[Dems2008] Re: Health and healthcare as a civil or human right

• first, my confession:  I'm not up to speed on the particular mechanics of any candidate's health proposals, and I similarly paid little attention to the details in early 90s
• a Medicare solution would not seem outrageous to me; my bottom line is that it is OBSCENE in a civilized industrial society that there are children (and adults) who cannot afford decent periodic dental care, eye care, and other healthcare, and that they live in dread fear of what they would do if they got cancer. 
• My wife is a breast cancer survivor.  I recollect that when she was diagnosed, friends would say, "'it's not fair," to which she said (I found this neat), "oh, yes, it is; I have a support system and I have healthcare coverage and I have access to superb medical care.  What would be UNFAIR is for someone without the safety net that I have to get cancer."  We as a party, and we as a civilized society should adopt just that mindset.
• NO SINGLE PERSON (especially children) should be without healthcare, whether it's for surgery or the flu or bronchitis.  NO CIVILIZED society should be willing to see its citizens suffer.   There are no small ills:    If I have a temp of 102 with bronchitis (had this three weeks ago), I SUFFER unless I get an antibiotic.  The same is true for any other person.
• What galls me is the folks who will move heaven and earth to qualify an elderly parent for Medicaid, and then get 40-50 thousand a year from the state for a private nursing home...........and then turn around and call "HillaryCare" or any similar proposal  "socialized medicine" or some such.  These two-faced bastards tend to be Republicans.
• As to cost:    if we have money left over after ensuring adequate healthcare to all, THEN (and only then) we can fund (i) NASA and (ii) some silly war waged for the purpose of lining the pockets of no-bid contractors.

--- In Dems2008@yahoogroups.com, lisa pallez <lisapallez@...> wrote:
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> Very well said, or bulleted : )!
> I so agree, but do you see the solution as an expansion of the (for profit only) 'healthcare' industry or as Medicare for all (a la H.R. 676)? Or something else?
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> citation502 citation502@... wrote:
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> I'm becoming more convinced that health and healthcare are fundamental rights, not options or privileges
> The preamble to our Constitution, while not a particular operative restraint on power or grant of power, does refer to our having adopted the Constitution in part to "promote the general Welfare"
> Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote, and all others signed onto, the notion that "life" and the "pursuit of happiness" are inalienable RIGHTS.
> Seems to me that the general welfare, life, and the general pursuit of happiness cannot be achieved broadly while 47 million Americans lack the protection of healthcare. Without our health, our welfare, happiness, and lives are jeopardized.
> only conclusion I can come to, therefore, is that the health of Americans under our society's agreement is every bit as much a civil right or human right as equal protection of the laws, freedom of travel, freedom of expression, free exercise, right to counsel, etc., etc. Indeed, perhaps even more important than some of those.
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