such a good plan, then why are lawmakers leaving it behind?
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/o ... 92691.html

And please explain what would happen if someone with $65,000 in unpaid bills showed up at an ED, the same Ed he carries the debt with, with a life threatening illness.
Hint. The doctors treat the patient. Because its the law. (They have a legal right to treatment.)
Disagree? If so why?

yes, he has access to treatment and he racks up further bills. Still doesn't change a thing, it's still not a right. He has a right to be treated and he owes the hospital for that treatment, just as I have a right to continue to receive electric service without paying...that's not a right nor is medical service that requires payment. Please, how is the electricity example (or rent example) any different?

fate

So, we should all drop insurance, go to whatever doctor we want, refuse to pay, and sue if a doctor refuses treatment

There is no law forcing doctors in private practice to accept patients. They have the legal right to turn these patients away.
Its only EDs, actually only EDs in hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid, that have to accept patients who show up at their door. .
But you knew that.

uhh, so medical care is NOT a "right" as you want us to believe, instead it's simply a situation where an emergency room is not allowed to turn away patients. Seems to me your "rights" are not rights whatsoever and are in fact, just like rent and utility bills huh?

Ray Jay wrote:Perhaps we can establish that everyone has a right to a certain level of health care, but there is no way to establish that everyone has a complete right to an infinite amount of health care no matter what the cost.

Sounds sensible and I don't think any one of us would disagree.

The question is what that level is - which is the same as the constant question for any other right as to where the limit to it lies. For free speech, it is somewhere before you hit incitement, endangerment, criminal libel, etc. For freedom of religion it is somewhere before recognised bigamy, imposing your religion on others etc.

Point is, a right having a limit does not stop ot being a right, whether the limit is set according to how it affect the rights of others, or practical resource considerations, or a legal restriction. Up to that limit it remains a right.

GMTom wrote:uhh, so medical care is NOT a "right" as you want us to believe, instead it's simply a situation where an emergency room is not allowed to turn away patients. Seems to me your "rights" are not rights whatsoever and are in fact, just like rent and utility bills huh?

Boom.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Perhaps we can establish that everyone has a right to a certain level of health care, but there is no way to establish that everyone has a complete right to an infinite amount of health care no matter what the cost.

Sounds sensible and I don't think any one of us would disagree.

I reject the idea of it as a "right."

It is "the law" that hospital ER's must treat people with no insurance without regard to ability to pay.

That's not a "right."

It is the Federal government dictating what it doesn't have the power to dictate--unless those are Federal hospitals or the Federal government is offering to pick up the tab.

I am not opposed to establishing a "right" to healthcare, but it should go through the Amendment process, not invented by a bunch of hack politicians who are, as usual, busy giving away other people's money.

bbauska

RickyP, Space Aliens? Really. Was that beneficial to the conversation? No, it was not

.
About as beneficial as your bus accident victim B.

bbauska

If there are financial liabilities against a person who goes to the ER, why does the government need to get involved

The law, created by government, created an unfunded liability.
They were involved from the get go.
Funding it became a problem for hospitals and they found a way to spread the costs...acting as a social agent.

bbauska

If that standard was followed would that be enough for this great law that RickyP brought into the conversation? No, probably not... After all that is why we have the ACA, and that is not good enough either. "It is a step to a single payer system"

I don't know what this means...
I brought up EMTALA because it demonstrates that the US has socialized delivery of health care to the indigent. You just don't want to admit it.
And you've socialized it by providing delivery of this health care in the most expensive way possible. Just so you could pretend that it really isn't socialized.
And I think its also somehow perpetuated the myth that the service is delivered "free" because Hospitals have recovered their losses due to EMLATA elsewhere.

bbauska

This liability (which is unfunded, correct you are) is for the emergency treatment only. Do you agree?

Sure. Whatever the doctors decides they have to do....

You realize the problem with all the convoluted ways the US tries to deliver health care is the complexity and the confusion and the uncertainty created by the complexity.
Can you imagine ED doctors having to be schooled in the complexities of the guidelines you've listed? They have to ensure that they don't incur the $50,000 fine that comes with a transgression under EMLATA...
And of course the lawyers for the hospital all have to get paid ensuring that EMLATA is being covered .....So doctors will always try and do whats right for the patient regardless of your complex rules, and they'll do that because its the right thing to do for the patient, and because they can say it ensures the hospital avoids liabilities... Once doctors stop doing whats right for the patient..... the clerks and scribes and beauracrats have taken over.... (Which is what a strict adherence to EMLATA guidelines you posted accomplishes...) and the system stops working to anyone's benefit.

The point is bbauska, as soon as you decide you won't let people die on the doorsteps of a hospital, you've made health care access a right.... Effectively if not constitutionally. So then the question become, okay, whats the most efficient way of delivering the system. Cause, ER's ain't it.
What Conservative Americans desperately cling to is the notion that socialism isn't EVER the most efficient way of doing something. At least in medicine, it seems socialism reduces complexities.
And by reducing complexities and allowing medical practitioners and ordinary people to make logical choices costs can go way down.
Look, if Medicare works so well, and is so popular for people who have it, why shouldn't everyone have it? Cost? Well, if the premiums that currently go for private insurance went to Medicare ...you wouldn't have a funding problem. And the costs that come with administrating dozens of different plans in hospitals ...would be eliminated too.
The argument against are as complex as the convoluted reasoning that says that somehow it makes one jot of difference when someone shows up on a ER\s door step whether they have a "right" to be treated or whether its "The law" that they must be treated. Its effectively the same damn thing.

You realize the problem with all the convoluted ways the US tries to deliver health care is the complexity and the confusion and the uncertainty created by the complexity.

...and Obamcare is going to fix this? Or is it going to ADD to the complexities? (please don't try and tell us it's going to help, we already know how bad it's already getting!) You started this thread telling us how this will be good for the economy, now you tell us our system stinks because of the complexity so to fix that ...we make it more complex!?

At least in medicine, it seems socialism reduces complexities.

says you. The complexities you speak of are in fact due to socialism and government intervention now aren't they? Reduce government intervention and the system gets a whole lot less complex overnight!

bbauska wrote:First off:
Danivon, I know it is not socialism. I said exactly that. As always, thank you for agreement.

I was disagreeing. It is socialism, in that those who can pay are subsidising those in need. My point, which appears to have missed you by a mile, is that socialism does not have to be via the government (in fact, as in a co-op, it often works better without government). When the government is directly involved, it is 'social democracy', or 'state socialism'.

Also, as part of the reason that the EMTALA can be imposed on hospitals is that they are receiving Federal Medicare funds, it follows that there is some government involvement in subsidising the emergency care for those who cannot pay, which does fall under your (erroneous) definition of socialism.

tom

now you tell us our system stinks because of the complexity so to fix that ...we make it more complex!?

Actually the ACA makes the purchase and comparison of insurance packages easier than today for individuals. It limits choices to three levels of minimum benefits.
Simplicity does create efficiencies. And removing complexity makes the job of being a consumer easier.

tom

The complexities you speak of are in fact due to socialism and government intervention now aren't they

really?Its easy dealing with private insurance companies? the exclusions and caps and terms aren't built to make it difficult for consumers. ?
The complexities are there to be taken advantage of by marketers. Read this ...
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1134 ... beneifits#

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Perhaps we can establish that everyone has a right to a certain level of health care, but there is no way to establish that everyone has a complete right to an infinite amount of health care no matter what the cost.

Sounds sensible and I don't think any one of us would disagree.

I reject the idea of it as a "right."

It is "the law" that hospital ER's must treat people with no insurance without regard to ability to pay.

That's not a "right."

Sorry, but you are fixating on absolutes, and ignoring reality. At the present time, someone who requires emergency healthcare has a legal right to access it, regardless of ability to pay.

You also have failed to address two prongs of my argument on the theory behind this right, which I will summarise again so you can explain in more detail (as opposed to ridicule/rudeness) why they do not apply:

1) The USA is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which among other rights, asserts that of access to healthcare.

2) If you accept that 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' are fundamental rights, then it follows that there are subsidiary rights to the things necessary for those things. For example, if one's life is threatened by illness, one should have the right to access the necessary care to remove that threat.

It is the Federal government dictating what it doesn't have the power to dictate--unless those are Federal hospitals or the Federal government is offering to pick up the tab.

The Federal government is, for EMTALA, paying those hospitals under Medicare. So yes, it does have the power to dictate.

I am not opposed to establishing a "right" to healthcare, but it should go through the Amendment process, not invented by a bunch of hack politicians who are, as usual, busy giving away other people's money.

I believe you are incorrect that the only way to assert rights is to explicitly get them put into the Constitution. The Constitution (as I've pointed out already) doesn't assert that either, so I would like to see where you get the idea from. In the meantime (from Human Rights in the United States (Wikipedia):

Wikipedia wrote:Within the federal government, the debate about what may or may not be an emerging human right is held in two forums: the United States Congress, which may enumerate these; and the Supreme Court, which may articulate rights that the law does not spell out. Additionally, individual states, through court action or legislation, have often protected human rights not recognized at federal level. For example, Massachusetts was the first of several states to recognize same sex marriage.

So Congress may enumerate rights, the Supreme Court may extrude rights from precedent and existing law (up to and beyond the Constitution), and States can recognise additional rights.

Wikipedia wrote:In the context of human rights and treaties that recognize or create individual rights, there are self-executing and non-self-executing treaties. Non-self-executing treaties, which ascribe rights that under the Constitution may be assigned by law, require legislative action to execute the contract (treaty) before it can apply to law.[21] There are also cases that explicitly require legislative approval according to the Constitution, such as cases that could commit the U.S. to declare war or appropriate funds.

Treaties regarding human rights, which create a duty to refrain from acting in a particular manner or confer specific rights, are generally held to be self-executing, requiring no further legislative action. In cases where legislative bodies refuse to recognize otherwise self-executing treaties by declaring them to be non-self-executing in an act of legislative non-recognition, constitutional scholars argue that such acts violate the separation of powers—in cases of controversy, the judiciary, not Congress, has the authority under Article III to apply treaty law to cases before the court. This is a key provision in cases where the Congress declares a human rights treaty to be non-self-executing, for example, by contending it does not add anything to human rights under U.S. domestic law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one such case, which, while ratified after more than two decades of inaction, was done so with reservations, understandings, and declarations.

So, the USA can by signing and ratifying treaties, incorporate new rights.

Wikipedia wrote:The United States was the first major industrialized country to enact comprehensive legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and national origin in the workplace in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA),[24] while most of the world contains no such recourse for job discrimination.[25] The CRA is perhaps the most prominent civil rights legislation enacted in modern times, has served as a model for subsequent anti-discrimination laws and has greatly expanded civil rights protections in a wide variety of settings.[26] The United States' 1991 provision of recourse for victims of such discrimination for punitive damages and full back pay has virtually no parallel in the legal systems of any other nation.

Here are examples of legislative action that resulted in new rights.

Wikipedia wrote:Privacy is not explicitly stated in the United States Constitution. In the Griswold v. Connecticut case, the Supreme Court ruled that it is implied in the Constitution.

Here is an example of judicial action expressing a 'new' right.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:I reject the idea of it as a "right."

It is "the law" that hospital ER's must treat people with no insurance without regard to ability to pay.

That's not a "right."

Sorry, but you are fixating on absolutes, and ignoring reality. At the present time, someone who requires emergency healthcare has a legal right to access it, regardless of ability to pay.

Yes, shame on me for seeking to limit rights to those that are actually defined as such.

You also have failed to address two prongs of my argument on the theory behind this right, which I will summarise again so you can explain in more detail (as opposed to ridicule/rudeness) why they do not apply:

1) The USA is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which among other rights, asserts that of access to healthcare.

It's not a treaty, so I would question whether it supersedes US law. I see no evidence that it passed the Senate. Actually, it looks like a bit of a Cold War device.

2) If you accept that 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' are fundamental rights, then it follows that there are subsidiary rights to the things necessary for those things. For example, if one's life is threatened by illness, one should have the right to access the necessary care to remove that threat.

False. That's not original intent; it's current thinking anachronistically imposed upon the DOI.

It is the Federal government dictating what it doesn't have the power to dictate--unless those are Federal hospitals or the Federal government is offering to pick up the tab.

The Federal government is, for EMTALA, paying those hospitals under Medicare. So yes, it does have the power to dictate.

So, if someone does not have Medicare or any insurance, the Feds pick up the tab?

I am not opposed to establishing a "right" to healthcare, but it should go through the Amendment process, not invented by a bunch of hack politicians who are, as usual, busy giving away other people's money.

I believe you are incorrect that the only way to assert rights is to explicitly get them put into the Constitution. The Constitution (as I've pointed out already) doesn't assert that either, so I would like to see where you get the idea from. In the meantime (from Human Rights in the United States (Wikipedia):

Wikipedia wrote:Within the federal government, the debate about what may or may not be an emerging human right is held in two forums: the United States Congress, which may enumerate these; and the Supreme Court, which may articulate rights that the law does not spell out. Additionally, individual states, through court action or legislation, have often protected human rights not recognized at federal level. For example, Massachusetts was the first of several states to recognize same sex marriage.

So Congress may enumerate rights, the Supreme Court may extrude rights from precedent and existing law (up to and beyond the Constitution), and States can recognise additional rights.

The uber-leftists on the MA SJC declared the right by a 4-3 margin. The leftist legislature has blocked attempts to vote on it. It's just another example of "Democratic" politicians behaving in an authoritarian manner.

From the first paragraph of your link:

.Federal courts in the United States have jurisdiction over international human rights laws as a federal question, arising under international law, which is part of the law of the United States.

So, they decide whether a treaty is in accord with the Constitution.

Wikipedia wrote:In the context of human rights and treaties that recognize or create individual rights, there are self-executing and non-self-executing treaties. Non-self-executing treaties, which ascribe rights that under the Constitution may be assigned by law, require legislative action to execute the contract (treaty) before it can apply to law.[21] There are also cases that explicitly require legislative approval according to the Constitution, such as cases that could commit the U.S. to declare war or appropriate funds.

Treaties regarding human rights, which create a duty to refrain from acting in a particular manner or confer specific rights, are generally held to be self-executing, requiring no further legislative action. In cases where legislative bodies refuse to recognize otherwise self-executing treaties by declaring them to be non-self-executing in an act of legislative non-recognition, constitutional scholars argue that such acts violate the separation of powers—in cases of controversy, the judiciary, not Congress, has the authority under Article III to apply treaty law to cases before the court. This is a key provision in cases where the Congress declares a human rights treaty to be non-self-executing, for example, by contending it does not add anything to human rights under U.S. domestic law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one such case, which, while ratified after more than two decades of inaction, was done so with reservations, understandings, and declarations.

So, the USA can by signing and ratifying treaties, incorporate new rights.

Subject to judicial review.

Your building a fine circumstantial case. However, no one in America, other than idiot Congressmen who could only get elected in 80% Democratic districts, agree with you.

Wikipedia wrote:Privacy is not explicitly stated in the United States Constitution. In the Griswold v. Connecticut case, the Supreme Court ruled that it is implied in the Constitution.

Here is an example of judicial action expressing a 'new' right.

I agree, so just find a USSC decision declaring healthcare as a "right" and you'll have won.