“Differently Winged” friend Bruce at mAss Backwardsis upset about the moral hazard aspects of expanding health care, especially to the poor. I’ve been mixing it up on the comments to his post: take a look.
Please share widely!
Bruce is pissed about health care
I think “Bruce” and his pals with their heads on ass backward (which has no “s” affixed to it, in the English language at least) can take long trip out the MassPike and never come back.
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B/c the longer they stay here the more we, the hard-working citizens of Massachusetts continue to subsidize these ingrates. I bet Bruce likes roads, and schools, and fire and police protection. I bet Bruce thinks everyone oughta pay their own way. I bet Bruce has never paid his own way, b/c we continue to subsidize him.
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So, the sooner Bruce cuts out, the less we have to worry about paying for his roads, schools, police and fire protection.
I’m glad you posted your differing opinion on there. I noticed most of the people who comment on his posts just kiss his ass.
I can’t figure out why he doesn’t move in with his commenter Shamalama in the Georgia double-wide since they seem to agree on most things. He certainly appears to hate Massachusetts!
Anytime someone questions the “moral hazard” of the state providing health care, or talks about “socialized health care” in a pejorative sense, or similarly, I like to ask them why they think the state should subsidize police protection, fire protection, and access to the courts, for all of us. Isn’t that a moral hazard too? Don’t we have “socialized firefighting” (the horror!) ?
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If someone points out that access to the courts is protected by the constitution, ask them if they think that’s a mistake, and would prefer to amend the constitition. Police protection, of course, is not mandated by the constitution any more than health care is. They’re both part of providing for “the general welfare”. At the beginning, we didn’t have public police departments, they mostly started being instituted by the cities in the 19th century.
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Now, if you’re the victim of a crime, you get to call the police, and the state will investigate, and if they catch the criminal, the state will prosecute. Is that a “moral hazard”? Shouldn’t the responsibility be on you to avoid doing things that will you more likely to be the victim of a crime? If we didn’t have public police protection, maybe only people rich enough to hire their own police could walk in poor, crime-ridden areas of the city – which of course would become poorer and more crime-ridden. Of course it’s not a moral hazard, it’s a benefit for all of us. We all benefit from lower crime, and we all benefit from living in a healthier state. Less disease to put us at risk. More productive citizens for a stronger economy. Not to mention avoiding the true moral hazard of letting people go without healthcare.
and now thankfully we have socialized police and fire services, but not health care, so maybe the thing to do IS to amend the state constitution to establish it as a universal right.
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It won’t come as news to any of you that at present our democratic political process is severely crippled by monied corporate interests and some of the highest spenders are the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
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Ordinary people like us who want to live in a civilized society, AND to get our money’s worth out of the healthcare system, don’t have much clout in the current “political process” but we do have the opportunity to amend our state constitution. This gives us a powerful legal tool to craft public policy on health care that will place the people’s interests first.
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Hey! Guess what? A citizen-led campaign to do just that- establish a constitutional right to comprehensive, affordable and equitabley financed health insurance-is well underway and gaining steam. Check it out at http://www.HealthCareForMass.org.