through charity. See the difference?: choice vs. coercion.
“People who don’t use the roads pay for them. People whose kids are privately educated still pay for public schools. Explain to me again why this is so different?”
Bullcrap. Almost everyone uses some form of roads. They pay for the paving and maintenence. Otherwise they’d fall apart. That’s just common sense. As for education, to be honest, I’d love to see a system where the people pay for their own education. If you go private, then you pay private. If you go public, then you pay public. I suspect if that were ever to happen, you’d see our educational system improve dramatically. Right now, it’s shit because we just throw money at it.
Your solution is to just tax the problem away. That’s not very good economics. All you’ll do is break yourself financially (which BTW is what Canada’s very close to doing with their health care system now). We didn’t become the richest country in the world by taxing the ever-living shit out of our citizens. But we’ll bankrupt ourselves very quickly if we choose to follow the Commonwealth path.
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