Personal Liberty and the Public Option - Thomas Murray

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/05/Healthcare_Reform_The_Ethics_of_Public_Debate

Thomas H. Murray, president of The Hastings Center, says that while opponents of healthcare reform contend a public option would infringe on individual freedom, the reality is much more complex. Murray argues that a public option would promote liberty, ensuring all Americans are created equally.

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Panelists Thomas Murray, Peter Barland, Mary Ann Baily and Trudy Lieberman discuss the moral aspect of the current healthcare debate.

They examine the ethical issues involved in healthcare policy, the economics of health reform, the ethics of the way the debate is being conducted and reported, and physicians' perspectives on these issues. - Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University

Thomas H. Murray is President of The Hastings Center. Dr. Murray was formerly the Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was also the Susan E. Watson Professor of Bioethics. He is a founding editor of the journal Medical Humanities Review, and is on the editorial boards of The Hastings Center Report; Human Gene Therapy; Politics and the Life Sciences; Cloning, Science, and Policy; Medscape General Medicine; Teaching Ethics; Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. He served as President of the Society for Health and Human Values and of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• public
• option
• america
• freedom
• freedoms
• american
• values
• morals
• morality
• human
• civil
• rights
• health
• insurance
• reform
• reagan
• medicare
• fora.tv
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[Bobbiethejean]

Yes, congress is wasteful with our tax dollars. That can be solved by the American people getting up off their lazy asses and demanding some respect as well as accountability.

But you want to be "left alone," eh? Let's see how you like it when you have no airplanes, no roads, no public schools, no FDA, no traffic lights, no running water, no electricity, and no military protection. Gee, that sounds an awful like Somalia which happens to be a 3rd world hellhole. Coincidence? No.

[Mastikator]

Freedom from consequences is not freedom.

[nasaguy]

(Continued) Instead of "individual mandate", he prefers the term "universal participation". But participation implies voluntary action, which is the opposite of a mandate. It creates the ILLUSION that we all care about each other, but its not real. And private dollars sunk into a health insurance pool are still private, but he characterizes them as community dollars to justify government control of them. This man is the most dangerous kind of liar the kind that doesnt know he is lying.

[nasaguy]

Im sure this man means well, but he's still flat wrong. He has misunderstood what "freedom" is. Freedom is you living your life the way you want, without others standing in your way. It does NOT that you have to help ME so *I* can live my life the way *I* want. Then my freedom comes only at your expense, and thats morally wrong. But he doesn't care about that distinction. (continued next comment)

[alvincay100]

Yeah, but if we bankrupt ourselves then nobody can have liberty either. The USA is already in debt enough and a public option is sure to increase that.

[welkinator]

Yes, I agree with other posters here; where did he get this concept of "community money"?

What community put out their work effort for currency and then donated the money to communal health care?

I sure didn't sign up for such a community; did you?

...welkinator

[caltrop69]

All I ever hear when I listen to these immoral bastards talk about health care is, "Let me steal your money and give it to someone else."

[ls1z28chris]

4 & 5) So then why are you asking for a government run health insurance scheme that would pay for routine things like eye exams and visits to the doctor for the cold? If what you're worried about is bankruptcy from unplanned serious, catastrophic illness, why not simply have government subsidize those rare (statistically) cases that exhaust a health care plan and then that person's net worth? Why an NHS style entity rather than a type of "gap protection" for people?

[ls1z28chris]

2) Then why bring up poor children and then call me inhuman? (That's a rhetorical question. I know why. I'm not going to engage in a debate over emotion.)

3) No, what I mean is that I'll pay to have your kid aborted now so that I don't have to "abort" him when he's a teenager, or pay for his stay in a wonderful American penitentiary. Poor people who can't afford kids and don't want them should be able to get abortions.

[Hellooo20]

Socialism FTW!!!

[rebharath]

dude reminds me of gorbachev

[yoshi3329]

More socialist dribble. Ugh.