Health Care is *not* a commodity

[DaveinJapan]

Okay, now I know some will argue that this genius of a judge is talking about insurance "products", but I say this attitude of health care as a privilege is dead WRONG.

"The judge wrote that his survey of case law “yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/policy/14health.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw

To view health care, including the means for obtaining it, as a product is exactly what's wrong with the insane right wing view on this literally life or death matter. Doctors don't have "customers", they have patients. And they DON'T sell products, they give orders.

Right wingers will argue that health care is not a right, but they are absolutely wrong. This judge calls mandatory insurance unconstitutional, but I say that HIS view is the unconstitutional and un-American one. The Constitution, right off the bat, guarantees the right to LIFE. And what is health care if not a proven means of preventing premature death.

Health care is not a commodity.

[Bluerthanblue]

1. health care shouldn't be any more of a 'commodity' than education.

We require that every person in the US be educated don't we? Using either public or private means.

Your post is very well done-

K&R!

[DaveinJapan]

6. Thanks! nt

[Igel]

9. Well, that can easily be extended, can't it.

Food, shelter, sex, warmth, clothing, companionship and other necessities for human well-being could all be mandated.

The only question is, Who's going to be mandated to have sex and provide companionship should somebody like * or his father be widowed?

(The US education law is schizophrenic, IMHO. The student is treated as a black box, without volition, into which the teacher is responsible for inserting content and verifying that the content was, without worrying about the student's contribution or even acknowleding that the student has or can have a contribution, acquired. Meanwhile, the student, this black box, is at the center of the layers of concern about education policy. So I observe a class of 30 students, one of 3 taught according to the same lesson plan, and that class can have special needs students, ESL students, gifted students, unmotivated students, college-track students, medicated students, from 10th to 12th grade, and that lesson plan and 50 minutes' instruction has to meet all their needs optimally.)

[pocoloco]

2. Right wingers brought us this bill.

Who would have thought a right wing judge would rule against the main part of it?

And who would have thought of the numbers of Dems pissing and moaning about his decision?

[Recursion]

3. No, but it's being moved to being a utility

Which is, quite specifically, not a commodity.

[valerief]

4. I can't stand it being called healthcare or health insurance either.

It's medical insurance. All we get out of it (if we're lucky) are medical treatments and medicines. Health is not guaranteed.

[Igel]

10. Checkups.

Maintenance. Counseling. Rehab.

Those aren't treatments (even rehab really isn't a treatment) or medicines.

[xchrom]

5. Recommend

[stray cat]

7. But medical personnel deserve payment for their work and medicine uses commodities

That cost money

[w8liftinglady]

8. as one who doles out health care-

not providing care for all Americans is SO much more expensive in the long run....but-maybe that's the goal.make as much money as we can on the backs of the American people-charge the shit out of them for drugs,xrays,hospitalizations...and don't provide any kind of preventative care.have a stroke after you couldn't afford your blood pressure medicine.Let your cancer spread throughout because you couldn't afford a mammogram or colonoscopy.let your gums abcess and your teeth fall out because you can't afford a dentist.

That sums up over 9 million Texas citizens-adult and children.

Screw them-pay me.

[Skittles]

11. which is why healthcare-for-profit is an ABOMINATION

[Warpy]

12. It can be a commodity when illness is totally voluntary.

Sheesh.