Comments about ‘Part 5: Health care — a right?’

Yep. Those mean old conservatives just want to see people dying in the street! Thanks Deseret News for setting us all straight on that!

So are "Rights" paid for by the government? Just, what is a "Right" and why is it a "crises" now verses 5 years, or 10 years ago? If I have a "Right" to carry a gun does that make you financially sssssliable for that "Right"?

If health coverage is a right, so is owning a big screen TV or a new SUV for the winter. I think the government should give me everything else as well.

I'm not sure if I view health care as a right, but I do believe that a compassionate society accepts the responsibility to care for its own. The argument I've heard from conservatives is that the only "true" way to do this is on an ad-hoc, hodge-podge, volunteer basis, where each person contributes to cases they deem desirable and withholds support from cases they deem undesirable, so that care for the needy becomes some kind of sick popularity contest.

I strongly disagree with this viewpoint. Society CAN come together and decide that each member will make a certain contribution toward the well-being of the whole community, and that community members will benefit according to their need and the resources available. We already provide some care to those in need, but we do it in expensive, inefficient, often humiliating ways. We can do better, and in doing so we can significantly reduce costs for everyone.

My wife and I have college degrees. My wife lost her job last month. I was rif by the state due to budget cuts. Cobra is to expensive we can't afford it. It is more costly than what my wife will get from her unemployment insurance monthly. What will you do? on my situation. What did we do wrong? Where is all the tax money that I had pay all this years? Why should I pay taxes if I had nothing back exept to drive in the freeway. What do I want a freeway when I dont have a chance to see a physician when I am sick neither access to medication. This is sick. All of this ignorants talking against changes in the medical care system of this country I bet they don't have medical insurance. Does Mr Hatch has medical insurance? Sure pay by the tax payers money. What a joke.

There are only two kinds of rights.

There are unalienable rights given by God such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Then there are rights given to you by the government, such as A driver's license gives you the right to drive on public roads, or a hunting license allows you to hunt. As such the government can give, and the government can take those away.

Certainly health care is not an unalienable right.

"Society CAN come together and decide that each member will make a certain contribution toward the well-being of the whole community, and that community members will benefit according to their need and the resources available."

Nice. Society can decide that each member has to make a certain contribution. Which commission will decide this? How will they enforce it? How many tax dollars do you think they'll spend on these commissions & enforcements?

I'm sure that would make health care MUCH less expensive.

To "No Medical Insurance" My goodness how people get confused.
First off, I'm sorry about you and your wife losing jobs and insurance; I've been there myself.

But what does your paying taxes, and MY paying taxes all these years have anything to do with your losing health insurance when you lost your job? You GAVE that money to the GOVERNMENT so they could WASTE it. Do we want to give MORE money to the government in HOPES that in their benevolence they'll give us a Wonderful health care system?

Have you seen the abysmal state that Medicaid and Medicare are in?

Of course health care is a right, that's why we mandate hospital emergency rooms treat regardless of the ability to pay. All we're talking about here, with reform, is making this arrangement more reasonable, equitable, and timely. What part of this does Senator Hatch not understand?

Keep your head in the sand if you want. Every other industrialized nation but ours has figured out some system of universal coverage. Guess whose citizens pay through the nose for their health care? That would be us Americans.

We may not pay for commissions, but we pay for insurance companies' marketing, big bonuses to their executives, and dividends to their shareholders. We pay for the inefficiency of several companies all trying to do the same thing and our doctors having to keep all the different billing procedures and plan details straight (and directly related to this, the waste on both ends when procedures have been billed incorrectly). We pay for debt collectors to harrass people with no ability to pay their outlandish bills. We pay for dubious procedures that cover our doctors' butts more often than they provide any material benefit to patients. No commission is that expensive or wasteful.

Every other nation in the world with a standard of living comparable to ours has found one way or another to cover everybody at a cost that is substantially lower per capita than what the average American pays for a year of healthcare.

In your dreams "he will be treated". My son 'fell down on the side walk', he was not 'all right' and was not 'treated' because 'of his ability to pay'. He needed a heart transplant ~$750,000.

If you can not pay for medical care you should not get it! Only those who want something for nothing demand medical care as a right.

So when communists and socialists vote to take your hard earned money and property under the color of law do we have a right to resist violently?

We place police, fire protection and education above the right to health care. If life is not a right, what is?

Why are the bailout capitalists so afraid of Government competition, if they are so wasteful?

Heath care is definitely a right! Who are we to say who can or can't have good health? Who are we to tell people if they can live or die?

This argument is so obvious it seems stupid to me.

To Nic "and if the poor need to die, why let them die, and decrease the surplus population!" You sound just like scrooge.

I tend to see things in simple terms. If I have a choice to vote for people who will raise taxes on coroprate executives who get the mult-million dollar bonuses, in order to ensure that all kids and their hard working parents get health care I will.

We accept that education not only is a right, but is beneficial to society. All the arguments against health care can also be brought education.

We are all in this together. Those of us who have gotten the breaks need to share with those who are on the bottom rungs. I am an engineer, I have a good job. Were it not for public education, who knows where I would be?

We have a right to lower health bills too.

If we are paying more than any other nation for healthcare than we should have the best healthcare.

Instead only the wealthy can afford good healthcare and the rest of us with insurance cannot even get it or afford it.

The United States healthcare overall is rated #34 not #1.

This means we should only be paying less for healthcare than 33 other countries.

The American Consumer is getting ripped off.

The Healthcare system in this country is a Farce Scam!

WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BE GIVEN WHAT WE PAY FOR AND WE ARE NOT GETTING THE RESULTS.

The Constitution does not mention health care as a "right". While it sounds nice, healthcare is not guaranteed under the Constitution.

The governments all controlling approach will drain what's left of the incentive out of medicine. You'll be hard pressed to find a smart kid that will spend 12 years in school only to get out and work for government wages.

Whether or not you have insurance for some personal reason is immaterial and a personal choice. When people can get insurance with a job it is a personal choice to buy it or not and that's the way it should be.

Health care and education is not a right. They are privileges. As a right the state can tax us for education and we only have the right, as citizens, to use these taxes for education, but only for the primary 12 years. Higher education is not included in our constitutuion as taxable and is illegal.

It is unconstituional for citizens to expect government be personal benefactors of government spending or welfare for any reason including health care. Free enterprise and freedom of choice is the right we have as citizens.

There is no comparison of american health care system to other industrialized nations who have at best a low end health care system. And they don't have or pay insurance companies. These other industrialized nations own the health care system, its doctors, hospitals, drug companies that control costs and services. It's not a free market system with individual choices, government chooses care.

I think we need to differentiate on whether health CARE is a right, or heath INSURANCE is a right. If a person is taken to an emergency room, that person will be treated, as it is against the law for them to be denied treatment.

How about my right to have a medical savings plan, in lieu of costly insurance? My right to negotiate with Dr.s on the cost of treatment, or the right of insurance companies to compete state-to-state, nationwide?