<p>If the point is to force people to choose a particular retirement plan, then the law is unjust and shouldn’t exist.</p>
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<p>What constitutes harming someone not only relevant, it is the point the whole issue hinges on. If we don’t agree on that, the choice you gave me is meaningless. I believe it is acceptable for a person to decline to give goods or services to another person, as long as they did not previously agree to do so. If that is harm by your definition, then I pick choice #1 and have answered your question.</p>
<p>It should be supplement. If it’s not, then clearly the person benefits from it immensely. It exists for a reason. I’m sure you know why that is (hint: it’s not “to force people to choose a particular retirement plan”). If you don’t, you’re an embarrassment to homeschooled political radicals everywhere.</p>
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<p>No, it isn’t. Individual cases depend on the details; the general principle doesn’t.</p>
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<p>Honestly, what’s the point? If you aren’t going to read the post where I specifically said that declining goods you had no agreement to receive isn’t harm, then why the **** are you here?</p>
<p>That said, this is a great example of why ITS THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE that it hinges on.</p>
<p>1) You believe there exists a sphere where you have the right to harm others without the government’s intervention.
2) You believe the example you gave is a case of that.
3) You believe that the example is not a case of harming someone.
4) Given (3), the example does not support your assertion in (1)</p>
<p>Gahd, you’d make a terrible mathematician. Try again if you must.</p>
<p>It’s an individual case we are talking about here, namely the PPAC. You and me come to opposite conclusions. So either:</p>
<p>1: We have different general principles.
2: One of us isn’t really applying his principles.
3: We disagree about the details of the case.</p>
<p>Right now I’m trying to determine which of these it is.</p>
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<p>Apparently you have misunderstood me. I am actually asserting:</p>
<p>1: If someone is not causing harm, the government should not be involved.
2: The example I gave is a case in which a person is not causing harm.
3: Therefore, the government should not be involved.
4: 2, and therefore 3, are true of people’s choice to carry less than full coverage.</p>
<p>If I have understood you correctly, you are asserting:</p>
<p>1: If someone is causing harm, the government should be involved.
2: People’s choice to carry less than full coverage is a case of causing harm.
3: Therefore, the government should be involved.</p>
<p>I didn’t say you weren’t asserting that. The problem is that that nobody disagrees with any of that, and nobody has put forward an argument from which it follows that they disagree with that. I think most of the confusion was derived from your saying, “I pick choice #1,” which meant that, “there are more cases in which the government should be inactive,” with the “more” standing in contrast to just cases in which “there is no harm.” The logical conclusion of that is that even in some cases in which harm is done, the government has no business taking action.</p>
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<p>Yes, though (1) shouldn’t be completely absolute as there are cases in which the degree of harm vs. the practicality of taking action becomes an issue. But I would in general have no objection.</p>
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<p>Except that not having full coverage often does result in harm to other people.</p>
<p>Ok, great. We now have clearly stated the common ground between us.</p>
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<p>Of course. We’re arguing about what would be the ideal situation. Once we agree on that reality ensues…</p>
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<p>I understood that, it just took a while to find a way to explain it. Good idea using numbered points.</p>
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<p>And here is the difference between you and me. Care to elaborate what kind of harm it causes? I know you and others have said it before, but I want to be clear so as to avoid going off half-cocked or accusing you of beliefs you do not actually hold.</p>
<p>Just to name a few things that have been mentioned in this thread:
People without adequate insurance getting treatment at the cost of everyone else
People without adequate insurance clogging emergency rooms leading to long waits
People without adequate insurance foregoing primary care and ending up needing far more serious treatment down the line</p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that individual financial stability helps the financial stability of the nation as a whole. A universal healthcare system (which this is not) would help promote such stability.</p>
<p>-People who choose to forgo insurance shouldn’t be getting care for free. Hospital emergency rooms are required to accept all patients, but dentists, psychiatrists and bionic limb surgeons aren’t, are they?</p>
<p>It may be reasonable to require everyone to have either coverage or savings for emergency room visits, since we require emergency rooms to take in everyone. But that is much different from requiring FULL coverage of every little thing.</p>
<p>-This is, IMO, the only reasonable argument for the mandate. However:</p>
<p>About 16-17% of Americans have no insurance.</p>
<p>Numbers for the proportion of uninsured emergency room patients I found range from 15% to 20%</p>
<p>So assuming the most generous figures, and assuming no other factors besides insurance account for the difference, requiring everyone to have insurance would reduce the number of visits by 5%. However, that isn’t the whole picture, as it dosen’t account for people who actually DO pay for their emergency room visits out of pocket. My search-fu fails to bring up any numbers on this, but if this accounts for even 1/5 of the uninsured visits then the mandate will not change the number of visits at all.</p>
<p>So this bill would only make a difference here if a: it was remotely enforceable, and b: all the numbers are assumed to be the most favorable possible.</p>
<p>-This is true, and a good reason to buy insurance. But if they are paying for the more serious treatment, and as shown above most do, then it is their problem and not ours.</p>
<p>And IMO a universal healthcare system would be much more reasonable than this bill, though I would greatly oppose it as well.</p>
<p>This is still going on? Wow… and it seems that no one has changed their opinion on anything (and also some start resorting to insults of intelligence).</p>
<p>^I doubt anyone expects to change anyones opinions here… I’m mainly here to test and confirm my own views. There’s no better test of a belief than to defend it against others. I do hope to earn a little respect for my side as well, be showing that a argument CAN be made for it, and that not all conservatives are dumb racist right-wing-radio junkies.</p>
<p>I can tell you this much- if the founding fathers made up the government today, we would not have universal health care. I understand that times have changed, but honestly, this has gone too far. People deserve what they have worked for in life. If someone is not willing to work on a competitive basis and actually have goals in life, then they should not be given the same health care as someone who has worked his/her entire life and truly deserves health care. Socialism is not cool. It only benefits the lower classes, taking from the middle and high classes. People lose all incentives, and the economy goes to pot. Whatever happened to laissez faire? It’s not like people can’t rise on the social scale here in the United States. Let’s not eliminate that fact. Besides, look what health care has caused in European Union countries. One has to wait for months just to get into the doctor’s office. Taxes have risen immensely there. Let’s just follow the Constitution, guys!</p>
<p>He definately has a left wing, western european type political agenda…I mean, why else would he spend the last 6 months implementing left wing policies through this new big government health care bill when he could have spent $787 billion on what America needs most right now:JOBS. yes it is a noble task to attempt to grant everyone health care insurance and revamp the system, but can the government seriously afford it when we’re fighting 2 wars and drowning in our own debt?..look what happened to the Soviets when they couldn’t keep up with their uncontrollable spending.</p>