PD's Kevin "Bucky" O'Brien: "Health care is a commodity, NOT a human right".

[HughBeaumont]

Small wonder why I won't be renewing this paper . . .

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/kevin_o_brien/index.ssf?/base/opinion/119019313512800.xml&coll=2

(snip)
"It continues to amaze me that people (i.e., those with good-paying jobs whose employers provide health care as a benefit) view health care as a commodity available on the open market for those who can afford it, rather than as a basic human right."

Persist not in your unbelief. If what you want requires the labor of someone else, you're not talking about fulfilling a basic human right. You're talking about hiring someone to do a job.

Even health care that is provided out of well-placed compassion - people shouldn't be allowed to die in the streets just because they can't pay a doctor - is no less a salable commodity: Somebody's providing labor and somebody, somewhere, is paying.

So much for the human-right myth. Now, who picks up the tab?

Oh you stupid SHIT. It IS a human right. Someone provides labor when a street is repaired, a fire is put out or a felon is arrested and someone, meaning us via our local and state tax dollars, pays for it. We think nothing of these services, but OH GOD FORBID a single mom in the inner-city you racist Pukes like to demonize can go to bed without worrying about bankrupcty should her child come down with a serious illness. Gee, wouldn't want things to be TOO equal now . . .

More talking points ahead . . .

Or, we could turn health care over to the government, thereby wasting money, discouraging innovation, raising the standard of care for a few while lowering it for the many, creating long waits for non-emergency and specialty care, removing yet another incentive for people to see to their own well-being and giving a ballooning bureaucracy the final say over who gets treated for what, and when. (Plus, we would put a real crimp in the lifestyle of wealthy Canadians: Where would they go for high-quality care on demand if we instituted the same kind of system their country has?)

And this guy is the PD's deputy editor. Damn liberal media.

[rodeodance]

1. We care for our minds through public education, yet our bodies are a toss up.

[fasttense]

2. It is only a commodity if you can afford it.

The man dying in the street because he can't afford to see a doctor thinks of it as a privilege only for the rich. Let's just hope those sickly poor people don't carry contagions that will infect the rich. Seems all the money in the world didn't stop the black plague from killing the rich.

[endarkenment]

3. Yes services and devices are commodities.

Access to healthcare is a right if we agree it is a right. Specifically, we could decide to socialize the costs of providing healthcare to all. Duh. What an ass. The only part of this process the government needs to take over is the insurance aspect of it, by making access to healthcare universal and by paying for that access through taxes.

[Missy M]

4. High quality care on demand for the wealthy......

means getting the latest cosmetic surgery. Basic health care for everyone should be a human right.