Hi pat,
You responded:
Now its "The government OWES me a living." (and healthcare,
a job, a car, food, etc.)
I suppose it's possible that in the circles you run in that maybe some people have told you that's what they see as the responsibility of the government. Then again, it could just be your jaded thinking and assumptive ideas of what you believe others think. I personally have never felt that the government owes me a living, a job, a car or food, etc.
I haven't ever thought that the government owes me healthcare, but I have looked at how most other nations have handled healthcare and thought that it seems like a pretty good way to handle healthcare. It just seems much better than our hodgepodge of insurance plans, but ultimately the government providing health insurance is just a nationwide insurance plan. It isn't free. We pay for everything that we get from the government through taxes. It just seems that making the government a single insurance provider plan works out cheaper overall in what I've seen of how other nations have set it up.
Just as in all these other nations that have their healthcare paid for through their government, it isn't free to them. They pay higher taxes, but the overall payment of their taxes that goes towards the government's payments to healthcare providers for their care just seems to be sooooo much cheaper than our system of having a couple of hundred insurance companies all vying for our dollars. One of the reasons is because there is a lot of duplication in such a system. Every single one of the hundred or so health insurance companies have a staff of actuaries, lawyers, secretarial staff, accounting staff and check writers. With a single government insurance system to manage health, you have one group of actuaries, one group of lawyers, one groups secretarial staff and accounting staff and check writers. While they would cover a broader area, there is some duplication that can be reduced.
For example: a single government system would have one head. One person who is the top of the pyramid of staff. With 100 separate insurance companies, then you naturally have 100 heads. 100 people who are at the top of the pyramid and those 100 people are generally paid pretty well. So, you'd be taking out 99 people that likely make several million dollars a year, and making one head who may make a few hundred thousand a year. This, of course, is one of the reasons that the insurance industry doesn't want to see a system like most of the other nations have. But, for the guy down here on the bottom paying the premiums, having one head is cheaper than having 100.
So, while I'm not going to say that I believe our government owes us health insurance, a single payer government operated system would be cheaper for us.
God bless you,
In Christ, ted