General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My experience with Universal health Care [View all]kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)There are people in your country working in medicine and administration who would be millionaires, multimillionaires, perhaps even billionaires if you had our system. But since you don't, they will never be allowed to reach their full potential. As American Liberals, not Socialists, we are dedicated to the ideal of Freedom, which means the FULL, UNFETTERED AND LIMITLESS REALIZATION OF INDIVIDUAL POTENTIAL. We want there to be millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires in this country; and all fields of human endeavor and utility maximization are equally appropriate arenas, we believe, for the full flourishing of individual talent and the unrestricted pursuit of happiness here. That is why we say "there are no free lunches." Giving away free first rate health care like you received in Norway, to someone who couldn't really afford it, means that someone who can afford it will pay twice: once for you, and once again to receive health care for themselves that will be not as good as could be if it were reserved strictly for those who can afford the best. As American Liberals, we are committed to for profit hospitals, to pharmaceutical companies motivated to innovate by colossal profit margins unchecked by the heavy hand of government collective bargaining or bulk pricing, and to the central importance of private for-profit insurance corporations, who do nothing at all to make people healthy, metering the delivery of health care, raking in one sixth of our GDP. Insurance companies are sacred to us, as are our banks. We will have nothing to do with your guaranteed Universal Health Care, for that would impede the full and development of the individuals who run our hospital corporations, our pharmaceutical corporations and our insurance corporations, as well as their shareholders. It would condemn high net worth individuals to the same standard of care lavished on garbage collectors, teachers and IT administrators - and onerously TAX them as well to provide the SAME AND EQUAL STANDARD OF CARE to part time retail sales associates, baristas, lawn maintenance workers, hookers, real estate agents, customer service representatives, waiters, hotel cleaning staff, dry wall installers, traveling salesmen, migrant farm workers, small businessmen, helicopter pilots, karate instructors, struggling daycare operators, ballet dancers, short order cooks, taxi drivers, graphic designers, graduate students, taxidermists, owner operator truckers, dishwashers, cashiers and bag boys, rent-a-cops and mall security details, nails salon glamor consultants and hairdressers, exterminators and varmit trappers, scrap metal salvage workers, dog walkers and cat sitters, birthday party clowns and magicians, psychotherapists and phone sex operators, as well as to marginally employed, and completely unemployable people.
THE SAME AND EQUAL STANDARD OF CARE, I say again! As American Liberals, we reject this redistribution of profits and income CATEGORICALLY. American Liberals are interested in equality of opportunity, and the chips fall where they may.
And that is why I am a Socialist.