Tracy,

I'll have respectfully disagree. While the health care system up here isn far from perfect (as is probably the case no matter what country you live in ...) - one thing I don't have to worry about is coming down with a serious illness - and having to worry if my insurance will cover my treatment.

In the U.S. - if a person comes down with a serious illness and either has no or limited insurance - one of two things will occur:

1. The person will live but be in debt for the rest of their natural lives
2. The person will die because they could not afford the treatment/drugs.

I'll take our medicare system (as imperfect as it is) any day of the week.

Al



>In time it would be, yes.
>
>I'm saying that we pay too much in taxes already and our government is slowly moving more and more into a welfare state. We need to stop taxing the citizens so much, stop the spending, and return to a smaller government. I'm a personal believer that some things are better off left in the private sector and each individual has a responsibility to take care of themselves. The larger government gets, the less responsibility each individual bears. It is not the role of government to provide healthcare to the citizens, guarantee jobs, or even a retirement. Most major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom and who wanted to improve the condition of the masses. Jefferson thought we should rely on individual action and charity. By following that advice, America has always had fewer cases of real hardship based on our population than any other country in the world. We have always eaten better and lived in better
>conditions than people in other countries do even today. That includes during the depression. When a country grows towards a welfare state, little by little it grows until it is out of control. In history socialism has failed and a welfare state is a socialist state. I firmly believe that our country is better off returning to its original concepts: the divine origin of rights, limited government, economic and personal freedom, security. I think Roosevelt's 2nd Bill of Rights came very close to the constitution of the former Soviet Union. Look at the guarantees in the Soviet Union's constitution and compare them. Providing public welfare is basically stealing - the government is forcibly taking from one citizen in order to provide to another. There is not even any choice involved. It is legalized theft and is doing something that no citizen could do legally. Calling it the redistribution of economic power does not make it any better.
>
>Bastiat defined socialism as:
>
>Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole--with their common aim of legal plunder--constitute socialism -
>
>It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must also be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
>
>
>
>>Tracy,
>>
>>With all due respect, are you saying that if countries provide health care as a right of citizenship - that this is a bad thing?
>>
>>>
>>>>but meanwhile we have other needs, desperate needs, that are not being met. We don't even have health care for all our children. We can't even provide breakfast for all our children, or books, or decent schools.
>>>
>>>That is the role of a socialist country and not a constitutional republic. Perhaps rather than complain that our government is not behaving as a socialist government (which it is not) you should start actions to change the government to make it so (looks like California is doing just that slowly and methodically). Of course that goes against the intentions of our forefathers...