I’ve got nothing to add that hasn’t been said. BUT I will say that I lived in Europe’s most socialist democracy — Sweden — and I had a “personumber” – meaning I was entitled to healthcare. It wasn’t perfect, some of the procedures were not up to the standards we have here in the US. And it was SLOWWWW.
But…I and everyone else got the care we needed. The Swedes are now adjusting their system to maintain the single payer primary model…and creating competition on the delivery side. It’s working.
So…when the know-nothings yowl about 'Murica going “socialist” tell them to stuff their stupidity where the sun don’t shine. These gullible right-wing fools have no idea what real socialism is. And they seem to have been brainwashed into thinking that heathcare for all is a commie plot. They’re idiots for buying such nonsense…and they are total assholes for forcing their ignorance and stupidity on the nation.
Start with the belief that suffering is earned by people who deviate from what is moral (the Fundamentalist part) and move through the idea that hard work is indicative of moral goodness (the Protestant part) and you have a cultural attitude that suffering from poverty is your own fault, because you are lazy.
In that logic, this woman died because the couple was foolish about their spending habits. It’s really the victim’s fault, you see.
In my view, some of America’s best outgrowths walk hand-in-hand with some of its most horrifying in this one cultural perspective. Freedom of speech and religion? Fundamentalist Protestantism. Dehumanizing slavery? Fundamentalist Protestantism. Getting to the moon? Fundamentalist Protestantism. Late Stage Capitalism? Fundamentalist Protestantism.
“He said that his wife had told him in the past that she wanted to die, and that he had been thinking of killing her for several days because she was in pain, the affidavit said.”
Of course he could be lying, but reading the article, I personally believe him. Though to your point, yes, a written statement (preferably witnessed and notarized) would be nice.
I am all for taxpayer funded universal healthcare. I have lived with such systems before, and it is an excellent use of tax dollars, especially when hospital and drug prices can be controlled to reasonable levels.
I would stop short of it being a right. Unless I am mistaken, it would be the first right that requires others to do a service. I guess that is a constitutional issue.
It works fine to have it as a right, being as like any others it has limitations, expectations to it must be within reason, and challenges to the system on such basis can be among the tools that keep the system working well.
In Canada it isnt an enumerated legal right, but public perception of it as such, and a host of judgements, treaties and Charter issueséinterpretations have the government effectively, knowingly, treating it as though it were a right.
I think it can also help in acheiving a more preventative less acute care system. When people are apt to believe their access to medical care is relatively unfettered they tend to visit their care providors, call with questions, etc that in a system where care is seen as other than a right, they might not for whatever their reasons are. E.g., poor people might feel unwelcome completely of their own accord, on the basis of their low tax payments. This would harm the system where their low tax payments do not, and the healther they are the more tax is likely to be collected, let alone the betterment of their lives.
unfortunately, sometimes when people are really hard off in the USA for a while (like someone who can’t afford their suffering wife’s medications), they view prison as at least room and board and hot meals. sad when people are struggling long and hard enough that something so awful becomes a welcome option.
I enjoy my “communist” roads. And my “communist developed” internet. I’m glad the “communists” make sure that my air is clean enough to breath, and that the “communists” at the DoE and the NRC make sure I’m not sprouting extra eyelids and shit. I’m glad the “communists” at the FDA are setting standards for food and drug safety. And I’m especially glad the “communists” at my local schools are at least trying to teach everyone basic skills like literacy and arithmetic. Even if the culture doesn’t value those things anymore.
Socialism isn’t a dirty word. It’s just an idea expressing how certain things valued by a society are paid for.
I’ve thought about this before, as there are certain non-fatal situations under which I would want to have the right to choose to die, whether or not treatment was available and affordable. Depending on the pain, downward trend of the condition (you won’t get better, and it’s just going to get more intolerable in the meantime), quality of life etc., I don’t consider continued existence a good thing that cannot be questioned. On the other hand, this often depends on external factors. If life is intolerable because you can’t get affordable treatment, you’re worried that you’ll bankrupt your family if you continue to receive treatment or you think that you’re a burden on your loved ones because they get no support, these are conditions that are directly caused by increased pressure from the lack of adequate healthcare or social support. Even if you provided a video statement in private or with a witness, this doesn’t mean that you aren’t under external pressure to end your life, especially if euthanasia becomes more common and accepted.
A number of decisions that I want to be able to make would be unacceptable if they became widespread and expected. I’m not sure how to rationalise my insistence that I should be able to tell my loved ones that I want to go and leave them time to say goodbye without facing efforts to stop me or prosecute them or judgement that I was “abandoning them”, with the fear that some other person might be emotionally manipulated by their family or insurance companies to end their life.
More seriously, why is this an issue for anyone not directly involved? That is to say, a social issue that is any of our business? It’s not like we’ve got a dearth of human beings wandering around. This guy euthanizing his wife doesn’t mean there’s no one left to tend the tomato plants or beehives or whatever she was responsible for.
More broadly, the economics of scarcity is something we’re long overdue to move beyond. Even when it’s expressed in an emotional empathetic heartfelt manner. Special snowflakes &c. We have food. We have people. We have more fetuses than we know what to do with.
The donut hole is a thing, how medicade covers stuff up to a point, and then a long step of no coverage until it kicks in again. Only a politician or a lawyer could like it. Sure, there are programs, if you are poor enough, and have the time.
Of course, if you need pain meds, you are increasing screwed. Thanks Obama (literally, it was getting bad under Bush, and Obama’s made it worse). I know some people with chronic pain issues, it’s a nightmare, with no good options.
I agree with you 110%. I was being sarcastic. Which I always forget doesn’t work well in text form. I was trying to explain the reactionary attitudes in America that keep us behind.
It’s the Declaration of Independence rather than the Constitution, but we do seem to be based on the claim that all Men (i.e. human beings) are endowed by whomever/whatever they deem to be their Creator with “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, and maintaining reasonable health seems to hit all three of those bullet points.
I know from whence you’re getting the claims that these are communist things, but it does remind me of something from about a decade ago in my life. I was working for Wisconsin’s environmental testing service, a good deal of which involved emissions testing on people’s vehicles. Most of the time it was fairly routine, although there were always people that wanted to argue with me about the process, but I still remember “fondly” one of the more outstanding nutjobs …
Now I’m a bit of a curmudgeon and I’m a bit paranoid, so I can understand being somewhat dubious about the whole process and honestly who really wants to learn that they have to spend an unknown amount of money on their vehicle when they can’t tell anything is wrong? All that aside, the older gentleman who started going on about how this was “communism” and “socialism” (at the same time, which I thought rather impressive) and some other ravings that I admittedly ignored was very special. Now there were numerous questions I was tempted to ask, starting with how exactly was this socialistic? Did he consider say, clean air, to be associated with communism in any way? (Obviously he’d never seen the industrial areas of West Berlin, huh?)
I just stepped into my routine, finished with the associated paperwork, listed out his options from there and gave him his vehicle inspection report. As I explained how he should have the mechanic fill out the back of the VIR to indicate what parts were repaired or replaced, he started up about how they weren’t going to do any such thing since he wasn’t planning on having any of it done. I very calmly said “Well sir, that’s your option too, I suppose, but you won’t be able to legally renew your registration without a successful test or a waiver,” but I’m not sure he heard me as he was storming out of the booth at the time.
At least the other people in the booth were polite enough to not laugh quite so hard until he’d left the building. I waited until I was back in the break room, myself.
The failed ones can be bought but operational ones are a prescription item–the thing is they’re dangerous for someone who doesn’t need them–breathing pure oxygen for an extended period will cause damage. (This is why you can’t solve the problems of deep sea divers with pure oxygen in their tanks. All the depth-related issues with diving come from the inert gasses in your tank, not from the oxygen–but pure oxygen would cause far more problems than what it would replace.)
