Why is emergency medicine different than police, fire, and military?

Sorry - we will never agree about this. Clearly you were less than honest about your original post. You asked about emergency medicine only to troll about universal health care. Even your last question is too stupid to be anything other than bait. I'm out.

 

Because it requires the services or resources of someone else.

You don't have a right to the labors of others.

 

Do too.

 

For the same reason that me owning a race bike and racing every weekend are not covered under my "right to pursue happiness."

 

Profoundly incorrect.

 

Listen, I'm no fan of government control, but I see a major problem with innocent people who are sick and dying because they can't afford to get care or people who are destitute because they or a member of their family were stricken by illness.

Doctors aren't the problem. For profit healthcare institutions and for profit insurance companies running the system are. They've infiltrated the regulating bodies and manipulated the rules in their favor. They've bought the politicians and managed to virtually eliminate competition and freedom of choice from the process.

It's pointless to dump trillions of dollars of tax money into the current broken system. I'm not sure exactly what the solution is, but it would have to start with re-introducing choice and competition back into the system. Toss out the current insurance system and get patients involved in their own care, possibly via some sort of HSA type arrangement. Have hospitals advertise their rates and compete for business (as screwed up as it sounds, there is actually a massive sub-industry with the sole purpose of figuring out how to charge the patient/insurance as much as possible) - it would ensure that the level of innovation and care kept improving. Provide some sort of public option for poor/destitute to fall back on - it would benefit from the innovations of the private option and provide training for the personnel. And provide lifesaving care as a basic human right.

 

"Danger, Will Robinson. Danger!"

 

Explain police and fire? How about military? Those people protect my rights. They take it on as their duty and serve proudly. I have a right to their labor but not to that of a nurse (or a hospital administrator)? What makes a hospital CEO so much better than a cop that I'd be infringing on his rights to say it's wrong for him to profit off of my pain/illness?

 

Mis-stated. While many doctors come off as hacks, it's really the system that their forced into that makes them appear so. I think overall, most are good people who want to serve, but they're jaded and caught in a system that rewards poor patient care and revolving door policies, milking everyone for as much money as possible so they can satisfy their shareholders and protect themselves from malpractice lawyers.

 

While I may feel like I'd die if I couldn't ride, it's not actually going to happen. I still have a choice.

Didn't you just have some sort of leg infection? Had you not sought out treatment, it might have killed you. At any point during your visit with the doctor (or in your search for a doctor), was there ever an option to choose between providers based on cost and service? Did you even have any idea how much it cost before you received the bill?

 

Emergency healthcare. Calling the ambulance because you have a splinter is not emergency healthcare. Going to the doctor to get a note because you're out of vacation days is not emergency healthcare.

 

I sympathize with your feelings toward others, but can't agree in almost any part with your logic. But more to the point, you frankly hijacked (intentionally I think) a discussion about "Emergency medicine" with the intent to bait people into a discussion about universal health care. You have in fact in previous posts accused the doctors of being derelict and "only in it for the money". Now you're saying the Docs aren't the problem. You've made patently false claims about some sort of quota system limiting the number of graduating physicians. You've accused the medical schools, the insurance companies, and the government. You've left nobody without blame other than the patient - who frankly, I believe is most at blame in the US. Then, you somehow make the leap of logic that by making it universal, you'd eliminate those "quotas" that you complained about just a few posts ago - when in point of fact, a universal health system MUST factually be even MORE based on quotas. You want to talk about jaded docs? About overloaded patient schedules? Ever hear of the VA?

These are just a few reasons I'm out of this discussion. Yes, there are problems. However, the unfortunate part of it is that biased people not willing to look at the situation from all sides won't use logic or listen to reason. They want to quote absolutely horrendously stupid statistics about death rates in the US or health care spending per capita compared to other countries as evidence as to why our care system is "broken". Then, they give absolutely no thought to the fact that the US is consistently one of the most unhealthy developed countries on the planet due to laziness, overeating, poor fitness, etc. It's like you buying a 20 year old car that's been sitting in somebodies yard with no maintenance in the past 18 years, and bitching because it costs you more to keep it "healthy" than it costs a guy who has a well maintained 3 year old Toyota. Stupid. Actually, too stupid for words. Honestly, I hope everybody who wants "universal health care" gets it - by moving to another country.

 

No, I didn't have a goal of turning it into UHC. UHC isn't the answer, as noted above. System overhaul is the answer, because it's a corrupt, morally bankrupt system that puts a dollar value on human life. The poor service you received at the hands of the VA or whatever government system is proof of this because they're subject to the same twisted regulations as everyone else. In fact, the basis of the problem is that the VA/Medicare/Medicaid tried to enact price controls and the lobbyists worked it so the hospitals and insurance companies could ensure massive profits.

 

Please read your own posts. You are contradicting yourself. Like I said, I'm out. Have fun.

 

So you want socialized medicine.

Just fucking say it already.

 

My logic is perfectly sound. You're too biased to understand it. None of my claims are false. I've had the discussions with deans at medical schools. I've had the discussions with hospital administrators. I've worked in the insurance industry and dealt with medical billing/coding companies.

Patients are also a huge part of the problem, and that needs to change, but a major factor in patients being the problem is that they're ignorant. They're not involved in their care because the system blocks it out. Physicians aren't given time to discuss the real problems with their patients. They shuffle them through, throw some pills at it, and schedule them for a follow up just to do it all again in a month. People are lied to by the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry, the insurance industry, and the FDA (controlled by industry) and are literally killing themselves, setting up the healthcare industry with a never ending supply of cash cows.

And I never said, or described, Universal Healthcare as the solution.

 

Please leave. Reading comprehension is obviously not your strong suit and you're contributing nothing to the discussion but negativity. If you'd like to propose a solution, by all means. Otherwise, have a nice day. The rest of us will work to solve all the world's problems here in the dungeon

 

I'm not exactly sure how you draw the line between emergency care as a right and universal care. Furthermore, say you get the emergency care enacted as a right, how do you stop definition creep. Seems like is is just a different path than the one we are on, but the destination will ultimately be the same.

 

Because I don't. You're trying to label it as a negative, you might as well say Communist Medicine.

We both have a libertarian viewpoint (you seem to lean more towards anarchist, but still). Why don't you step back and please explain the logic in removing free market principles from the healthcare purchase process. The only ground rule is this: if your "choice" is "accept the care or die", it is NOT a choice.

Go.