>Uh, Alan, you misinterpreted me.
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>>Unfortunately, until we have a society of altruistic citizenry, private health care causes real problems for public health care. If you assume that those who can afford private health care should be able to buy it, then you should also assume that doctors and nurses have a right to decide to work in one system rather than the other. Guess which system the vast majority will decide to work in. When you rob the public system of it's resources because the money is in the private system, then who is left to help the old and the poor. Doctors are people too, and given the choice between getting a good salary in the public system and getting rich in the private system, they would choose as most of us would. It leaves a real dearth of talent in the public system.
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>Of course private healthcare clashes with public healthcare insofar as the providers are concerned. And, yes, I assume that healthcare workers have the same freedom of opportunity that the rest of us have and go where the bucks are. And how does that "rob" anyone? This is one of the problems I have with leftists/socialists. If someone actually does well and profits, then it's considered "robbery" or "obscene" or somehow wrong. Do you want to make them slaves to a system?
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>Like it or not, we live in a capitalist society where the accumulation of wealth and production are paramount. This is a societal Darwinism, of course, but it's the way things are.
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>>I am also opposed to the idea the someone with money is more important than someone without, and is therefore given the right to buy their way to the front of the line.
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>No no no. Someone with money has better opportunities, of course. In our societies, everyone has a chance to make for themselves what the will - no one is more or less important (ideally). If someone has made well for themselves and can "buy their way to the front of the line" ... well, God bless them. There is nothing wrong with that....unless you subscribe to complete socialism or communism in which case, then, why live in North America?
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>What I argue for are rights for those without opportunity, not means. I don't like taxing the elderly; I don't like unprotected minors. I don't like estate taxes, as it's inherently unfair to tax assets accumulated after taxes.
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>My question is...what makes it right to abuse and excoriate the wealthy simply because they are so? A free society is an equal society.

My argument is not with the wealthy. My argument is with the government that is supposed to protect all of its citizens equally. If the government allows a system where those with money can buy their way to the front of the line, thereby pushing aside those without as much wealth, then it is not doing its job properly. There are certain things that the government should be looking after. One of those things is the availablility of health services to all of its citizens. Another is education of as high a quality as possible. A third is making sure that nobody is starving.

I don't care if a rich person has a better TV than a poor person, but that a rich person has the right to push aside a poor person in the health care line is an obsenity as far as I'm concerned. And it is an especial obsenity if the action is government sanctioned.