It's fallacious to argue that we should adopt a system because all other industrialized countries have it (specifically, the Ad Populum fallacy). While socialized medicine is probably better than the American system, which is essentially fascist, a free market system is greatly superior to the socialized model, and worked well before the 60's, when the corporations bought the politicians, and the system.
P.S. I'm not a republican, nor am I a democrat, I'm an anarchist.
@ICTN218 These are lives we are talking about, leave the free market out of it. I'm from Detroit, and A LOT of people in the area need this. In a place with enough problems of its own, people are being crippled (pun intended) economically by simply trying to be able to afford their medication.. Medication that is being sold at a fraction of the cost in other places (like cuba.) All while there is a sensationally high number of people who cant afford insurance who are just screwed
I definitely wouldn't deny that the American system is a disaster, but I'm simply suggesting an alternative solution. Right now, costs are high because corporations buy politicians, who enact regulations to restrict competition, creating near-monopolistic conditions, where the prices can be increased. The solution is to eliminate the regulations, so competition can drive the prices down.
Also, it's worth noting that most of those who are uninsured can afford it, but choose not to.
I'd like to add that the primary reason for which I advocate free markets (and consequently, anarchy) is not the utilitarian justifications which I give here, but it is the argument that taxation is theft. Since the universal healthcare system (AND the fascist American model) is funded via taxation, i.e. theft, I reject it.
Appeal to Etymology, the etymology of a word has no bearing on the position of one who uses the word; if anything, I should simply purport to be a progressive here. I could just as easily call myself a 'happinessist' and say that if you support the state, you are against happiness; this is, of course, fallacious.
So what you're saying is that we should eliminate regulation so that all insurance companies will be making so much money, they wont have any incentive to be penny pinchers which will drive down prices..
Keeping the healthcare system as a business incentive merely keeps America's health (or lack of) a loss of 'profit'. Socialized Medicine is just promising the right for treatment unanimously.
You're making the assumption that regulation substantially lowers prices. The reality is that regulations reduce competition by creating barriers to entry, giving the paucity of remaining healthcare companies the capability to raise prices without worrying as much about competing businesses undercutting them. In the system I advocate, if a company stopped caring about increasing profits and raised their prices, they'd lose all of their customers to competitors who charged less.
Of course businesses will profit more if more people are sick, but how is that relevant? Remember, if they intentionally make people get sick, they are criminals in an anarchist society for initiating force or fraud.
Perhaps it does grant everyone treatment, but in a free market, almost everybody would be able to afford healthcare as well; the high prices today are a result of regulations. Better yet, the healthcare would be of higher quality and would not necessitate theft.
Personally I have a problem with letting big businesses try to take my money when I'm unwell.
I also have a fundamental problem with allowing a society to exist that doesn't provide healthcare if people can't afford it. Healthcare should be a fundamental thing that every single person should be getting, regardless of wealth. I like the concept of national healthcare. I like the idea that everybody contributes a small amount to the system, and everybody also benefits from it. It's more fair.
like medicare and medicaid except for not everybody also benefits from it. medicare have to wait to 65.medicaid have to be in a certain income bracket. funny thing is, every working person pays for someone's healthcare ,just paying for it down the road. but nobody complains about that. SPH should be a option
Everybody contributes a small amount? I had a French friend of mine visit not too long ago, and he said that the French pay half of their earnings in taxes (give or take), a majority of which is to support the national healthcare and on top of that the need to pay for a private insurance to supplement what the government healthcare doesn't cover.
Healthcare is not a fundamental right because it undermines the rights of those providing it and undermines the rights the US and UK were founded on.
Should food and clothing be fundamental? How about housing? If healthcare is fundamental shouldn't these things be as well? No, because we live in society where work and effort give way to progress, income and stability. More people have been helped through the charity of the free market than ever were helped through any form of socialized government.
Work and effort gives way to progress? Hardly. Sometimes, work and effort gives way to minimum wage and a job with no prospects. Sometimes, absolutely no effort gives way to managing a large corporation (or inheriting it). It has nothing to do with work and effort. Quite often the bottom end jobs are much harder, and much less pleasant, than the top end ones. Work and effort does not automatically equal progress and income. That's the main issue here. Capitalism is far from perfect.
Please explain further on what you mean by a "responsibility."
My point wasn't on how to make health care cheaper, for health care shouldn't cost any more than what (work) the recipient has put into his community and nation. A federal government sole purpose is to establish law and order; policies that are beneficial to the majority, respectively everyone that's a citizen. It is not the place for corporations or the market to figure out who can "afford" to live well.
The major flaw in your argument against the Free Market and Government is that the people in Government are usually not smart enough to do anything more than get elected.
The problem is, the "solutions" they enact 90% or more of the time cause more problems then the problems they are enacted to solve. Also, it's usually a problem THEY created that they're trying to solve.
It's idiotic to think that people like Pelosi, Reed, Franks and Obama can do anything effective.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
Letting Government do anything with health care will do what it has done in the past: Make it more expensive and less efficient. Is that what you want?
The Free Market works without force. It convinces. It cannot MAKE you buys something. The government FORCES you. In Mass, they fine you if you don't buy insurance. That's the model Obama is using. It's flawed and evil. LEARN, for phucks sake. You're a Democrat now, but you were a person once. Try to remember what that was like.
The Free Market is a myth, it doesn't exist, it never existed, it is just a talking point from the ultra wealthy to keep the working class down, and themselves up.
We're dems/progressives because we are people, and care about our fellow man.
In the early `20's, there was a depression. Coolidge, following the Constitution and common sense (something of which Dems have little), let the Free Market do its thing, and the depression (coincidentally caused by government intervention) went away.
If you think that we in the LP don't care, you're an idiot. We care more. We know the government is a dangerous thing that must be controlled (the Constitution). Business has natural controls. We need LESS, not more government.
Garyrg, why'd you remove the comment to my comment? This is what you wrote: "So why then, do they live longer than Americans, and have a lower infant mortality rate? "
Check the way they gather statistics. That'll give you your answer. Or, have you done that, and that's why you removed your comment. I've lived in England and Canada. Trust me... You know nothing.
This idiot is a disaster. In countries where health care is a right, England and Canada especially, you'll wait till you may die to get care. And if you get into a hospital ER with a disease, you'll come out with more than one.
Don't be fooled by Sen. Bernie Sanders rhetoric. He does not know the facts. It is government that has driven up costs in this country. We have the best health care system and it's being ruined by government.
We need to post this video everywhere. The corporate media is only telling people about the Ted Kennedy, Mitt Romney style bill which requires everyone to buy a corporate health insurance policy.
This guy is a self-proclaimed socialist. Look it up. He cites the sources that support his point of view, but there are plenty of others that spotlight healthcare in the USA as the best in the world.
To hear Bernie tell it, letting the government run healthcare will save us money by reducing the bureaucracy.
Rrrriiiiiggghhhtttt....that's what usually happens when gov't runs things, eh?
Do your own research, people. And be aware of the background of those who sell you their opinion.
@ctown The World Health Org. supports Sanders. The existing US model has been tested and failed by most standards of the industrialized world.
Gov. run healthcare is not being advocated - you are either ignorant or disingenuous. Under singlepayer, healthcare SERVICE remains PRIVATE. Healthcare PAYMENT would be single-source, non-profit.
In 2006, 1 out of 700 healthcare $ went to a single ins. CEO. That is no framework for success. Please take your failed ideas & get out of the way.
Health care is not a privilege, its a necessity to life and when we boast a form of government that is supported by it's people, keeping the people alive is common sense. It should not be a question of profits.
It is government that has driven up the costs of health care. I've worked in health care and I know what it's like to deal with government workers, most of whom could not deal with working in the private sector. They're used to using the power of government to get their way, even when their way is the wrong one.
With all due respect, grow up and realize that government is at best a necessary evil.
I don't disagree that government officials have flaws, but you're talking about "government" as though its a sentient being, which is very distracting to the argument.
Nothing good ever follows such lines as, "with all due respect...." :(
Why so quick to call government "evil?" Is it really an absolute evil, or could it be a possible good?
Awesome speech Bernie, wish you could get it out to everyone. Of course we know that the folks that own these health care companies are interconnected to the folks that own the media. At least we know where your heart is.
let's go Bernie!
jim80NES 1 year ago
@avebabe
It's fallacious to argue that we should adopt a system because all other industrialized countries have it (specifically, the Ad Populum fallacy). While socialized medicine is probably better than the American system, which is essentially fascist, a free market system is greatly superior to the socialized model, and worked well before the 60's, when the corporations bought the politicians, and the system.
P.S. I'm not a republican, nor am I a democrat, I'm an anarchist.
ICTN218 2 years ago
Comment removed
avebabe 2 years ago
@ICTN218 These are lives we are talking about, leave the free market out of it. I'm from Detroit, and A LOT of people in the area need this. In a place with enough problems of its own, people are being crippled (pun intended) economically by simply trying to be able to afford their medication.. Medication that is being sold at a fraction of the cost in other places (like cuba.) All while there is a sensationally high number of people who cant afford insurance who are just screwed
avebabe 2 years ago
I definitely wouldn't deny that the American system is a disaster, but I'm simply suggesting an alternative solution. Right now, costs are high because corporations buy politicians, who enact regulations to restrict competition, creating near-monopolistic conditions, where the prices can be increased. The solution is to eliminate the regulations, so competition can drive the prices down.
Also, it's worth noting that most of those who are uninsured can afford it, but choose not to.
ICTN218 2 years ago
I'd like to add that the primary reason for which I advocate free markets (and consequently, anarchy) is not the utilitarian justifications which I give here, but it is the argument that taxation is theft. Since the universal healthcare system (AND the fascist American model) is funded via taxation, i.e. theft, I reject it.
ICTN218 2 years ago
As an anarchist, i guess you're against progressivism as well.. Meaning you're against society making any forward progress.
avebabe 1 year ago
@avebabe
Appeal to Etymology, the etymology of a word has no bearing on the position of one who uses the word; if anything, I should simply purport to be a progressive here. I could just as easily call myself a 'happinessist' and say that if you support the state, you are against happiness; this is, of course, fallacious.
ICTN218 1 year ago
So what you're saying is that we should eliminate regulation so that all insurance companies will be making so much money, they wont have any incentive to be penny pinchers which will drive down prices..
Keeping the healthcare system as a business incentive merely keeps America's health (or lack of) a loss of 'profit'. Socialized Medicine is just promising the right for treatment unanimously.
avebabe 1 year ago
@avebabe
You're making the assumption that regulation substantially lowers prices. The reality is that regulations reduce competition by creating barriers to entry, giving the paucity of remaining healthcare companies the capability to raise prices without worrying as much about competing businesses undercutting them. In the system I advocate, if a company stopped caring about increasing profits and raised their prices, they'd lose all of their customers to competitors who charged less.
ICTN218 1 year ago
@avebabe
Of course businesses will profit more if more people are sick, but how is that relevant? Remember, if they intentionally make people get sick, they are criminals in an anarchist society for initiating force or fraud.
Perhaps it does grant everyone treatment, but in a free market, almost everybody would be able to afford healthcare as well; the high prices today are a result of regulations. Better yet, the healthcare would be of higher quality and would not necessitate theft.
ICTN218 1 year ago
Finally...there is someone with a spine...I hope this man would consider running for President in 2012.
ilovemycat00 2 years ago
Personally I have a problem with letting big businesses try to take my money when I'm unwell.
I also have a fundamental problem with allowing a society to exist that doesn't provide healthcare if people can't afford it. Healthcare should be a fundamental thing that every single person should be getting, regardless of wealth. I like the concept of national healthcare. I like the idea that everybody contributes a small amount to the system, and everybody also benefits from it. It's more fair.
TheNeonKnight 2 years ago 11
like medicare and medicaid except for not everybody also benefits from it. medicare have to wait to 65.medicaid have to be in a certain income bracket. funny thing is, every working person pays for someone's healthcare ,just paying for it down the road. but nobody complains about that. SPH should be a option
ellmc95 2 years ago 5
Everybody contributes a small amount? I had a French friend of mine visit not too long ago, and he said that the French pay half of their earnings in taxes (give or take), a majority of which is to support the national healthcare and on top of that the need to pay for a private insurance to supplement what the government healthcare doesn't cover.
Healthcare is not a fundamental right because it undermines the rights of those providing it and undermines the rights the US and UK were founded on.
breakinthebend 2 years ago
Should food and clothing be fundamental? How about housing? If healthcare is fundamental shouldn't these things be as well? No, because we live in society where work and effort give way to progress, income and stability. More people have been helped through the charity of the free market than ever were helped through any form of socialized government.
CDubSD 2 years ago
Work and effort gives way to progress? Hardly. Sometimes, work and effort gives way to minimum wage and a job with no prospects. Sometimes, absolutely no effort gives way to managing a large corporation (or inheriting it). It has nothing to do with work and effort. Quite often the bottom end jobs are much harder, and much less pleasant, than the top end ones. Work and effort does not automatically equal progress and income. That's the main issue here. Capitalism is far from perfect.
TheNeonKnight 2 years ago
Please explain further on what you mean by a "responsibility."
My point wasn't on how to make health care cheaper, for health care shouldn't cost any more than what (work) the recipient has put into his community and nation. A federal government sole purpose is to establish law and order; policies that are beneficial to the majority, respectively everyone that's a citizen. It is not the place for corporations or the market to figure out who can "afford" to live well.
PopeKurt 2 years ago
The major flaw in your argument against the Free Market and Government is that the people in Government are usually not smart enough to do anything more than get elected.
The problem is, the "solutions" they enact 90% or more of the time cause more problems then the problems they are enacted to solve. Also, it's usually a problem THEY created that they're trying to solve.
It's idiotic to think that people like Pelosi, Reed, Franks and Obama can do anything effective.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
That sounds more like an argument against the value of reforms, and a call for revolutionary political action, than a rebuttal to my point.
PopeKurt 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Letting Government do anything with health care will do what it has done in the past: Make it more expensive and less efficient. Is that what you want?
The Free Market works without force. It convinces. It cannot MAKE you buys something. The government FORCES you. In Mass, they fine you if you don't buy insurance. That's the model Obama is using. It's flawed and evil. LEARN, for phucks sake. You're a Democrat now, but you were a person once. Try to remember what that was like.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
The Free Market is a myth, it doesn't exist, it never existed, it is just a talking point from the ultra wealthy to keep the working class down, and themselves up.
We're dems/progressives because we are people, and care about our fellow man.
rankothefiremage 2 years ago 2
In the early `20's, there was a depression. Coolidge, following the Constitution and common sense (something of which Dems have little), let the Free Market do its thing, and the depression (coincidentally caused by government intervention) went away.
If you think that we in the LP don't care, you're an idiot. We care more. We know the government is a dangerous thing that must be controlled (the Constitution). Business has natural controls. We need LESS, not more government.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
Garyrg, why'd you remove the comment to my comment? This is what you wrote: "So why then, do they live longer than Americans, and have a lower infant mortality rate? "
Check the way they gather statistics. That'll give you your answer. Or, have you done that, and that's why you removed your comment. I've lived in England and Canada. Trust me... You know nothing.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
Go get em Bernie! We need national public health care now! Private insurers and providers had their chance, they blew it! They are done!
Bring on change now!
garyrg 2 years ago
Shows you what you know. It's the government that screwed up private health care.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
"I worked in Health Care" read as "I was a janitor in a hospital"
cristianorem 2 years ago
This idiot is a disaster. In countries where health care is a right, England and Canada especially, you'll wait till you may die to get care. And if you get into a hospital ER with a disease, you'll come out with more than one.
Don't be fooled by Sen. Bernie Sanders rhetoric. He does not know the facts. It is government that has driven up costs in this country. We have the best health care system and it's being ruined by government.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
Comment removed
garyrg 2 years ago
We need to post this video everywhere. The corporate media is only telling people about the Ted Kennedy, Mitt Romney style bill which requires everyone to buy a corporate health insurance policy.
MrXfromPlanetX 2 years ago
Keep up the good work, Bernie!
Socialist or not - Let's take care of Americans not CEO's or Corporations!
waldojj 2 years ago
A SELF PROCLAIMED SOCIALIST YOU SAY!??!
Good. We need more of those.
sinner539 2 years ago
This guy is a self-proclaimed socialist. Look it up. He cites the sources that support his point of view, but there are plenty of others that spotlight healthcare in the USA as the best in the world.
To hear Bernie tell it, letting the government run healthcare will save us money by reducing the bureaucracy.
Rrrriiiiiggghhhtttt....that's what usually happens when gov't runs things, eh?
Do your own research, people. And be aware of the background of those who sell you their opinion.
connertown 2 years ago
@ctown The World Health Org. supports Sanders. The existing US model has been tested and failed by most standards of the industrialized world.
Gov. run healthcare is not being advocated - you are either ignorant or disingenuous. Under singlepayer, healthcare SERVICE remains PRIVATE. Healthcare PAYMENT would be single-source, non-profit.
In 2006, 1 out of 700 healthcare $ went to a single ins. CEO. That is no framework for success. Please take your failed ideas & get out of the way.
rasditty 2 years ago 4
Now here is a true American hero! Our leaders who have avoided this problem should hang their heads in complete and utter SHAME!
Antgne 2 years ago
This is what courage looks like.
Senator Sanders speaks truth to power.
TSHRED56 2 years ago
Health care is not a privilege, its a necessity to life and when we boast a form of government that is supported by it's people, keeping the people alive is common sense. It should not be a question of profits.
PopeKurt 2 years ago 4
It is government that has driven up the costs of health care. I've worked in health care and I know what it's like to deal with government workers, most of whom could not deal with working in the private sector. They're used to using the power of government to get their way, even when their way is the wrong one.
With all due respect, grow up and realize that government is at best a necessary evil.
fanadfilms 2 years ago
I don't disagree that government officials have flaws, but you're talking about "government" as though its a sentient being, which is very distracting to the argument.
Nothing good ever follows such lines as, "with all due respect...." :(
Why so quick to call government "evil?" Is it really an absolute evil, or could it be a possible good?
PopeKurt 2 years ago
In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson
fanadfilms 2 years ago
Awesome speech Bernie, wish you could get it out to everyone. Of course we know that the folks that own these health care companies are interconnected to the folks that own the media. At least we know where your heart is.
smhutson 2 years ago 4