Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Breaking News / Congress / Politics / Silverman Nashvillian Molly Secours Talks Health Care Reform on CNN
Posted by Jack Silverman on Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 2:53 PM
"There are 47 million people without insurance in this country and they're not looking for a handout. There are thousands of people like me who have insurance, and they're not looking for a handout.... What we're looking for, what we're asking for, what we're begging for, what I'm begging for, is a current health-reform package that becomes law, so that people like me can receive adequate health care and aren't fiscally and physically ruined by getting a diagnosis of cancer."See the entire clip here.
Comments (13)
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"Then, in a mere 90 seconds, Secours manages to destroy any argument for opposing universal health care, not by spewing political rhetoric, but by simply telling her story."
Oh really?
Exactly how does her story "prove" that healthcare is a "right" and the we are all "collectively" obilgated to ensure that everybody gets it?
Becuase the ideological position that it isn't one and we aren't collectively responsible for it most certainly IS an argument against it.
And there is no story that is capable of "destroying" it.
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Gilbert, so if someone gets cancer, screw 'em? They deserve to be financially ruined? That seems to be the essence of your point.
The above comment was by me, btw. And Gilbert, maybe I have should have worded it, "Secours manages to destroy any REASONABLE argument for opposing universal health care."
"Gilbert, so if someone gets cancer, screw 'em? They deserve to be financially ruined? That seems to be the essence of your point."
No, it isn't the essence of it at all.
I didn't say anything about anyone "deserving" any calamity that befalls them.
That notion has nothing to do with determining whether anyone has an affirmative obligation to assist someone else obtain healthcare or any other commodity.
Refraining from assisting someone else doesn't count as "screwing them". The only thing that DOES count is actively doing something to harm someone else.
If you total your car out and I don't give you some money to help you buy a new one, that doesn't count as me "screwing you".
If your house burns down and I refrain from helping you build a new one, that doesn't count as me "screwing you".
The same priciple applies to paying for someone else's medical treatment or any other commodity.
Anyone who wishes to voluntarily assist anyone else in whatever way they choose is perfectly free to do so to the extent of their own resources and abilties.Doing so is a fine and noble thing. Trying to force someone else to do so is not.
Charity is an individual choice to make - not a collective one and the federal government never had any legitimate Constitutionl authority to mandate it.
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases"
Thomas Jefferson
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
James Madison
"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits." – Thomas Jefferson
"The above comment was by me, btw. And Gilbert, maybe I have should have worded it, "Secours manages to destroy any REASONABLE argument for opposing universal health care."
It wouldn't have mattered if you had, since you are no more a legitimate judge of what is or isn't "reasonable" than I am.
So you're equating totaling your car with getting cancer? I guess Molly should have known better than to contract that silly disease.
Would you have the nerve to tell Molly Secours to her face, "Sorry, but that's your problem. Even though you had insurance. Tough luck dear."
I wonder how you'd feel if you were the one financially ruined due to a devastating illness.
Still trying to evade the point, eh Jack?
Try and come up with an actual response instead of essentially just repeating what you said the first time.
The point, of course, is that the nature of the calamity that befalls anybody, whatever it may be, does not "prove" that anyone else is in any way responsible for their welfare.
Unless you can prove that I personally caused her to get cancer, you cannot prove I'm responsible for her welfare.
I would absolutely tell her, you or anyone else to their face that I am not responsible for their welfare and that government has no authority to make me be. As I said before, charity is an individual, voluntary choice to make, not a collective one.
Oh and as long as we're talking about face to face talks, let's try the reverse of your scenario: If you had some medical bill you couldn't pay and decided other people should be "collectively" responsible for doing that, would you go and personally confront people on the street and demand that they give you some money for your bill and threaten to use force on them if they didn't cough up the dough?
I'm not trying to evade any point. I'm taking a stand on an issue.
Welfare is a broad term. I'm not saying you should be responsible for my well being or prosperity in the long term. And I'm not saying that if I had any medical bill I couldn't pay, that I'd walk up to someone and ask them to pay it. But I do think that in a catastrophic health situation, it's absurd that it should ruin a person financially too. PARTICULARLY WHEN THEY HAD INSURANCE.
Health is just one aspect of well-being. But do I think health care should be a right? In a civilized society, absolutely. You can call it socialist if you want. But it's also right. And this country has had a few "socialist" programs since long before you and I were born. Medicare, Social Security, welfare, etc.
They key point you're missing is that you and I and everyone else who pays taxes and medical insurance bills are already collectively paying the medical bills of others. We're just doing it in the most expensive and least efficient way possible. People with no insurance rarely seek preventative health care, and usually wind up going to emergency rooms to deal with most of their health needs, the most exorbitantly expensive method of resolving their needs. Who do you think is paying for that? You and I are, through exorbitant insurance premiums, higher taxes, etc. You've been so snowed by the AMA and the insurance industry that you don't know which way is up.
Do you think the health care system and the insurance industry are working just fine right now?
I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong. We're just philosophically opposed. I think the poor and the unemployed and the underinsured, everyone, deserves health care in a nation as prosperous as ours. And you think a person going through a catastrophic health situation should have to beg for charity. It's really that simple.
"Welfare is a broad term. I'm not saying you should be responsible for my well being or prosperity in the long term."
I'm not the least bit responsible for your welfare in the long, short or any other term. There is literally not one single thing that you have ever done in your entire life that ever had anything whatsoever to do with me having anything that I've got. I don't "owe" you anything.
" But do I think health care should be a right? In a civilized society, absolutely. You can call it socialist if you want. But it's also right."
No it's not right - and not a "right" either.
And if you want it to be one, get a Constitutional amendment passed that explicitly states it as such.
Otherwise, it isn't.
"And this country has had a few "socialist" programs since long before you and I were born. Medicare, Social Security, welfare, etc."
And every single one of them is unconstitional on a legal basis and have been already been proven to be abject failures on a fiscal basis. The unfunded liabilty for Social Security and Medicare is over $100 trillion dollars.
"They key point you're missing is that you and I and everyone else who pays taxes and medical insurance bills are already collectively paying the medical bills of others. We're just doing it in the most expensive and least efficient way possible. People with no insurance rarely seek preventative health care, and usually wind up going to emergency rooms to deal with most of their health needs, the most exorbitantly expensive method of resolving their needs. Who do you think is paying for that? You and I are, through exorbitant insurance premiums, higher taxes, etc."
Spare me the Democratic party talking points. The biggest factor driving up private healthcare costs is cost shifting from the existing government programs of Medicare and Medicaid. Futhermore it is the federal government that mandates hospital emergency rooms treat people regardless of ability to pay (which it has no legitimate Constitutional authority to do by the way) so that cost shifing is also due to government meddling.
As far as I'm concerned, the only "reform" that's needed is to undo all the government meddling that has already been created.
Let it go back to being handled as pure free market commodity - available to those who can pay for it or negoitate private insurance contracts to assume whatever level of risk the individual want's to and is capable paying for to be assumed by the insurer.
That would stop the cost shifting. And then those who want to make charitable contributions to assist others is perfectly free to do so.
And by the way Jackie boy, somebody forgot to send a memo to the CBO director to maker sure he was on board with Obama's lie (that you regurgitated) about his plan "saving money".
The truth is exactly opposite - it will cost more. Now the director of the supposedly non-partisan CBO has been called up to the White House for strong-arm session to shut him up.
Hi Gilbert & Jack.
First Jack thank you for being so kind to post these updates and inspire conversation.
Gilbert, This issue obviously strikes a deep chord for you. You seem like a thoughtful person so I'm guessing you are open to a conversation. The point that was being made yesterday by having 4 people at the press conference is there were 3 women with very different experiences all recovering from cancer. One who didn't have insurance at all but was covered by her state, and a woman from san francisco who will be paying over $100,000 over the next 10 years of her life, maybe more to make up for the astronomical costs.--and she had blue cross insurance. And I, who was in an even better position in that my costs were covered more than hers but still got clobbered. We all experienced the same 6-9 months of grueling chemotherapy and radiation knowing all the while, that we must keep our stress low to survive--two of us doing battle with creditors and health care companies who want the money for the services that are keeping you alive. There is humiliation, guilt and hopelessness to ensues all simultaneously. If we met I would describe the daily routine of someone with cancer receiving treatment. Some times the pain is so excruciating that you feel as though your entire body will explode--and sometimes you hope it will. These are the days--sometimes weeks when watching the bills flood the mailbox seems like a cruel hoax. It is not about you paying for me, it is about everyone having the same opportunities in a system that is broken. And that is what health care reform is about. Having a system where one shot doesn't cost nearly $6000. I had to have 6 of those shots during my chemo and that didn't include anything else. The system needs reform so that some who work just as hard as you--myself included are not punished for becoming ill.
I am 15 months in remission and my promise to my doctors and myself is to keep the stress low in order that I will make it to the 5 year mark. I wish you good health always because once that is gone, there is little else, molly
