[QUOTE=Loke;359459Spencer was a smart guy. To infringe upon the liberty of select individuals for the monetary benefit of others is morally reprehensible. The only instance in which it is socially acceptable to limit individual liberty is when that individual liberty restricts the liberty of others. With that being said, social programs do not apply due to the fact that they limit the liberty of some with no benefit to the notion of over all equal liberty. Again, the focus here is not on general equality, but equality of freedom.[/QUOTE]
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and I interpret "Life" to include health. If i'm sick and starving, riddled with malignant tumors and in exchange for health and well-being I had to give up my right to vote then you can have it. The human condition (and all living creatures) at its core is defined by the will to survive and pass on your genes, the notion of freedom only comes as an afterthought.
The biggest reasons for the lack of national healthcare are the fact that the entire medical and health industry is treated as a cash cow by middle-men (insurance companies, mainly), hospitals being run as fortune 500 companies and the absolutely insane amount of money that hospitals, employees and private doctor's offices pay for insurance.
Then there's
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...th-of-new-meds and it's shit like that that actually makes you physically ill when reading. Researchers hands are tied because they're afraid of strict legislation and the stringent requirements to get to the point where the medication can be prescribed by doctors to patients nationwide; a failure results in millions and billions of dollars lost in investment <~~ doesn't help. This isn't just a flaw in over-regulation by government, or one of the obvious downsides of capitalism, but the way we approach medical care as a nation.
Treating it like a business means you'll always have gaping holes. The benefits to creating a pill that can ease patients' issues with schizophrenia sounds fantastic until you see the bill and realize that the market isn't big enough (not enough people diagnosed with the disease) and/or it's too damn complicated to pursue. A business doesn't willingly put itself in the red for the sake of a small group of people; not unless it wants to fail. On the other hand, the government regulations are a direct hyper-response to lawsuits, and many of them frivolous, in order to cover everyone's ass. They often overreact because people don't understand how complicated biology and the human body really are, and in the end everyone gets fucked. But there's a reason why healthcare costs are so much more higher here than elsewhere in the developed world: the obvious correlation between the american instinct to sue and the rise of healthcare costs.