Morality of Obamacare

Well said, flowerchilde! I would give you best response if it was my perogative.

She's good, I agree!

Flowerchilde, when any entity wants to take over something that should not be taken over, they immediately begin denigrating its worth. This is what is happening in our government today. If only there were people who remembered Hitler's beginning. He did not seem a monster when he began. He 'gave' things to people provided by the government. Next he made them believe they could not survive without the 'free' things from the government. He assured the populance that all would be better if they only had the perfect race of people. He said it gently in the beginning and somehow it began to make sense to the people. When the deaths of so many Jews began, many Germans did not believe anything bad was happening. When the war ended and people from towns surrounding the gas ovens were forced to see the camps and all the corpses piled into ditches for burial, only then did many know for the first time they had handed freedom to a tyrant. We will discover the same thing one day if we don't open our eyes now.

Does the government have the right to force one person to take care of another person in the form of forcing them to pay taxes that the government then decides how to spend? I did not really want to get into the whole insurance vs.fine or what it pays for and what will happen when it's fully implemented. Does the government have the right to force one person to subsidize the living standard of another?

Debra, we have a lot to be thankful for. Forget the state of the nation--appreciate the miracle of your children and remember the indescribably feeling of love and wonder you felt when you first held them. Look at how the sun shines on the frost, making the ground look as if it's covered in diamonds. Consider your job and how rewarding it can be, your health, the people who love you, the roof over your head and the food that always is available to quiet your hunger. God takes care of us and deserves our sincere thanks and appreciation of his choosing to be our father. Now that you've (hopefully) been humbled (as was I when I thought of all this), pray tomorrow and everyday that America comes back to God because that's the only way out of this mess. We as a nation have lost his protection and favor because we've rejected him and taken his gifts for granted. We've made ourselves so important that we think we can even influence the earth's climate! If America will repent its hubris and return to God things will turn around. Make this your prayer every day, as it is mine.

You're right, I am humbled, and I will include a thank you for friends such as yourself. Thank YOU.

Thanks for best response Debra...

You've described it perfectly.

I agree Lilwonders. Government is NOT a moral body. It is individuals who are moral agents. Government is a law enforcement body. At least THAT is what it was first set up to be. As a child I can remember the doctors letting you run a tab. Making house calls (here in MO where I grew up) and applying common sense and sometimes old fashioned cures like salt pork on boils. Never was anyone ever turned away. Enter government programs, and prices soar, law suits abound and people getting told they must have some way of paying or no service.

The current rate of expenditure by the government is to spend $10.75 for every $7 in taxes. Unless and until they stop spending and cut entitlements (we spend more on entitlements than all other expenses combined)we are headed for the demise of this country. Once we were rich and free with our charity. We can no longer afford to be so generous. This health plan will fail simply because you cannot add 30 million additional people to it and expect to LOWER costs. Already our insurance premiums have gone up on average $2500 this past year - the first of the plan and it has not been fully implemented yet. That will not happen until 2014. Within the pages, so far, there are 20 tax increases. However, the mere 2700 pages are a pittance of what is to come. Those do not include anywhere near the rules and regs needed to make it a workable program. Look for thousands more pages and taxes to be added in the future. Medicare is already cutting the number of days elderly are paid for during hospital stays. Check out the Sarasota Herald Tribune of about a week ago. It told of a 99-year old woman who came to the ER having such a difficult time they didn't think she would live through admission. She did and within two days of being admitted, the hospital said she had to leave because Medicare would only pay for those two days. The woman's daughter insisted they keep her. They did, for six days, and now the daughter has a bill for $18,000. The panel that is trying to cut costs know that most Medicare costs are incurred from age 75 and up. With that being the case, they are indeed looking at the person as a dollar sign and they decide the number of days allowed by Medicare for any illness at specific ages. As a senior of 65, I am more frightened of this 'benefit' than anything that has ever happened in this country. I have friends who risk being turned down because their health is so poor.

Stary, we borrow .40 out of every dollar the government spends. And that is an old figure, it may be more. We have to keep raising the debt ceiling so we can borrow more. We owe more than we produce as a nation. and over half of our people do not pay into the system.

We aren't rich. If China called in all of their loans today, we would be a third world country. How can we be rich when the government spends more money than it makes?

It was the religious people who established the hospitals and schools in this nation because of the imperative to care for the sick and educate people so they could be productive and moral people. American always was a charitable nation, and in my lifetime I have seen the medical profession go from caretaking, to thinking only of the bottom line. Government insurance (medicare, medicaid) and the AMA have turned this once charitable and caretaking industry around. The cost of medical care is also affected by a situation of NO COMPETITION. I blame the AMA, a virtual medical UNION that establishes who can practice, where they can practice, on who they can practice. Naturopaths and chiropractors, herbalists and nutritional practitioners are left out of the loop, not allowed into the UNION. Add to that, bigpharma lobbyists, bigagra lobbyists (poor nutrtion leading to lifestyle induced degenerative diseases) and you have a ready population who HAS TO consume your 'healthcare' product.

I am in total agreement with you. Thank you for responding.

Oops...that should be "market driven". Annie

What the government 'gives' the government can take away, or control to THEIR satisfaction. Obamacare is government control of the availibility of healthcare. WHY else the Independent Payment Advisory Board? There are other alternatives, many were suggested during the 'healthcare debates'. Unfortunately, Obama was not interested. The video you chose not to view talks about the morality of taking from those able to pay, and giving to those not able to pay. Really well worth the time to watch, I encourage you to do so. The Christian religion teaches the INDIVIDUAL to take care of themselves, and if unable, to trust God to provide. It does not teach forced charity, but rather charity from the heart, willingly without coercion. No where does it say the 'KING' should provide or force citizens to provide for others. AND, since we are NOT a Christian nation, as we were reminded by our President, I do not see how the teachings of Jesus Christ have any bearing on this. As for market driven and profit, capitalism is a system where people WILLINGLY participate. I find it more MORAL than any FORCED system. The individual and their doctor should enter into a contract, the presence of a middle man such as the government, is to me, opening us up for rationing (per the Independent Payment Advisory Board). That puts each of us, our lives, under the control of someone who will never see us or know us, and has NO IDEA what WE FIND MORAL or immoral.

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2009/08/19/whose_medical_decisions_part_ii/page/full/

The government WANTS everyone to be beholden to THEM for healthcare. And Obamacare is the capstone on a century of working towards that goal.

You are correct in your thought process there bestboy. We now have germs for which there is no cure thanks to the 'science of medicine'. Many wise doctors are returning to a more common sense approach to practicing medicine. And many people are doing just what you suggested, eating right, exercising, and using herbal and nutritional regimes for the every day ills of life. There is a reason heart disease and metabolic diseases have increased astronomically. Our diets are defficient in the necessary nutrients and we over indulge in sugar,caffine and meat. All our grains are over processed and our soil is depleated of its minerals, therefore our food is lacking even when eaten fresh.So we wear out faster and our genetic predispositions are triggered. We do need the medical profession, I'm not suggesting to do away with them entirely. But it isn't all about pills and surgery. It is about people taking responsibility for what they CAN do for themselves.

Well said, thinks I all the best, urban

"Matersfish, are you suggesting the Republicans are responsible for Obamacare, and are you saying you can't stomach Republicans because they expect you to be responsible for yourself rather than leaning on the government crouch?

I'm saying neither one of those things. And the fact that you could only come up with those two options when reading what I wrote brings this to mind: "The right thing to do for everyone should always trump the minor gripes of the uberright."

Agreed. Yet today the concept "promoting the general welfare" has been expanded far beyond its original intent. The vast majority supports government action to improve the material needs of people.

No system is perfect, but UNTIL the government stepped in with medicare and medicaid our healthcare system was able to provide for the poor without much fuss. Communities and churches provided for those who did not have the means, and those who did have the means paid their own way. I've listed some of the ways and also explained the surface problems (rising costs) caused by the AMA and big pharma and big agra (that has effected the NEED to rise in the population). Government is not istituted to provide the daily needs for the majority of its people. If anything, general welfare means protection from law breakers and unscrupulous scounderals who cheat people out of their livlihood and property. The individual is a moral agent, not a group or a government.