Health care a right?

[Howard Dittrich]

Bob,

Thanks for helping me make my point. I too agree that smokers have the right to smoke. This concept that health care is a right is flawed, next someone will say smoking and drinking are also rights and the government should pay for cigarette and booze for those that can’t afford to buy them.

Oliver Wendell Homes wrote “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins”. Apply this to health care and you have someone’s right to health care ends where my wallet begins. What I chose to do with my money is up to me to decide. It is not the governments place to reach into my wallet to pay for someone else’s healthcare.

I willingly pay my taxes to build infrastructure, pay for the Police and Fire departments and to protect this great country from all our enemies both domestic and foreign. Beyond that what charities I chose to financially support is my decision and the government should stay out of it.

Wow, I feel better now, must be time to get off my soap box. One more thing, if there is anyone out there who still believes that government run health-care will be cheaper than our current system they should get connected, even congress is saying that taxes will have to be raised to pay for health-care.

[Dan Conner]

[quote=Howard Dittrich;2436]

Originally Posted by Dan Conner

I think you fall very short comparing healthcare to driving a car, owning a home, or wearing sneakers. Healthcare is a life and death experience for many. It is estimated that 20,000 people die each year because they lack health insurance. [End QUOTE]

Lets see here, Smoking kills 440,000 people each year in the U.S. http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/s/smoking/deaths.htm

If we make smoking against the law we will save many more lives than the 20,000 that die from lack of health insurance. Probably will save whole bunches of money also. If we are going to invite the government into our lives it seems like we should start by making smoking illegal. It has a much better "bang for the buck". Plus some of those that die from smoking may not have health insurance (I have no idea the number), so we can lower that figure too!

I think you contradict yourself here. Smoking has already been determined to be a right, unless others are affected. So, people can continue to smoke on. People should also have health care as a right. It's just that the former costs lives and the latter saves lives.

You seem to contradict yourself by wanting to take smoking rights away, but not agreeing to health care rights. It's just that one of those rights costs lives and the other saves them. You seem to want to pass laws restricting people's freedom. I would have thought that you support freedom, yet you restrict freedoms? Offering health care for all enhances freedoms. However, if you want to exercise your freeedom to not use health care...be my guest.

[Dan Conner]

Health Care is a Civil Right


Each generation has had to take up the question of how to provide for the health of the people of our nation. And each generation has grappled with difficult questions of how to meet the needs of our people. I believe health care is a civil right. Each time as a nation we have reached to expand our basic rights, we have witnessed a slow and painful unfolding of a democratic pageant of striving, of resistance, of breakthroughs, of opposition, of unrelenting efforts and of eventual triumph.

I have spent my life struggling for the rights of working class people and for health care. I grew up understanding firsthand what it meant for families who did not get access to needed care. I lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including in a couple of cars. I understand the connection between poverty and poor health care, the deeper meaning of what Native Americans have called "hole in the body, hole in the spirit." I struggled with Crohn's disease much of my adult life, to discover sixteen years ago a near-cure in alternative medicine and following a plant-based diet. I have learned with difficulty the benefits of taking charge personally of my own health care. On those few occasions when I have needed it, I have had access to the best allopathic practitioners. As a result I have received the blessings of vitality and high energy. Health and health care is personal for each one of us. As a former surgical technician I know that there are many people who dedicate their lives to helping others improve theirs. I also know their struggles with an insufficient health care system.

There are some who believe that health care is a privilege based on ability to pay. This is the model President Obama is dealing with, attempting to open up health care to another 30 million people, within the context of the for-profit insurance system. There are others who believe that health care is a basic right and ought to be provided through a not-for-profit plan. This is what I have tirelessly advocated.

I have carried the banner of national health care in two presidential campaigns, in party platform meetings, and as co-author of HR676, Medicare for All. I have worked to expand the health care debate beyond the current for-profit system, to include a public option and an amendment to free the states to pursue single payer. The first version of the health care bill, while badly flawed, contained provisions which I believed made the bill worth supporting in committee. The provisions were taken out of the bill after it passed committee.

I joined with the Progressive Caucus saying that I would not support the bill unless it had a strong public option and unless it protected the right of people to pursue single payer at a state level. It did not. I kept my pledge and voted against the bill. I have continued to oppose it while trying to get the provisions back into the bill. Some have speculated I may be in a position of casting the deciding vote. The President's visit to my district on Monday underscored the urgency of this moment.

I have taken this fight farther than many in Congress cared to carry it because I know what my constituents experience on a daily basis. Come to my district in Cleveland and you will understand.

The people of Ohio's 10th district have been hard hit by an economy where wealth has accelerated upwards through plant closings, massive unemployment, small business failings, lack of access to credit, foreclosures and the high cost of health care and limited access to care. I take my responsibilities to the people of my district personally. The focus of my district office is constituent service, which more often than not involves social work to help people survive economic perils. It also involves intervening with insurance companies.

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final health care bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care. I have seen the political pressure and the financial pressure being asserted to prevent a minimal recognition of this right, even within the context of a system dominated by private insurance companies.

I know I have to make a decision, not on the bill as I would like to see it, but the bill as it is. My criticisms of the legislation have been well reported. I do not retract them. I incorporate them in this statement. They still stand as legitimate and cautionary. I still have doubts about the bill. I do not think it is a first step toward anything I have supported in the past. This is not the bill I wanted to support, even as I continue efforts until the last minute to modify the bill.

However after careful discussions with the President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Elizabeth my wife and close friends, I have decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation. If my vote is to be counted, let it now count for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health care reform. We must include coverage for those excluded from this bill. We must free the states. We must have control over private insurance companies and the cost their very existence imposes on American families. We must strive to provide a significant place for alternative and complementary medicine, religious health science practice, and the personal responsibility aspects of health care which include diet, nutrition, and exercise.

The health care debate has been severely hampered by fear, myths, and by hyper-partisanship. The President clearly does not advocate socialism or a government takeover of health care. The fear that this legislation has engendered has deep roots, not in foreign ideology but in a lack of confidence, a timidity, mistrust and fear which post 911 America has been unable to shake.

This fear has so infected our politics, our economics and our international relations that as a nation we are losing sight of the expanded vision, the electrifying potential we caught a glimpse of with the election of Barack Obama. The transformational potential of his presidency, and of ourselves, can still be courageously summoned in ways that will reconnect America to our hopes for expanded opportunities for jobs, housing, education, peace, and yes, health care.

I want to thank those who have supported me personally and politically as I have struggled with this decision. I ask for your continued support in our ongoing efforts to bring about meaningful change. As this bill passes I will renew my efforts to help those state organizations which are aimed at stirring a single payer movement which eliminates the predatory role of private insurers who make money not providing health care. I have taken a detour through supporting this bill, but I know the destination I will continue to lead, for as long as it takes, whatever it takes to an America where health care will be firmly established as a civil right.

Thank you.

Dennis Kucinich

________________________________________

[Bob Jentges]

To demonstrate that at least one member of the Forum read Representative
Kucinich's letter that Dan posted, I will offer an opinion.

I have no dispute with Kucinich changing his vote from no to yes. The reason he voted no the first time was apparrantly because it did not include a public option i.e. was not liberal enough to suit him. He is standing on principle.

What concerns me is those initially voted no because they thought the bill was a bad bill because of the abortion issue or other issues of principle like cost, etc., and then say they will change their vote to yes because of "arm twitsing", saving the Obama Presidency, promises of "perks for their districts, etc.

[Dan Conner]

Originally Posted by Bob Jentges

To demonstrate that at least one member of the Forum read Representative
Kucinich's letter that Dan posted, I will offer an opinion.

I have no dispute with Kucinich changing his vote from no to yes. The reason he voted no the first time was apparrantly because it did not include a public option i.e. was not liberal enough to suit him. He is standing on principle.

What concerns me is those initially voted no because they thought the bill was a bad bill because of the abortion issue or other issues of principle like cost, etc., and then say they will change their vote to yes because of "arm twitsing", saving the Obama Presidency, promises of "perks for their districts, etc.

I won't argue with you there, but I don't think we have enough information to question Congressional motives. Everyone has stayed or changed their votes for various reasons and a broad list of variables. What we have to hope is that they have done what they have done to improve our country for all its citizens. Is the US better for what they did? I think the time has passed when the well being of our country is determined about how we treat only the top 1/2%. Our country's greatness will be determined about how we treat everyone, not just a few.

[Bob Jentges]

Originally Posted by Dan Conner

What we have to hope is that they have done what they have done to improve our country for all its citizens. Is the US better for what they did?

I could not have said it better

If each member of Congress casts an informed vote with what they truly believe is in the best interests of the citizens of the country as a whole, as opposed to any political party or special interest, I think things would work out just fine. If they did that and it did not work out, we elected the wrong people and should correct that in the next election.

[Dan Conner]

Originally Posted by Bob Jentges

I could not have said it better

If each member of Congress casts an informed vote with what they truly believe is in the best interests of the citizens of the country as a whole, as opposed to any political party or special interest, I think things would work out just fine. If they did that and it did not work out, we elected the wrong people and should correct that in the next election.

Right on! You know I really admire people of high economic station in life fighting and voting to help those in a lesser station. Any of us can fight and lobby for our own self-interest, but it really takes a great man to fight for those who don't have much. That is selfless.

I look at Tim Walz, who voted for health care for everyone, even though he had great health coverage for himself, and did so at great political peril for himself, as a great person. He was voting for the right reasons. Too many Congresspersons today, vote for programs that help people that line their pockets. Or, they vote to protect their own selfish reasons. It takes a brave person to fight for others, especially, when they are not able to return the favor. Tim is that kind of guy. He wants to help others. I think our nation is measured by how much we help the least among us. Otherwise, we are just a corruptible bunch of people.

[Dennis Mikkelson]

Originally Posted by Dan Conner

Right on! You know I really admire people of high economic station in life fighting and voting to help those in a lesser station. Any of us can fight and lobby for our own self-interest, but it really takes a great man to fight for those who don't have much. That is selfless.

I look at Tim Walz, who voted for health care for everyone, even though he had great health coverage for himself, and did so at great political peril for himself, as a great person. He was voting for the right reasons. Too many Congresspersons today, vote for programs that help people that line their pockets. Or, they vote to protect their own selfish reasons. It takes a brave person to fight for others, especially, when they are not able to return the favor. Tim is that kind of guy. He wants to help others. I think our nation is measured by how much we help the least among us. Otherwise, we are just a corruptible bunch of people.

Congress votes for their office not for their country.Kindhearted people help others with their own money and dogooders use other peoples money.

[Dan Conner]

Originally Posted by Dennis Mikkelson

Congress votes for their office not for their country.Kindhearted people help others with their own money and dogooders use other peoples money.

It's too bad you are so cynical and fearful. I believe their are good people, including Congressmen. Tim Walz is one of them. You might be surprised to know that there are many people that are both..dogooders and kindhearted. Unfortunately, there are also many people who do neither. That is a big problem.

[Dennis Mikkelson]

Originally Posted by Dan Conner

It's too bad you are so cynical and fearful. I believe their are good people, including Congressmen. Tim Walz is one of them. You might be surprised to know that there are many people that are both..dogooders and kindhearted. Unfortunately, there are also many people who do neither. That is a big problem.

Dogooders who work for govt. whether schools,cities,counties,colleges,state,and federal have spent more money than our nation can ever repay. Our grandchildren will pay the cost of this with inflation or new form of currency.The federal reserve stated we have over 100trillion of unfunded pensions.