Discussing health care outside the Supreme Court today, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told ThinkProgress that there “shouldn’t” be a law requiring businesses to cover employees who have cancer because that would “create an obligation” for others. “When you create a right for somebody,” Johnson said, “you create an obligation for somebody else, and then you’re taking away that person’s right.”
In a vacuum, classroom or debating club Johnson’s argument would prevail. If I were teaching would use his ideas to force students to think out of the box. Unfortunately for all of us it’s about to happen in the real world.
The upholding of Obamacare opens the door to a Dickensian world where decisions over when to – or if to – treat somebody will boil down to anonymous functionaries, deep in the bureaucratic bowls of Washington, DC and will not be based on the idea of freedom and limited government but rather on politically driven budget goals. At the same time the 99% lives or dies at the whim of political winds, the 1% will be able to pay for superior care…. Just as in the pre-Roe V. Wade world it was the poor and minorities forced by law to be incubators, while those with means (almost universally white) took a nice little vacation in Switzerland.
Same result, different rationale, far worse though because a free people living with a limited government will always have avenues to prosperity. A people weakened by dependency and limited by the Jackboot of an overbearing government will eventually find all avenues to prosperity closed, assuming that they even retain the desire to do so.
.
.
Loading tweets...
i tried to listen to you on Thom Hartmann today, and i can tell you from experience you do not know how health insurance works in this country. For one thing, we don’t have competition because the 5 major companies bought up all their competition under “W”, ex. look at the small print for Pacific Care, it says UnitedHealthcare. If you broke them up I would agree with you. Also you can’t move from one company to another easily, if you have had any kind of treatment or are receiving care, they won’t sign you, and you can be dropped at anytime. Another I don’t want to pay for freeloaders, who say they don’t need care, then show up at the emergency room, crying for care.
If you were for a “leave on side of road bleeding” bill I would be all for it for you, but I have seen from experience people like you are the biggest cry babies when they have an emergency.
News Flash, you’ve been picking up the tab for “freeloaders” for decades. That particular crop of “freeloaders” would be the illegal aliens showing up at emergency rooms, enrolled in schools and residing in our prisons. You have been paying for them right along and now Obama has openly cleared them to compete with our poorest citizens for the lowest paying jobs.
As for your lament about lack of competition, you, just like Thom make my point for me. The key to repairing our health care costs is MORE not less competition.