Are Hillary's and the other Democrats' health care plans socialistic? Do they involve governments handoutsApart from the fact socialism has nothing to do with government hand outs the answer is no. Hillary's pan is not socialism neither are the plans of the other Democratic candidates. They all still involve the private sector and if this plan really had anything to do with socialism the Big Insurance industry wouldn't be donating the money to the Hillary campaign they do now.
In my opinion the Democratic plans are a good step but totally not socialist.
On the World Socialist Website we read:"In reality, none of the Democratic frontrunners offers a serious answer to the healthcare crisis, because they all remain firmly within the framework of the profit-driven private healthcare and insurance system. Clinton鈥檚 鈥渕andatory鈥?program would provide massive government subsidies to the profit-making insurance companies鈥攁 feature that she calculates will neutralize much of the insurance industry opposition that derailed her 1993 health care reform effort."
And a bit later even this"Both of the major parties represent the interests of the ruling financial aristocracy. Both of them uphold a program of imperialist war abroad and social reaction at home. The central question is the development of an independent political movement of the working class directed against the profit system and the corporate ruling elite."
American Democrats have nothing to do with socialists and all the talk coming from the right is nothing but empty retoric and fear mongering The health care plans put forward by Democrats are, on different levels, a hell of a lot better than what is offered right now. If you think the government running our health care system will be great...I suggest you look into the VA system. It's struggling under the load of just veterans, retired and recent seperations.
How well do you think a government health care system would handle 300,000,000+ people? of course they are! democrats ARE socialists. but naturally, neither hillary nor obama will be participants of the health care system they will force upon you. i wouldn't worry though, no democrat is going to see the whitehouse for a very, very long time simply because americans don't really want to be governed under a socialist system. Yes they're socialistic. Anytime the government takes money or power away from people then decides how best to use it, that's socialism. This is a recipe for inefficiency and corruption on a massive scale.
Who do you think knows what is best for you, you or the government? By definition, there is no answer but yes. When the government uses its coercive aurthority to redistribute wealth from one to another for whatever reason; be it health care, subsidies, education or whatever, that is socialism. In a capitalist society property rights are upheld, and the government has no right to take your product and give it to another for whatever well intentioned reason. Yeah, just like hydro, infrastructure, schooling, policing, library services, insurance... America is a regular cesspool of socialism. :) LOL!!! If they are government handouts, then why are the Republicans trying to push many of the programs they once were totally against when her husband was pushing for them while he was in office. A number of them they are saying should have been done a long time ago.
I don't believe in government handouts, but the system does need changed. The Republicans like to let corporations totally rule the system. There needs to be checks and balances, otherwise corporations will abuse their power as has already been seen with people who thought their houses were covered by insurance when Katrina hit or when the fires hit California. Companies are always pushed to increase their profits. And insurance companies are pushed to do the same. Where do you think those increased profits come from? They come by adding small print here and there to limit this or not allow that. Adding small print and hundreds of pages that I doubt fewer than 1% of Americans actually read. According to one television news report I saw (60 Minutes, I believe), Allstate even had one corporate meeting where they proposed putting boxing gloves on their helping hands for the 10% or so of their policy holders that gave them trouble when they didn't want to pay. I wouldn't want to leave my health in the hands of a company like that.
At the same time though, if health care is over regulated it could lead to less new drugs being developed and even possibly higher health care costs.
Even if Hillary becomes president, there is no way you will see some big humongous socialistic health care plan. The majority in Congress is too slim and the Republicans could easily filibuster it. Also, as she learned, in order to pass something like that it has to be done in bits and pieces. Give them a plan that looks like a phonebook and its surely going to get rejected.
If anyone is not being realistic, it is the Republicans and Bush. The Republicans would not even pass a bill to ensure that kids were covered if their parents did not have the money to pay for health care. Could you imagine taking your kid to the hospital and the hospital saying, "No, we won't take your dying kid and treat your kid because you can't pay." That's pretty much how heartless Bush was. Yet he can spend billions on a war that has killed thousands of our soldiers. Remember a part of the DEMOCRAT'S health care planS is the expansion of the SCHIP program to children--the majority of whom are privately insured--as well as ADULTS--onto a taxpayer-supported government health plan. Yes, that IS socialistic. This is regarded as the way to get Americans to accept what we do NOT want to accept: total government control of health care.
The specific candidate's individual plans for health care for the uninsured is NOT the total plan.
Again, there is nothing in the Constitution which authorizes these sorts of entitlement programs. The Founders specifically enumerated what was the province of the FEDERAL government (so things like SCHIP, Medicare, etc. have NO Constitutional leg to stand on).
"This has caused us some concerns because of the 鈥済eneral welfare鈥?clause in the Constitution. Our Founders specifically addressed this issue and stated that the government was to concern itself with a very narrow range of issues and the people would handle the rest as they chose. If 鈥済eneral welfare鈥?were to be used widely, our Founders warned, virtually anything could be made to fit under it and the disaster of big government would follow.
Jefferson specifically stated: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." Stephen Moore brought up this additional historical fact: "Can it be conceived that the great and wise men who devised our Constitution," asked South Carolina Senator William Drayton in 1828, "should have failed so egregiously as to grant a power which rendered restriction upon power practically unavailing?" And then he asked the question that is really the essence of the issue: "If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?" (鈥淭he Unconstitutional Congress,鈥?hoover.org)."
and
"We can see, for example, that our Founders wrestled with the issue of government and charity and rejected it. One such example came early on in 1794 when James Madison, known as 鈥渢he Father of the Constitution,鈥?argued against a Congressional move to appropriate $15,000 for the relief of French refugees. 鈥淚 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鈥?(4 Annals of Congress 179 [1794]).
This did not mean that America rejected charity鈥攓uite the contrary. As Arthur C. Brooks documents well in Who Really Cares?, private charity has always been a hallmark of the American way of life. Brooks notes that de Tocqueville in his work, Democracy in America, in 1835 wrote with admiration of our civic organizations, staffed and funded by volunteers. De Tocqueville noted that Americans of all types and ages founded these organizations and noted the good works ranged from providing entertainment to seminaries, churches, missionaries, lending libraries, as well as hospitals, prisons, and schools."
--Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan
And lest you mistakenly assume the author doesn't care about the health care issues of the most vulnerable, you are quite wrong. She recognizes the current system and is NOT going to suggest we "go Constitutional" at their expense. Instead, she has a huge chapter devoted to ways to protect patients AND doctors in the current system AND a plan that would:
provide one physical per year with follow-up and one ER visit a year IF NEEDED for reasonable co-pays.
It would be a CATASTROPHIC COVERAGE plan that is superior to the current offerings out there because it is designed to:
provide NECESSARY medications to those who need them with no idiotic "donut hole" as in the federal Medicare prescription drug program, now copied by the Medicare HMOs as opposed to the BETTER deal they USED to provide. So no more BS when a cancer patient needs expensive meds. Partial savings are achieved from telling the ED and fertility issues folks that they'll have to pay for THOSE drugs themselves; another savings comes from removing the INSANE prohibition on Medicare (or the new plan) to negotiate and bulk buy prescription meds.
Also say goodbye to ridiculously low caps on NEEDED procedures which DO prevent many from bankrupting their families to have them.
And to reduce the total out-of-pocket medical expenses for NECESSARY procedures (again, if someone wants to spend $25K in a year on fertility procedures, he needs to bankroll that himself; but if they did that through June and then were diagnosed with cancer, we're not going to let them bankrupt themselves or be denied care for the CANCER treatment).
How to FUND the program IS addressed. It is NOT the employer's responsibility and taxes on people are NOT increased.
Hope you're interested enough to read the PDF (not the one-page blurb, open the PDF please) here:
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
The FALSE "either-or" either the government OR people die without care is propelling too many misunderstandings on this topic. |
