[Peace-discuss] Medicare for all

[John W.]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 2:00 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:



> Obviously in the US today the principal person acting on the assumption
> that "it
> is OK to kill people in order to achieve some claimed long-term benefit for
> humanity" is Barack Obama.
>
> Or don't people in the Middle East count?  --CGE
>


They count, Carl, but we're not gonna cover 'em under Medicare/Medicaid,
even if we pull our military out of Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow.  Apples
and oranges, except insofar as the money wasted on war could be used to heal
the sick.




>  Bob Illyes wrote:
>
>> Like Claudia, and to my knowledge most of the folks on peace-discuss, I am
>> an
>> advocate of Medicare for all. And like Claudia, I'm not interested in the
>> endless argument for its own sake that dominates this list. But I do want
>> to
>> make a few comments.
>>
>> Much of this argument comes from proponents of "scientific" socialism,
>> which
>> is no more scientific than Scientology or Christian Science or for that
>> matter Market Fundamentalism.
>>
>> The thing that disturbs me in the argument from the socialist camp, aside
>> from the unbelievable volume of stuff in my inbox, is the notion that the
>> end
>> justifies the means. The argument is that it is better to harm people who
>> would be helped by the current imperfect bill rather than supporting it
>> while
>> continuing to work for a more just medical system.
>>
>> If any of you think it is OK to kill people in order to achieve some
>> claimed
>> long-term benefit for humanity, which is what would have happened if the
>> bill
>> hadn't passed, think again. The right term for this approach is "human
>> sacrifice". We can do better than this.
>>
>> Davep and John W make good points, though I think Melodye is correct
>> regarding the relevance of expanded Medicaid. It is going to take a while
>> for
>> the details of the law to emerge. But there is still a lot of work to do,
>> to
>> say the least. Although I am not an Anarchist, I very much agree with the
>> Anarchist emphasis on the value of each person. This has to be the
>> starting
>> place for any moral solutions to our health care conundrum. Human
>> sacrifice
>> is not the way to go.
>>
>> Bob
>
>

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